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| The South African Vervet Monkey |
Our time in Durban was short. Our time everywhere was short. You might think that doing a circle tour of a fairly large country would be a bit too much to chew. It was. And it was exhausting. I’d averaged about five hours of sleep a night, and that was taking its toll. I was nodding off on the bus, despite my wanting to stay awake, soaking in the landscape as it rolled past. An Asian American girl on our tour slept every chance she got. I thought she was sleeping her life away, and told her so, but she disagreed. “It’s too much,” she said. “You can’t possibly see it all. And besides, I’m tired.”
As for alcohol, we’d pretty well reached our saturation point by the end of the
first week. Go figure.
One of the high points of Durban was that our hotel had a laundromat. That
might sound ridiculous, but we were all thrilled. Clean clothes! Everything in
my pack had begun to get a little musty, everything being jammed down its
length, the damp with the dry.
We took the time for much needed down time. And good-byes. A third of us were
leaving, some for Zimbabwe, some for Mozambique. That also meant new people
would be joining us.
I found the German girls leafing through our newest itinerary pages, noting our
agenda for the coming week, noting the list of participants.
“Good reading?” I asked.
“Did you see this?” they asked. I hadn’t.
“We’re getting an Island Monkey,” they said. I had no clue what they were
talking about and said so.
“An English,” they said. I shrugged. They explained.
“There are two types of English,” they said. “There are BBC English, calm, eloquent, upper class; they’re just assholes. Then there are the Island Monkeys, ill-mannered, hard-drinking, football hooligans. Most English are like that; get a few beers in them and they’re jumping up and down on tables, throwing things, breaking things, hitting things.” The predominant continental opinion, apparently. Or so they said.
“What about the twins,” I countered, referring to the two English girls already on the tour. They weren’t twins. They weren’t even related. But they dressed the same every day. If one wore a black T and khaki shorts, so did the other. It was almost like they had shopped together for this trip.
“The twins are BBC English. You wait and see: Island Monkey.”
Goodbye Dolphin Coast. Hello Cape Coast. Hello Garden Route. We flew to Port Elizabeth from Durban. No bus, thankfully; I don’t think any of us could have endured another fifteen-hour marathon. We arrived at our hotel and met the new people. We met the English guy. At first glance, he seemed BBC. He was polite. He was quiet. He was a little shy. I felt sorry for him. It’s hard to break into a close-knit group, and we’d had a week to bond and close ranks. Stepping into that can be a little daunting. That said, he’d had a few by the time we rolled in. I didn’t hold that against him, though. I’d had a few too many my first day a week ago, and no one held that against me.
The weather was foul. A hard rain fell, colouring everything a steel grey. We huddled close, watching a few souls brave the surf on their boards despite the weather, maybe because of it. The surf was high that day, we were told. It looked high too, or so we told ourselves. The breakers were a ways away, hazy at such a distance, mottled by the beads cascading down the picture window in ribbons.
Our new people wanted to hear about our first week, so, we told them about it. There was a prevailing theme: beer, bus, excursions, beer, bus, excursions, etc. The new, quiet English guy thought it all exciting. He must have expected a party that evening, but he was disappointed. We were all lightweights that evening. Too much booze, too many late nights, no little sleep, too much fatigue. He, on the other hand, was fresh. He proved himself to be less than a lightweight. He outpaced us in no time. He called us a bunch of wankers and pussies, not winning him many fans.
I arched my eyebrow at him.
“Easy,” I said, my sympathy ebbing faster than any riptide.
The German girls arched their eyebrows at me. "See," those eyebrows said: "Island
monkey."
Apologies to all you well-behaved Islanders.
