Page 42 - Silver Lakes August 2021

HUMOUR

A HIKER’S GUIDE TO BARTERING

By James Clarke

bumped into an old friend the other away to self-actualise." "Try the Free State," In fact I really had forgotten to bring
day whom I had last seen years ago at he said. something serious in the way of anti-
a
I formal dinner of the Johannesburg "You are too kind," I said. freeze to drink around the campfire. But
Hiking Club. I had, at the time, just had a I soon discovered that, among hikers,
book published - Survival in the Outdoors Thus I found myself with a hiking group four squares of chocolate are worth one
which had an ‘errata’ note glued onto the near the Golden Gate walking in valleys beverage. So are eight jelly babies. And
title page to make sure it would not fall out crisp with frost. after a tough walk I find hikers crave things
before the reader saw it. for which 4-year-olds throw tantrums in
We slept the first night in a spartan 10-bunk supermarkets.
The errata had advised readers to ignore my hut that reminded me of a Siberian forced
advice on page 45, which explained how to labour camp - especially in the frigid half- It made me realise that had I indeed
follow the compass point while travelling light of dawn with all the balaclavaed heads been incarcerated in Siberia, I am the sort
north from South Africa. I advised them sticking out of sleeping bags. whose indomitable and enterprising spirit
to travel 20 degrees west of true north would have enabled him to barter things
whereas I had meant to write “travel 20 They had laughed at my old-fashioned and so, secretly build a turbo-assisted
degrees east of true north”. A hiking party backpack saying it was not for grown-ups Snowmobile, with power-steering and
heading say, for central Zimbabwe, would and one of them said I was carrying far too stereo, and escape to St Tropez.
end up lost in the Kalahari and having to much for a two-day hike. They persuaded
eat each other, if they followed my advice. me to leave behind several items including A problem when hiking is that one often
my monogrammed serviette ring, my meets up with Germans named Schultz,
It was a memorable evening because CD player and a small generator. I was Wolfgang, Ingrid and Brunhilde. Not that
hikers are an educated and interesting restricted to carrying minimum rations - six I dislike Germans - quite the contrary. The
bunch and when formally dressed are often chicken drumsticks, six pork chops, a steak, problem is they hike with far too much
indistinguishable from normal people. potatoes, onions, chocolate, jelly babies, enthusiasm.
With a brilliant touch of originality, the nuts and raisins.
pre-prandial drinks were served against a They stride ahead and then wait, patiently
background of recorded bushveld sounds. Hikers generally share nothing because, as enough, for you to catch up sobbing for
somebody explained, "What if the person breath and coughing blood. And they say,
I recall a Free State hike in which I took part who was to have brought the drinks or jovially, "Ha! You made it, ja?"
just after I became my own boss after years the fire-lighters doesn't pitch? We rely on
as a newspaperman. I was fretting because nobody but ourselves." Then, refreshed as they are by schnapps
my spellcheck was down and I was writing (It was St Christopher, I think, who said, and crappenworst, they immediately
a book with some long words. I needed a "Show me a man crying in the wilderness stride on expecting you to follow when
break so I said to my new boss, "I've worked and I will show you a hiker who's forgotten all you can do is lay face down in the grass
for a whole week, Sir, and I now need to get the refreshments.") sniffling and groaning.

40 INTRA MUROS AUGUST 2021