Nomad day 1, March 7th: Meet the gang

After breakfast I took my luggage, checked out and walked to the Nomad office on Greenmarket Square, about 5 minutes away. The truck was already parked below the office (the Nomad office is located on the second floor) so I took a short walk around it – it was the same model as I was riding in Mozambique in 2008,
with boxes on the roof for the sleeping mats and racks for the luggage above the seats, instead of cabinet doors in the back of the truck.
Nomad is about to replace the trucks of this model with the newer version with cabinet doors, they have about 45 trucks in total so there a bit to go – they build the trucks themselves!

I went to the office and there I was welcomed by Thabani, who introduced himself as the guide and Roland, who is a guide apprentice and would go on the journey to familiarize himself with the route – the next time he is on tour, he will be the driver. Normally, it is always two guides, one of which doubles as a driver and the other as a chef.
With a cup of coffee in hand, I filled out the necessary papers and soon the rest of the gang began dropping in.

This is ”The Gang”, which took off from Cape Town this date:
Thabani, 35-40 years (he said so!), from Zimbabwe and guide/driver on this trip.
Godfree, 35-40 years (he also said so…), also from Zimbabwe and guide/cook. Or, rather, great chef!
Roland, 24 years; farmboy from the South African Karoo; guide-in-spe and ”Apprentice” on this trip
Amarins, 27 years, from Holland and medical student. Has been on rotation in a hospital in Cape Town and will be on the tour to it’s end in Johannesburg.
Welmoed, 23 years, from Holland and sister to Amarins. Studying to biomedical enginneer. Will also be on the tour to it’s end.
Han, 26 year, also from Holland and he too a medical student who has been on rotation in Cape Town, However, not in the same hospital as Amarins. Only with on the journey to Port Elizabeth.
Marja 26 years – yet another Dutch and married to Han. HR representative at a company that produces pipes. Not smoking pipes, steel pipes!
Laura, 21 years; German who study psychology. Began journey with pajad kneecap and had both orthosis and crutches. Brave girl!
Ines, 31 years, our other German and preschool teacher. On tour to the end!
Trine, 31 years and Danish nurse. Childhood friend to Pia.
Pia, 34, also a nurse and Danish… between her, Trine, Amarins, Han and me, we had basically an entire ward on the trip!
Note: The picture of the gang was taken later on, in
Tsitsikamma

We shook hands, drank coffee and then got into the truck and we went to Stellenbosch, for our first stop was to be the vineyard Spier. The day started ”smoothly” with wine tasting of five-six wines (time was now somewhere between 9:30-10:00…) and we began to acquaint ourselves with each other.
After the wine tasting it was time to say hello to the cheetahs at Spier. The vineyard have a cheetah breeding program in order to return them to the wild. We walked around, watched, read the placards and took pictures. No one choose to go into the cheetah enclosures (this can be done at an additional fee).


After Stellenbosch we continued our drive eastwards, to Swellendam where we would stay overnight in a camp outside the city. When we arrived at the camp (Kam’bati) we found out that we were the only ones there – it was a beautiful place next to a river, fine showers and a bar with two sides open so one could sit in the bar and still enjoy the view and fresh air.
We pitched our tents, I had my own tent, but got it up quickly – I’ve done this before – this was my third Nomad trip. Welmoed showed up and helped me with a couple of hooks though, nice gal!

It was dinner in the open, then we had a name game and all introduced themselves (see above, all would also answer whether they were married but I have omitted this). It seemed like a nice bunch and we were all the kindd who enjoyed a great camping.
Thabani told of Stellenbosch and Swellendam, which are, beside Cape Town, South Africa’s oldest (of Dutch) founded cities. He talked about tomorrow’s plan and how a Nomad trip works.

After dinner we hanged in the bar – I and Han wanted to play pool. Though there were no queues and Laura refused to lend her crutches to use as queue. There was a dartboard that got our attraction – but there were only two darts…

So what to do when the sun goes down? Hanging out at the bar. Start enjoying ice cold beer … the bartender gave us Spingboks (one shot of Amarula liqueur and mint) and I showed the others how it should be drunk (I can demonstrate…) We got another round of Springboks after a while, but it was just me and Amarins who drank it.

It was going to be an early day tomorrow so we went to bed around 22 o’clock. Before I went into my tent, I looked up at the sky. It was strewn with stars, the Milky Way stretched along its
full glory and I smiled. I love Africa!

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