Waking from a beautiful dream high above Nepal an announcement crackles through the speaker through out the plane… “ Hello ladies and gentlemen this is your captain speaking. We seem to have run in to a slight problem on the runway as an after shock has just happened, officials on the ground are just making sure that the runway has not been damaged to make sure that it is safe for us to land. We will be circling for a while awaiting there response. There is no reason to panic as we have enough fuel to find another airport to land at. Thank you and sorry for the inconvenience…” (click) I let out an uncontrollable nervous laugh as a slight anxiety and nervousness starts to creep into my mind at the thought of something horrible happening,( this is due to me not really ever being inside a plane, let alone the long distances travel.), My better half reminds me kindly that there is nothing to panic about and all will be okey dokey. As she always is right, nothing bad happened and we landed safely into the cold and brisk air of Nepal, what a welcome I mutter under my breath, all the while resisting the urge to kiss the ground and look like an absolute fool. Slowly we meander our way to the luggage pick area and locate our bags in the corner of the room, seems we made it
through the screening. Winning. Getting the visa on arrival was simpler than I thought, fill in a couple forms on a terminal and pay the lady at the counter, this would be second simpler visa transactions of my life. Now as I’ve been told the taxi guys at airports are ruthless and mostly liars but never did I expect anything like the carnage that was about to unfold, luckily prior to our arrival we organized through our backpackers that a taxi driver would pick us up at the airport but for the next 30 minutes it was a struggle of fending off countless taxi drivers telling us they were cheaper, knew where were we going, our backpackers were liars etc… Yet behold there was a smile amongst the bickering men as our prebooked , kindly gentleman with our names on a sign, strolled to us asking if we were ready and our response was a resounding “hell yeah, get us out of here!”. As he escorted us through the disgruntled men with a laugh and a shrug, he explains we were lucky because he nearly couldn’t make it due to a collision on a road and boy we were thankful! The drive towards the backpackers and the first actual bed we would have had in over 3 days was pleasant, although it was midnight and a shroud of dust was covering the city from the the after shock, the sights of a slumbering city were absolutely stunning. Bright lights spotted the popular tourist and nightlight areas that were still alive were the beat of the latest popular songs thrummed through the still air which slowly transformed into the dark roads and quiet streets that stretched and winded up their way towards our destination of choice. The only sounds to be heard were the occasional howls and barks of the street dogs, the grumble of large lorries on the way to the factor’s located through out the country side and our excited chatting in the backseat of the cramped taxi…
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Let me introduce myself.. My name is Joshua Luke Roy Dewey, an average person to some but in my opinion I see myself
apart from the rest with my strange attitude to life and those around me. I live in East London, South Africa, which is where I grew up for most of my childhood. Its a small town considering the big cities around the world. I have a habit of starting projects and losing interest quickly if the project in question does not entertain me enough, this has put a slight dampener on my achievements in life but has never discouraged me from pursing what really peaks my happiness. I've been wanting to go on a trip overseas for a while now. Although I have traveled in my own country which in its self is a beautiful place to be, from the rolling hills of the Transkei all the way down to the freezing waters of Cape Town.. Today would be that day I would be embarking on the start of an adventure of a lifetime that would kick my ass into gear and change the coarse of my life. Paula, a beautiful German girl that I happen to meet in a chance encounter while doing a stint in a backpackers in Hermanus, was my girlfriend at the time. She has a fantastic outlook on life with a bubbly personality to boot, has arrived in my hometown to pick me up for the start of our adventure. We spend the last night at my parents house packing up our belongings and taking only the necessary for the trip ahead, you could feel the excitement in the air as we struggled to get some rest before boarding our train to Jo burg with a flight to Kathmandu, Nepal, Our first of many destinations. The train ride in itself was adventure, unknowingly to us that this would be the one of the many train rides we would be partaking in. As we sit in our small cabin, sipping on ciders and beers, reading novels and peering at the rush landscape, our conversation starts leading to the unavoidable topic of what awaits us as our imagination runs rampant. Eventually the buzz from the alcohol and the continuous conversation takes its toll on the both of us as we fall asleep to the slow rocking of the metallic beast rolling along the tracks towards the brightly light sunny morning filled with opportunities.. To be honest.. not much happened in joburg, jumping from train to taxi, taxi to airport and finally finding our seats in a congested plane heading to Dubai , our first layover that hit our pockets with a unexpected shock. Never go to the Heinkein lounge unless you have the money for it! Not knowing the exchange rate in Dubai was our first mistake, secondly was our intense hunger and need for a thirst quencher after a restless or sleepless night on the plane. Spending close to R390 on a draft and an average pizza is not the best way to start a trip.. Our layover was going onto nearly 8 hours and thinking we had enough time we dawdled our way to the terminal.. Only to find out our terminal was on the other side of the airport. This in itself was not good as we began a frantic run towards the buses departing towards it. Egging our poor driver on as much as we could, we leapt from the bus and put Usain Bolt to shame as we bolted ( excuse the pun) to our gate.. As we arrive the kind, friendly and filled with hysterics ticket receiver tells us we made it in time and helps us with impending asthma attack that's threatening both us with glass of water and sly giggle. Great, At least we were on our to Nepal now.. What could go wrong? I quietly tell myself as a deep slumber grabs a hold my tired mind… Ah the whales... A question we always got asked was, "are there any whales here?", " can we see whales?" "whales?now?".... You get the point but to me it was a sublime time to be in that part of the world and to clear it up typically the whale season in Hermanus is between June and December every year. Some years the Southern Right whales arrive as early as late April but the usual time for them to start arriving is at the end of May. Southern Right whales have been reported to still be in Hermanus as late as early January. The peak season for the whales is around September or October, Every year the hermanus Whale Festival is held. This is typically during the peak of the Hermanus whale season, somewhere in September. This festival is not to be mistaken with the whale season. A common misconception is that the whales are only here during the whale festival.
While I spent some time in Hermanus working in a backpackers along the coast, I had the great pleasure of experiencing the infamous shark dive. I had a lot of thoughts on it, mainly negative due to my surfing background along with stigma that most people attribute towards the whole system of how they chum the water to attract the sharks... Yet it was the most informative experience I ever had when it came to these hunters of the ocean. Did you know while they are in the mother they sometimes eat their siblings to survive? I certainly didn't. This along with many facts and bites of information about them gave me a greater understanding of how they effect our environment and how people sometimes wrongly accuse the dive company bringing the sharks closer to shore. We as the human population over fished their food supply, forcing them to move closer to shore ( where we swim and partake in our ocean activities) hence more shark attacks. They are not to blame, we are. We enter their domain every time our foot touches the water and we need to understand this before irrational conclusions about the sharks are made.
Sometimes there will come in a time in your life, where you will be lost.. I mean lost in the sense that you have no clue who you are, where you are and what will happen next. Yet fear not life has a habit of opening doors and showing you what it has to offer, some maybe scary and other wonderfully magical.. it is really up to you to decide, do I want this or not?
I've been flowing through life with an easy go attitude( what ever happens, happens for a reason) and its been absolutely delightful. I have met the most amazing people along the way, as well as making a few mistakes here and there but you know what? every mistake is worth it because it adds a certain direction, a path if you will, in life. My suggestion would be embrace it, love it and cherish it. We learn and evolve from these mistake to find the simplicity in all things around us. I will be visiting the Transkei region several times in the months ahead. New photos of this wonderful eastern cape area will be added over this time. More details to follow soon.
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AuthorJoshua Dewey. South African Photographer Archives
October 2016
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