Friday, February 18, 2011

Touring St Helena


What a lovely day we had! Early morning we went into James Town to meet our tour guide, Robert. I took the opportunity to send my mom's letter off to her and mail the postcards to my kids and loved ones ( if I have your postal address). Only 40p a beautiful St Helena stamp that will go with the RMS boat soon to Cape Town. Apparently it is a great commodity philatelists to have a stamp from St Helena mailed here and shipped off. It can take a package months to get to it's destination, so I had to do this! If you want a stamp, send me your address via mail (marlene@juralands.com) or comment on my blog and I will send it straight away. Robert came to fetch us with his bakkie, and in the back we jumped. Unfortunately the weather wasn't playing along, and I had to borrow his jacket because at some stages we were soaking at the back. But we had fun! The drive in a vehicle felt so awkward and we hanged onto each other for dear life cruising around the narrow bends, when Robert just hooted to scare or warn a coming vehicle. But we survived the first couple of miles and remembered how it felt like to be land borne again. We stopped at the first residence, Briars Pavilion, for Napoleon, where he stayed for 7 weeks after being exiled and went off to the beautiful Longwood House still with the mouldy smells that made people think that he died of arsenic poisoning. We stood in the very room where he died, trying to imagine the lonely world of the last days of this formidable man. Every time the clouds lifted we were surprised to see the lush green fields of this volcanic island with cattle roaming. Charles, you can come for a nice pot of gholf on this remote island...9 holes but if you go again it can be 18! And so we enjoyed our day having dry cream crackers and a packet of chips for lunch, until we came to the Governor's House at Plantation. Jonathan was awaiting Marco! This big old turtle, 197 old with a cataract because of old age, you know, still enjoy the soft grass on top of the hill. He is accompanied by Emma and a younger David. We sat and rubbed his soft wrinkled skin on his hind legs and he gently lifted his huge heavy body. It reminded me of a very smart car we used to have when I was a little girl. A big blue Citroen with leather seats, and every Sunday morning going to church my daddy used to get into the car early to get the car to lift up his body... Amazing to touch another being, being so long in this life.
Our tour ended with this amazing memory. St Helena is really making sure that she will be remembered.

1 comment:

Anonymous said...

Hi Marlene,

Die idee om golf te speel met Napoleon wat oor jou skouer loer is nogal 'appealing'.Het julle all enige tekens gesien van die boere konsentrasiekampe. Kry julle my 'comments' want dit reflekteer nie op die Blog nie?

Groete
Charles