Cederberg Chance Encounter

In a place as vast as the Cederberg and as remote as a secluded farmhouse amongst neolithic rocks, I sought solitude from urban life for a camping weekend. The stream tinkled, birds chirped and Lassie, the dog from the farmhouse, wagged its tail. All was well in bushmanland but in the dark of night something was amiss and Lassie, vigilant as ever, was there to get us all into trouble.

Tucked up cosily in tent and sleeping bag, at 3am I heard a world ending kind of noise. Imagine if you can, the scraping of long nails down a blackboard combined with a pit full of vipers hissing, tyres screeching before a crash and all the high pitched notes of a mouth organ being forced out together and you won't even come close to what I heard.

It is hard to find the words to aptly describe the facets of this devastating cacophony and I froze in incomprehensible terror. This unbearable sound was out of my full range of experiences and neither I nor my tent co-habitee, could make any sort of identification positive or otherwise.

Murder Being Perpetrated

Think of the most inappropriate thing to say while murder is being perpetrated only centimetres from your right ear, and you might easily come up with “Go back to sleep”.

That is what my partner suggested I do and promptly did so himself. Gender difference was at its height at this point in time and much pleading and prodding for him to go in search of an explanation had absolutely no effect. The tent and I were shaking in unison, the man from Mars lying next to me was snoring.

A Terrible Smell

Lassie was in a frenzy of excited barking and had obviously cornered an unfortunate terrified creature against the khaki canvas. I wondered why, in the whole of the Cederberg, this was happening in my personal space. My flimsy cocoon was rocking and ripping under the pressure and still my partner was obstinate.

That is until the unlikely sounds of “Eurgh, yuk, and orgh,” emerged from his contorted face. So he was speaking Martian now, it did not surprise me, but when I involuntarily began to do so, I knew we were in trouble.

These guttural utterances were the automatic reactions of two people who had become enveloped in the most disgusting cabbage farting, rancid egg, nauseating smell, that holding of breath nor head under pillow could diminish.