by Suzanne Lantos
Longlisted – PureTravel Writing Competition 2024
I looked one last time at the calm, glinting seascape and the pastel blue house at the edge of Lüderitz that morning before walking a few metres inland, to start hitching a ride 300 kilometres across burnt sands and rock to the next town.
I waited a long time. So few cars came and went and those that were desert-bound would swerve me as I stepped part way into the road to wave them down. One old couple, in a practised gesture and perfect synchronicity signalled with outstretched hand that they would be turning left just down the road. Otherwise, they would have picked me up. Of course.
Eventually a large saloon slowed and stopped. The driver exited the car, hitched up his jeans and tipped his cowboy hat back slightly on his head.
“Need a lift?” he asked unnecessarily, as I was clearly trying to hitch a ride, and then “Going to Keetmanshoop?”
I nodded, glancing up the road in case another lift was arriving, but the driver was already sauntering to the boot of the car, popping the lid, and signalling for me to place my rucksack inside. I smiled weakly, put the rucksack in the boot and made my way to the passenger seat.
The leather seat scorched my legs through thin cotton trousers and the seat-belt buckle seared my fingers. The driver started the engine and checked the mirrors before pulling out: it seemed pointless to check because his was only the fifth car in three hours and the chances of a collision were slim.
We left the soft blues of Lüderitz behind us and moved into the endless orange landscape and huge cobalt skies of the Namib desert. For miles, the road and the metal fence that ran parallel to it, marking De Beers’ territory, were the only signs of human presence. If I disappeared here, I would never be found.
As my eyes adjusted to the hot dry scenery, I blinked hard and leant forward in my seat when I saw a roof embedded in sands to the right of the road.
“Ah, Kolmanskop. It’s a ghost town now. I was going to stop ‘yere to show you”, he said in his broad Afrikaans accent and brought the car to a halt at the roadside. We stepped out into blistering heat. No-one for miles in front. No-one behind us either. He pointed to a handful of deserted houses, sand-blasted for decades with dead black gaps for windows. The wind was sculpting the sand dunes as we stood there, swallowing the buildings before our eyes.
I stayed on my side of the car and watched as he took off his jacket and stretched in the open air and only then did I see he was he was wearing a gun. I glanced from him to the ghost town and back to the gun and I finally understood the look on my mum’s face as she’d waved me off at Heathrow airport weeks before.
“It’s getting too hot for this”, he said calmly, as he threw the jacket onto the back seat and began to peel off the holster. “But the hat”, he winked at me, “This is why they call me the cowboy”. I had been holding my breath for the last minute and finally exhaled as the holstered gun was thrown on top of the jacket.
He clambered back into the driver’s seat, unfazed. I glanced sideways as I opened the car door and slid back into the passenger seat.
“Why the gun?” I asked, haltingly, still unsure about him.
“Ah! I work with diamonds. You gotta look after yourself out ‘yere when you work with diamonds” He patted my knee, then started the engine and we continued driving eastward, a toy car in a giant’s landscape.
The journey took hours. The sun blasted relentless heat and light the whole way. I took off my sunglasses to wipe sweat from the frame. The cowboy glanced at me “You have beautiful eyes” he said, smiling. I whipped the glasses back on and stared at the road ahead. He patted my knee again. “Don’t worry about me,” he said. “I’m just friendly”.
The road was never-ending. The same sand, the same rocks, the hand sometimes resting on the wheel, sometimes resting on my knee as the car moved along the desert road. Occasionally a slowly growing dust plume would break the monotony, taking minutes to approach and flashing past in a moment.
The cowboy turned on the radio and hits from past years floated through the car. I was nearly dozing off, when he yelped and cranked up the volume. “I love this one!” he said and started to sing the words to Clarence Carter’s song, “I stroke it to the east, I stroke it to the west, I stroke it with the woman that I love best, I keep stroking” oblivious that the lyrics sounded like a threat and I prayed that we would reach Keetmanshoop soon.
When we finally reached town, we pulled into a station where I would later catch a bus north to Windhoek. He refused the money I offered, and like a gentleman, lifted my rucksack out of the boot, asking if I had a place to stay that evening, which I assured him I did. He climbed back into the car, grinned at me and tipped the cowboy hat back on his head as he started to pull away “You take care out ‘yere, little lady”.
And after that journey, I did.
Photo by Richard van Wijngaarden on Unsplash
