Friday, May 21, 2004

Away with the Fairies

I don't have much to report this morning. My friend Jessica, who is travelling around the world, just announced that she will be staying for an extra month in South Africa and work in a bar. I'm jealous and admiring. My little two week stints that I can squeeze in on vacation to not-so-far corners of the world never do anywhere I visit justice.

She says of Hogsback, which is in the Transkei, I think:

"This is supposedly the place where Tolkien was inspired to write the Hobbit. I went to a backpackers called “away with the fairies”.... While much of the area has been logged and replaced with pine forest, there are still indigenous forests around the area that are stunning – tall green leafy and mossy canopies, white trunks and dark trunks – streams and rivers trickling through the undergrowth, meandering around rocks and suddenly fallin g over the edge of a cliff or rock face. There are so many waterfalls. The rocks that underlay the waterfalls look like a cubist’s rendition of a rock – very sharp and sheer edges stacked on top of each other. On a walk through the forest, I was swept away by the fairies and have decided to work there for the month of June. So I will not be home by june 1 as I told some of you."

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