DODO WITH EGG
Imagine East London as Invercargill with gigantic sand hills butted up against it, and you would have a pretty good picture of what this town is like. We came into their tiny port and did a pirouette with two tugs attached to either end of us. I was observing this from the promenade deck when a woman came up to me and pointed into the distance at the sand hills and asked, “Is that snow”. I thought I misheard her, but she repeated herself and she definitely thought the sand was snow. I told her it was sand but I’m pretty sure she didn’t believe me, despite the fact we were on the coast, and it was 23C. She muttered that it looked too white for sand, and she walked away with a puzzled look on her face. You see what I have to deal with?
I caught the shuttle bus out of town to a large mall, traveling with my friends Karen and Doug. We had similar goals for the day so we thought we’d stick together. We changed some money and did some chores at the very large and very empty mall, before trying to find a taxi to take us to the museum. There were no taxis but there were several vehicles of the type you would find in a scrap yard, with their owners clamouring to take us wherever we wanted. Against my better judgement we agreed a price and jumped in one of these dodgy looking cars. The interior looked like a rabid dog had feasted on it for a couple of weeks. Our cheery African driver proudly told us he owned the car, and after several attempts to get it going, we were off. I swear we left a bucket-load of rust behind as we rattled off. However, we did make it to the museum in one piece. Thankfully it was only a few kilometres down the road. We walked in and were hit by the overpowering smell of mothballs. Too late if you ask me - every exhibit was sorry-looking and moth-eaten. The place was so decrepit it should have been IN a museum. But I’m being too harsh. It was quite charming in its decrepitude and I was delighted to see not only their dodo with egg, but also their kiwi with egg! A tiny piece of NZ in EL. Also of note was the only example in the world of the coelacanth, a prehistoric fish dating back 50 million years and thought extinct. It was caught off East London in the 1930s. About 10 more have subsequently been caught down the coast of East Africa. They are very large (about 5ft), and dark blue when alive. It doesn’t have a skeleton, and leeches litres of oil when dead. Yuk. For such a tiny museum it had many things of interest. The history of the local tribes’ beadwork, and a lot of maritime history. e.g. the cruise ship Oceanus that sank off East London in 1991 in weather conditions similar to what we’d just been through! We’d been there about an hour when the lights started being turned off. A hint to leave, and this time we got the museum to call us a real taxi. Eventually this old Africaaner turns up in a car very similar to the last one we rode in, except this had a taxi sign on top. He was wiry and grisly and covered in tattoos. His clothes were faded and full of holes and his car reeked of pipe tobacco. No meter of course and he said he’d give us the price when we got to the ship, and not before. Beggars can’t be choosers and we jumped in. So we’re bumping along, exhaust pipe dragging on the road, and he’s telling us how dangerous East London is and how South Africa has gone downhill since the demise of Aparthied (I think the black Africans might disagree). And he says, “It’s so stressful living here that I had 3 heart attacks last month.” I’m thinking, he shouldn’t be driving. And he says, “I’m not even meant to be driving.” Hell-ooo! We’re commenting on how little traffic there is for rush hour, and he say, “Oh, no one drives through this part of town. They’ll kill you for 10 rand, night or day.” Who is this guy!!! By some miracle we make it back to the ship alive and here we are, at sea again, with the captain saying we have 50 knot winds and 7 metre swells so batten down the hatches.
This is my last blog for a few days as we arrive Capetown tomorrow and I’ll be catching up with the husband. Back with ya on the 8th.
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