02/05/2012 Because It's Worth It
We had a monster of a lie in today, it’s tiring work this travelling malarkey you know, by the time Mackie and I had got up and showered Larissa was back from her eleven kilometre run. I know, sickening isn’t she. After breakfast we headed to Tsitsakamma national park- the weather wasn’t great but was perfect for hiking, which is what we were about to do. (Unbeknown to Mackie) Our taxi driver told us that to get to the waterfall we must follow the trail and then climb over the rocks. After twenty minutes of walking we spotted some rocks and began to traverse them, despite the fact the trail seemed to continue parallel to them. Thirty minutes later, maybe covering a distance of a thousand metres we thought “Bugger this!” and shoved our way through the dense foliage back to the trail. A little further down the trail and we understood what the cabbie had meant, the trail literally hit a wall of rocks which we climbed –much to Mackie’s enjoyment. Soon enough Mackie had had enough:
“Fuck it. I don’t give a shit. I’ll sit here and wait for you to come back.” Mackie squawked whilst sparking the obligatory cigarette up. Larissa and Lene tried to persuade her to continue, offering to carry her bag etc, but I knew the lady was not for turning so carried on with the hike. Literally fifty more metres and there she was, although it took us a while to persuade Mackie that we weren’t just pulling her leg. The water was bloody freezing, but I was determined to climb that damn waterfall if it was the last thing I did, and thanks to slippy rocks it nearly was! Kat decided that she would join me.
[Mackie: OK, so in the end I believed them, and hiked the rest of the way to the waterfall. Well to say I was not impressed with what I saw especially after the hike to see it, would be an understatement. Unbeknownst to be lene was currently filming, and caught my ghetto stromp on camera, Great. I didn’t know I was such a finger waver]
If I haven’t already made it clear I don’t really think a lot of Kat: she never took her purse or money anywhere; was always slow to repay money she had borrowed (often having to be asked more than once); she never helped with cooking or washing up; rarely added anything interesting or funny to the conversation; and owned far too many waistcoats for my liking. Bearing that in mind I think you will agree that I deserve a medal for biting my tongue as the following events unfolded. As we changed into our swimming gear I noticed a clump of hair protruding from Kat’s one piece. (I say it was Kat’s one piece but of course she had borrowed it from Lene not having brought one of her own) And then my eyes had been opened and I could see for the first time. Bushes of hair everywhere armpits, legs and forearms; I just thank god that her back and arse crack were covered because that would have been too much. I’m all for feminism and I appreciate she had been in Africa for a while, but really to flaunt it so brashly is not on. I later advised Lene to burn the swimming costume because anything could have been living in the rainforest of Kat’s minge.
That night we drank the last of the Stellenbosch wine (Mackie and I had finished ours in Stellenbosch but we had our trusty goon sacks) and played a couple games of Mo. The most complicated and exciting card game in the world, which Anna won consistently as she was the one who had taught it to us a few weeks before, although that didn’t seem to put a dampener on her victories
