Fingerprints in Time

by Jade Darrow (United Kingdom (Great Britain))

I didn't expect to find South Africa

The valley of Giants Castle Camp in the Drakensberg foothills is no more a valley than I am a man. It’s a range of fledgling mountains, hidden crevasses, and sheer rock face. Set above the plunging landscape lies prehistoric cave paintings. Our goal. “Not far,” comes a call from Crunchie. I nod and smile at him. He thinks I’m tired, but I’m just in awe of where I am. Days before, stepping out at King Shaka International at Durban I was on the lookout for our guide. A friend of the family we were staying with. All we had was a picture and a name to identify him. When I finally spot Crunchie, I smile. A Law Enforcement Officer, he'd come to greet us from Arrivals dressed in his uniform. I knew I'd like him by his face. Red from sunburn, creased with laughter lines, and jewelled with small bright eyes. During his time as our tour guide around Colenso, he becomes a fount of knowledge. Back in the camp, Crunchie chats as we hike up to the caves. “Keep an eye out for the local wildlife,” he tells us. “What’s here?” I ask. He shrugs. “Baboons, snakes, vultures.” "The usual suspects, then?" He laughs, loud and biosteroius. It echoes along the fissure of land we stand in. Above us, on an outcrop of rock, startled birds take off in frantic flight. The land around us is mostly brown. It's winter and most plants have succumbed to the chill in the air. But the lack of colour doesn't take away from the beauty of the place. The walk up to the caves is both leg aching and picturesque. I alternate between taking pictures and asking Crunchie questions. He doesn't seem to mind, in fact, I think he enjoys my interest. The others in our party aren’t nearly as talkative. I ask him about the history of the land, how old the caves are, what he liked most about the place. I learn that, like most people connected with the land around them, he says more in his silences. It’s not an easy climb to the caves. The Bosemans river lurks beneath most of our journey, waiting for someone to misplace a foot. The steep incline up through the thick forest proves the most difficult part of our hike, but we emerge unscathed. We end up being late for the hourly talk so settle down and wait for the next. Then, when we're listening to the guide talk the group through the paintings, I'm removed from it all. It isn’t until I’m able to step forward and trace the paintings with my eyes that I feel something. Then, the gravity of where I am sinks in. The smear of fingers in blood red paint, so vivid, they give the illusion of freshness. The spirit of the artists lingers here. “There’s an Englishman’s handprint on the roof of the cave, from the war,” Crunchie tells us as we stand taking it all in. He refers to the Anglo-Boer War. "There used to be a tree standing near the mouth. He climbed on up and left his mark." Sure enough, there it was. As I'm looking up, I only pause to take one photo before I have to look at it with my own eyes. For me, the handprint and scrawled initials don't have the same weight as the paintings. I can appreciate the history of the graffiti, but there’s something niggling at the back of my mind. The image of a British soldier’s hand above a cave filled with paintings made by people thousands of years before. The encroachment of colonialism, I suppose. “What did you think?” Crunchie asks me as we walk back down the path. “Well, I won’t forget that in a hurry.” He laughs, and we walk on down the slope that loses about three inches each year to erosion caused by footsteps. The sun follows us and for a moment I glance backwards, watching the cave disappear behind bushes and rock. “It gets in your blood,” a new friend told me over a cold cider that evening. “This place. It’s like dust, gets damn near everywhere.”