After a nine-hour night flight and a 90-minute drive, I unpacked at my hotel
and enjoyed a restorative breakfast. Returning to my room on the fifth floor
with a balcony overlooking an enormous swimming pool, I was about to decide what
to do with my day when I sensed that something about the room had
changed.
No, not the room. The balcony. An hour ago it was the picture of
well-ordered serenity; now it looked as if a cyclone had hit it. The two deck
chairs were overturned, a dark liquid was splattered across the glass doors, and
the floor was littered with shards of white china. On closer inspection, I saw
that a full pot of coffee had been smashed with extreme brutality.
I knew I
had locked all the doors before heading down to breakfast. And given the
configuration of the hotel, it was impossible to gain access to my balcony
from a neighboring room. Utterly befuddled and more than a little scared, I
moved stealthily to the only closet in the room, hesitated and yanked the door
open, half-expecting an axe-wielding Jack Nicholson to scream, “Heeere’s
Johnny!”
Nothing. Nor was Anthony Perkins behind the shower curtain. By
chance, however, two maintenance men were down the hall, and I called them in.
They took a quick look, exchanged knowing glances, and broke into ear-to-ear
grins.
“The baboons, sir,” said one. “They were playing this morning. They
must have snatched the coffee from another balcony and smashed it on your
porch.”
Clearly, this would be a golf trip unlike any other, full of sights,
sounds and smells I had never experienced, to a land both pristine and primal,
triumphant and troubled, a land blessed with an astonishing diversity of natural
beauty and a growing collection of world-class courses. This was South Africa.
