John Stupart.com

The bus ride from Maputo was 10 hours, including a delightful 2 hour interlude at the Malelane border post where literally thousands of human traffic attempted to get stamps in their passports. What do you my faithful readership care? Not a whit I’d wager. But for me it means I am tired.

I shall post more later on in the week, including pictures when I find the bloody cable for my camera which has so far eluded me. Suffice to say the holidays were quite a grand excursion and I’m glad for them! Christmas with the family in chilled-out Durban and catching up with old friends was great, and so too was backpacking around Mozambique with my brother and entourage.

The latter was a very interesting experience, but in no way or shape or form relaxing. Talking with some Finnish folks on the bus back into SA they nailed it on the head that in Mozambique one is more concerned with surviving the experience more than having a ‘holiday’. It’s a large swath of typical African rural grass villages interspersed with the decaying remnants of a decades-long abandoned colony of Portugal. Indeed, upon entering the smelly, smoggy haze of Johannesburg this afternoon I was just glad to see houses with a relatively fresh coat of paint. Mozambique had good, great, mediocre and downright miserable experiences, on which I shall detail later on (again with pictures.) I learned some things and corrected others, but overall I come back from it a better person, which is ultimately all that really matters to me.

Much like the thought of returning to Sarufutsu after a particularly long trip, I always find that I look ever-so forward to getting home and being able to dwell in my own space. I’m a hermit like that; content to venture on temporary forays into the wilderness so long as I know I’m coming back ‘home’.

But for now, I am off to wash some very filthy clothes, eat some overdue-Christmas treats and go to fucking bed!

Update 1

This weekend saw the Wits Invitational Debating Championships roll through. Consider that my total number of ranked debates number in single figures, to say I was rusty is an understatement of note. No matter, I was speaking with my brother and was thus ably carried through to the finals on his pack like a Coleman backpack. The debating is an afterthought, mind you, whereas the focus of the weekend should be squared around the meeting and greeting of new and interesting people.

All said and done the championship was great fun, and I managed to conduct myself with a slightly more dignified stature at the yakka party this time round. Mostly because I didn’t lose my glasses and nobody’s shrubbery got demolished! Also, trampolines are seriously awesome fun! Pictures shall follow as soon as they are uploaded.

Update 2

I have decided to forsake my meagre extra savings from work and head off to Mozambique for a week (the rhymes!) with some good friends and sibling. Cheap seafood, awesome rum, white sands, blue ocean and an almost mine-free countryside will be awaiting me after Christmas! Personally I’m looking forward to such simple things as stuffing my face full of prawns while swigging rum from the bottle and throwing sand at Jonathan. In all, an utterly admirable and productive pursuit. Unlike Thailand et al, this will be a decidedly more sedate experience, and unlike heading to Tokyo, decidedly small in scale. That’s important. If it was hectic and awe-inspiringly huge in travel plans or size of cities visited, I don’t think I’d be inclined at all. I want to chill out. Maybe snorkel. Maybe laugh at a communist, perhaps even eat something exotic if I feel up to it. We shall see.

Update 3

I’m currently listening to Rise Against’s new album much on the recommendation of one of the debaters who’d inhabited our house. They’d been here since Thursday. There’s an eery quiet in the house now. Like all the kids have left and – in the pristinely clean aftermath – there’s nothing much going on at all.

… before anyone asks, it’s clean because the maid came today, not because we cleaned. No.

You cock-juggling assmuppets! Why the fuck must you hog the entire lane with your fat, pot-bellied mid-life-crises spandex behemoths and your tiny-penis-compensating bike which costs more than my university education!?!?!

Why the hell can’t you cock jockies use any road BUT Oxford. Do you need the whole fucking world to see how awesome you are in your bright canary yellow tights while you ride next to your mates at 20km/h?!?! Can’t you ride in a single file and save us all the ballache of having to hoot and shout at you deaf fuckers while you refuse to move aside for the big people in the cars. What the hell is wrong with you people? Are the side roads not public enough? MUST you ride in the busiest fucking street in Johannesburg, and MUST you ride 3 abreast as if you’re some sort of fucking squadron of spitfires?!?!?

I swear, the next time a flotilla of cycling cocktards force me to trail behind them at 20km/h because they’re too fucking stupid or stubborn to move aside for the CARS, WHICH BELONG ON THE FUCKING ROAD, I’m going to start a rigourous regime of driving ahead of them, stopping in front and opening the passenger door as they ride past. I don’t pay taxes for roads so you useless twats can clog it up with your fitness regime. Haven’t cyclists heard of the fucking suburbs!?!?! Go play in there for chrissakes, not on a main arterial road in Joburg.

I hate you all and I want you to die.

/rant