From the porch, 6:30 a.m.We finally rented a car (the ol' VW would probably triple the trip length) this weekend and got out of Pretoria to see some of the country. We drove east into the Mpumulunga province to a cottage I tracked down and rented between the towns of Dullstroom and Lydenburg. We were shocked by how beautiful it is. Rolling grasslands in the highveld with powerful spring storms passing through at great speed. The road to the cottage wound up the side of a mountain and then along a lower ridge. On the way we saw a secretary bird stalking in the high grass. The last time we saw one was in the pans in Botswana so it was surprising to find one in such a different climate. Japhta met us there and is the caretaker of the farm and lives nearby with his wife Lena. He is chocolate brown with smiling eyes and spoke little English (but does speak Afrikaans and probably several African languages like Zulu and Sotho) so we largely mimed our way through his explanations. He is a sweet man who showed us where everything was: "Yes, knives and forks. She is there. Firewood - she's here." We only saw him once again that weekend - a distant figure in blue coveralls waving an arm at us and then at the cattle he herded through the field. The cottage had no electricity but a gas oven, refrigerator and hot water. Kerosene lanterns with the roll-up wicks were mounted on the walls and scattered on the tables and there was a great fireplace. The tin roof signified rain both nights and, once, an alarming hail storm that jerked us from sleep with the sound of rocks clattering in a giant can. We arrived on Saturday and walked for hours and caught enormous rainbow trout from the stocked dam on the property. On Sunday, we walked much further, scurrying under fences, throwing the dog into creeks and M saw the tail of a bright green snake slide away into the thick grass on the edge of a pasture. Not good. One possibility is that it was a green mamba. So we beat feet through the marshy area we tried to avoid and breathed easier from a good distance away. M found a cow skull; a duiker sprung out of the grass near a creek and bounced away over the hill like a rubber ball. We decided to catch a trout for dinner but a huge storm intruded first and dropped the temperature and golf-ball hail until dusk. So there was a desperation to catching a fish. It got darker. No fish. Darker. Nothing. A fish struck and took my fly. They weren't hitting anything we tied on. Then I hooked one and it was off to the races. Wine flowed. Anticipation grew. Lemon juice, garlic, cracked pepper and diced onions coated the fish. The very hot oven cooked it perfectly. More wine flowed. We each took a bite and found that no amount of delicious seasoning could mask an important fact: The fish tasted like pond scum, like we had just hobbled in beside the cattle for a long drink from the algae-ridden water. A crushing culinary defeat but important lesson. Avoid trout that mingle socially with cattle. An hour later, M erupted in such a wailing scream from the kitchen that I was sure we were on the verge of some type of death. "THERE'S A SNAKE IN HERE!" she hyperventilated. I saw the brown end of something heading underneath a cabinet. I grabbed a box of candles and whacked it and then it emerged heading toward my bare feet. Then I noticed it was sort of blindly thrashing and that it didn't have a very discernable head, nor did it seem to have any idea where it was going. I haven't found the name for it yet but there are these giant centipede thingys that look and move like foot-long snakes but are not. Thankfully that's what we had but it took awhile for our heart rates to drop and suddenly the lack of bright electric light wasn't as great. We drove back roads on Sunday for a bit more exploring before speeding back to Pretoria where it rained so much that the pool nearly drowned.
