Richard Stupart

There are twenty four minutes left on this laptop battery. Power to the plugs in ‘hotel’ Tropikana (don’t ask) has failed, though the lights work absolutely fine. Outside is a little dark, and slightly infused with the smell of burnt trash and roasting meat. Somewhere out there, a bar cranks out huge sound while patrons lounge in plastic furniture drinking beer. The waitresses at the bar no longer trust me to return their beer bottles and have begun keeping a deposit. This has not been entirely unreasonable on their part.

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This post should have gone up two days ago. But packing can be such a demanding mistress. Have I put in too little? Too much? Do I really need an extra bandage in the first aid section? (yes) Have the extra batteries for the camcorder arrived? (No). And so it has gone. So these are the words that should have been. Not on time, and not as carefully wrought as I’d like. But I suspect there will be a lot written from the hip in the days to come.
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As many readers may be unaware, I am still a student this year. After finishing the postgrad diploma in journalism at Rhodes University last year, I remained to pursue an MA in Media Studies through a part coursework/part dissertation program. The dissertation is meant to start in the third quarter of this year, but I have been beavering away to try and get a proposal finished in the next month or two so that I can get started early. I think I can work harder and finish faster. So it’s at least worth trying to, and seeing how I go.

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The end of the year is approaching, bringing with it that sense of slowdown, of a subtle gear shift across my life and the lives of people making plans to be elsewhere in December. Something in the last, frantic rush to Get Things Done has meant that I’ve been a little neglectful of this space. For which I apologise. And move swiftly on, loathing those blogs which are little more than periodic apologies for non-posting. It’s the blogging equivalent of those statements that begin “I don’t mean to be rude, but…”. Write, or don’t. I will.

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This marks the two hundredth post on WhereTheRoadGoes. It’s been a long journey over the last two and a bit years. Sometimes it really is often only on looking back that it becomes clear how truly far we have come.

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It’s a warm Sunday, dry from the suggestion of highveld dust on the sleeping air. Mixed in with the breeze, sweetening it, the sound of praises being sung in a nearby suburban park. An innocuous place on any other day, Sunday has transformed it, becoming a church to the jubilant celebration of Christ. Worshippers in robes of lush blue and impossibly brilliant white shuffle, sway and weave between the ululating and singing of the possessed. No walking dog or pedestrian picnic will intrude on this space today. As if fuelled by the afternoon, drifting lazily past, their worship blooms, wanes, flickers and explodes with the birth and death of each Sunday moment. Thousands burned in a day. Read the rest of this entry »

Just a quick welcome to those arriving here from www.travelblogs.com.  Covering a few years of travels and related writing, this blog is in the process at the moment of counting down towards departure on a journey from Cape Town to Cairo done entirely on public transport. With the countdown now at 38 days and reducing fast, you can read an overview of the trip route here, planning here and a summary of related posts here. If you would like to find out more about me, or pop me an email sometime, take a peek here.

Otherwise, please take a look and sniff around a bit. I hope you will  find something to inspire your own wanderings, writings and explorings. And if you are here in 38 days, I can’t wait to take you with me on the long and magical journey across Africa.

- Rich

52 days left on the countdown until boarding a flight to the Cape. There remains, as ever, a good deal still to be done – but little by little, tasks are being performed and small nuggets of self-satisfaction are being earned. Such as this weekend, for example, spent trying to find a place in Grahamstown for next year.

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Sometimes even if you don’t. Yes, I feel more than a little guilty that I haven’t updated these pages in an age – though by all accounts, this does not seem to have stopped the internet beating down the door (albeit modestly) in the last few days to come and read the stuff here. I guess that means this site is starting to have depth. Yeah. Depth baby. I love how that rolls off the tongue.

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It was high time that this blog got a new look. Something that tries to say traveler a little more and tourist a little less. And this is the result. There are some more widgets and other bits and pieces that will get added in the coming days, but this is about as much as can be done on low grade coffee and little sleep.

Jonathan made a point recently about (among other things, but I have never been good at the finer philosophical points) how to a large degree the choices we think we have and the experience of the world that we are able to shape for ourselves is often predetermined by the background and understandings handed to us by those around us (our families, friends and broader society).

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