Belton Bees, Bloopers and Blunders

This is going to be a good one.

My mother arrived last Saturday. My roommate Nikki and I picked her up and transported her to her bachelor apartment situated at 4 darling street (approximately a 3 minute walk from me). I didn't know that she had a dog phobia, and only discovered this when Speedy, the landlady's boxer / pitbull came running out to greet us. That set aside, mother liked the place which has a fantastic garden, and we guzzled some good Western Cape wine complemented with steaks to celebrate her arrival in South Africa.

The next morning, we woke up at 6:00 a.m. to prepare for the 13 km hike on the Belton trail near Kenton-on-sea that I decided to drag her along on (she did consent to the hike prior to her arrival). When we arrived at the beginning of the trail, we had no idea what we were in for. Seriously. Above is a photo of my mother at the commencement of the hike.

It rained, shone, and blew and the hike leader (who owned the land on which the trail was situated) raced ahead with no breaks for poor mother and I for 5 hours! My mother was visibly slowing down after about 3 hours, and had a look of despair and extreme fatigue. She didn't make eye contact, didn't talk and her arms dangled alongside her body. She managed to trip and fall twice, causing alarm to Tony (a hiker who walked behind her) who fussed over her and made sure we were all okay. To make matters worse, if there was a 5 minute break or so, we were precluded from enjoying it because we were the last ones: when we caught up finally, the pack marched on, giving us no rest time, or time to take pictures. I did manage to take a few pictures during the sunny periods of the hike [see below].

At one point after hiking for 1 1/2 hours, the hike leader decided to explain something about this, that or the other to us, and to my alarm, I noticed that 3 cows were charging at the dogs who were hiking with us. None of the other members of the group seemed alarmed at this, but I was coveting a bush which could hopefull shelter me from angry and annoyed South African cows [see right].

Into about 1/3 of the hike, the sole of my left hiking boot decided to part ways with boot. To remedy this shameful disobedience, a member of the hiking club gave me a string from her backpack which I used to tie my shoe and sole together. This worked relatively well but for the fact that I had to re-tie it every hour, getting my hands extremely muddy. I swore to never buy another pair of Italian hiking boots.

Tony, who was a very nice farmer, offered to carry my mother's backpack (you would too if you saw the look on her face) after perhaps 8 km of walking. The 4 km/hour rule didn't apply on this trail becuase of all the hills and also the ground was wet, forcing people to hang on to trees for dear life for fear of slipping down the trail. That said, it is quite amusing to see 50-year old women slipping and sliding down hills - truly hilarious. I highly recommend it should the opportunity arise for you.

About 3/4 of the way into the hike, the lady in front of me began to scream and brush at her face. I had no idea what the hell was going on, and my hearing impairment prevented me from hearing the thunderous buzz of a million tremendously angry bees. When the lady in front of me looked up and was still flailing, I saw 4 bees under her right eye and bees on her lip line - my first thought was "every man for himself" and I bolted. I ran so fast, I could have beat Ben Johnson on steroids!

When I thought I was finally safe, I looked behind me to see everyone flailing and screaming, running towards me. When the group stopped running, a kind lady began to pluck all the stingers out of the lady who had been in front of me with the bees on her face. Then, to my alarm, I saw more bees on my mother, on her fleece jacket, trying to get their stingers in! Yikes! This led me to scream and run better than Ben Johnson yet once more. After feeling "safe" again, I looked behind me, and the crowd was running my way again. Finally, we seemed to get rid of them. Another lady claimed she was allergic to bee stings, and my kind mother, even though she had bees INSIDE her fleece jacket and had been stung on her hair line and her lip, attended to the lady. About 4 minutes later, Tony, the kind man carrying my mom's bag, came strolling out of the bush with his home-crafted walking stick. He had been stung on the face multiple times and was also carrying the bag of the lady who was allergic to bees - apparently she had dropped it and ran for dear life.

After this episode, and another bout of rain, we lost the pack. At this point, I also lost the string that kept my shoe and sole together, and I had just about "had it" with the militant march leader who stopped at nothing. No pee breaks, no photo breaks, no rest breaks, no view admiring!!

We finally reached the pack, and there was a pick-up truck waiting for us there. Half still had to walk about 3 km, but mother and I and Tony seized the moment and jumped in the back of the pick-up truck which had metal bars to keep people in. We stood up during the ride, and I managed to get whacked in the head by tree branches a few times. I almost got decapitated at one point, but Tony managed to yank me downwards just in time.

The reward of all this was that we ate hamburgers at a lunch-time braai (BBQ) located at the guest house of the hiking trail [see left], and craved a cold beer (but we hadn't brought any). The view was smashing [see below]. People were impressed with my mother for attempting such a hike only one day after her arrival into South Africa and had to laugh at my sense of humor about my disobedient Italian sole. Mother and I were given some phone numbers and were invited to some braais and weekends and people's houses in the future.

Mother and I had to laugh so hard when we returned to Grahamstown. I was exhilarated by all the material I had acquired for this blog, and also had to laugh at my mother's plight: stumbling through the bush, getting stung by bees, getting rained on, slipping down slopes and hanging on to bushes for dear life. What an adventure. No regrets. I just thank the Lord that we didn't meet a puff adder, cobra or whatever else lurks in the bush.

Mother felt that we should do something more relaxed the weekend coming up. I concurred.