The only thing that helped me survive such an onerous youth was the soothing sound of music. Every night while wearing my "Space Invaders jammies, I'd drift off into slumberland listening to a special tune on my scratchy, sub-par clock radio-the kind that had neon numbers that looked like they were made out of Red Hots candies. For some reason, I'd always hear "I bless the rains down in Africa/ Gonna take something blah blah something yooooouuu by Toto. I never really knew the words. But that didn't matter. The song soothed my childhood troubles (stupid, infuriating, impossible Rubik's Cube!) and helped me drift off to dream about giraffes and the naked women in the National Geographic magazines my dad got me to "help broaden my horizons.
I spent the majority of my adult years in concrete jungles (or, more accurately, glossy office buildings), watching the real jungles and deserts of Africa on the Discovery Channel in my air-conditioned living room. I decided that watching was no longer enough. I had to go. And I had to go by quad.
There is no better way to see a foreign land than by quad. It's more immersing than a car, faster than walking, and more fun than those human cattle drives some call tour buses. Setting up an overseas trip can be tricky from the States. That is where Les Leonard, who operates ATV Action Tours (www.atvactiontours.com) out of Seattle, comes in. Les works with a 4x4 group in South Africa, The Polaris Club of South Africa, to coordinate his tours. He had just the hook-up in South Africa that I was looking for. We'd head to the Wild Coast, a region situated in the Eastern Cape of South Africa, known as the Transkei, which means "the area beyond the Kei River. Les already has 10 African tours planned for next year, so you better book one before they get filled.
I couldn't wait to start my ATV adventure in Africa. To prepare, two weeks before the trip I "borrowed the Toto song from the Internet and played it nonstop until my girlfriend threatened to toss my computer in with the elephants at Lincoln Park Zoo. After getting malaria pills, which we didn't need, I was off on an adventure of a lifetime with Associate Editor Brian McCulloch and TransWorld Film Guy Extraordinaire Glenn Milligan to "The Rainbow Nation.
Arriving in Johannesburg (locals call it Joburg) was nothing like I imagined. Where were the Zulu Warriors, the mud huts, and the elephants? Joburg looks like any other major cosmopolitan center in the world. It wasn't until we stocked up on comfort foods and headed towards the country that I felt like I was in South Africa. A few miles, or should I say kilometers, out of the city, the landscape changed drastically. The concrete was immediately replaced with vast fields of grass, and the buildings were swapped out with a few of the huts I was hoping to see.
For the first few days, I had a problem adjusting on the other side of the world-and not just from the lack of processed food availability. My body didn't want to be upside-down, so I tried to correct myself. In case you were wondering, the toilets do flush in the opposite direction south of the equator, due to the Coreolis Effect. My next research project will be to find out which way the water goes while flushing directly on the equator…but that's another trip.
With a handful of other Americans, I spent my first week in South Africa with The Polaris Club of South Africa and its leader, Johan Kamp. Afrikaners are very sarcastic, big drinkers and hard riders, bred by the terrain. Craggy, rocky, and untamed, the Wild Coast is the highlight of the Eastern Cape with countless natural attractions and a rich cultural heritage. Mile after mile-I mean kilometer after kilometer-of unspoiled coastline reaches as far as the eye can see, punctuated by forest and open spaces, where you ride through various landscapes and ecosystems. Some of the long dirt roads were too easy for my taste, but as soon as I started getting bored, challenging technical stuff reared its unforgiving head.
The Wild Coast, as the name suggests, is rugged and treacherous, with numerous shipwrecks along its deserted beaches. A large portion of the coastline here falls within protected areas and makes for an incredible, unspoiled place. The good: no gargantuan resorts messing up the natural beauty with plastic pool chairs. The bad: you can't ride on the beaches. The ugly: some idiots don't follow the rules and tear up the beaches. The bad and the ugly will likely bring restriction if not outright prohibition of trail riding along the Wild Coast. After all, this place is the heart of unspoiled rural South Africa, untouched by time, the infrastructure of the rest of South Africa, and, thankfully, Chicken McNuggets.
Today, the majority of South Africa remains a poor country, dotted with villages of traditional mud and thatch huts, where family matriarchs take in children orphaned by the AIDS epidemic. Cattle graze on the grasslands and the land is tilled by hand and oxen to provide a subsistent living. It almost feels like being sent back in time, except for the few well-appointed hotels where we stayed. Even so, now that democracy has been established, South Africa, especially the Wild Coast, has been a great destination for the ATV tourist.
There is so much more to adventure than riding the ride and tasting the dirt. For that, you might as well head to a dirt mound in your nearest suburb. How often do you go on multi-day trail rides and see women building bricks from cow poop to make their homes, or giant ships wrecked on the coast and zebras grazing on wild grasses?
Johan, like most of the people there, is extremely pro-environment, especially when compared to us too-lazy-to-cut-up-six-pack-plastic-rings-before-throwing-them-out-so-seals-don't-suffocate Americans. We chased down a small group of ORVers that were riding on the beach. With the wrongdoers driven from our midst, we checked out the area where the Kei River meets the Indian Ocean. We were looking for the shipwrecked Jacaranda. The Jacaranda was a Japanese fishing trawler in 1971, and rumor has it that the captain picked up a lady of the night and had a party on the boat. He got a little tipsy and, distracted by the hooker, crashed the boat into the shore. Loose hips sink ships or something like that. We slept well while listening to the ocean waves crash outside of our rooms at the Mazeppa Bay Hotel (http://www.wheretostay.co.za/mazeppabay).
We steered clear of female diversions ourselves and rode through incredible forests with yellowwood, stinkwood, and a plethora of other protected trees and cacti. The area has its own microclimate. Every plant had giant thorns on them. I was afraid of crashing into something-I might have punctured a lung!
There were many different riding obstacles to conquer. Some of the river crossings were so vast that we had to take a ferry to cross them. Planning a trip like this is a logistical nightmare. Without Johan, a certified guide, we would not even be able to legally ride quads along the Wild Coast.
A few days into the trip, Johan set up an adventure within our adventure. You see, no large animals live outside of game reserves here. And there was no way I was going to travel this country for more than two days straight and not see some serious four-legged creatures. National Geographic had my hopes set pretty high. To fulfill my boyhood fantasies (the ones without Brooke Shields), we visited a cat breeder. Not little cats named "Princess that poop in a litter box in a city condo, but big cats that can poop wherever they damn well please. As we walked past the gates, we saw tigers and lions playing on the front lawn. I will never forget this. We got to play with all the baby cats. The oldest one was six months old and bit a little too hard-my fibula became a teething ring. The adult cats had to stay caged up, because sometimes they play too rough and people end up like Siegfried, only without a partner named Roy to take care of them.
By the end of the day, we were ready for some creature comforts of our own, like indoor plumbing. Enter Lekoa Lodge (www.lekoalodge.com), a fancy place with an indoor pool, nearby 4x4 routes, and an airstrip just in case you want to fly in your own private jet. Adrenaline junkies who need more of a fix can sign on for clay pigeon shooting, rock climbing, or paintball.
Since we didn't bring any girls with us, we got Brian a bit liquored up on South African hooch and sent him to the beauty salon, where he got one of his armpits waxed. I begged the wax wielder to do one of his eyebrows as well, but she wasn't drunk enough…yet. Later that night, the girls we met at the resort, including the hair remover, broke into our rooms and duct taped our hands and feet together while we were sleeping. I vowed to get them back. I guess vows are made to be broken.
Once we got out of our adhesive shackles, we plowed on to Imbabala Lodge, which is approximately four hours from Johannesburg and two hours from Durban. This lodge is perfect for quad riders, thanks to miles of great nearby trails that climb to awesome overlooks, past giraffes, zebra, wildebeest, and, rumor has it, they just purchased a rhino. Trails cater to both novices and experienced riders and include a two-kilometer flat track, 16-kilometer mini enduro trail, and a gut-wrenching trail over Mhlumba Mountain. Here giraffes often walk up to the cabins in the morning. Predators include the black back jackal and leopard. After a day of avoiding the aforementioned toothy beasts, we partied like-you guessed it-animals. Like all South Africans we met, the guys there know how to party. They even forced us to drink out of some smelly animal horn.
We didn't need any additional liquids to alter our cognitive skills. Our western sensibilities took care of that the next day-we drove on the wrong side of the roads, which is a bit scary when a truck pulls around the corner and the voice of your driver's ed teacher yells at you to pull right, careening you into a metal grill of death on this side of the world.
By the end of the trip, we were tired. We woke up early every morning to shoot the sunrise and went to bed way too late every night. But South Africa isn't all exotic animals and death-defying, breath-taking rides. It's a place rich in natural beauty unmarred by the outside world. It was incredible to learn the history and about the people firsthand.
I got off the plane singing, "I blessed the ride down in Africa… Yeah, I still don't know the words.
