Living off the land

There I was, doing my humble best at 4x4-ing, and managing rather nicely, thank you, when there's this voice from the back: "Whoa ! Stop ! Stop !!"

Turns out the man wanted to look at a bush. The berries on the bush, to be precise - tiny orange-red fruits which may hold the key to his survival. This sounded rather important. So we troop out - and the Kriedoring proceeds to repay our interest with the most vicious scratches & stabs I've ever experienced from any semi-desert shrub. The bright little fruits are exceedingly well protected among the thorns - but once we tasted that sweet & complex flavour, they became worth the bloody sacrifice.

Apparently highly nutritious, as are all karoo & desert fruits - and they may indeed be a life-saver for my new friend preparing for his solo canoe trip all along the mighty Orange, all the way to the ocean. He's going alone, unsupported, and unprovisioned. He will live off the land - he will literally survive on the fruits of the veld.

So the man says, Why don't you come along ? It's a big river and a big chunk of land - we can each still be solo-ing.

Oh how I wish I was bold enough, fit & strong enough & mad enough to say Yes. Imagine just being with that river, that landscape. Just being. No clutter. Letting the fruits of the veld sustain you.

Imagine being that strong. That free.

Don't be a pain in the whatsit: Rule #2 of 5

How’s this for keeping things in perspective ? The Orange downstream from the famous Augrabies Falls. Makes one feel really small. Keeps you humble. Which brings me to this:

DON'T EVANGELIZE about your newfound fruitarian life.
The fact that you believe that you have seen the light does not confer the right (or the obligation) upon you to bore & bludgeon anyone else into abandoning their own convictions and instantly join your crusade. They don't owe you a buy-in; Your fruitarianism is not a franchise.

OK, of course, speak your truth – if and when appropriate, with kindness and discernment. But you'd better accept that everyone else is already doing his/her best. Whatever the evidence to the contrary, we are all just doing the best we can, when we can, according to the awareness we’re holding at the time. So, leave the persuading for now - you have quite enough work to do in overcoming your own inertia.

Oh, you don't have that kind of problem ? Well, lucky you. Even so, for the rest of us ordinary (and honest) mortals:

Better to keep your eyes on your own goals – they are glorious enough, and all too often, seemingly unattainable enough. Like the Augrabies Xtreme. Look at the picture - that's the kind of terrain waiting for me. And there's the heat: it couldn't have been very far off 50 deg C when we were there, and I loved it. But I wasn't running, I wasn't carrying provisions for a week, and I didn't have to keep doing it for days on end. And then there are still the dunes...

Sounds quite mad, but people have done it. WOMEN have done it. And the woman who won the women's section last time around is now running the Atacama desert. But I don't like to think about her. She's young, she's blonde, she's an experienced ultra-athlete, and she's not a fruitarian. See what I mean ? Just absolutely NO POINT in looking at someone else's journey - it'll result in one of two things: either despair, or pride. Either way, it's a killer.

Who's the woman ? Oh, Mimi Anderson - just Google her name - goes as marvellousmimi. But I'd really rather not think about her right now ...