The Rainbow Nation

'Without forgivness there's no future'

(Desmond Tutu)

After returning from Sherwood Ranch to my camp by the Limpopo I packed
the bike for the next day and sat by the tent with a beer.

The river is quite narrow here, perhaps thirty metres across and forms
the border between Botswana and South Africa. My camp was on a high
bank about twenty metres from the water. And so there it was. The far
bank, cleary visible from where I sat, was South Africa. I was both
fascinated and afraid to cross.

I'd heard many stories. Some hearsay, some probably quite embelished
and some undoubtedly true. By all acounts South Africa is a complex,
beautiful, but troubled and divided place. The 'Rainbow Nation', the
second highest murder rate in the world, apartheid, reconciliation.
Random ultra-violence, car jackings, Tsotsi, security compounds, panic
rooms, cars equipped with flame-throwers, too scared to stop at
traffic lights. Home to many names familiar from my childhood. Steve
Biko, Desmond Tutu, FW D'Clerk, Walter Sisulu, Chief Buthelezi. In
many ways likely to be the most familiar, most westernised, country I
would visit, but still very different and varied. It is the biggest
country. Home to many more familiar place names and history than
anywhere else I'd yet been; Johannesburg, Pretoria, Durban, Cape Town.
Table Mountain, Robben Island, The Fynbos, The Drakensberg Mountains,
Kruger Park. The source of the Voortreckkers, The Boer War, The battle
of Isandlwana and Rorke's
Drift, The Zulu Nation, The ANC. The Springboks, World Cup 2010. And
of course Nelson Mandela.

I felt I knew more about this place than anywhere else, but was still
very apprehensive as I sat late that night looking across to the far
bank waiting for the next day.