Wrapping up Oudtshoorn (Read: long overdue blog post)

So, after getting around and doing a whole bunch of stuff at the arts festival in Oudtshoorn, I've finally caught up to my own shenanigans and can take a bit of a blogging breather. My lack of a suitable Internet signal in Oudtshoorn was rather aggravating and caused me and my laptop to have a bit of a row, but things are all good now and I'm happily blogging away from my fortress in Cape Town.

By spending a whopping four nights in town, Oudsthoorn has officially been my longest stop in the Garden Route backpacking trip, even topping my three-night stay in Knysna.

And for two out of four, I snuggled up inside this tent:

The one at the back. I call it “the blue dwarf”.

Note to self: tents suck. At least I invested in a jolly nice sleeping bag, but it's still not all that preferable to, say, a jolly nice couch. You're basically sleeping on the ground. Sure, there's a few layers of plastic and warm microfiber fancymabobs that allow you to pretend that you're not sleeping on the ground. But no, really: you just are.

My fortress of solitude. And discomfort.

I don't mind the size of the tent (I don't really intend to share it with anyone in the near future), but I really do wish that there was an affordable way to guarantee comfort that's a few levels above “horrifically abrasive rock”. For now, I'm improvising with stuffing dirty clothes under the mattress. But this does, of course, mean that I end up sleeping on dirty clothes. Hmm.

Camping gets a firm 4/10 for me. It admittedly affords me far more privacy than I've actually had in the last three months. It's also cheaper than most other solutions: I got the tent and bag for just over R350, so a week of camping instead of dorm beds means that it actually ends up paying for itself. And it's an absolute lifesaver when there's nowhere else to sleep anyway.

But for the love of giant chickens, I do not want to sleep like this if there's any other realistic options at hand. Ever. That is my final word on the matter.

And so, to wrap up my blatherings about Oudtshoorn, I'd like to show you one of the prettiest sights in the area: the Outeniqua Pass between Oudtshoorn and George.

Now imagine seeing this with your eyes instead of through a crappy camera lens.

It's a fantastic view that's offered to anybody travelling between the two locations – there's even a few lookout locations along the pass where people can pull up their vehicles and admire the view a little.

And with that, I say bye-bye to Oudtshoorn. I'm glad that I had the opportunity to visit.

Kunstefees highlights

Writing this blog post is almost embarrassing. One: I only spent about one and a half days at the KKNK in Oudtshoorn. I probably have one of the least thorough assessments of this event in the history of ever ever. Two: there is way too much stuff going on. It's impossible to dictate all the cool things I did and saw in a mere 36 hours. So I offer you a few humble highlights so that I can at least rest easy in the knowledge that I made some sort of half-arsed effort at documenting my experiences.

First on my List of Cool Things™ is the music group Zamar, who deliver a sound which I shall simply describe as “gypsy music stuff”. I'm a bit of a musical heathen, so don't ask me for any proper definitions.

Tell me that this doesn't look gypsy. I dare you.

I first heard these guys while I was sitting in an Oudtshoorn cafe (sipping mineral water and pretending to be posh, of course). Their sound immediately grabbed me and I was moved to sit down and chat with them after their performance.

Zamar consists of a bunch of Stellenbosch students who decided to get together and make something a little different from the run-of-the-mill Afrikaans pop music and doof-doof-doof club sounds that have pretty much saturated the local market. They've been touring the country for some time now, building up a fan base and even winning awards for their performances at events like the KKNK. Not only are they different, but their lack of emphasis means that they're effectively language-neutral, so pretty much everybody can enjoy the music.

Also, they have a rad Website. Much respect to a group who knows the IT haxx.

Now, music aside: one of the main drawcards for the arts festival (in my opinion) was the open market filled with some of the most absolutely cool stuff in existence. And by that, I mean loads of awesome food. And super-cooled relaxation tents with built-in water sprays.

It was pretty funny when they switched the valves to the “knockout gas” setting.

But seriously, you find some recipes in all this madness which are probably unique to the festival: stuff like mint-flavoured nougat, mint-flavoured pizza cones and mint-flavoured baby elephants. You know, the good stuff. I broke my noodle diet once again to sample some of these wares. It was glorious. Budget-killing, but glorious.

As it so happened, I was carrying my devil sticks around with me at the time (let's all say it together now: not a tool of Satan) and a little birdie told me that there was actually a stick juggler wandering around the KKNK market. I enthusiastically hunted said juggler down in the hopes that I could bump into El Rondo again.

I ended up running into another juggler instead. His name was Nico, he had a shop in Knysna and he recognised my sticks as El Rondo's work, so we sat down to chat for a little while. Our conversation brought to my attention the harsh reality of festival markets everywhere: if you're even a paltry two stalls down from the high-traffic paths, you're going to get screwed over for customers. A pity: I tried out some of the sticks myself, and they were pretty well-made.

Enough sticks to choke a giraffe. The moral: buy sticks, save giraffes.

In closing: I totally got to ride in a Toyota along an off-road hazard course.

AWESOME.

Enough said. Post over.

My gunsteling Kunste ... er ... ding

Ons kan nou 'n lekker ... aw, heck, my Afrikaans is waaaay too crummy for all of this.

So I've just touched down in Cape Town after visiting Oudtshoorn for a few days. My expedition has been filled with art, giant chickens and Afrikaans. Loads of it.

Pic related. Sorta.

Oudtshoorn plays host to an annual arts festival known as the Klein Karoo Nasionale Kunstefees. As you may have guessed, it's very, very Afrikaans. And I'm very, very English. In fact, I'm the sort of guy who could walk the streets of London and get accosted by random locals who only want to tell me just how damn English I am. Yeah, it's that bad.

Some may be tempted to suggest that I'm exaggerating. Verily, I deny this with damning evidence: my interaction with just about every local in Oudtshoorn since I got there last Thursday is testament to the fact that I cannot utter a word to – nay, cannot even stand within six feet of – an Afrikaans-speaking individual without them immediately switching to English on my behalf.

Even Egg Hat Guy was on to me.

I tested this over and over while wandering around the festival's main market. Shopkeepers, stall owners and passers by all chatted in a flurry of Afrikaans until approximately 0.034 seconds after I'd entered the immediate vicinity, at which point a little switch would flip in their head and instruct them to address me in English. It didn't matter whether or not I even said anything. They just started talking in English. Was a gigantic “I'm useless with the Afrikaans language” sign taped to my back the whole day? I dunno. I was hanging about with actual British people most of the time (comes with the backpacking territory), and even THEY got greeted in Afrikaans. There is no justice.

Another inappropriate picture placement. Enjoy.

Language barriers aside: the KKNK is absolutely bloody terrific. Oudtshoorn is like the Afrikaans mirror city of Grahamstown: it's small and pretty much situated in the middle of nowhere, but it can throw a damn epic festival. On every street corner you'll find stuff for sale, music halls, art exhibitions and strange people wearing gigantic egg hats (see above). The festival organisers even set up a freaking funfair complete with rides and candyfloss. All of this combines to make Oudtshoorn seemingly spring to life overnight.

Before and after. Those rent-a-crowd guys are pretty damn efficient.

I'll scribble out another post soon to point out just a few personal highlights from the day or so I've been at this fest – to incorporate all of my experiences in this humble blog would be a bit of a mission, I'm afraid.

Giant chickens and giant holes in the ground

Oudtshoorn is famous for its giant chickens. Heck, the settlement's treatment of these birds borders on worship. Their names, images and products are featured on signposts, inside cornershops and are scattered around an endless number of tourist traps within the area

OH NO HELP PLEASE THEY'RE EVERYWHERE BLAAARGH.

These large and gracious birds are a major source of meat in the area. Biltong, sausages and even steaks are sold in the giant chicken variety. I actually gave in one evening and indulged in a nice ostrich steak supper – my second departure from instant noodles in these past two weeks.

Shortly after I took this picture, my wallet leaped up and stabbed me in the neck.

I also went to a local giant chicken farm where I went on a guided tour to explore the world of giant chickens. It was great: not only did I learn much about these massive birds, but I even got to ride one of them. Of course, I couldn't quite manage a piccie from the beast's back because I was a little too busy holding on for dear life at the time. So here's a picture of giant chicken eggs instead:

Easily the biggest chicken eggs I've ever seen.

Aside from giant chickens, Oudtshoorn is also quite well known for the Cango Caves. Ever since playing Spelunky a week or so back, I've been rather geekily inspired to do some cave exploration and had a pretty cool hour and a half on the Cango “Adventure Tour”.

There's some rather tight places. Great for posing, though.

These caves were formed about sixty billion million quadzillion years ago, and a bunch of chemical reactions mixed up with water droplets and a whole bunch of science stuff that I don't understand leads to some amazing sights and very pretty rock formations. Here's my favourite piccie from the experience (and possibly the only one which any reasonable human being could make out):

Bonus points for not being covered in graffiti.

So yeah, cool stuff. I'll be blogging a little about Oudtshoorn's arts festival after this, then I'll hop on a bus to Cape Town to meet up with some friends. Coke Zero Fest awaits.

Curse you, vile Internet

If 3G exists around here, it's sure as hell doing a good job of avoiding my phone at the moment.

Blogging has become rather heinously difficult at the moment. Timeouts, disconnections and killer crocodiles are making my online life a bit of an IT purgatory.

So I'm just going to write up some stuff in the background and post it all up when I hit Cape Town. You can relax for now ... though if I don't put something up by Monday, it probably means that I've been eaten by an ostrich or something. Nice knowing you.

Oudtshoorn (Part one of eleventy-six)

So, a day or so back I hopped onto the Baz Bus, radically changed my plans and took a shuttle to Oudtshoorn for a few days instead of going with my original George – Mossel Bay – Swellendam idea. Then I arrived in Oudtshoorn, realised that I'd stumbled in just before the annual Kunstefees (good luck, international readers) and decided to stay for a few days longer.

I'm currently residing at Backpacker's Paradise. It is damn awesome. Before now, my favourite residence was pretty much the Dijembe lodge in Storms River, but this place blows it right out of the water. With dynamite.

Well, dynamite and African charm.

Backpacker's Paradise really lives up to its namesake. This place is apparently ranked as one of the top ten in the country, but it's still a respectable R90 a night and offers pretty much everything you'd expect for twice the price. It has the typical game room, bar and lounge area, but also sports an itty-bitty swimming pool (though it may just be a really large jacuzzi), a nice garden and even its very own curio shop (I absolutely despise African curio shops, but it's a nice touch anyway).

Backpackers get discounts on just about every tourist attraction in Oudtshoorn. Doubly awesome because this Klein Karoo settlement has been by far the cheapest way for me to see sights and go on adventures. Instead of paying hundreds for a single shoddy expedition, I'm able to do a lot of genuinely interesting stuff for around R50 a pop. And if you successfully prove that a crocodile at the Wildlife park has chewed off one of your limbs, you could probably negotiate a complete refund too.

So, with all this awesomeness there absolutely must be a steep downturn when it comes to facilities, right? Wrong. Even the dorms have en-suite bathrooms and quite possibly the largest beds out of any backpacker establishment that I've stumbled upon so far.

No commentary here: just soak in the magnificent view.

These beds are pretty damn fantastic. They get 9.5 out of ten. Minus half a point because one of the blankets isn't quite to my liking – screw you, blanket.

Unfortunately, the massive popularity of this place combined with the looming Kunstefees spells doom for my hopes of staying in the dorm beyond a few precious hours this morning. I was only able to book a two-night stay (they're otherwise fully booked until April 11th) but using my resourcefulness, roguish charms and map-reading ability, I was able to secure myself a tent and sleeping bag from a nearby shop for a grand total of only R350. Now I'll be camping at the lodge for a few extra days at a considerably reduced rate – go me!

I sure hope that the tent gets a bit bigger once I've pitched it.

I'm looking towards my camping plan tonight with a mixture of excitement and apprehension. Mostly apprehension. In fact, I don't know how excitement even crawled in there. I seem to vaguely recall a total and all-consuming hatred for camping. But at least it'll be cheaper.