Adventures suck when you're having them

*Warning... this is a long one. 4000+ words*

A decade ago, Steven Harper had recently become the prime minister of Canada, Barrack Obama was the democratic presidential nominee, the Iraq war was going strong, and I was playing varsity rugby at McGill. I was in my early twenty’s, finishing my bachelors in Microbiology & Immunology. I didn’t have my motorcycle license yet. Fast forward to present day Cape Town, I get a blast-from-the-past when Wes, a former McGill rugby teammate, messages me. He lives in Cape Town now and he also rides motorcycles. Done deal.

We – accompanied by 2 other bikers – thus decided to spend a Sunday afternoon riding on the twisties that snake around Table mountain. Perfect weather, not too hot, not too cold, not too much traffic… Really a great day. Wes was riding a gorgeous black 1995 Honda CB 750 with red highlights. Just a beautiful machine. To complete the pack, Taheer was on a Kawa Versys 650 and Brad was on an Aprilia Pegaso 650. We hugged the flanks of the mountain passing by the Kirstenbosch botanical gardens arriving at Hout bay to appreciate the view and have a pleasant conversation. The second part of the ride took us on the western aspect of the cape peninsula, hugging the hills as they dove right into the sea, weaving our way left and right all the way back to the Cape Town waterfront before eventually splitting on our different ways after a satisfying beer break.

You’re in a touristy town, you’re going to do some touristy things. The art is in trying to apply your own filter in trying to maintain somewhat of a genuine experience. Certain attractions are touristic because of marketing done right. On the other hand, some things are touristic because they have a universal value and appeal, no matter how overcrowded they become. Personal tastes will be able to discriminate the separation along this continuum but to give a very broad example, Las Vegas would probably fit the first definition well and the Louvre, the latter.

The Old Biscuit Mill is a decommissioned late 19^th century brick building complex in the adequately-named Woodstock district which in the middle of a gentrification phenomenon… which in South Africa means microbreweries, coffee shops, fashion boutiques, and even a Michelin-level restaurant by day and gun shots at night. Nonetheless, it’s a place enjoyed by tourists and locals alike. Food mostly, with an astonishing variety (ostrich wraps, freshly-pressed fruit juices, dried meats, donuts, fresh bread, edible flowers) but a lot of local companies as well displaying their wearable or decorative crafts. And then there was a techno-music dreadlocked druid entertaining the crowd with his mix of digeridoo and fisher price plastic instruments… I mean, if you don’t like someone’s art, you can just fuck off. That’s a philosophy I have keenly espoused, especially being enamoured with such sonically acquired tastes like progressive heavy metal, but I had to ask myself how much of our fundamental music appreciation is dependent on rhythm alone (which the guy’s beat machine certainly had) and how much of a simplistic melody but played by outlandish instrument actually titillates our ears and brain. There is something satisfying about feeling connected with a group of people, especially through music. To feel synced. There is something fundamentally human about being able to follow a beat… on a functional, societal level. But we have gone past that (I hope). There is more to music than blindly rowing the slave ship of our appreciation to the sound of a monotonously repeating drum. Maybe it’s age catching up with me (oh crap), but this is one of the reasons why I think modern pop music is tasteless, bland, and all sounds the same. It does more than bore me, it actually annoys me. If I don’t like it, I can just shup up about it. True. It’s just that I’ve had to repeatedly explain myself, in more polite terms than these, how I could possibly not like or know about the new hit that everyone will have forgotten by next month. It's not because "everybody" likes it that it automatically becomes good. Majority rules is a good concept for democracy, but as far as other domains are concerned, it carries less weight in my opinion.

My other touristic activity involved hiking up the Lion’s head mountain. The Cape Town city center is surrounded by three major hills: Devil’s Peak, Table Mountain, and Lion’s head (with Signal Hill being a continuation of it). Table Mountain is the famous one to climb but my hiking friends, Liam and Ian, had already done it. The hike was lovely, giving a fantastic view of Cape Town itself, but also Camp’s bay, and Robben Island (where Nelson Mandela was imprisoned for 18 out of 27 years). A fun, short, and at times challenging climb requiring the use of your hands as much as your legs.
 

At this point, I had seen a significant amount of sights in and around Cape Town. Many bars and coffee shops of course, but museums, events, and many other natural sights as well. With Soraya coming to visit me next week I had also kept a selection of major sights and activities to do together. So after another 2 uneventful shifts in the trauma department, I packed my bike with my camping gear and headed out to the Karoo desert.

On my ride out of Cape Town, driving almost straight north, I could see the imposing mass of Table Mountain slowly shrinking in my sideview mirrors. The farmlands followed one another through rolling hills. I could smell the dust in the air. Riding in countries like South Africa, Guatemala, Belize, or Mexico I learned to be very suspicious of trucks, older cars, or cars with fully compressed suspensions (which means they are carrying a heavy load). All three of these vehicles are often found driving at speeds significantly inferior to traffic and if you don’t pay attention, especially during climbs, an accident is bound to happen. Luckily this day, there were very few which allowed me to enjoy the environment I was in. The mountain ranges in the backdrop were my day’s end objective and are always a source of motivation when I ride on trips like these. Unless your idea of riding motorcycles is doing long and boring highway distances, mountains are a biker’s dream. Except for tunnels, there are no straight roads in the mountains. The more those roads meander, the less cars and trucks you will find until, if you are fortunate enough, the tarmac belongs to you and you alone. Mountains also form natural barriers for both flora, fauna, and even humans creating two universes on either side for your senses to discover. I always find it exciting as I crest mountain passes to see these new worlds unravel themselves in front of me from the best possible vantage point.

Corrugations. Washboard. Pain in the ass. 

I passed Citrusdale and started my climb of the Cederberg mountains on dirt roads which were badly corrugated. A really uncomfortable ride at first. So I lowered the pressure in my tires to give my joints a break and to get more traction in the dirt. These quick fixes helped a bit but the biggest contribution to improving my ride was when I understood there was a velocity sweet spot to these washboard roads. Too slow and the bike will shake like a heroin addict in withdrawal as the tires dip in every groove and get pushed back with every bump. Too fast, skipping through entire sections of corrugations and making limited contact with the tops of the bumps offers too little control. Especially on a fully loaded adventure bike. The sweet spot is when your tires stay away from the bottom of the grooves and manages to contact as many of the tops as possible. Trial and error finally got me at that desired velocity and the rest of the ride was fantastically enjoyable as the sun started setting upon an arid but not completely desertic landscape.

The Africa Twin I was riding definitely felt heavy with all the gear I had on (camping, cooking, clothes, food, water, tools) but was becoming more manageable as the kilometers of dirt road flew by. I got to my campsite right when the sun dipped down past the mountain tops. Luckily for me, it was in a beautiful meadow, next to an orange orchard, traversed by a tranquil stream… and I had the campsite to myself. I cooked some boerwors (Afrikaan sausages) with rice, drank some South African brandy and went to bed a happy camper.

The next day was going to be the longest driving day I had planned for this 4-day excursion. Roughly 500km on unpaved roads. I packed my stuff, put on my riding gear, kicked the sidestand up, and pressed on the ignition. Nothing. Battery flat. I must have inadvertently kept the lights on too long while I was unpacking in the dark the night prior. Oh well. Remove the gear. Unpack. Push the bike up a small hill. Start the bike using the compression of the engine. Repack. Re-put the gear on. Off I go.

I rode through more farmlands and finally arrived in the Karoo desert. I would have expected the progression to be subtle, and while the aridity of my environment did go through a steady evolution, the soil kept jumping back and forth from dark soil, to red earth, to bright yellow sand, to gray moon-like dust, and every other shade in between. In contrast with the confused type of terrain, its relief was a clear bipolar option. Vast plains or mountains. Nothing really in between. The combination of all these factors, coupled with near complete human desolation, created a very ethereal atmosphere dotted with wisps of dusty clouds dancing to the melody of the wind. I saw more antelopes than people. 

Gemsboks!!!

I crossed the Katbakkies and Ouberg mountain passes as well as the pains in between to finally reach the town of Sutherland on the eastern side the Tankwa Karoo National park. The higher altitude, dry air, and lack of large urban areas make this an excellent area for star gazing as demonstrated by their observatory and the American scientists who were there. I had a quick lunch, fuel refill, and continued my drive north towards Middelpos and lastly down the gorgeous Ganaga pass plunging into the vastness of the national park.

The Ganaga pass roads had... personality

The road was beautifully cracked by the repeating cycles of rare desert flash rains and extreme aridity. The road is slowly being destroyed, and yet, it is nevertheless a process of creation. Nature just trying to do its thing. Most processes of natural destruction are usually coupled with a boom in life. Forests need forest fires. The Okavango needs its yearly flood. The monsoon is vital to the Indian sub-continent. What nature has managed is a subtle balance… which we are totally screwing up. In any case, the impact of nature on the road made it that much more interesting to drive on. Little obstacles, jumps, soft sand sections, off-camber tilts. Lots of fun on the bike, but the fully packed Land Rover I quickly zoomed by was probably not sharing these thoughts.

After a couple more kilometers, I reported to the park office where I was able to select my camping spot: as remote as I could possibly find. After setting up camp, I made myself dinner with the little camp stove I had brought. Far from a culinary experience, the meal went down smoother with the brandy I had left. The sun began setting down and offered itself in true African form: giant red ball sinking into the savannah. Pictures will never do it justice.

This doesn't do it justice. You had to be there!

Up in the very early morning with the sun and the animals. The day’s plan was a much simpler itinerary than the previous day’s. Shorter too. What could go wrong? I drove out of the park using twisty sandy roads. The beauty of driving in an environment with no trees, is that your horizon extends for dozens of kilometers in all directions, like being on a boat in the middle of the ocean.  Then it dawns on you, like a child when he understands the implications of birthdays or Christmas: that gift is all yours. I have an immense playground all to myself. Its beautiful. It’s soothing. It’s therapeutic. It has so much to offer. I never cease to be amazed at the absolute marvels this planet has to offer. That’s when I get this absurdly weird mixed emotion of sadness and joy. Sadnoy. Whatever. Like nostalgia but for the present/future. I can’t believe how lucky I am.  I can’t believe it took me 31 years to discover this place. I can’t believe there are places like this I’ll never get to see.

Ted Simon truly captures, better than I can, what it is like to travel the way I do:

  “In spite of wars and tourism and pictures by satellite, the world is just the same size it ever was. It is awesome to think how much of it I will never see. It is not a trick to go round these days, you can pay a lot of money and fly round it nonstop in less than forty-eight hours, but to know it, to smell it and feel it between your toes you have to crawl. There is no other way. Not flying, not floating. You have to stay on the ground and swallow the bugs as you go. Then the world is immense. The best you can do is to trace your long, infinitesimally thin line through the dust and extrapolate.”  

For lunch, I stopped at a notorious motorcycle landmark: Tankwa Tented Camp. You might think it would be a terrible business decision to open a campsite in the middle of the Karoo desert, but if your demographic of interest is off road bikers or men in general, if you build a bar… they will come. Probably the most remote bar I have ever been in come to think about it. The place seems taken straight out of Mad Max or Brütal legend where automobile or motorcycle parts have been incorporated in the infrastructure of the building in a very post-apocalyptic vibe. Whether they merely have a decorative-only function, or play an actual role in structural integrity was sometimes difficult to differentiate. Most of the electricity came from solar or wind power. They had generators just in case. It was quiet on this Tuesday afternoon, only 2 people were staying at the camp, but I was told the weekend was booked solid with 100 bikers. A middle-aged accountant from George doing a ride with his wife on a Yamaha Super Tenere greeted me. We exchange a very pleasant conversation about motorcycling of course, but African politics and sports as well as we watched a rugby game on TV and sipped our 2$ beers. The bar was covered in motorcycle gear: helmets, bike parts, goggle. There was an indoor fire pit surrounded by car seats. An old Harley Davidson with deflated tires sitting in the corner. I bought a little bit of fuel to be on the safe side and drove off. I made a small detour to see the site of the Africa Burn festival, the African version of burning man, which had already a few structures being built. Kind of a surreal experience.

Overview of Tankwa Tented Camp

My type of bar

Apparently Jagermeister is a a lunch menu option.

Filling up

Africa Burn festival

My next and final destination was maybe 50 kilometers away. Separating me from it however, was the Old Postal road which is supposed to be a challenging bit of off road driving, but seeing that jeeps can go through it, it is not particularly challenging for any motorcyclist with a bit of dirt experience. The more challenging parts were at the beginning with deep sand sections (tricky with my heavy bike and all the gear loaded) and 2-3 water crossings. Wanting to avoid dropping the bike and having to pick all of its 150kg up, I was particularly careful in those more technical sections. As the road became rockier but easier to ride, the scenery began opening up with views of a gorgeous canyon system. 

Old Postal road water crossing, deep sand

Cows and canyons

I stopped multiple times to take pictures. Then I noticed my oil level indicator had lid up. Strange, I thought. The level had been checked when I changed the tires the week prior. It’s an old bike, perhaps there was a faulty connection somewhere. Still, running a bike on low oil – or no oil – especially in the middle of nowhere is a HUGE risk. All those metal parts rubbing against each other with no lubricant can expeditiously send the bike to the scrapyard… So I better check to make sure, I realized.

Oh crap.

Oh-fuck-oh-fuck-oh-fuck-oh-fuck-oh-fuck-oh-fuck-oh-fuck-oh-fuck-oh-fuck.

Bashplate bent and full of oil dripping down. “When the fuck did THAT happen??” I went from tourist-mode put-putting gently (yes, I promise it was gently) and taking pictures to get-the-fuck-out-of-here-before-I-lose-whatever-I-have-left-of-oil mode in a flash. Pretty sure that Africa Twin never went so fast off road in its 14 years of experience. Jumps. Drift turns. Explosive water crossings. I reached one of the last water crossings, where 2 other bikers, father and son, had parked their bikes and were planning on camping overnight. The contrast of the moods was extreme. I was sweating, heart racing, nervous. They were bare foot, smiling, relaxed.

“- Howzit? Great day isn’t it?

- Hi! I’m leaking oil.

- Oh, that’s tough luck. Want a beer?

- ………………………………………yes.”

The beers were a little warm so we immersed them in the stream to cool down while we checked the bike. I hadn’t really inspected the damage, opting rather to race out and seek help as fast as possible before losing the rest of my oil. Now that I had people to help out and being only 5 kilometers away from the nearest farm, I could breathe a little and look at my options… because I had options now. The bashplate had taken a hit right where the oil filter was located, punching a small hole in it. Better that then a hole in the engine casing. Because I’ve done that before. Not cool. Had to sell the bike to a friend who wanted a repair challenge (Thanks Dan!). He ended up selling it to someone else who also wanted a repair challenge.

Great place to break down.

Stream-cooled beers.

I was lost for words. "How?" There are only two ways this could have happened. One way is taking a jump and landing the engine on top of a rock. Sometimes you land the wheels first but the rapid compression of the suspension brings the engine down on a rock. Those landings, you feel. Your spine feels it. I know from experience. They’re rough. It’s a big impact. Especially on these bigger bikes. I had had none of those. The other way this could have happened, would have been a precision-guided oil filter-seeking rock missile with enough force to pierce the bashplate. This also seemed unlikely. The rock would have needed the right trajectory, the right shape, enough speed, etc. But after removing the bashplate and realizing it had the structural integrity of wet cardboard, that second explanation is probably what happened. A million to one shot, doc. 

   

“- You’re really unlucky man!

- Well, I guess. But I see it differently. I’m riding a bike in a beautiful environment halfway across the world, seeing marvellous things, I’m not hurt, I have food and water to last me another 2-3 days, camping gear, the next farm is walking distance, my bike has a fixable issue (replace the filter or plug the hole, add oil), I now have company, and I am drinking a free beer. Adventures suck when you’re having them but the quicker you realize you are having one, the quicker you can enjoy yourself again. I’m actually pretty fortunate.”

I mentioned previously how I have ridden motorcycles in remote regions of Canada, the USA, Mexico, Guatemala, Belize, and South Africa. I, or my riding partner, have had issues, mechanical or personal, in every single one of those countries. No exception. Broken wheel bearings in Quebec, destroyed rear sprocket in Ontario, seized engine in St Louis, cracked luggage rack in Guatemala, chain popping in Guatemala, spilled engine coolant in Guatemala… yes, that bike was shit. Strangers helped. Every. Single. Time. Men, women, adults, children, white, black, and everything in between. In the majority of cases, complete strangers have gone WAY above and beyond to help out. The owner of a motorcycle garage kept the place open, employees and all, 2-3 hours after closing time, hosted me in his house, and made me pay a fraction of the price I actually owed him. “The guys on shiny Harleys will pay for the rest”. I even had to fight him for the bill when we went to the restaurant (it was his restaurant night with his wife that day…). As someone who thinks of himself as being on the extreme end of rational, coining the term evidence-based life in the process, I find it very difficult to explain to people who haven’t yet experienced this amazing human experience when I say: “Someone always comes”. It sounds crazy. Complete lunacy. But… someone always does come! When preparing a motorcycle journey, no one should obviously depend on this. Ever. But I am not the only one to think like this. More traveled motorcyclists like Ted Simon (Jupiter’s Travels), Charley Boorman, the famous Ewan McGreggor (yes, Obi Wan Kenobi), and countless others have experienced the very same phenomenon. Someone always comes. It has even transcended into the arts with Blanche Dubois famously always depending on the kindness of strangers.

So why is it so crazy then? Why have we come to expect so little from our fellow humans? There is certainly conflicting evidence. We don’t need any additional proof to confirm how shitty humans have treated each other. My thought is that the scale of “shittiness” has the unfortunate tendency to grow exponentially while generosity, love, and compassion are generally felt at a much smaller scale. Hate, distrust, discrimination become more contagious as the mob grows and as the collective IQ drops. But take each individual separately, and there is good, no matter how small, in all of them. I really believe there is. “Yeah but what about Hitler? Or this guy? Or that guy? They were pure evil. They were crazy. They were possessed. They were this or that.” Yes, there have been monsters. People that have caused unimaginable pain. But to demonize people, to simplify the complexity of human behaviours into easily palatable black and white and ostracize them as inhuman - as "not you" - so you can sleep at night is to de-responsibilize society and ourselves in the creation of such monsters. It's unfortunately part of us. We have to own it. Ignoring it won't prevent it from happening again. Believe it or not, Hitler was human. So was Charles Manson and the other assholes that have destroyed so many lives. But guess what? They had a mother, a father, friends, people they loved, they made jokes. Their crimes should never, EVER, be lessened because of that but ignoring the impact we collectively have on one another, no matter how big or small the scale is, is begging for the making of more scum.  

  

Where was I? Oh right. So my oil filter had a hole in it. Speaking to the two other bikers I met, we decided the rate of oil loss was small enough for me to get back to Tankwa Tented Camp where I could get more help and more tools provided I could fill the bike with oil. So the son put his gear on, rode his bike to the farm and brought back some oil. We filled my bike up and I raced back to the farm. I picked up more oil there and rode all the way to the campsite, stopping every 5 km or so to fill up with oil.

When I got to the camp, the same guy I had met previously was surprised to see me. We shared a good laugh when I explained my story. I called the store from where I had rented the bike and explained the situation. “Oh, no problem, I’ll get in touch with a mechanic in the area and try to get you sorted within 24-48 hours”. My other option would have been to try and plug the hole with some kind of steel-reinforced epoxy, or putty. But I was in a safe place, plenty of food, and with a way to communicate with the rest of the world. If my quick fix were to give out in another remote area, I would have been back to square zero... and we didn't have epoxy anyways. I quickly became friends with two other bikers that had arrived while I was gone, shared dinner together and started chain-drinking late into the night. I’m not sure why, but they were obsessed with Jagermeister shots. I was given 3 or 4… or maybe 5… looking back it’s still a bit fuzzy.

The next morning, I said goodbye to my new friends after exchanging numbers for possible future rides. I started my long 24 – 48 hour wait by reading the pocket book I had brought along when after only a few pages, I heard the sound of a large truck. I figured these new visitors would allow me to kill some time, so went out to greet them. It turned out to be a flat bed truck. With a freaking crane. They were delivering concrete bricks.

“ - Hi guys… where are you driving to after this?

- Cape Town.

- [Ace Ventura voice] REE-HE-HE-HE-HEAAAAAALY?”

Instead of waiting for some poor guy to drive all the way to the Karoo to deliver some bike parts to me, I decided to put the bike on the truck and ride along all the way to Cape Town where a mechanic from the store could meet me, help me fix the bike, and get me rolling again.

“What happened on the way, who I met, all that was incidental. I had not quite realized that the interruptions were the journey.”

-          Ted Simon

Bikes, Coffee, and Fanta Flashbacks

When I arrived in Cape town 4 weeks ago, one of the first things I did was to rent a motorcycle. This trip would not exist if there wasn’t going to be a bike. Simple as that. Why the hell would I get a car here? I have noticed lately that whenever I drive a car in Montreal, or any city, my mood changes for the worst. I get impatient, I get angry, I get upset from minimal irritants that just wouldn’t chip away at me otherwise. Riding is just the best. I’ve described my feelings about riding in another blog entry 5 years ago (Live to ride, ride to live) and I haven’t changed my mind. The experience is just so much more pleasant that the ride becomes just as important as the destination. All your senses are being stimulated: you feel the road, you smell your environment, your view is unhindered from being caged in a metal box, you hear everything from the inner workings of your machine to the conversations of the passersby… and, sometimes, you even taste the dust. You are connected. You are part of something greater. It’s almost a spiritual experience. It certainly is one of the only moments where the thoughts racing in my head suddenly stop and allow me to just be. It’s meditation.

And when you meditate, might as well meditate in style! So I rented a 2003 Honda Africa twin. This means jack shit to most people. But for those who know… It’s a classic. The bike gained notoriety thanks to its domination in the Paris-Dakar rallyes in the late 80’s and because of its striking large bug-eyed double headlights. It’s a good road/off-road machine with trustworthy engineering. As would any 14 year-old bikes however, the one I got had a few wrinkles and battle scars, but was nevertheless a sturdy machine that would see me through my adventures.

With the ability to drive and park anywhere with ease, discovering a city with a bike becomes a lot of fun especially if that city’s public transit is mediocre. Because of its Esmeralda qualities, Cape town has plenty of little gems to discover. Mabu Vinyls is one of them. Like a true cavern of Ali-Baba, it is chock full of little vinyl marvels which I could have easily spent an entire day sifting through only a small fraction of them. I will have to visit again with a better game plan… House of the Machines is a coffee place by day, live music bar by night, and a biker hangout to boot. Always sweet rides to ogle at while sipping on your liquid addiction of choice. Dapper is the car version of House of the Machines although without the bar and live music. It teamed up with Club 9, a detailing service, which thus allows you to sip your coffee in the company of Ferraris, Porsches, or classic Mercedes. The Vic, is a bar that serves mean gourmet pizzas and plays folk and rock vinyls for your enjoyment. And then there are coffee shops.

Cape town has a strong coffee culture. Borderline hipster snobbish. But damn that coffee is good! My personal favorites include Origin, Bean There, Espresso Lab, Haas, Yours Truly, and Truth. Truth is supposedly one of the, or the, best coffee places in the world as determined by some completely non-rational or scientific method. But despite my sarcasm, and the slightly ridiculous steam-punk theme they have going on, their coffee speaks for itself. Do you remember that time when you discovered there was an unexpected world of quality in everyday things you had taken for granted? Seems like people are disconnected with the items or foods they use everyday. That people have no idea how an engine works or how your food got to you plate. Probably an unfortunate side effect of the pervasive consumerism attitude of buying-new rather than trying to fix things; or that technology has advanced so much that one simply can’t be expected to know the inner workings of everything; or that curiosity has suffered from a society of brats who want everything now. Not sure. But it does provide some bumbling idiots like me the pleasure of new discoveries occasionally. It's such a wonderful feeling. It combines intense pleasure and satisfaction while opening the door to a new universe full of those sensations. That first sip of a craft beer when all you knew was Budweiser/Molson/Labatt? French/Swiss/Quebec artisan cheeses when all you knew were Kraft singles? Or even as you become a home owner, when something breaks, and you suddenly realize there is a LOT more that goes into [insert furniture/appliance/decoration/structural element of choice] than you ever thought? (Yes there is satisfaction from knowledge of your house's inner workings). This was the world of coffee for me until just recently. Because of my obsessive curiosity (the same one that makes me spend 3 hours on Wikipedia and wonder how the hell I went from looking up “JFK” to “Papayas”) I just had to get a barista class. Because if get into something new, might as well turn myself in an annoying know-it-all snob that doesn’t actually know much but thinks he does. That’s how it works right? Looking forward to annoy you when I get home!

In the trauma unit, patients come in and out. Shot, stabbed, hammered and hammer-ed. I guess there was a hammer sale somewhere. What was once an obscure science is now becoming second nature. Lately, I have worked with a South African resident called Soha. She did her medical school in Johannesburg and worked in the same hospital I had worked in 5 years ago. We had the same experiences, saw the same tragedies, worked with the same surgeons and their (lets be politically correct here) “character traits”. Soha and I hit it off. As more penetrating trauma patients came in, we developed a second natured synergy and worked to each other’s strength. Being fairly adept with an ultrasound probe, even one as worn down, damaged, and basic as the one available here, people quickly dubbed me the “Canadian ultrasound guy”. With this recognized expertise, I quickly accumulated chest drain procedures which I eventually started punting over to the med students (with significant supervision of course).

At the mid point of a weekend shift, I got thirsty. Thirsty for a little more than just water. So I headed to the waiting room where several vending machines could be found. Without much thought, I opted for an orange Fanta drink without much thought. I took a sip and was immediately hit by a flashback. I remembered doing night shifts in Johannesburg. The weekends were particularly violent and the trauma bay was always full of patients. You barely had time to finish taking care of one that someone in even worse condition would be brought in. It was exhausting. By 5am however, things would start slowing down enough for you to realize you hadn’t eaten or drank anything since starting. You would sometimes also realize at that point that you were drenched in sweat. So I developed a routine of drinking an orange fanta at 5am in Joburg. Olfactory memory (or in this case, taste) is so powerful. What’s fun about it too is that it can be very unpredictable. It hits you when you least expect it and floods your mind of a million memories before you even know what hit you. All that from an orange fanta. 

Esmeralda

Johannesburg was never really known for a flourishing joie de vivre. It’s a major financial center that grew out of a gold mining blueprint. Needless to say, most of my free time spent in eastern South Africa 5 years ago was spent outside of the city exploring the mountains of the Drakensberg to the south and the rolling fields of the Veld in the East. Johannesburg was a dud.

But Cape Town… you enchanting siren! You tantalizing temptress! If Joburg was Marlin (Finding Nemo... get with the times), Cape Town is Esmeralda. Esmeralda - a gypsy - was smart despite a lack of formal education, she was beautiful despite being homeless, she was fierce and yet delicate. In that sense, Cape town juggles similarly with a series of conflicting attributes and finds a way to entice you. After 2 weeks “in” Joburg, my motorcycle had clocked about 2000km, after close to 2 weeks here, I’m at 500km.

You could still feel the burdening weight of Apartheid’s lingering ghost in Joburg, and while the scars are still barely healing throughout the country, there is a sense of hope in Cape Town. The city and its people have started to develop the humble beginnings of a new harmony. Sure, the first sight you see out of the airport is a massive black ghetto… These will unfortunately exist for decades to come and there is a violence epidemic that is still rampant but you have to start somewhere. In the workplace, there is still a visible discrepancy, but its democratization, including the hospital, is more apparent here. In a more endearing observation, the youth of the city I have encountered so far have embraced the country’s rainbow nation moniker in a metaphorical middle finger to the old laws criminalizing interracial relationships.

[Queue the Beatles music]

All you need is love. All you need is love. All you need is love, love. Teenage hormones are all you need.

There is a lot to do here. Bars, cafés, museums, restaurants, art galleries, markets, hikes, motorcycle rides, flaura and fauna (penguins, sharks, whales, innumerable birds), etc… It’s all been fun to discover. Even if Cape Town is a tourist destination, a lot of the activities I have done so far (oyster and wine festival, cocktail week, art galleries night) included a majority of locals which adds authenticity to the experience.

It's also during those evenings where I wander a little, soak in the atmosphere, and try whatever street food I can get my hands on. The impetus behind this decision is usually multi-factorial but features mainly three prominent attributes: hunger, curiosity, and masochism. Earlier last week, at the art galleries night, I saw a stand from which emanated a pungent yet pleasant smell. The additional smoke, sizzling hisses, and flash of flame were also used to great effect in angling the white tourist ever closer like a predator attracts its prey. I couldn't understand a word the guy was saying, so I pointed to whatever looked interesting and said "yes" whenever prompted by another unintelligible question. I still have no idea what I ordered. It was meat, I'm pretty sure. There were also onions. A flat bread wrapped the entire thing. Oh, and it was seasoned with molten lava. Seconds after the first bite, my heart started racing, sweat started pearling, and my mouth started melting. I opted not to seek out help from local passersby as the sight of a tall, white, scraggly panicked man with his sauce-soaked beard running towards them might have caused more misfortune than salvation. I composed myself, went to my happy place, and let time heal everything. 

The next morning I went to the bathroom.

My stay here in a nutshell

Groote Schuur (old) Hospital at night

The hospital has become routine despite the horrors you can witness there. Bullets through the spine with resulting paraplegia. Stab wounds to the heart, the neck, the face. Pedestrians being the unfortunate pins of drunken automotive bowling. In medicine, and in emergency in particular, developing an emotional shield is quintessential to your survival in the profession. You simply can’t do your job without it. What is just as essential to your longevity however, is to find some form of venting mechanism. No matter how broad and thick your shield may be, the stains of the job will continue to accumulate, waiting for an inopportune moment to spread through unless you find time to drop the shield and process the ghosts of the past. Everyone finds their way. It doesn’t have to be an active therapy session with a psychologist where you acknowledge each specific case one after another. I’m not sure what my way actually is come to think of it. If I had to guess, it would be during activities where my mind gets to focus on a single thing where I am truly absorbed by the task at hand and everything else fades away. A form of meditation. Motorcycling, music, cooking. You sprain an ankle, you need rest. A brain sprain.

… in Spain falls mainly in the plain. 

Once upon a ride in South Africa... part deux!

Well shit. It’s been 5 years. Things have changed. Others haven’t. Pretty lame observation there, Shakespeare, but that’s the jist of what these “retrace your footsteps” stories are about right? Things have changed. Others haven’t. For the ones who have no idea what I’m talking about, feel free to refer to the original part un (same blog).

Trauma training is part of emergency medicine. And as much as some narrow-minded detractors love to spew the contrary, we have it pretty easy in Canada. People who have been gravely injured in a car accident are a dime a dozen. The ones who have been stabbed or shot are like solar eclipses. You know they exist, and when you encounter one, it’s a big deal. Consequently, trauma training in Canada is a bit like learning how to bobsleigh in Jamaica: it can be done, but there are better places to do it in. This was the reason I went to Johannesburg 5 years ago, and it’s still the same reason I now find myself in Cape Town. That and the riding…. And the wine…

The flight I booked with Turkish won me an eight hour layover in Istanbul… Constantinople… Byzancia! So much history! So much culture! So much… grime? Fine, my romanticized expectations were perhaps a little misplaced. But you would expect such a famous and respected old lady to take care of herself slightly more than the littered streets, cracked sidewalks, and some crumbling - yet inhabited - buildings I came across. I’m painting a grim portrait, but that was the unfortunate first impression this legendary city gave me. Turkish coffee, Turkish delights, the bazaar, and the mosques started winning me over however. There is no denying the major influence this place has played in our species’ cultural evolution. It’s inebriating. But just like the last sip of a great beer left in the heat for too long, the dilapidation of certain areas of Istanbul left me with a bad taste in my mouth. I have another layover on my way back and I will do my best to change this.

Cape Town. The South African Vancouver (Probably the other way around… whatever, work with me). Where the sea meets the mountains but without the rain… there is a drought actually. Oh and people stab each other more. A lot more. I have seen as much severe trauma cases in a week that I would normally see in 2-3 months at the Montreal General Hospital, probably more come to think of it. In that sense, some things haven’t changed at all. Johannesburg was the same, but the city was shit: a literal overgrown gold mine. No really, it was a mining town. That’s what literal means. Anyways. Cape Town on the other hand is gorgeous. The vineyards are an hour away. More than half of South Africa’s best restaurants are here. There is a nightlife. The coastal roads are orgasmic on a motorcycle. This place resonates with me just like Hemingway’s short sentence writing style is resonating with me just now. Things have changed then.

The Groote Schuur (pronounced “hrooteh skyur”) hospital is where I work. Kinda. My papers are still being processed despite having sent them 1 year prior. Things haven’t changed. It is a regional trauma center, meaning all the moderate to severe trauma patients of the region get transferred here (or its mirror image Tygerberg hospital on the east side of town) for specialized care. It’s big. It’s impersonal. But considering the incidence of trauma and the limited human and financial resources available, you have to find a way to deal with each situation as they come. It’s not perfect. Far from it. There are times when my stoic demeanor hides a screaming discomfort about the cause of the patient’s injuries or the actual management of certain patients. It’s not fair. For anyone. Things haven’t changed. But the growing adult cynicism in me suggests that such is life. Things have changed.

On a lighter note, I swam with sharks yesterday off the coast of Gansbaii, 2 hours south east of Cape Town. The sunscreen ritual of white tourists from Canada, Ireland, Australia, and Switzerland was heartwarming. “You missed a spot!” cried one dermal ghost to the other, granting an inner victory against the ever-menacing solar evil bereft of compassion for us poor light-challenged individuals. Meanwhile, the bronze, square-jawed Spaniard smoking a cigarette in his speedo looked down triumphantly over us mere albinos and snickered. The glacial temperatures of the southern Atlantic gave us sweet revenge however… except for the Australian. He didn’t do so well. Didn’t see great whites, but we did see a 3 meter shark silently swim past us. I was happy to be in a cage. As a matter of fact, I’m always happy to be in a cage… but that’s another story. Things haven’t changed. 

Once Upon a Ride in South Africa - The Video!!

Took me a while but I'm very happy with the results! Hope you enjoy watching it!

This is the End

Now that I am back in Montreal with one week of work at the Royal Victoria behind me and in the warmth that a proper winter season brings to me, I sit down to ultimately share with you, my friends, my family, the lasting impressions of a trip gone mindfully everlasting. Even from the distant perspective that I now find myself in, it is hard to wrap one’s head around the past month’s continual stunning stimuli. I thank you all very much for following this blog which has been an absolute pleasure to write. Thank you also for the nice words you have sent my way, the dizzying attractions of a new world are inebriating, but the friendship and love from back home mean much more. Hopefully I will finish writing up my motorcycle trip to Mexico in 2010 before another year passes and so you may enjoy it before long.

The End - The Doors    

After my birthday’s bountiful beauty – scenic, musical, and feminine – I was back at Bara for two busy twenty four hour shifts Sunday and Tuesday. As always with weekends in Soweto, the Montreal’s Code Orange (Mass Casualty) fill of patients already saturated the trauma bay when I arrived on Sunday morning. Also, the Pirates had drawn to the Chiefs in the prior day’s football match which had served as an additional reason to keep us busy. The fans probably disliked the game’s conclusion, but it somehow suited us quite well as a victory, and therefore a defeat, would have had a more dire impact.

The three weeks of experience I now carried felt like an equivalent multiple of what I could have witnessed in Montreal and the associated poise and know-how I practiced with never still erased the hidden silent disbelief that this busy bloody trauma bay instilled within me. The professional reacted to each novel atrocity, frighteningly creative every time, with a calm indifference as if nothing was new, as if I had seen everything but the humanity which completed my healer’s double face kept shaking its head in disapproval. No point in torturing one’s logic in a world devoid of it with a question I grew tired of repeating after a few days: "why?" There are more important things at hand anyways.

I remember taking a few seconds to breathe, not out of choice but rather because that is the time the blood gas machine takes to analyze samples, and I looked at the trauma bay in front of me. Its eight pods crowded with sixteen bloody gurneys onto which a child, a father, a student, a grandmother, a friend, a somebody, or a nobody were sadly all united in fighting for their lives. The loud beeping of monitors only annoyingly confirming what everyone here knows. A puddle of blood, urine, and vomit under a bed. Bloody footsteps retracing the many to and fro’s of nurses, students, residents, and staffs running around doing what they do best. I chuckled in stating the obvious to myself: “this is not normal”. The machine produced its results and I dove back in.

When my last call ended on Wednesday morning, I drove back home, slept until the early afternoon and prepared for one last trip with Shoshy. Not having had the chance to witness the wonders of Kruger National Park, I set off a course towards the closer Pilanesburg National Park. On my way there, I passed by South Africa’s executive capital, Pretoria. Not long enough to appreciate what the city had to offer, but enough to notice a certain post-apartheid peculiarity. Also serving as the country’s capital before the advent of democracy, Pretoria’s streets had once shared their names with prominent historical figures of Apartheid. They have since been renamed, but to avoid confusion, the previous name is still featured on street signs barred by a thick red line.

I got to Pilanesberg and entered a campsite on the North East end of the park; Christine, my landlord, had lent me a tent for the occasion. Had I known earlier that I could have borrowed it, there surely would have been more camping on this trip. Not five minutes had passed after I arrived that four people greeted me and offered their help to mount my tent. The deed done, I thanked them and they left as quickly as they came. Having not eaten yet, I strolled towards the campsite’s small restaurant to see what they had in store. I chose the impala cutlets.

The childhood years I spent sleeping in a small bed trained me well in order to sleep comfortably in relatively uncomfortable settings such as a bathtub in the USA, a small apartment floor in Japan, a sidewalk in Spain, or a roof and the Sahara desert in Morocco. In comparison, camping is like a day at the spa and I relish it, so I woke up that morning quite content with myself. I drove the few kilometers separating the campsite from Sun City where I was going to embark on a safari tour of the park. Sun City might sound delightful but it is an abomination. It is a miniature South African version of Las Vegas and, as far as I am concerned, it has no place next to a National Park. I parked Shoshy for the day, traversed a casino floor and took my seat on a large open aired truck.

As we made our way through the park entrance, I let go of my aversion to Sun City (which does provide jobs for a few thousand people mind you) and paid more attention to my surroundings. A hilly region covered with tall grasses, bushes, and sparsely scattered trees giving animals a minimum to conceal themselves and visitors a chance to spot the worst hiders. It was a bit chilly that morning and our guide offered us blankets to fight off the cold that a three hour ride in an open-top truck would bring. However, being Canadian, the low temperatures suited me wonderfully and I declined the blanket with a large smile while the rest of my fellow safarists looked on in awe.

First sighting of the day was a group of impalas on the side of a water hole in which two hippos were lazily wading. Next, a lonely giraffe followed by zebras, wildebeest, a large elephant, rhinos, warthogs, and even lions. The latter actually got quite close to us showing off their impressive musculature. It was amazing to see the variety and abundance of fauna only a three hour drive away from one of the world’s large metropolises. Even more amazing was the apparent calm and serenity I found myself in heavily contrasted by the violent chaos that kept me so busy back at Bara. The only violence seen here, justified by an evolutionarily selected way of life, consisted of hunting and fighting for mating privileges. For our species, easily available food has relegated hunting to a hobby and the mating ritual has in large part been completely pacified and replaced by a playfully complex behavioral system... though muscle and power can sometimes do the trick for fellow humans which may have missed an evolutionary step.

When the safari was over, I had to face the fact that my time in South Africa was coming to an end. Just one more shift and I would fly home back to a proper winter, a city I love, and family and friends that I love even more. I drove back to Johannesburg and started packing my bag with each item evoking a fond memory of my time here. Later that evening, Christine, a seasoned horse rider, her husband, and I went to a Christmas equestrian performance showcasing Lippinzaner stallions. They used to be war horses and their long training required them to accomplish technically difficult footwork and movements in formation. While my amateur self could still appreciate the complexity of their achievements, I was more mesmerized by the immaculate whiteness of their coat. Being a big Lord of the Rings fan, I was seeing a family of Shadowfaxes parading in front of me.

Then came my last shift. What had come initially has a mixture of shock and coyness in face of such an intimidating environment now was replaced by a composed efficiency. The concentrated experience I gained over the month had forced this quick transformation in response to necessity. Sink or swim. But that day, instead of just putting in a chest drain, or removing one, I looked back at this learning path I had just traced and was glad to see how much distance I had covered in such a short period. This is ultimately what I had come for: trauma experience; superficially measured in chest tubes, intubations, central lines, deaths, blood and more blood but the impalpable real experience I had gained was perceptible through my demeanor in the trauma bay, this surreal place where I was now at home. A place where dramatic distractions constantly try to rip your attention from making life saving decisions, where the incomprehensible results of human violence keep filling blood soaked gurneys, where people die, where people are saved, and where my career will hopefully last a few decades. I tied my last stitch, particularly glad with the fact that I was only one of four students out of ten who had not suffered a needle-stick injury requiring HIV prophylactic medication, washed my hands, wished the best to co-workers and left the ward with perhaps an overinflated sense of a job well done.

As I have mentioned in a previous post, us students would often go eat at Chaf Pozi, a restaurant between the Orlando Towers in Soweto. These old, massive power plant chimneys are no longer in use but they have found a new life in entertainment when a company reorganized the facilities to accommodate bungee jumping, paintball, and scad freefall. Scad freefall involves getting lifted to a certain height by a crane and then released to fall completely unattached into a net a few stories below. I have heard people say it feels like dying: I could not resist. And I concur, it felt like I was dying, but with an enormous dose of adrenaline rushing through me after getting caught by the net, it also felt absolutely amazing.  

       

Back home, I finished packing the rest of my stuff. Christine came over to pick up the keys, say goodbye and wish me well. A friend from Bara had generously agreed to take all my stuff and follow me to the BMW dealership where I had to return Shoshy before going to the airport. The weather had been threatening all day but not wanting to have to fetch my protective riding gear from the depth of my densely packed backpack for such a short ride, I took a chance and prayed for the skies to spare me… which of course they answered with the exact opposite. Not five minutes after leaving the house, the clouds emptied themselves over me and, with the additional help of the spray of other cars on the highway, soaked me through and through. When the dirty deed was accomplished, the rain stopped, as if its whole single purpose had been to teach me a lesson, and gave way to partially cloudy sunshine. The wind and sun thankfully helped dry my clothes on the remaining few kilometers to the dealership where we arrived half an hour later due to heavy traffic.

I parked Shoshy next to the side entrance, her odometer reading 4,299 kilometers more than when we had first met. She had been great with me, a fantastic mechanical companion that carried me through the splendors of South Africa and allowed me to discover so much. This trip would not have been this successful without her. I turned off the ignition and, with her last moment of wakefulness with me, thanked her and wished her a long life. My South African odyssey was now truly over; the remaining hours left on the territory a meaningless formality. My friend from Bara drove me to the Airport and a few hours later, I was in the air planning which movie I would watch and organizing my Christmas shopping strategies.

South Africa has scarred itself onto me, into me. A sometimes painful process, but as like a tattoo, a beautiful, everlasting, and symbolic branding of one’s life changing moments. The country, the people, the work, it was all what I hoped for and then some. An adventure perhaps fraught with risks such as needle-stick injuries, crime, or motorcycle accidents, but oh so worth it. Nothing is risk free. It is up to you to adequately discover yourself, discover who you are, what you are, and how you wish to live your life. No one is going to find out for you. And once you feel you have gained a certain self understanding, it will be easier to weigh the pros and cons of important decisions and figure out when the benefits outweigh the risks of enterprises deemed hazardous by others. I for one was ready to risk contracting HIV. The life is yours, the choice is yours. And if shit hits the fan, no bitching allowed, deal with it. South Africa was risky but phenomenal and often with things that can be bad for you like alcohol or women, they are wonderfully addictive, and if you chose right… phenomenal.

This is the end, beautiful friend.

Cheers folks,

TF