Part 42
After weeks of frustrating physical inactivity due to the madness of COVID-19, I found my mind casting back to times when I was hyperfit and tended to express this in exuberant, even foolish, ways.
Before I met my wife Hero, I took a holiday at Cathedral Peak Hotel in the heart of the Drakensberg Mountains, which run over a thousand miles along the edge of the Great Escarpment on the eastern side of South Africa. The highest peak in these mountains is almost 11,500 feet, with Cathedral Peak only a few hundred feet below.
The hotel offered numerous walks in the spectacular scenery surrounding the hotel as well as the more adventurous prospect of climbing Cathedral Peak. When I say “climbing,” it was really more of a rugged walk because there were no rock faces to contend with. However, it was sufficiently difficult for the hotel to provide an experienced guide for groups of hikers willing to ascend.
Our guide’s name was John, although he had a more exotic, traditional Zulu name and had been climbing in the mountains since he was a teenager. In appearance he bore a remarkable resemblance to the Hollywood actor Yul Brynner. John’s father had been the hotel guide before him. Bear in mind this was in the early 1960s when South Africa was very much in the grips of the evermore repressive Apartheid regime. It was therefore an extremely difficult task for John, part of South Africa’s non-white majority, to be in charge of a group of white tourists at a time when suppressive laws tried to regulate against such things.
Partly for that reason, but mostly due to respect for John’s ability to exert excellent leadership and control, I shall never forget his gentle but authoritative handling of our group. We consisted of about twenty men, women and teenagers from varying walks of life. He was magnificent as he made sure that we followed the basic rules of safety on the increasingly steep paths leading to the summit, which was shaped like a bell, hence the name Cathedral Peak.
A few of the group were in their sixties or more and could not walk or climb as fast as the youngsters like myself. As we neared the summit, an inconsiderate cloud came and perched over the peak. John asked if we would prefer to go back or should we go on. He recommended that the older and less fit members should not attempt the final climb. I was determined to reach the peak, as were almost half of the group, and John agreed that we could do it.
By that stage, I was very frustrated by the slowness of the group and asked if I could go on ahead, assuming that the trail was clearly marked. John reluctantly agreed, having established earlier that I was obviously fitter than any of the others. He made me promise not to do anything foolish and to wait for him and the others if I ran into difficulties.
I pressed on. Within fifty feet the cloud cover was so thick that I lost sight of the others, but the trail itself was quite clear so I continued, finally reaching the summit. It consisted of a fairly smooth area of about ten by fifteen feet with a cairn of small stones marking it at an altitude of about 10,200 feet.
It was both an eerie and exhilarating feeling being entirely alone on a mountaintop and unable to see more than about three feet away (the clouds had grown even denser as I reached the summit). I laid down on the rock and let my mind drift, but as I did I became aware of a weird swishing sound. It came and went, approaching closer to me and then again moving away.
I admit to thinking of ghosts and then a growing concern that the others had given up and gone back down the mountain. What if I had been left to my own devices with this ever-increasingly frightening sound around me? Then, to my relief, a swallow flew so close that I could clearly see it and hear the swishing sound its wings made in the heavy moist air of the cloud. The mystery was solved. There had to be a number of these graceful birds flying through the cloud and creating a sound I had never heard before or since, for that matter.
A couple of minutes later I heard the comforting bass tone of John’s voice calling me through the mist. He and about five others joined me on the summit, but the swallows had been frightened away. Sadly, I remained the only one who experienced their phenomenal sound. It was getting cold, so we soon headed down the mountain, joining the rest of the group shortly after.
John then explained that the hotel would prepare a lavish tea with scones, strawberries and cream for the returning mountaineers. Someone asked how they would know when we were nearing the hotel. John explained that a few years previously, a group of Swiss climbers had visited the hotel and had taught him how to yodel. So, when we approached within range of the hotel John would start to yodel and tea would be prepared!
I was still filled with excess energy, which had been buoyed up even further by my unusual experience on the summit. So, I asked John if he minded me going on ahead. By now he was used to this slightly mad youngster, who was bouncing all over, and he was probably quite relieved to get rid of me. I was proving to be a disruptive influence on the group.
John and I should have thought that decision through more carefully. I began to run back to the hotel as the ground flattened out, and shortly after heard the melodic tones of John yodeling. Yet when I arrived alone, all enthused and inspired by my accomplishments, I was surprised by the consequences that befell me.
I was greeted by an anxious-looking manager and staff. “What’s happened?” the manager called out as I approached. “Has someone been injured?”
I looked at him blankly “No … we’re all fine, thanks.”
“So, why did you run back ahead of the others?”
The magic of the day collapsed. Suddenly I felt foolish and embarrassed. “I… er… I just wanted the exercise.”
Nobody thought it was funny. I was mortified and couldn’t stop apologizing. I also got the impression that John was in the doghouse for letting me go ahead.
A complete volte-face, that day nonetheless taught me something – when an event is observed without any explanation, it can be open to all kinds of interpretations. In the same way that my positive behavior and attitude were read as alarming and unacceptable, our current computing communications are increasingly hacked and distorted. Thus events and facts that are really one thing turn out to look like quite another. It may have led to only minor disapproval on that day long ago with my marvelous guide, but who knows what ramifications happen in the broader scheme of things in the world of computing and on the Internet?
I can’t wait for ExoBrain to give us an unequivocal system of accurate computing. Had I had the benefit of true understanding on that adventurous day in my youth, both John and I would have been applauded for the great spirits that we actually were!
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.