Confessions of a Technophobe, New Series 20
Part 2 continued
1956–1966
Feeling richer than we had been for time, we took a train up into the Engedine Valley to hopefully stay a night or two with Frau Zamboni in Bevers. She had been our landlady ten years previously when my parents and I stayed in the little village for about eight months, waiting for our ship to leave from Marseilles.
When she came to the door and I explained that I was now the grown-up version of the little English boy who boarded at her house in 1946, her delight in seeing me again was heartwarming. She and I had formed a close bond previously, when I would carry out all kinds of errands for her. In particular, I had made a few trips into the mountains to collect firewood for the winter. Every villager was allocated a section of the mountainside from where they could collect fallen branches. She must have been already in her sixties then and my help was much appreciated. I would take her small wooden cart which many of the Swiss used for carrying heavy objects and was ideal for collecting the firewood.
The only problem we had over the next week was how to find a polite way of leaving to continue our journey. Frau Zamboni was clearly lonely. She had a son who was a businessman living in Zurich. He only visited her once or twice a year. She was actually German, not Swiss, and did not fit easily into the social life of the village. I think she was part of the aristocracy, and her lifestyle was way beyond the comprehension of the villagers who were simple but quite friendly rural folk.
When she died some years later, her house was declared a national heritage site. It was filled with priceless antiques and an extensive library. I visited Bevers again with my wife Hero. In the intervening years after the good Frau died, her son bought adjoining houses and turned the place into an exclusive boutique hotel. (We did not have time to stay overnight as I was due to meet my then film partner, an American, Eric Karson, in Munich some days later. I still hope to find a way to spend at least a night in the hotel before I become too frail to travel.) Frau Zamboni spoiled us rotten. We were given separate bedrooms and bathroom including the indescribable luxury of a bed to sleep in. After weeks of sleeping in sleeping bags on riverbanks or in apple orchards (including one night when it rained – we slept under a bridge on the actual road with our canoes on either side of us, to act as a warning barrier should a car or truck have the temerity to use our bedroom as a road!)
We eventually spent a week with Frau Zamboni. The lure of soft mattresses, warm but lightweight duvets –- the first I had ever experienced – feather-filled pillows and delicious food, weakened our resolves to the point where we thought the good lady may eventually kick us out. In the end she was genuinely sad to see us go. Alan was just as welcome as I, especially as he spoke a pure form of German. A great relief for her who frequently struggled with Swiss German, a dialect that few outside of Switzerland could comprehend. Alan and I decided that if we didn’t leave soon, we would never get to Italy. We set the day and left with a few tears all round.
Carrying comfortable and containable rucksacks, bought in Geneva after the sale of the canoes, we hitch-hiked together this time and made it as far as the beginning of the Simplon Pass. This is a spectacular road reaching a height of 6581 feet, passing through the Swiss Lepontine Alps and through the Pennine Alps into Italy. It was getting very cold as we were dropped off about half a mile before the pass. Looking around we found a dry ditch by the side of the road. We got out our sleeping bags, lay them down in the ditch, to shelter from an icy wind and quickly fell asleep. A few hours later, I awoke to find that I was now lying in a pool of water. I called out to Alan and he confirmed that he too was soaking wet. Instead of being between a rock and a hard place, we were now between an icy wind and a wet place! It was probably the most uncomfortable night of our lives. We found that by lying very still, the water around our bodies warmed up a little bit from the heat of our bodies. It was therefore better to stay where we were until daybreak.
Fortunately, we had placed our rucksacks on the ground outside the ditch. When we finally decided to get out of there, we found that most of our clothing in the rucksacks was still dry. A quick change out of our wet clothes into dry apparel, then we set off towards the pass. It was snowing gently and as we walked, our bodies warmed up and our spirits rose accordingly. We reached the beginning of the pass and were disappointed not to see any vehicles travelling along the road in either direction. We finally came across a barrier across the road with a couple of policemen patrolling it. Alan used his German to ask what was happening. The police replied that the pass was closed due to a major snowstorm.
Alan and I looked at each other, nodded and stepped around the barrier, setting off on foot. A few moments later, one of the cops shouted and raced after us. He explained to Alan in no uncertain terms that we were mad to try and cross the pass on foot. He said we would be certain to die of hyperthermia, especially in the light clothing we were wearing. He said he would arrest us if we took another step towards Italy but then softened his approach and advised us to catch the train from Brig, a Swiss town nearby, and offered to have us driven there in one of the police cars.
Even bull-headed youngsters can sometimes recognize sensible advice. Besides which we were both getting bloody cold! We were dropped off at the Brig railway station and even managed to scrounge a cup of coffee and a sandwich. The train was due an hour later. We were only too happy to remain in the warmth of the railway station and reflect on the narrow escape from freezing to death. What do we Africans know about these hyper cold days?
The 20-kilometer Simplon tunnel is one of the longest in the world and cuts 124 kms off the journey to the border with Italy. We paid for the journey to Milano, realizing that the weather would probably not be much better on the Italian side of the pass. So, we arrived in some comfort at the large city and found a youth hostel. The following day we set off in search of a second-hand scooter. We tried a couple of dealers and they laughed at us in disbelief. They said that when a scooter is ready to be replaced in Italy, it is so clapped out that it is usually thrown away. They asked us to just watch a few scooters being driven around town and see how the Italians push them to the limit. After a few hours sitting at a pavement cafe and watching the mad gyrations of both scooter and motorcar drivers, we sadly accepted the advice not to buy a second-hand scooter. Wearily we went back onto the road and stuck out our thumbs once more.
We found the Italians friendly and obliging. They were quite willing to stop for us hitchhikers. In a couple of days, we had crossed back across Switzerland arriving in Liechtenstein. We bought some sandwiches at a tourist shop on the border of that tiny country and were served by a pleasant and smiling young lady with a boy of about 11 helping her behind the counter. We moved away and started eating our food while looking at posters and maps on the wall.
Then a middle-aged woman approached us and said, “I see you’re visiting our country. Do you know who just served you?” We shook our heads. “The young boy is His Serene Highness Hans Adam the Second and the girl is his sister the Princess. They come here regularly to help out and to keep in touch with the people of our country as well as any tourists travelling through. We’re very proud of them. I don’t think any other royalty does anything like that.” Hans Adam is the current head of the royal family in Liechtenstein. Our visit there was brief, but we were impressed.
From there we hitched through to the Bodensee, the third largest lake in Central Europe. Germany, Austria and Switzerland all border on the lake. After that we reached our next objective, Munich. It was the time of the Oktoberfest and having given up on our original plan to canoe to Yugoslavia, we thought we should go and get thoroughly pissed at the home of Bavarian beer!
We booked into the youth hostel not far from the festival grounds and were dismayed to discover that the place closed at 10:30 pm. Nevertheless, we left our luggage there – having been told that at the Oktoberfest if you got really drunk they supplied a tent where one could sleep it off. So, we set off, two very modest drinkers, determined to drink ourselves into oblivion, thereby securing a place to sleep for the night. We were aided and abetted in our plan by a group of French rugby players who were doubly impressed by us. Firstly, we were fit-looking South Africans so were bound to be rugby players (at the time South Africa was either number one or two rugby-playing nation in the world). Secondly, they thought our idea for getting a good night’s sleep was hysterical. Anyway, they bought us a few steins (mugs) of beer, and we all did our best to compete with the raucous Germans in their lederhosen (leather shorts, braces and khaki shirts) who in turn were singing at the top of their voices to the couple of Oompa bands (brass bands) that competed with each other to maintain the level of bedlam that characterized the Oktoberfest.
Imagine our horror when at 10:30 the festival closed down for the night. It was a Saturday. We were told that they closed early so that the revelers could be sober enough to attend church on the Sunday morning. Furthermore, no tents were supplied for drunks before the Sabbath!
Next to the festival hall was a collection of swings, Ferris wheels and other assorted rides. By then we were both staggering around and giggling foolishly. We made our way to the rides, intent on spending as long as possible there but, of course, these too closed down at midnight. So, we were on the streets in light rain, without anywhere to sleep.
More in hope than in anger we returned to the youth hostel and tried to break in. but we’d chosen a country, Germany, that takes security very seriously. The place was impenetrable – well almost! We managed to climb over the fence into the grounds of the hostel but the best we could do was to find a wooden tool shed with an unlocked door. Resigned to sleeping on the floor we lay down amongst the spades, forks and wheelbarrows. We settled in for about ten minutes. The rain suddenly came pelting down and the shed leaked like a sieve. We were getting more sober and more fed up by the minute.
Next, we tried to get into the outside kitchen and restaurant and were delighted to find a skylight over the front door that was partially open. Alan, much smaller than me, squirmed his way in and opened the door for me. The glorious aroma of good food hung in the air. We quickly found that large metal warming bins were mostly partially filled with food. After a night of heavy drinking and no food we had landed in paradise. We happily found plates, piled them high and ate ourselves to a standstill.
Then Alan, who was not yet fully sober, bumped into the cash till, immediately setting off an alarm. We froze then rushed over to the table where we had left our stein jugs that we had liberated from the festival, picked them up and prepared to leave. It suddenly occurred to us that no one had arrived to check on the reason for the alarm. Maybe they were all as drunk as we were! But we felt it prudent to leave the eating house and found ourselves back over the fence and onto the street in the rain that was falling lightly again.
In desperation I remembered that friends of mine had spent a night in jail for want of anywhere to sleep. Half an hour later we presented ourselves at the door of the local cop shop. A sleepy and irritable policeman shook his head at us as we asked to spend the night in a cell. Then a sergeant at the desk inside called out and told the man to let us in. He was quite amused by us and even more impressed when Alan told him in faultless German that we were from Namibia, a former German colony in Africa. The sergeant escorted us to a cell with two grubby-looking bunks and worn blankets. He told us gruffly that by law he would have to lock us in for the night. We thanked him profusely and finally got to sleep. The following morning, we were woken about 6 am and told we had to leave. As we got up to go, the cop saw we had something we were carrying inside our jackets. He asked Alan what we had, and we sheepishly produced our Oktoberfest steins, wondering how long we now would stay in prison. The sergeant shook his head, sighed and escorted us to the door, wishing us Godspeed to anywhere, except to remain in Munich. We got the hint, picked up our gear from the youth hostel, made our way to the Autobahn and prepared to hitch to Hamburg.
Overall, we were delighted and amused by our ability to get into some tight situations and get out again unscathed.
It reminds me of the way in which Peter Warren has also led an unorthodox life, lived through many adventures, and emerged as one of the geniuses of our time, which will be apparent as the launch of ExoBrain approaches and we can reveal to the world that our ExoTech will avoid all the pitfalls into which current artificial intelligence is bound to fall!
An ExoTech Ltd shareholder, Chris is currently authoring two of the four books to be published the day ExoBrain launches and has helped to create ExoBrain’s introductory video to the Confidential Technical Briefing. Chris has spent his working life in the film and television industry, starting with BBC Television in London, then ATV in Birmingham becoming, at the time, the youngest Studio Manager in Britain.
Later, in South Africa, he wrote and directed film and TV commercials, having four South African entries at the Cannes Advertising Festival. After a number of years of writing and directing or producing documentaries (eight international awards) and corporate videos, he concentrated on writing feature film screenplays (five screened) and television series (seven screened). He has a novel, ”Pursuit of Treachery,” with a literary agent and is currently obtaining finance for an action adventure feature film he has written and is co-producing. He is a published poet and has given many readings.