Easy Rider - Zanzibar is generally flat with well-maintained tarred roads. (Andrew Thompson)

Zanzibar, well known for its feet-up package resorts, long white beaches and spectacular marine life, offers far more than the 10-night-per-personsharing deals that dominate tourism brochures, particularly when you tackle it without a plan and from the seat of a bicycle.

LoverGirl and Refinement are fairly unlikely names for bicycles. But, surprisingly, they were a particularly good fit for two that Babu, the shifty Stone Town tour operator, wheeled out before us.

Far from the multispeed, shock-absorbing mountain bikes he had promised us earlier, these hefty, classic bicycles were things of mass-production beauty, brimming with practicality and fully deserving of their elaborate titles.

I hopped on to LoverGirl and took her for a quick test ride down the busy beachfront road. Her matt-black steel tubes dipped and flowed effortlessly between her curved handlebars and oversized spring-supported foam seat; a shrill bell resting just before my left thumb harmonised with the screech of the brakes, and looked strangely appropriate alongside a grey plastic carrying basket below. A sturdy luggage rack above the back tyre would be just big enough to carry my daypack, and the kickstand below the perfect pedestal from which to show off her ironic beauty. I was sold.

Most importantly, though, the single gear allocated to us by the Chinese bicycle factory was just right — loose enough, it turned out, to get us over most inland hills, stiff enough to coast comfortably along the sandy beaches and coastal flats. These were bicycles to behold and, after bonding with LoverGirl all the way to the southern tip of Zanzibar, over nine days and 100km, I simply didn’t want to give her back.
The night before we had emptied our large backpacks on the floor of the humble Princess Salme Inn, a stone’s throw away from the busy port, and repacked everything into small daypacks. Only the most essential items survived: underpants, shorts, tees, a few toiletries and cameras; the rest was stashed far under the inn bed, to be collected on our return.

Dirty cheap
After much haggling with Babu over the daily rental rate of the bicycles, we eventually settled on 8 000 shillings, about $5, a day, and I was glad to leave the beautiful bustling alleyways of Stone Town. We headed straight to a row of cars on the beach- front, half-heartedly bartered with a self-proclaimed taxi driver and for 35 000 shillings asked him to take us and our newly acquired bicycles as far north as possible.

As far north as possible turns out to be Nungwi, which, if you read between the lines of your travel guide, is not much more than a ­rundown hedonistic haunt. Drug- peddling beach boys outnumbered us at the local bar, and our two-bed bungalow was the epitome of dirt cheap — a place to rest your head after a day of sun and booze, and nothing much more.

Despite this, we felt obliged to contribute towards Nungwi’s slow deterioration, and even though we were still a few weeks away from the start of Zanzibar’s peak season, six mzungus (white people), a few dozen Tusker beers, and a dozen interested locals and beach boys managed to push through to a 4am beach party with little effort. December must be pandemonium.

The next morning, over pale omelettes, stale bread and fly-speckled strawberry jam we hedged our bets on cleaner beaches and better accommodation elsewhere on the island and moved on, despite our growing hangovers. Where to, though, we were not exactly sure.

If you peer at Zanzibar from above, as we did frequently on the poorly scaled promotional map we had pocketed in Stone Town, you would be forgiven for thinking it to be a fairly large land mass. Look at it next to her sister Tanzania, and mother Africa, and you will realise how small she really is. The reality is that the island is just 108km north to south, and less than a third of that wide.

Zoom in on Google Maps, and you will see that it is generally flat and equipped, by and large, with well-maintained tarred roads. An ­accomplished cyclist could ride north to south in an hour or two. We, on the other hand, being far from accomplished and in no rush, had allocated nine full days.

Taking it easy
Every village we cycled through greeted us with typical East African warmth, and it was not long before we had learnt a handful of Kiswahili phrases to throw around in response. Kiswahili, the dominant dialect on the island — popularised and bastardised by Disney throughout the Lion King ­– is a magnificent flowing, singing language.

Punchy vowel-ending words like mambo, poa, rafiki and asante roll off even the most tone-deaf tourists’ tongues with ease. But if there is one Kiswahili phrase you should take to heart, as a stressed and hurried mzungu, it is pole pole.

Directly translated, it means “slowly slowly”; in application, it really means “Take it easy, friend, you’re on a tropical island.”

It was advice we took to heart as we wound our way inland from the northwestern shores towards the east coast over the next two days and, with distances so short, there hardly seemed any point in rushing.

The tropical vegetation, interrupted by stark baobabs and the occasional subsistence banana plantation, thickened as the road rose and fell gently through small inland villages. Excited greetings rang out from crisply dressed schoolchildren, their mothers watching silently from the shadows of their roadside homesteads.

The wholesome scent of cloves, nutmeg and cinnamon drifted up from drying mats ­alongside and sometimes in the road, and, right before us, the Spice Island came to life.

A few nights into the trip we had been offered two suites in a swanky four-star resort, the result of airplane small talk. Travelling with light wallets, it was an offer hard to refuse, despite it going against our ­resort-free intentions.

Stagnant surrounds
Yet despite the efficient air ­conditioning, an unnecessarily large two-shower, one-tub bathroom, a large four-poster bed, free shampoo, a deep-blue swimming pool, an open bar and free meals, I was strangely happy to move on early the next morning. Resort life might be bearable if you are a honeymooner looking life down the barrel, or a husband and wife looking to lose the kids in the games room while you cavort in the Indian Ocean, but greeting the same fellow South Africans at the lukewarm breakfast buffet each morning for 10 consecutive days can, I imagine, get fairly stagnant.

As we checked out the next ­morning I tried to ascertain the best way to get to our next stop, a small place called Pingwe. One of two ­villages located on the Michamvi Peninsula, Pingwe sticks out ­alongside the east coast like the baby finger on your right hand. And so to take the main roads, as recommended, would mean cutting inland and adding a few dozen kilometres to our ride and putting paid to our beach-riding dreams.

I thanked the staff at reception, and we quietly wheeled the bikes out of the air-conditioned haven in the opposite direction — away from the entrance gates leading to the main road, and over the short pathway to the beach.

The viscid sand beneath our over-inflated tyres was just firm enough to withstand the weighty bicycles, making going tough but not impossible as we zigzagged in and out of the shallows down the postcard-perfect east coast. Large palm trees ripe with coconuts loomed large yet peaceful to our right; to our left, multiple shades of turquoise stretched out as far as the distant coral reef; and before us the small slither of the peninsula — our target –grew slowly bigger.

When the beach turned to sharp shards of rock we retreated to the main road and, when we ran out of that, we rolled into the fishing village of Chwaka. The wisest and oldest man at the fish market knew just how to help and 20 minutes later we were bobbing across Chwaka Bay on a wooden dhow with an outboard motor on the back. The bikes slotted in perfectly on either side, and 30 minutes later we had successfully circumvented half a day’s inland detour.

The beach cycling over the next few days only got better. Somewhere just outside the village of Paje we cycled past two Dutch girls we had met briefly in Stone Town, and ran into again in Nungwi, and so stopped for a cold Coke and pizza — the unofficial dish of the island, thanks to its surplus of Italian expatriates. We continued onwards but eventually grew tired of cycling and, on the recommendation of two young German ladies catching rays on the beach, pulled into Teddy’s Place, a small unpretentious backpackers guesthouse just outside town.

Letting loose
While Paje teeters dangerously on the edge of Nungwi-ism, it is still clinging valiantly to its island charm, at least in the off season. It comes alive on the weekends when tourists, locals and staff from the various backpackers and tour companies converge on one of three bars looking to shake a leg on the beach-sand dance floors.

It is on these dance floors that cultures blend and inhibitions are lost. At some stage during a night at the popular Jambos Beach Bar, a lanky Masai male adorned in a traditional red cloth put down his cigarette and beer, attempted to do the limbo under his long fighting stick, consistently collapsing in a drunken heap before he even reached the pole.

The next night, our barman from the backpackers drank heavily alongside us, fez still firmly affixed to his small round head. And throughout both nights, young European girls would disappear into the darkness of the beach, freshly wooed by smooth-­talking Zanzibari men.

During the days we sailed out in a patchwork dhow to the coral reef, where we snorkelled above the bustl­ing tropical aquatic world until our legs tired and our lungs burned. We lazed on the beach and in the various hammocks located throughout Teddy’s, and spoke in broken English about nothing in particular with the myriad international students, volunteers and travellers passing through the small beach town. And without even realising it, in just a few days, pole pole had become a way of life.

Eventually, though, we strapped our backpacks on to the rear-wheel luggage racks for the last time, bade farewell to our Paje friends, and began the final push to Zanzibar’s deep south. We got lost, for the first time that trip, but after cycling through a ghost resort long since abandoned, and carrying our bikes up an eroded hillside, we emerged just outside Kizimkazi, located alongside perhaps the most picturesque waters we had seen so far, best known for their dolphins.

So it made sense that the next morning — the sunrise sky still a mixture of salmon pink and fiery orange — I found myself sitting aboard a boat speeding out to sea. We had swum out into the ocean to meet an energetic pod of dolphins, but when we tired, summoned a boat to take us closer to the action.

Jumping in
“Here, take these,” a young Canadian, the only paying customer on the boat, shouted over the hum of the motor, handing me a mask and snorkel. “Get ready to jump in … Go, now!”

I clumsily flopped over the edge of the gliding boat, hitting the water with an ungainly splash, and immediately came eye to eye with one of half a dozen bottlenose dolphins, an arm’s length away. They swirled and chattered excitedly around me, eyeballing this strange new intruder, before straightening out, nonchalantly flicking their flukes, and disappearing into the dark-blue waters ahead.

We swam with and alongside them for half an hour that morning, taking it in turns with the single mask and snorkel to drop in quietly among them.

As new pods appeared, others dived so deep they vanished from sight. Mothers cradled babies and circled down to safety, while others cunningly snuck up behind us, blasting water from their blowholes to gain attention. They seemed to relish our attention as much as we did theirs, until eventually Kizimkazi’s resort tourists had finished their breakfast buffets and hopped aboard their boats, turning the waters into a dolphin feeding frenzy.

Later that morning we took a ­gentle cycle into the village. We propped the bikes on their stands at the roadside and waited for a dala dala, flatbed trucks converted into taxis, which would fast-track us back to Stone Town. For just a handful of shillings our bicycles were hoisted on to the roof and we took our places beneath them among smiling locals and buckets overflowing with fresh fish.

Through the open sides of the truck I watched the many faces of Zanzibar pass me by, from blue oceans speckled with wooden dhows to dense deep-green tropical forests, right through to dusty main roads and, eventually, the beautifully chaotic outer limits of Stone Town.

We returned LoverGirl and Refinement to Babu’s office after reflective sundowners on the balcony of Africa House, among dozens of camera-wielding tourists scrambling to capture the perfect Zanzibar sunset on their cameras and phones.

Ironically, we managed to bump into the two Dutch girls again, for the fourth time, and over Serengeti, Tusker and Safari beers we shared tales and bragged about our respective highlights until the sun disappeared, and the daily Zanzibar load-shedding cast a strange sense of calm and tranquility over the city.

The next day in the sticky Stone Town departures hall I bumped into an old schoolfriend and his pretty young wife. They were fresh and tanned from a romantic seven-day honeymoon and, as we compared notes about our respective trips, I looked hard for a glint of jealousy in his eye, as he no doubt did in mine. But as I looked around at my fellow passengers lining up to enter the red shuttle back to reality, I noticed that ­everyone was beaming ear-to-ear smiles, regardless of whether they had spent a week sipping cocktails at the resort swimming pool or sitting on the back of an old Chinese bicycle called LoverGirl. And that, really, was all that mattered.

A short, stocky man fills the gap to this small enclave of the waiting room, blocking out what little natural light was peeking through the frosted doors at the front. He holds out a right hand and offers a meaty shake – the kind that’s difficult to grip.

Ronny Ackers is by all accounts a pretty solid bloke. Thick-set, bordering on paunch. But for a 62-year-old man, who’s just been called back from retirement, he looks surprisingly good. Thin, rectangular-framed glasses sit comfortably on his wrinkling round face, in front of a pair of eyes desperate to share stories. He exudes a warm, unpretentious air, and walks and talks with palpable purpose. Tucked under his left arm is an A4 folder bearing the logo of ICSA – the Independent Crematorium Company of South Africa.

‘Let’s talk in here,’ he says, striding into an unoccupied office. At least a dozen bunches of colourful fake flowers, wrapped in plastic, are stacked high on the desk. Ronny slides the folder out from underneath his arm and drops it on the table. And there, halfway down, towards the spine, standing out against the glossy white card, are a few light specks of blood.

He pulls up a seat on the opposite side of the table but looks uneasy, restless, and before long, he’s up and standing, thumbing through a small pile of enlarged, laminated photographs.

‘You see…’ he says, plucking a blurry picture from the folder. It’s a head shot of a young girl. Late 20s, probably. Killed in a motorcycle accident. Her hair, long and liquorice black, is wild and haggard and splayed on the slab behind her. What little is left of her face reveals an expression of utter terror. Her white teeth stand out from her lipless mouth above the deep red and fleshy pink that otherwise overwhelm the photograph. ‘…you must clean up all this with tweezers…’ he continues, his deep voice now a distant echo in the small office. ‘…and get all the old pieces of metal, or whatever, is in there…’ He drags his stubby index finger over the photograph, indicating exactly where he means. ‘Then,’ he continues, ‘You actually start filling up the facial cavities with wax. Where necessary you’ll stitch it up – where you can get the skin together. And of course, now,’ he says, sliding a new picture out of the folder, ‘That is the result.’ And, whether because of the restoration, or the fact that he’d covered the last picture, a small amount of the grief and horror that had flooded the room dissipates, as he reveals the photograph of her almost irreparable face post-reconstruction – smooth, bloodless, with slightly rosy cheeks, but disturbingly un-human.

It’s not ideal. Even the faces of the dead reveal emotion, and, ideally, when you’re looking at a face in a coffin, you want you want it to radiate peace and tranquillity. But this isn’t the movies, and these results are pretty much impossible to achieve, especially in South Africa, Ronny tells me, where the latest latex and reconstruction materials and colourings are replaced with a few jars of wax and a can of spray paint.

Ronny acknowledges this: ‘What the family must expect, is that you’re never going to get a person looking 100%,’ he mentions later that afternoon. Especially not in the severe accident cases. In many these, he has to encourage the family not to view the body, for the sheer horror of it all, but, he says, ‘You can’t say no. Some people are very adamant – they want it done. We are there to provide a service, and you do it to the best of your ability.’ This is all in reference to a story about a young boy who was brought to him by his distraught family after he was hit by a bus. ‘They forced me to open that coffin…’ he says, his firm tone wavering for the first time.

And so it becomes clear that his role is not to create wax models that could stand proudly in a Madame Tussauds exhibit – as much as he’d like to. Restorative artists, as they are euphemistically known, typically have a maximum of 12 hours, and very limited resources, to make it bearable for the family to have one last look at their loved one. And it’s seldom about religious conventions or cultural practices – most people who request his work simply want to say goodbye to a face that’s recognisable and vaguely tolerable.

‘And this is a different case.’ He pulls another laminated photograph from the pile, breaking the momentary silence. ‘That’s a lady. She’s been hit with a crowbar.’ The horror floods back into the room, as the picture drains what little normality had clawed its way back. ‘They broke into her house and they killed her. They ripped her hair right off her head.’ He doesn’t linger on this one – he’s eager to reveal the After photograph. Once again he explains the processes behind this specific restoration.

The first task is to pull together and suture whatever skin he can, offering some sort of foundation on which to build up various features. The sutures are covered with the malleable restorative wax, which goes on hot and hardens when cooled, and it is this wax that is shaped to recreate cheekbones, eye sockets, ears and jaws. In the background of the picture there’s a can that wouldn’t look out of place in a graffiti artist’s arsenal. There are limited colours available, so the art of achieving a realistic colouring lies in the blending process. ‘You start with the pink like that, and you work up towards the nose. You work up… you blend up…’ he says, illustrating on his own face. ‘Because the darker shade is always at the back of the head.’ After that, Ronny will add a touch of base and basic make-up to remove the shine of the wax, only adding lipstick and bold eye shadow on express request. ‘And then, of course,’ he says, reaching for the longer hair at the base of my neck, ‘I took the hair off the back of her head here to give some eyebrows.’ He gives my mullet a little tug. ‘Just from the back.’

Some cases, he says, are easier than others, and he’s most relieved when a body comes in with at least half a face to work with. Such is Ronny’s enthusiasm for the job, that it’s not hard to imagine him peeking excitedly under the sheet, hoping for some features to work with. Using a photograph of a young man who was dragged under a truck to illustrate how much it helps, he points out exactly how he was able to use the unaffected side of his face to recreate the other, which he says was nothing but jelly – even the eye of the deceased had to be put back into the socket. But, he says, he’s not always so lucky – ‘if you haven’t got any part of the face, then you’ll ask the family for a photograph. A recent one, I mean – some people are ridiculous. They’ll give you a photograph of the guy when he was 19 years old, and today he’s 60-odd. You know?’

Ronny has always been a hands-on kind of guy. He’s done his time in the army as a paratrooper, and then nine years in the navy. But it was his first job post-navy that got him into the funeral industry, when he used his original training as a carpenter to build coffins in the funeral home’s on-site factory. But he soon found himself intrigued with the mysterious workings taking place at the back. ‘I used to be inquisitive,’ he says. ‘What’s going on in the morgue? And I peaked in.’ It wasn’t long before he was caught with his head around the door, and before he knew it, he was dragged into the mortuary to work on the recently deceased.

Soon he found himself deeply entrenched in the workings of the morgue, and he spent the next 36 years embalming bodies and performing post-mortems. It was a slow journey to the top, but eventually he learnt the skills to become one of the region’s most respected restorative artists – the position that he still holds today.

Ronny laughs when he talks of his early days as a facial re-constructor – his first job was a royal disaster. He was tasked with rebuilding a collapsed cheekbone, a process he thought would be fairly simple. He filled the cavity with wax, and handed the restored body over to the undertaker to rush it through to Belville, where the ceremony was taking place. But in his haste, the undertaker failed to adequately anchor the body to the coffin, and en-route to the funeral, it slid around inside. ‘Thank god the undertaker opened the coffin before the family did, because it was for visitation. When he opened it, half of the wax had fallen out of the hole where I put it. There was one massive hole on the side of the face and half of the ear had fallen off,’ he chuckles gently. ‘Imagine what would’ve happened if the family… if he didn’t open it before that? That had my heart throbbing!’

They do offer a basic introductory course in the art of dealing with dead bodies, but, according to Ronny, you can read all the books you like – if you don’t have the stomach for the morgue at the back, you ain’t gonna cut it. Too many people, he says, come along to job interviews thinking ‘Lekker, I’m gonna sit and learn, I’m gonna drive a hearse’, not realising the crap they’ll have to deal with day in, and day out. But it took Ronny no more than a few weeks to get used to dealing with dead bodies, and it seems you either have it or you don’t: ‘I’ve had guys that have come from the ambulance station. There might be body parts that have been picked up next to the railway line and have been put in black bags. And on a Monday morning I would send them down to the state mortuary to go and fetch the deceased.’ Most of them, he says, don’t bother to come back.

The accident cases, he says, are the worst. ‘They look terrible, some of them. There are cases where you can’t do anything to the face. You know, there was a guy who went through a shredder machine and… the family wanted to view him. Now that was impossible.’ In those cases, he says, they’ll take the oldest and strongest relatives to view the body, and in this specific case, the relative was adamant: ‘No, no. No ways,’ he told Ronny. ‘The coffin stays closed.’

But somehow Ronny is able to cope with all this death just fine; he’s truly integrated the profession into his everyday life, and he’s not ashamed to speak of how much he enjoys the challenges associated with it all. He has coping mechanisms, but these are surprisingly simple. He speaks fondly of his band, The Savage Eye, that used to be his principle escapism tool in the early days. Their crowning moment, he tells me proudly, came when they won a battle of the bands at the old Three Arts Theatre in Retreat, over The Idiots and The Flames. This band broke up a few years ago as everyone went their own ways, but ‘now,’ he says with a glint in his eye, ‘I’ve got a garden full of gnomes and dwarfs and ornaments that I’m busy with all day.’ He pauses. ‘And, I do embalming after hours.’

With that, Ronny hops up from the chair. ‘Come, let me show you the back’. He leads me through the still, stark, concrete courtyard, past a small fleet of shiny black hearses, and into a small room just a few metres from the reception area in which I had waited a few hours ago. As soon as we enter, the sharp smell of formaldehyde and ethanol rises rapidly up my nostrils, swirls around violently in my head, and leaves me reaching out to the wall for support. The shrill ring of a telephone perched in the middle of the room echoes throughout the hollow morgue, and a man wearing a plastic apron quietly shuffles over to answer it. Ronny points out the slab where they do all their work, and the crude tools they use in the process, and then casually pops open the fridge door – home to a few dozen bodies, tightly wrapped in white plastic bags, most already coffined.

I forced a grimace in an attempt to match Ronny’s smile, and thanked him for his time. I shook his meaty hand and walked out through the reception area, past the sympathetic receptionists, towards the bright sunlight filtering through the door. I pushed it open, stepped gingerly into the sticky midday heat, and headed towards the chaotic main road ahead as I tried hard to shake the images from my cluttered head.

Feeling the financial pinch but still want to get away these holidays? Or perhaps you just love the idea of home comforts at your holiday destination? House-swapping is now a big thing in global travel, and South Africa’s not trailing too far behind…

Download the full article in PDF format here…

Before 1994, townships were generally regarded as off-limits to tourists. Most guidebooks described them as dangerous slums overrun by poverty and despair – to be avoided at all costs. But over the last 16 years these myths have slowly been debunked, thanks largely to a new breed of innovative entrepreneurs who’ve made their own back yards surprisingly enticing and accessible.

Brief township tours conducted from the comfort of semi-luxury, air-conditioned vehicles have been popular for some time now. However, it makes more sense to step out of the tour bus and into a more interactive experience, including overnight stays. Weekend trips are now the best way to have a township tourism experience, and around the country tourists are flocking to shebeens, craft markets, cultural shows, exhibits, museums and overnight accommodation to truly drink in everything that these fascinating places have to offer.

Download the full article in PDF format here…

He’s been staying here for two and a half weeks. Which is probably the reason he only bothered to get out of bed at 2PM today. “Starting Tuesday,” he tells me, “I’m going to look for an apartment. I hope to find a lady, settle down, and then start working.” But he says it with this unconvincing, lost look in his eyes, which struggle to fix onto anything for more than a few seconds. “So far though,” he continued, “I haven’t had any action.” I wasn’t exactly sure what he meant by action. “So…” he paused. “It’s not going so well.”

He seems anything but ambitious, but he tries hard to assure me otherwise. “I want to visit New York, Orlando, California…” But his exploring is not off to a great start – he’s yet to venture outside of the clutches of South Beach. “The climate,” he tells me. “That’s the only reason why I’m here.”

Damien tells me he runs a website. But getting anything more than a sentence out of him is difficult. It’s a news site he tells me. It’s called Whatsthecraic. Apparently, according to Urban Dictionary, “Craic” is an Irish word for fun and enjoyment. The site is effectively a template based blog; and his latest story is about the Australian bush fires – which happened more than three months ago.

***

Last night we were on the way for a couple of drinks when Damien shuffled out of the Ocean View Drive shadows. He mumbled something into his chin, and motioned towards a small pile of business cards he held firmly with both hands. “Trying to make a little cash,” he said, hesitantly holding out one of the cards in my direction. “It’s for a strip club. If you call them now, they’ll come pick you up in a limo. It’s only twenty-bucks for a dance. If…If you decide to go, please tell them you got the card from me.”

***

Slouched over the hostel bar in the corner is Damien. It’s Tuesday now, my last night in Miami. He grasps a green cup with both hands watching muted commercials on the television, and as he takes his last sip he slowly slithers off the black leather bar stool, leaving the green cup sitting at the bar, and disappears back into the sanctuary of his dorm.

Originally published in Nike Iam1 Magazine

Bruno Brown sees the world through the nozzle of his spray can, and with the help of his alter-ego Rasty, he’s transformed countless dull walls and buildings into mind-blowing, thought-provoking artworks and murals. Along with his crew, Pressure Control Projects, they’ve single-handedly moved graffiti out of the shadows and into respected public spaces around the country. And even though Rasty spends many days doing commissioned graf work, he also finds the time for the odd artistic intervention or bombing spree. Maybe it heralds the end of an era, but traditionally snooty art-scene types are starting to take notice. Originally a Durban boy, Rasty now feeds off the raw Jozi energy and transforms this into living, breathing works of art that are impossible to ignore.

Where were you born?

I was born in Durban and moved to Joburg when I was about eight. I love the craziness that comes with living here, all the different types of people, the different neighbourhoods and the hustle and bustle of energy thats in the streets. Living in Joburg has taught me many valuable lessons, it has shown me that you have to take the good with the bad and be grateful for what you have. Most of important of all, it has provided me with countless canvasses to create my art on and show to the rest of the world.

How does the city inspire your work?

When you live in Johannesburg you have to be on your toes all the time, it is a financial and industrial hub and there is an intense energy driving this. People are always on a mission and if you don’t keep up you’ll be left behind. I feel this energy helps me push and challenge myself to do more and not become complacent in what I have done so far. I also think this energy comes out in my artwork, I like the rawness and aggression it brings even when I’m trying to find the funnier side to something. Joburg is also just a great place to paint, its so big and there are so many walls, especially in the CBD and the suburbs that border it. People really like and appreciate the artwork, even if just for the colour. And generally your piece will stay up until you decide to come paint over it again. This just inspires you to want to paint even more.

Did you draw on the walls in your mom’s house?

When I started Graffiti I sprayed all over my bedroom walls but after a few years it just got too much and I painted them all white. I had free reign in the garage as well.

How vibrant is the graffiti scene in Jozi right now?

The graffiti scene in Joburg is looking pretty good at the moment, its growing bigger everyday. For the first few years that I was painting it was just the same usual suspects doing stuff. They are all still painting and over recent years there has been a lot of new kids starting, and at a younger and younger age. We run a graffiti store in Joburg and we’ve started seeing kids as young as 11 coming in with their parents to buy paint. This is very promising for the scene because it means it will not be going dormant any time soon.

Do you think graf art is a continuation of the great masters like Picasso?

I think that Graffiti art through its execution in public space becomes part of our daily lives by default, so naturally the artists will draw a lot of their inspiration from their daily lives. There are so many different styles of Graffiti that one cannot say where graffiti artist’s generally get their inspiration. It’s also distinctive in that it is an art form that inspires the youth to be creative and have their say. It is this constant flow of youngsters starting graffiti that has kept it growing and evolving into the worldwide movement that it is.

Which places, spaces and landmarks inspire you?

I am especially fascinated by the architecture in the city centre. There are stark contrasts between old and new. Pristine buildings and slums, and everything in between. My favourite places in Joburg would have to be under the M1 freeway in Newtown, and Louis Botha Drive between Hillbrow and Yeoville, just because of how much graffiti there is in these areas.

Find out more about Rasty and the other Nike IAM1 Revolutionaries here.

This is all just too weird. I mean, totally fucking bizarre. There’s a woman on stilts, mammoth creaking stilts, probably 3 metres off the ground, precariously carving her way through the tables and chairs, careful not to crush the trendoids wearing small rectangular framed specks and loud shirts, however tempting it might have been. She’s dressed to the nines, and holding something in her right hand that she gives short sharp tugs on at regular intervals. A leash. One of those goddamn retractable dog leashes. And at the end of it, is a poodle. A man-sized poodle, on all fours, also 3 metres off the ground. In white garters that, from behind, looks more like a adult diaper. “Cume en Fifi”, she scolds the poor hound in a thick French accent. “Cume en!” And she gives the leash another sharp yank. On the ground below her, a young lass in a full wedding dress skips through her legs down the narrow aisle, sort of weeping, sort of flailing, into the dark depths of the hall, past a woman with 8 exposed breasts, towards massive black and white projections of vintage flicks of beautiful ditsy blonde broads with perky tits.

I glanced around the small room, trying to establish whether I’m having another one of those Tim Burton meets Fear and Loathing dreams that I’ve been trying so hard to ignore, and, more importantly, trying to decide whether I really wanted to be here. I’m interrupted mid-thought by a polite, gentlemanly waiter, with a meticulously maintained ‘tache, dressed like a bell boy with one of those red fez hats on his bean, who cracks open a free bottle of red, explains exactly how the three course dinner is going to go down, and then a little about the wonders that are soon to unfold before our eyes. He’s cool and calm but slightly on edge, and trying hard to get us to slide into the zone that you clearly have to be in to appreciate this parallel world, and so I listen intently, all while sipping politely on the pear flavoured champagne with what I think was a melted marshmallow floating on top, that we’d snatched at the door.

And then, magically, the slight, gentlemanly waiter with the fez on his bean disappeared into the abyss, and in his place slunk a big, silent oaf; not all together grotesquely massive, but somewhat impressively sized. He daintily slid a full deck of sealed playing cards from his pocket, which he silently paraded magician style in front of our sceptical eyes. And, even though I saw it coming – I’d read the Sunday Times article with all the spoilers – when the feigned magic trick turned into a front for him to rip the entire deck in half, in two solid twists of the wrists, I had to work hard on not looking too impressed.

From there, everything spun into a blur. Not because of the pear flavoured champagne with a melted marshmallow on top, or because of the generously strong Jamaican Mule sitting on the table in front of me, or even because of the free bottle of wine that was fast disappearing. But because, with this whirl of entertainment and food and excess and over-the-top that’s assaulting your eyes and penetrating your ears, it’s pretty hard not to be totally caught up.

Almost everywhere I looked there were beautiful young ladies with spectacular breasts wearing not much more than skimpy and ridiculously sexy vintage lingerie. They danced and bounced and sang and hung from the ceiling and even shimmied in flaming hoola-hoops. They sang rude lyrics and made naughty innuendoes and, to be honest, were far hotter than anything else you’ll find at Mavericks on a Tuesday night.

In between the perky boobs and sexy lingerie and increasingly unsubtle innuendoes, there were some ripped blokes as well, who tap-danced with such fury that they shook wine glasses, juggled an impossible number of skittles, and had the crowd gasping spontaneously at their outrageous and effortlessly executed stunts. Somewhere in the midst of this all that silent strong bloke reappeared and bent a solid metal rod between his teeth before tying it into an impossible knot.

By that stage everyone was licking their plates and gulping their wine, and just totally absorbed in this fantastical world swirling around them. The only brave bugger who wasn’t afraid to drop his Very Important Person or I’m From The Media guard was starting to get into it all, loudly offering assistance to the on-stage singer who was asking for sugar to be put in her bowl. Everyone else, though, was there to put up a front, and, as is the case with these stuck-up launches where you have to make small talk with half a dozen people you don’t know or care for at your table, there was none of the heckling and shouting and drunken mumbling and chatter that should really accompany a show like this. It’ll come though, I can guarantee you.

And then, just like that, almost with the click of the big French ring leader’s fingers, it was 10.45. We’d scoffed to popping point the mountain of cupcakes and Turkish Delight and brownies and fluffy marshmallows that were laid down before us, and as a green laser washed over the crowd from the legendary reopened Fez club lurking above, the night drew to a sudden end, leaving with it a slew of confused and enthralled patrons all trying desperately to shake themselves back into reality.

For more information and to book, visit www.vaudeville.co.za, or call 0861-SUPPER.

Published on Mahala.co.za

I’m pretty sure that somewhere deep inside my nasal cavity, where my nostrils enter the top of my throat, there’s a layer of ultra-fine Boschendal dust, the kind of manure-laden dirt that you don’t even know you’re inhaling until you cough it up or sneeze it out the next morning, still waiting to trickle down into my gut. The only consolation here is imagining the look of horror and disappointment on the faces of the prissy southern suburbs girls as they watched what they thought was a bronze Synergy tan trickle down the shower drain the next evening.

It was hot on Saturday; almost too hot to do anything other than moan about how hot it was. So hot that they sold out of Hunters; that the cheese on my samie I was saving for later melted before my eyes; that the gin and dry-lemon we fixed ourselves on the roof of my car tasted like it’d had 3 minutes on high in the microwave. Too hot, really, to watch the bands, or at least to enjoy them, and thus, come Saturday midday, most of the clever kids were lying on their backs in the cool Franschoek streams, rather than bobbing to the music.

Just after lunch time, Van Coke managed to pull some folks away from the holy water with a solid performance, but even the New Academics, three hours later, had to fight hard to get everyone back. Which, with another solid, energetic set, they  eventually did.

By now the festival was looking promising – people slowly filled the dance floors, the buzz around the bars increased, that ageing hippie let his kid climb the scaffolding in front of the stage, and in the distance the puke-generating theme park rides were whirring into action.

And then the MCs decided to do something about it. Never in the history of music festivals has there been such below-par MC’ing, and the looks on the seasoned Rudimentals’ faces when the whining host failed dismally to get them to start up an impromptu jam session (“You over there, play me a little something. Now you, Mr. Drummer, give me a beat. Ah… yeah…. Ah, sing something for me over there”), pretty much summed it up. The fact that she’d started her introduction of the band  by saying “Boys and girls, do I have a surprise for you”, despite the fact that the band was on the schedule and already waiting patiently behind her to start their set, just made it that much more ridiculous. If they all weren’t such gentlemen, they’d have drowned her out right then. But never mind, because the Rudis were their usual energetic, eclectic selves, and with a brief cameo from Teba, they set the tone perfectly for a solid evening.

As the late afternoon brought some relief, it seemed like there was a solid three-way tug-of-war going on between the dance tents, the main stage, the the understaffed bar. But even before Fokof had made it through their first track it became apparent the main stage would take the first round fairly comfortably. Of course aKing picked up where Fokof left off, and by then everyone was cooled off, had had a few spins in the theme park, enough to drink, and was ready to kick things off.

But then, for some godforsaken reason, Prime Circle, the original Spar commercial jingle singers, billed by the organisers as “the leading rock band in South Africa” came out, looking embarrassingly lacklustre and dated and passé, and once again all the energy drained from the main stage. Even the school girls laughed the band off when in the most sincere of tones they instructed everyone in the crowd to pull out their cellphones and lighters to wave them in the air. When they dedicated a song “to all those people out there who’ve been bullied by dickheads,” I could only chuckle into my tepid Vodka, and wonder how the fuck a band apparently struggling with self-esteem issues, and for good reason, still manages to get on the bill for festivals like these.

By then, most people seemed intent on ending up face-down in the dirt off their heads on drugs, and so just before they did the trippy dance bubbles bulged at the seams with people who didn’t give a fuck how kak Prime Circle were; they just knew they wanted to have a good time.

It was then left up to Goldfish to round off the night on the main stage. And as predictable and samey as they’ve now become, they still know how to put on a damn good show, and as they washed the crowd with their massive green laser and fun jazzy grooves, they clearly took the final round.

As limited as the appeal of sleeping in the the back of a Chico with the word Nobber scratched into the dust on the back windshield is, it eventually had to be done, as the party was stopped dead in its tracks sometime around 3am. The over-arching lack of momentum that characterised the weekend took it’s toll early the next day as well, as squinting morning-after revellers gingerly crept out of their tents in the early sunlight and silently packed up their belongings. Hardly any skottels were lit, there was no beer-swilling boytjie jamming U2′s Sunday Bloody Sunday out the back of his double dab at first light, and most of the stalls on the waste-land that were the main grounds were already packing up.

So we followed suit – Sunday’s line-up looked somewhat weak and the queue for the coffee stand significantly long. Soon afterwards, as we were traipsing through the quiet streets of Franschoek looking for something to spite our starvation, in our filthy upturned jeans, slops and tangled hair, I realised that either I’d become horribly soft, or that, despite some standout performances from a top selection of bands, a quality sound rig, and a spectacular venue, overall the festival felt fairly average, because, more than most things right then, unlike countless other local festivals, I didn’t want to travel back in time to the night before -  I just wanted a proper shower and a bed that didn’t require me to sleep with my feet sticking out the window.

Published on Mahala.co.za, pictures by Tim Hulme

As I slouched on the airport bench, my gaze kept shifting to those slot machines. I’d find myself feeling for my wallet, thinking What if?, and then deciding against it. Until, eventually, I weakened. I pulled out a 10 dollar note and lethargically shuffled over to the nearest machine. I’d only had a $2 bag of peanuts and a $3 bottle of purified tap water in the last eight and a half hours; I was entitled to splash out. I fed the note into the machine, pushed a few buttons, and shuffled back to my uncomfortable faux leather seat. Hungry and frustrated.

America will get you like that. It’ll chew you up and spit you out before you’ve had time to even digest it; something its population could take to heart on the food side of things. In a country where the average airline terminal is the size of Cape Town International, it’s easy to get lost, to lose more than your temper, and to return home more frustrated than when you left. But not if you travel smart.

Bag the best deals

The most important part of jetting around the States, and the world, is, quite obviously, booking your flights. And, if you’re like me, you’ll want to spend more money enjoying country’s spectacular sights than on getting to them.

Now more than ever, there are dozens of ways to score a seriously good price on tickets, particularly in the over-crowded, recession-weary American skies. Your best bet when trying to get your hands on these is to head through to an independent online travel search aggregator, which does all the hard bargain-finding work for you. Your instant, free and completely unbiased travel agent. While there are dozens of these sites floating around the net, each have their own pros and cons, and not all will offer you the best prices – some sneakily lump their own service charges onto the ticket prices.

Kayak.com is hands down the best out there – in seconds you can compare hundreds of different flights (and hotels, and cars, and cruises, and all-inclusive package deals). It’ll search dozens of other travel websites and aggregators, including the tried and tested (and very worthy) Travelocity, Expedia and Priceline, as well as the airlines themselves. It’ll then spit out a list of all available flights and prices, which you can narrow down according to your exact specifications. This near advert-free wonder will also warn you of all hidden costs and surcharges. If there’s a deal to be had, Kayak.com, the Google of travel, will find it for you.

Of course, tickets available through travel aggregators are still at the hands of the airlines, and to make sure you get the best price possible, choose your day and time of travel wisely. Consider booking your ticket on the day of major holidays –Thanksgiving day and the 4th of July are usually great days to travel. While patriotic Yanks are tucking into stuffed turkeys and waving miniature Star Spangled Banners under a sky lit up by excessive fireworks, you can sit smugly in your half-price airline seat knowing you’ve saved a fortune.

The dreaded “red-eye” flights are also something worth considering – flights that leave at ungodly hours often offer deep discounts. Usually because they leave at ungodly hours.

Choose the right airline

If comfort and a spot of luxury are your priorities, chances are you’re gonna have to fork up a bit more for cash. Certain airlines are now offering added luxuries, if you’re willing to shell out for them. These luxuries vary from airline to airline, but they’re usually along the lines of expedited check-in, (marginally) more legroom, seat-back televisions, and the much-revered emergency exit seats. If these are things you’re desperately in need of, be prepared to pay up to $20 (R160) on top of your ticket price.

Of course, certain airlines offer a premium product included in the (sometimes inflated) ticket price, which, if you’re tired of having your knees around your ears and an obnoxious airhostess in your ears, is often worth paying a little extra for.

JetBlue offers great service, cheap tickets, free checked baggage, and a range of in-flight comforts that many other domestic carriers in America don’t, including seat-back televisions (with a range of free cable channels and a selection of movies for purchase), free beverages and a snack or two, and often pretty decent legroom.

If you fly Southwest, in addition to free checked baggage, you might be in for a in-flight safety announcement treat, much like the now YouTube wonder David Holmes recently rapped out. (“Shortly after take-off, first things first/there’s soft drinks and coffee to quench your first. Carry-on items go under the seat/in front of you so none of you have things by your feet.”)
But the granddaddy of American domestic flying luxury must surely, and ironically, be Virgin America. Apart from surprisingly relaxing and soothing in-flight service, a rarity in most other American airlines, you can purchase quality food, additional beverages and some of the latest movies simply by swiping your credit card on the set back in front of you. Whatever you order will be quietly dropped off by your cabin crew in a matter of seconds – no pleasantries necessary. But, best of all, for just a couple of bucks, most of their planes offer in-flight WiFi, which means you can do more on your laptop than finish your hundredth game of solitaire.
Score the best seats

America’s a large place, and, including the inevitable stopovers, an east to west cost flight can easily take up to 8 hours. So it makes sense to do as much as possible to be as comfortable as possible when you eventually hop on board.

Website Seatguru.com is indispensible here – it gives you a no-nonsense detailed breakdown of nearly every airlines’ seating plans, identifying those seats that are uncomfortably close to the bathrooms, offer extra or dangerously restricted legroom or limited recline, and even those that are plagued with engine noise. Of course, if you learn that the only seat you can get is uncomfortably close to the bathroom with limited recline and deafening engine noise, checking the website might do more harm than good.

Once you’ve identified the exact seat you’d like to squeeze into, it’s time to snatch it before anyone else does. Most airlines in the US will randomly allocate you a seat when you buy your ticket, but most will allow you to change this online, and the sooner you do it, the better. This is particularly important if you’re flying with someone else – if you pitch up 5 minutes before your flight looking to reserve seats together, chances are you’ll be sitting next to a 100 kilo nacho-chomping Texan rather than your lovely girlfriend.

Americans are big, and so if you can’t get your dream seat, the next best thing is to secure an empty one next to you, so you can avoid infuriating elbow-wars and invasive rolls of fat dripping over the armrest. Your best bet here is to reserve an aisle or window seat where the middle spot isn’t yet taken, and then hold thumbs as you watch the late passengers shuffle slowly down the aisle, bulging Dunkin’ Donut bags in hand, looking for their seats.

If you’re on the tall side, you’ll no doubt be gunning for the Holy Grail of economy-class airline seats – the emergency exits. These days emergency exit seats are usually available at a premium, and are often only allocated at the airport. But they need to be filled for safety reasons, and if you’re super-friendly to the check-in folk you’re likely to get hold of one, particularly if you ask nice and early.

Being crammed into the back a tiny sardine-can of an airline might be annoying, but by far the worst part of budget American flying is walking through the increasingly ostentatious business and premium class seating before finding your seat a tenth of the size. It’s a cruel trick, designed to make us all feel cheap and jealous.

But if you have your sights set on the palatial recliners and free champagne, and you’re not prepared to pay top dollar for it, it’s worth trying your hand at a free upgrade. Your best bet, after grovelling on bended knee at check-in, is to wait until everyone has boarded, before sweet-talking the people behind the counter – if by that stage they haven’t yet filled all the seats, they may take pity on you and give you the upgrade. Alternatively, many US airlines have taken to auctioning these seats off just before boarding, at drastically reduced prices.

If all else fails, you might have to resort to the pre-takeoff switch-a-roo, and lunge for the vacant spot of your choice just as they shut the aircraft doors. Humiliating, sure, but when it means you have three seats to stretch across, who really gives a damn?

Electronic check-in

Once you’ve confirmed your prime, discounted seats, you can sit back and breathe a sigh of relief. But be sure to log on again 24 hours before the flight – it’s within this time frame that you can check-in online and print your own boarding passes, which means you can sail right past the snaking queue at the airport. If you forget to do this, fear not – most American airports now offer electronic check-in at the terminals, which means you can avoid all the technophobes fanning themselves with their new straw hats, waiting in line to do it the traditional way.

Getting free flights

It’s no secret that airlines over-allocate seating on planes – it’s a trend that’s practiced around the world. This is a good thing! If you’re on a flexible schedule, you can volunteer to be bumped from an over-booked flight. While this might mean having to hang around the airport for a few hours extra, the rewards are usually well worth it – think free round-trip flights, generous flight vouchers (up to $200 or R1600 – at least a flight and a half), and, for longer waits, access to premium class lounges and free food and drinks. Read the fine print before you agree to anything, and be prepared for things to get nasty – it’s quite likely that you’ll be wrestling with a dozen other travellers all looking for the same deal.

Hidden surcharges

These days there’s no such thing as a free lunch (or even in-flight snack), and airlines across the States are starting to introduce hefty fees and surcharges, many of which are hidden in size 8 Arial on the back of your ticket.

The obvious one to look out for here are taxes, which American’s love leaving until the last minute. Nothing in the States will include the taxes until you pay for it; that dollar Vitamin Water will miraculously jump to a dollar twenty between the fridge and the till. The same rings true for tickets, and while most airlines are upfront about the taxes, many still try to sneak them by.
All domestic airlines in the States, with the notable exception of JetBlue and Southwest, charge you to check your bags in the hold. This painful trend can easily increase the cost of your ticket by anything from 10 to 100%. Expect to pay up to $20 (R160) to check one bag, $30 (R240) for a second, and a ridiculous $125 (R1007) for a third. Ask them to check a fourth, and they may just request your kidney.

You won’t, however, be charged for any carry-on luggage you take on board, so cram whatever you’ve got into an eligible bag. But be warned – airline officials are getting increasingly strict about this, and if you try to sneak on more than one small bag and a personal item, they’ll be checked right there at the gate. If you check-in and pay for your bags online, you might be able to save a few bucks, but the old adage now rings truer than ever – it pays to travel light.

Finally, make sure you’ve got your dates right before you part with your hard-earned Greenbacks. Like the baggage fees, exorbitant date change penalties have suddenly become the in-thing for American airlines, and it’ll often make more sense to book a whole new ticket than change your existing one. Thus robbing a bargain-spotter the chance to be bumped from the flight.

Getting from the airport to hotel

So you’ve survived the city-sized airports, the sneaky airline tactics, and the $8 flat beers in the terminal restaurants, and you’re finally free to roll your bulging carry-on bag to the exit and into one of the fifty United States. One of the best things about flying into American airports is that they’re so easy to get out of; public transport to and from them tends to be hassle-free and, if you do it right, relatively inexpensive.

If you’re on a backpacker budget, your best option is to hop in a shared-ride van, the most popular of which is Super Shuttle (www.supershuttle.com). There are dozens of these big blue mini-vans waiting for you as you leave the terminal, and even though it means you’ll have to traipse to each passenger’s hotel, you’ll only be forking up around $15 (R120) for the trip. If you book ahead, they’ll also pick you up from your hotel for your return flight, usually for the same price. This door-to-door service beats the embarrassment of having your bag take up an entire seat on a crowded bus, subway or train, and it means you can use the fifty dollars you’d have spent on the cab ride for an extra Triple Whopper or ten.

It was only when I returned to New York after a 7 month roundtrip of the States, that I was brave enough to work out exactly how much cash I had left, and, more terrifyingly, how much I’d spent. Even though I’d regularly limited myself to a humble Snickers and Lays dinner, eaten in a dingy hostel corner, I’d cut it pretty fine. With just a hundred bucks in my back pocket, I boarded my homeward-bound plane and sat down in my carefully pre-selected seat, with a smile big enough to draw interest from the sweet old lady sitting across the empty seat from me. She matched my smile. “Good trip?”

Published in the Kulula in-flight magazine

But San Francisco has a lot more to offer than that corny minute-and-a-half introduction to Full House. In fact, a solid five days in the city only just gave me enough time to scratch the very top layer of this complex and fascinating city.

Much like New York, San Francisco is often defined by its public transport. Tourists queue for hours just to hang precariously off the side of the world-famous cable cars, which groan up and down the steep roads between claustrophobic suburbs; the busy streets are packed with stately historic street cars; and in-between this all are the near- zero emission buses which, if necessary, will drop you off at one of the various ferries.

So if I told you that one of the most dramatic introductions to the city was in the form of a spotless, characterless public train, you’d probably think I’m a little mad. But for around five bucks, the Bay Area Rapid Transit District (BART) system, although not nearly as touristy, offers one of the best and most functional introductions to San Francisco.

Hop into one of these trains at the San Francisco International terminal and before you have time to get through the glowing introduction in your bulky guide book, you’ll be swimming in quintessential San Fran.

This is because when you eventually pop your head above ground, you’ll find yourself spinning just south of Union Square. At almost any time of the day or night, you’ll be instantly caught up in the infectious buzz of locals and tourists flitting between some of the world’s most popular, and glamorous, retail chains, gourmet restaurants and a handful of exclusive boutiques. Hotels abound in this area, everything from the classic shoebox motel to the ultra-modern and luxurious chains, all within easy walking distance of the station.

Like many cities on America’s west coast, San Francisco has its roots in the mid-’0s California Gold Rush, when people from around the world flocked here in the hope of finding their fortunes. And when the madness subsided, people stuck around because, quite obviously, they fell in love with what surrounded them – beautiful bays, long, undulating hills, green parks and views that match some of the country’s best.

But what truly defines this period in the city’s history is its large and ever-increasing Chinese population. Now, Chinatowns are a dime a dozen throughout the States – you’ll find one in practically every city. But San Francisco lays claim to the world’s biggest outside Asia, and you can easily dedicate an entire day to wandering through its fascinating streets and alleyways while sampling some truly authentic Chinese dishes.

Fortunately, the best way to view China Town is also one of the cheapest. The San Francisco City Guides are a group of dedicated volunteers with a passion for the city, and they run up to 10 free daily walking tours in each neighbourhood and around most major landmarks and attractions. In fact, you could get to know the entire city without even paying a cent, especially if you’re not one for giving donations.

From China Town, you are in the perfect position to explore almost any part of downtown San Francisco, so I decided to continue walking down to Fisherman’s Wharf, the kitsch, tourist mecca of the coastal region. While most people will tell you this is one of those must-visit attractions, it could easily be skipped, save for one redeeming factor – just down the road is Pier 33, where up to 10 times a day you can catch a ferry to the infamous Alcatraz Island.

Sure, Alcatraz hovers dangerously close to the tourist-trap tag – after paying $26 for your ticket, you’ll be forced to have your photo taken in front of a green screen onto which the stereotypical Alcatraz image will be transposed (which will be ready for you on your return, for a paltry $22).

But there’s still something magical and mysterious about this prison and the audio tour was totally enthralling, with tales and commentary from ex-cons, warders and a variety of other people to lend it some genuine credibility.

The best part of the audio tour is that because everyone’s so enthralled in the commentary, you can hear a pin drop as you navigate the maze of cells.

I eventually wound down my day with a cup of Phish Food watching nutty swimmers stroking out into the frigid San Francisco bay before I joined the back of the queue to catch the cable car back to Union Square – just to say I had.

There really is so much to see and do in San Francisco that it can all get a bit overwhelming, and if you have the time it’s well worth visiting the Golden Gate Bridge, either on foot or via rented bicycle.

Tour guides will tell you to find something else to do on a cloudy day, but in fact they’re misinformed. It’s on the cloudiest, most miserable days that this engineering marvel oozes real character and atmosphere. It offers the most spectacular photographs under these conditions even as you battle along the narrow pathway next to swishing traffic, in the thick fog and howling winds.

But if you want to experience the city, to get a true taste, you’re better off venturing into one of the many diverse neighbourhoods, which, although less frequented by tourists, are equally fascinating.

The Mission District is one such place, and its combination of historically Spanish-Mexican families with a newly established hipster population means the vibrancy of its people overflows onto the crowded streets. In recent years it has become particularly trendy.

But the real jewel in the crown of The Mission is a block-long alley, squeezed just off 24th Street, aptly named Balmy Alley. This short stretch of road is home to San Francisco’s greatest and most concentrated collection of hand-painted murals. There’s barely a blank spot on the walls, fences and doors, and, if you time it right, you can have the experience all to yourself while tourists queue for hours to have their caricatures painted on the other side of town.

Of course, there are unique neighbourhoods aplenty in San Francisco, and if you’re in the Golden Gate Park area, it’s a great idea to stroll down Haight Street in the bohemian Haight-Ashbury area. There you can pop in and out of the fascinating niche music and clothing stores, all drawing influence from hedonistic days gone by, and eventually stop for lunch, a light snack or a drink or three at any of the equally trendy and offbeat restaurants, coffee shops and bars.

But it was a late-night sojourn through the Tenderloin District that truly put the finishing touches to my trip.

This dubiously named residential zone has long been the black sheep of the city, and although it used to be the regular stomping ground of the likes of Miles Davis, today it’s a rundown, depressing drug hole. In the space of just three blocks I was offered crack from the grimy hand of a desperate youth, walked past a real gun-in-the-ribs, put your hands where we can see them, NOW! arrest, ignored the heckling from dozens of prostitutes, and even had to skip over a slew of multi-coloured used condoms launched from the seedy apartments above.

But in a strange way my experiences here lent a lot to this fascinating city that, despite this hidden, gritty underbelly, is just brimming with creativity and energy. It’s a city so diverse and entertaining, so unique and individualistic, and yet still far from perfection, that you can’t help but fall in love with it.

Published in the Saturday Star, and on IOL Travel

There, you could sit in your soggy boardies, with sand in your hair and a cold beer in your hand, chowing a legendary La Med pizza, and gaze silently over the shimmering Atlantic, reflecting on all those foreign boobs you’d spied on 4th beach. Sure, even then there were annoyingly pretty people flitting around, prancing in their latest boardies and bikinis and Von Zipper shades and toit vests, and wanting to be noticed, like everywhere that side of Cape Town, but, most of us were just there to wind down another perfect day in Cape Town.

But now, gone are the slightly scraggy benches, the chilled laid-back vibes, the vaguely reasonably priced beers, and the great smattering of food. Now, La Med is nothing more than an alcohol branding overload; an exclusive beer and wine and cocktail flea market for the pretty boys and girls of Cape Town, who can sit on well-maintained bright blue benches, under an overwhelming awning of Two Oceans umbrellas, drinking that R18 Miller or sipping quietly on that R38 weak, over-iced, bottle-mix Mojito, while waiting nearly two hours for their undercooked, R70 pizza that still comes without half the ordered ingredients. Everywhere you look at La Med there’s now an exclusive bar; one that only sells Miller, one that doesn’t serve spirits, one that’s got four fridges filled with Brutal Fruit, and only one that serves the lot – which also has a 30 minute waiting time.

Now that another summer has rolled into Cape Town, the beautiful people are coming out to play again, and, if you go anywhere near the Atlantic seaboard, or dare lay your eyes on any local publication or website that’s in the business of rewording press releases in exchange for freebies, you’ll know one thing: “Bru, it’s Submerged Sundays. Goldfish are jamming at La Med like every Sunday this summer. Sick!”

Read any of the Goldfish or La Med marketing propaganda, and you’ll know that, unless you’re a cheap fucker like me who’d rather saunter in there a few minutes to four than pay the 50 buck cover charge, we’re all given the privilege of experiencing the ultimate pretty boys in 12 exclusive “sessions”.

Now, Goldfish aren’t half bad, and even the most cynical and grumpiest among us can entertain the thought of sipping a R38, over-iced, bottle-mix Mojito while munching on a soggy Avo-less La Med pizza, under an overwhelming blue awning of Two Oceans umbrellas, among prissy teens and their Ed Hardy’d boyfs, if you place their “smooth groves” in the background, and that shimmering ocean in the distance. But you’d be horribly misinformed.

Sometime after the Miller and Olmeca promo girls had done their hundredth circuit of the joint, a vague, faint beat picked up from the grimy depths of the restaurant, and people slowly started filtering towards the sound. There, not far from the bogs at the back, were the two blokes that most of these folks had forked up fifty bucks to see, poorly silhouetted against a few flashing flat screens. And while the moon was rising silently in the warm evening air, a hundred or so adoring fans turned their back on it to pack into the glorified garage, breath in the suffocating sweat fumes in the totally unventilated venue, and embrace the condensation dripping steadily off the ceiling above. From all the mouth trumpets being blasted in the audience, it seems they were having a pretty decent time; I couldn’t stand the sauna long enough to be sure.

It hurts me to say it, but don’t waste your time with La Med this summer. Don’t fall prey to their silly little marketing ploy, their overpriced booze, horribly average food, and pathetic service; don’t, like me, convince yourself that it’s the ideal place to wind down your day on the beach. Rather, make a plan to catch Goldfish at a proper venue, maybe even with another decent DJ or band, and spend your Sunday evening the proper way – with a few bottles of carefully concealed chilled wine drunk from sandy plastic cups, right down there on the beach.

Published on Mahala.co.za

Cage fighting is big business around the world, particularly in the States, and episode after episode of Ultimate Fighting Championship (UFC) was forced onto me by my redneck American roommate earlier in the year. By the end, he’d damn near turned me into one of those blood thirsty assholes who wear stained This Is My Beer Drinking Shirt t-shirts, who live to see near-death experiences right there in the ring. The kind of person I most despise.

But when I walked through the doors to this pseudo fight club in the ‘Burg, I actually chuckled. There was no massive barb-wire lined steel cage, no fancy lighting and lasers, and definitely no blood-spattered heavies slugging it out in the middle until they collapsed in pools of blood. Afraid not. All we had was a tiny boxing ring that looked more like the kind you’d find at a kids party, that usually come with those over-sized gloves, perched in the middle of a stark hall. In the middle of the ring, two kids, their heads only just higher than the ropes, were tamely slugging it out. Despite their feather-weight, with every step they took the whole ring shook and threatened to collapse, and the lights balanced above it, the only lighting in the entire hall, wobbled precariously. In the back, just in front of a stage fit for a school production and next to tables with stewing buffet dishes and tall-hatted chefs, were the organisers’ menacing, branded double-cabs.

When the school-yard scrap eventually ended, with only a handful of punches landed, a middle-aged man sporting a black bow-tie slipped through the ropes into the ring. He mumbled something inaudible into the budget PA system, and the ref raised one of the kids’ hands towards the darkness above. A sexy lady in impossibly high heels followed shortly after, and embarrassingly around the ring brandishing a cheap corrugated plastic board – the kind Pam Golding might use – that read Round One.

This went on for hours – fighter after fighter with egos bigger than their punches stood up to each other, sparred it out for a while, and then collapsed exhausted on their plastic stools after a couple of meagre rounds. Unfit fucks. Next to me a bloke sporting a K-Way jacket looked on largely disinterested, only occasionally glancing up to blurt “DON’T STOP. DON’T STOP!” when he saw the fighters slowing down.

So you can understand that after all this I was vying for some action, a spot of blood. And when it came, the atmosphere soared. Proper punches started flowing freely, and deep-red welts that looked like cricket bat klaps started popping up on the increasingly heavier fighters.

Soon the gloves and head protection were dropped for the Mixed Martial Arts fights, and the sickening sound of fists hitting cheek bones and knees diving deep into solo-plexuses rang out between the whistling and shouting of the Joburg wannabes in the audience. By the time the heavyweights took to the ring the thing damn near collapsed under their feet, and every time one of them was thrown against the ropes the crowd gasped, probably hoping, like me, that they’d land in a heap, WWE style, onto the cheap VIP tables at its base.

Now Joburg has its fair share of aggression – you just need to spend a Friday evening in Rivonia to find out that out. And nowhere else was it more on show at this dodgy little hall. Blokes with gelled short back and sides hairstyles waddled around with their arms stiff at their sides, ready to box anyone that checked them skeef. It was these guys that took the fights very seriously, often booming things like “Come on BOY! KLAP HIM!” KLAP HIM!! YES! YESSS!!”. And while that was nothing short of hilarious, it was the fighters’ entourages that really turned the night into more of a comedy festival than even a fight club. There’s nothing better than laughing at people who take themselves too seriously, or who think they’re particularly tough, and the hoodied crew who trailed the fighters from what looked like a commentators box high in the shadows, provided the ultimate entertainment.

Finally, some time around midnight, the last punch was thrown, or the last strangle hold was released, or the last fatty failed to get up from his stool – I wasn’t really watching anymore. The lights flicked on and the thousand or so spectators filtered through the double doors at the back; some excitedly reliving their favourite moments; most looking down at their feet, possibly wondering, like me, why the hell they’d forked up 120 bucks for an evening of absolute ego-fueled drivel.

Published on Mahala.co.za

If ever there was a recipe for the perfect home-grown music event, the kind that leaves your ears ringing and your heart warm, this was it. Blk Jks, playing their first gig on African soil after months touring and recording in America, at House of Nsako, one of the jewels in the tarnished crown of Brixton, Jozi.

Nsako is the kind of place that screams good times from the moment you stoop through the curtained entrance. But drop the Blk Jks into the mix, everyone’s favourite culture jammers, and you’d be forgiven for openly salivating on the polished concrete floor.

But that’s pretty much where this musical fantasy ended. There was a fair deal of pressure on the guys to show us what they’d learnt over the seas; surely they’d want to leave their fans speechless, screaming at them never to leave our beautiful shores again. You’d expect them to blow the crowd away with their newly discovered first-world professionalism, in a venue that, decor, atmosphere and crowd-wise, at least, couldn’t have been picked better.

A new habit which the band seems to have developed during their US sojourn is to keep the crowd hanging in that agonising pre-performance lingo. It took over an hour on Friday night, while they tinkered with every mic and instrument, ensuring absolute sound perfection. Which, perhaps, would have been something worth waiting for. But when you get hit with 15 minutes of feedback just a couple of songs in, you begin to feel slightly short-changed, in both the money and time departments. And as the crowd started filtering out to the tables at the back and the fresh air in the courtyard, this gig had anti-climax written all over it.

Eventually the feedback issue was resolved, but in its wake we were left with mic levels so low that even while Linda Buthelezi was giving it his usual 110%, it was damn near impossible to figure out what the hell he was singing. By the time the clock struck 1 they were strumming along so calmly and disjointedly that the girl next to me summed it up most succinctly: “It’s almost like they’ve forgotten we’re here.”

It’s a pity then, that by the time things really started kicking off, when they eventually pulled the stragglers at the back into the fray and kicked into high gear with that lethal mixture of music, venue and crowd, that it was all pretty much over. If the gig had this intensity and professionalism right from the start, then I’d have left feeling just fine. But it took too long to get it all together, and, unfortunately, the result was a 60 buck gig that will leave fans yearning for the world-class homecoming gig that we all actually deserve, and that the Blk Jks are capable of performing.

Somewhere in the bowels of San Francisco, at a cold little venue called the Independent, on the exclusive bar, boutique and gourmet restaurant-lined Divisadero Street, just a cheesy hop-and-a-skip away from the Postcard Row and the Full House house in Alamo Square, a confident young bloke with a guitar hanging loosely around his neck leans into the microphone to do one last sound check at the request of the stage director. Rather than the “Two..two…two…” that the supremely average local warm-up acts used, he opts for a series of Xhosa clicks so solid and ear-achingly clear and quick that even Ma Brrr would’ve glanced up from her G ‘n T. They bounce and reverberate violently off the cold walls, through the rising smoke and deep violet mood lighting, and before the thinning ‘Frisco crowd can even begin to comprehend what’s just happened, drum beats so powerful they would’ve rattled Bob Saget and co’s windows a whole block away blast through the club.

Smooth, precise guitars follow shortly after, and within seconds much of the dispersing crowd is back in front of the stage, if only to give these dynamic, exotic dudes a chance. “We’re the Blk Jks, straight out of South Afrrriii…Kaa,” rolls guitarist Mpumi Mcata after a five-minute wall of music, before once again launching into a solid bout of their now trademark Africanised psychedelic dub rock.

Although sparsely populated with the wrong crowd, a gig like this would be snapped up by most local bands; the chance to headline any international performance, no matter how small or obscure, is never one to be sniffed at. But standing amongst the two-dozen or so foot-tapping locals I wouldn’t blame the Jks if they weren’t all that into it. Because, in just two days time, they’d be playing before a crowd of thousands, and their fellow acts would transform from two-bit local groups Foreign Born and The Music Lovers, into the Kings of Leon, The Yeah Yeah Yeahs, The Decemberists, Bon Iver, Jane’s Addiction, Nine Inch Nails, and TV On The Radio, among dozens of others. Because, as I write this from a sunny Seattle coffee shop, three hours east of me the Blk Jks have just wrapped up their performance at Sasquatch! Music Festival, one of the country’s, and the world’s, biggest.

Somehow the guys have given much of the South African media the slip; few locals will be able to tell you that the band is currently touring the States, for the second time, in two years, with a handful of gigs in LA, New York, Cambridge, Philly, DC and Brooklyn still to go. But that’s just how these boys roll, and it sure showed through on that night in San Francisco. They nonchalantly hopped up on stage with broad smiles on their faces, did what they do best, which is pretty darn incredible, and the rest will take care of itself. Which, if you consider a major international record deal and coverage in some of the America’s biggest publications, including the New York Times, Spin Magazine, and The LA Times, it already has.

Originally published on mahala.co.za

The station doors burst open, startling Van Rensburg; enough to make his feet drop off the counter. Sergeant Piet Kitching, desperately out of breath, wheezes something about an oval craft. It’s hovering over Breaside, a local farm. Mr Bennie Smit’s farm, to be precise. Phil is a little bit sceptical. A UFO? In Fort Beaufort? Surely not. But he realises he has nothing to lose – this isn’t an opportunity he’s going to let pass him by – and he hangs the “Back in 5” sign up on the door.

As the two round the last corner before Breaside Farm they see a group of five men looking anxiously over the hills ahead. Apart from a few bushes, the land is pretty barren. They hop out the car, and Boer de Klerk, a worker on the farm, tells them excitedly all about a multi-coloured ball of fire that had drifted slowly over the very hills before them, no more than 200 meters in front of the growing crowd.

They do the obligatory investigation, find nothing, no doubt question Boer’s sanity, and turn to head off for another boring day in the office. But suddenly Kitching stops. Something’s caught his eye. In front of the men a dark metal-grey craft glides quietly up from behind the bushes.

As their jaws drop in unison, the sarge seizes his opportunity. He grabs Bennie’s .303 hunting rifle and pops three well-aimed shots right at its hull. Then Bennie has a go – he fires off a couple of rounds for good measure. Amazingly, the craft does nothing as the bullets ricochet into the bushes below.

Once it’d had enough of the abuse, the UFO whirred off into the distance, leaving nothing but 9 deep circular imprints in the ground, and no doubt a few pairs of soiled Khaki underpants.

For the next week the town would be dogged by similar encounters – bright lights, hovering crafts and exploding reservoirs; the speculations of suspicious activity were only fuelled by a strong military presence and a rumour that soil samples taken at the landing site were intercepted and destroyed en route to a laboratory in Pretoria.

And so, ever since that June morning, the humble Eastern Cape town can proudly claim to be the site of a close encounter of the second kind. Over the next thirty years, Beit Bridge, Loxton, Groendal, the Kalahari, Pretoria and even good old Graaf-Reninet would sit alongside Fort Beaufort in a list of the countries most dramatic, unsolved UFO encounters.

But it’s not just the klein dorps that get all the unidentified action. Cape Town ranks as one of the hottest spots for UFO sightings, and its seen more than its fair share over the years. In the land of fully stoned hippies, sun-dazed tourists and pap-sakked locals, it’s hardly surprising. In fact, the only recognised UFO organisation in the country, South Africa’s UFO Resource (SAUFOR) is based in Cape Town, and has no less than 22 major sightings registered in the Mother City.

But few of these have replicated the excitement of Fort Beaufort, and suitably vague sightings make up the vast majority of the Cape’s encounters. Bright lights, blinking lights, multi-coloured lights, hovering lights, pretty much any light you could think of. Usually, but not always, at night or in the evening, and often with multiple witnesses claiming the same sighting. The more interesting cases are usually accompanied by unexplained hovering crafts and strange whirring sounds, and maybe some photographic evidence – a pic of a silver speck in an otherwise clear sky. Mostly the stuff of loonies.

Take ‘Bus’ in the Sky – Case No. 78, for example. “It was June 20th 1993, when three friends and I were sitting in the lounge having a drink,” a lady known only as Avril told UFO Afrinews. “I looked out of the window across to the mountains and saw what looked like an omnibus coming straight across the top of the mountain. It was coming from the direction of Cape Town and going towards Cape Point.”

At that stage Avril turned to her friends. “You’ll all think I’m nuts,” she said. “But there’s a bus above the mountain and it’s going straight across.” Not a Putco, a Golden Arrow or even a new tourist ventre, but a nose-less omnibus with windows that had the ability to change colour. No doubt her friends did think she was nuts, until they too scampered over to the window and witnessed the same phenomenon. They watched the bus for a few minutes, until it grew tired of the attention and disappeared back behind the mountain.

Sure, it must have been a thrilling experience for first time UFO witnesses, but Avril was no ET virgin. A few years before, she was returning home in the early morning after a long night of partying, when something in the distance caught her attention. It was an “orange-yellow glowing ball” that hovered just above the horizon. Off to the east. The party must have been one of those Nekkies jols out in the sticks, because I’m pretty sure a fairly regular orange glowing ball pops up in that direction fairly regularly.

An omnibus coming out of the sky, and then an orange ball rising from the east, in the morning? Attention seeking, drugs, booze, plain hallucinations, honest misidentifications. It’s pretty easy to write sightings like these off, especially when the witness openly states that the sightings followed afternoon drinks and late night parties. You’d have to be a brave or very accepting person not to be sceptical.

For this reason, UFO organisations are very reluctant to set any sightings in stone, and they prefer to label them as “alleged” or “reported”. That way, when details emerge that there was an air show just out of town that day, they can emerge with some credibility intact. Perhaps that’s a little bit harsh, because until you get abducted and return with some evidence, encounters are pretty tough things to prove. Which is why, no doubt, UFO fans from around the world were thrilled when they learnt that South Africa Elizabeth Klarer returned after an abduction with some very important evidence – her own baby boy, who she swore was fathered by Akon, from the constellation Alpha Centauri.

But when you’ve got 20 people from Milnerton come forward saying they saw over 150 “brilliant white spheres”, you surely have to take note. Sure the ‘tin is the butt of many jokes, but at least half of those twenty people must have been sober, sane or clean. This sighting took place only a few years ago, at 5pm in the afternoon – in rush hour traffic. These spheres provided some light entertainment for the motorists in a 10 minute fly-by, before, like most UFOs, they simply disappeared.

According to SAUFOR, this is a pattern that had been witnessed before. “As with 2005’s San Luis Potosi sighting, and 2006’s flotilla in Spain, aerial movements were subtle – but clearly not a result of prevailing wind patterns,” their official report says. “This is important because many people could easily mistake the white craft for weather balloons.” The report also goes on to suggest links between the terrible fires that were ravaging the mountain at the time and the glinting white spheres; now imagine if that British dude accused of starting them used that excuse in court!

So it seems like aliens cop quite a lot of flack. In between trying to spin the blame for bastard children and massive veld fires, the buggers must have no time left to do all the abducting and probing they’re apparently so very fond of.

As the race to prove their existence intensifies, UFO organisations are springing up around the world to uncover the truth that is apparently out there. Because of this, most of the most recent and juiciest encounter details are kept under wraps, in order to encourage more independent witnesses to come forward with uninfluenced descriptions. And while this might seem a cop out, most UFO fundies believe this verification period increases the validity of some sightings, and has the potential to play an important part in removing the stigma attached to those who make these claims.

Apparently after more than thirty years of extra-terrestrial jokes and ridicule, Bennie Smit and Philip Van Rensburg are still reluctant to offer any conclusions about what happened on June 26 1972. And although Van Rensburg decided to leave Fort Beaufort in favour of the bright lights of Port Alfred, there’s still a good chance that you’ll find Bennie Smit hovering over a Klippies and Coke at one of the town’s most popular watering hole – his very own UFO Bar.

Published in SL Magazine.