The road to Vhutuwangadzebu

Clever people will see the mystery d 

You may be forced to answer some soul searching questions when traveling deep in Vhembe, the land of legend. Such as should you take the road to Vutuwangadzebu or the road to Vhutuwangazebu? Both left and right led to the same place it seemed. “Do you think all roads out here lead to Vhutuwangadzebu?” I asked my traveling girlfriend. “Or is it a circular drive?

Her attentions were focused on the enormous surreal baobab tree ahead of us. “When you see a fork in the road”, she replied wisely, “take it”. So being the driver and from the Robert Frost School of Roads Less Traveled By (read his famous poem The Road Not Taken) I decided to turn right to Vhutuwangadzebu, and as Frost himself would have said, that has made all the difference.

The road to Vutuwangadzebu 

It led into the heart of soul country, a long way away from the cellphone-e-mail-Internet merry-go-round, into remotest rural Venda, past brilliant green tea estates, ancient ruins, sacred lakes and holy forests. The road to Vhutuwangadzebu led us on a slow sexy drive into the cool green heights of upper, upper Tshixwadza, past hillside villages that cling onto the mountainsides, where the schoolchildren waved and the tinkle of cowbells delighted our ears.

We had spent the previous night at a thoroughly charming place called Madi a Thavha, in the foothills of the Soutpansberg mountains, south of Louis Trichardt. The Soutpansberg or Tha vhani ya muno (mountain of salt) gets its name from the salt pans here which have been spicing up life here for centuries. Madi a Thavha is a guesthouse and gallery dedicated to promoting traditional arts & crafts; and having given us a night of warm hospitality, they then gave us a divine breakfast and a map of the Artists Route, a self-drive route which takes you to the studios and workshops of various potters, sculptors, weavers and fabric makers.

Makhambani tea estate

But being artists ourselves, and magicians and storytellers, we ended up instead on the road to Vhutuwangadzebu, immersing ourselves in the names of the places around us, those with a different soul and psyche: Mufungudi, Mutshindudi. Phananani. Phiphidi. Fondwe. Fundudzi. Tshamanthatshe. We ended up knee deep in amazement in the heart of bright green tea estates, delighting in the sheer spectacle of it all. I photographed the reflection of tea slopes in silver dams, from a million angles, and the baobabs that stud the mountainsides.

Change your relaxing style 

 We bought Zamaleks from the Speakeasy Bar (Don’t change your lifestyle, said the billboard outside, change your relaxing style!) and we drove on and up into the land where the pythons still dance and the drums still beat under the water in the pools at Mashovhela and the holy forest is protected by Nthathe the supernatural lion. Yes people, the road to Vhutuwangadzebu took us far, far away from this wearisome global village… And knowing how way leads onto way, I doubted if we should ever come back. 

I doubted if we should ever come back