Folds of intrigue

I love returning to Cape Town, my home, my soul place. I miss so much of it when I am away from here and with my loved ones scattered (a common plight amongst us Capetonians) I am often on a flight out. But ah, the return flight, as the wide, brown, flat expanse of Karoo starts to ripple and undulate and the bright white clouds start to gather on darker little pinnacles and there's that silver blue Atlantic glitteringly welcoming you back - that's the time where I feel distinctly of this place. I mean obviously it's me and the other 5 million plus humans but sometimes I wonder. Is anyone else peering out the window as the plane prepares for its descent somewhere over the Tankwa Karoo trying to figure which of those kloofs is the one that cuts through central Cedarberg, which of those peaks is the Matroosberg, which of those rivers is the Witels. They are around (our city's mountain club has a significantly large membership) but it feels like no matter how many avid climbers, mountaineers and researchers of various disciplines you meet not many have explored all these ancient folds and bends and breaks that form the border of the place we live and love. We are all limited, in size and time. We can only do so much so we pick our favourite places - The Wolfberg Cracks, Bobbejaanskloof waterfall, the extremely diverse Kogelberg, Die Hel - places that take time to get to, that take time to fully appreciate, and we try and get there as often as we can or even to explore more and off the beaten track and yet we remain tiny specks, little fleas on a fallen blanket in amongst motes of dust. When I get home, after the mandatory South African treats to settle my travellers woes I sometimes get the maps out, try and figure out what valley that was, or that tiny glistening pool, where was that?! I try and I fail. Yet later when I sit on that lost slope somewhere, enveloped in the tectonic ripples and I see, high overhead, that plane coming home; I laugh at my future self looking out, while I sit contentedly adrift in the mystery.