Image credit: Psytrip by psion005Created 2006 using Apophysis and posted to the Artist's DeviantArt page - click on Psytrip for link
Surrounded by tens of thousands of increasingly drunk revellers on the main beach, Port St Johns, Wild Coast. 2am, 1 January 2009. Thousands in the water; floodlights creating a surreal mass crowd scene, silhouetted further out, invisible against the embankments. Tripped out of my skull, it's a very Hunter S Thompson spectacle.
The road is dense with people. The beach is dense. Vuyani's is packed - and the source of the house music flooding over the beach. I snatch a close-up look at the DJ - shirtless, perspiring, pulsating in rhythm to the music and the crowd; its happening. I've missed - very deliberately - this party for the preceding years that I've lived in Transkei. I had a brief look at it, a few years ago, on the 2nd of January; saw nothing but mayhem, broken glass, bloody bodies, extraordinarily drunk people, and soldiers with automated guns and unfriendly faces. Not very trip friendly. Add into the equation the notorious inability to move vehicles in-and-out of Second Beach around this time. Seemed like a party to miss by all means. I knew all the kids went there, from Mthatha and countless rural villages. The same scene replicates itself at Mtentu, Cwebe and numerous other coastal hamlets. East London has a version of it, apparently 100 000 strong; but the mayhem is a fraction as rich.
Now I find myself in the eye of the mayhem, and I do not have the luxury to figure it all out. Its incredibly beautiful, and I'm drawn to the interplay between endless and endlessly hyped-up human bodies, the sea, the beach, the floodlights, the music, the underlying tension.
I had planned, first, my first New Year Vortex party in ages; then looked inwards at a resumption of the dre anthrax ghoul Ncise parties. Everybody I mix with seemed to pull in different, indeterminate directions. Finally, I thought, a small intimate party with 3 or 4 very close friends. But by the morning of the 31st I had bought into the promised land at Port St John's: there was to be a serious commercial house party at the soccer stadium in PSJ, with a tantalizing trance party as back-up at Amapondo Backpackers. Now Dave mentioned the House party. Rasta Dave is not to be trusted. First, he's called 'Rasta', yet has had a cheesekop for at least a decade. Second, the last New Year party he organised left Fiks and myself negotiating payment terms with the owners while still tripping off our brackets. Third, he tried hard to burn my house down during a party. Fourth, he's an artist, a herbalist, a real lunatic, and above all he's Dave. Which means real trouble. But then Phila confirmed the party and mentioned the trance back-up. (Some 24 hours later I told Phila to get the hell out of my car so that I can regain my sanity. Enough said.)
So here I am, having finally accepted that my car was going to be parked on the road (with very drunk, speeding lunatics part of the equation); that there IS no house party in town; that Amapondo has some weird rock DJ playing music that has more-or-less decayed in the deeper reaches of my mind. I finally popped some candy, with two of my weirder friends, at around midnight. Earlier I'd taken a walk onto Second beach, and was astonished at the peacefulness and chilled-out serenity of the massive crowd. So by now I knew this was where I wanted to spend my time.
The drive down was interesting. We went through a roadblock that did a double-check (different officers, about a 100m apart) on the licence disk, lights, tyres, drivers' licence, driver sobriety and general road worthiness. Thizo was the driver, handled it all very well, and joked non-stop with the cops about their newly established taxi rank (hundreds of taxis had been pulled off and grounded). It was raining at this point (on the coastal escarpment), and large numbers of dejected hikers were walking towards PSJ (still about 60km away).
Once at the beach, Thizo and Mavus - who stayed sober and straight throughout the festivities - promptly pitched tent in the busiest spot close to the water. This was to be a reference point for us. The night unfolded as an endless wandering between the beach and the backpackers; between different crowd scenes and different music. The (mostly foreign) patrons of the backpackers had generally made-up their minds that they were not to venture into the chaos unfolding below them. Not all was good. I remember, at one point, seeing bodies flying, blood, violence; but sidestepped it all gingerly. You don't pay too much attention to such incidents in a crowded space like that. Despite the fact that there must have been many tens of thousands of people, not a cop nor a soldier nor an ambulance was in sight, except at the checkpoints on the road. The faces, bodies were extraordinary. The energy, the eyes, the silhouettes. There were many small dramas, but came dawn the scene unfolding was one of exceptional beauty and detail. The night was bizarre - strangely relaxed, yet on full alert amidst massive drunkenness.
Getting out was trying. We made an initial attempt at around 6am; but turned back. At 9am we tried again, and had a 2 hour crawl up the supposedly one-way mountain route (cars coming in came on the normal coastal road). Five trucks blocked us for some time, and then painstakingly reversed up the hill. As I stopped next to the last police checkpoint, I asked if my clutch plate was smelling exceptionally burnt, but was re-assured that every clutch plate had the same noxious smell about it.
We tried to get back in later, but it was impossible. It started raining, but the crowds kept pouring in. Sleep wasn't a possibility. We had no contact with Thizo and Mavus - the cellular network was ridicolously overloaded. I'll spare you the details of further proceedings.
Yesterday Phila questioned our sanity for walking around with bulging daypacks - which included money and cell phones - amidst all the mayhem. She related how as she tried to meet up with the others, she met an acquantaince from the clinic, who told her the dead body count at the clinic was 37. Thirty seven. 3pm, 1 January 2009. It didn't warrant a reference in the regional newspaper - which only mocked the fact that East London's zero tolerance policy to public drinking was contradicted by the endless broken glass bottles on the beach.
Phila isn't interested in a repeat celebration next year. Nor is Thizo - he enjoyed the night, and wanted to stay the following night, despite the rain, but bemoaned the fact that, in general, women were dirty and ugly. What did he expect of open-air mayhem? Its the same at a Cape Town trance party. If you want sensuous style, hit the urban clubs.
I do, though, remember one couple, very stylish and beautiful, dancing to enigmatic house pumping out of a car system. As I alluded earlier, there were many fascinating, contradictory, stimulating side-shows. I want to go back - despite the 37 bodies (which must have increased substantially). Back to Mthatha, the cops were hard at work. Not a single intoxicated motorist was going to proceed - after all, accidents get media exposure.
Footnote: I carried my camera on me all night, but failed to take a single pic. Which is one of the reasons I must go back!
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