>Be me
>Backpacking alone around southern Africa in 1998
>After 3 months and no issues I arrive in the Transkei
>After spending the night in a lodge near Port St. Johns decide to head off towards Mthatha
>About 3 hours into the hike see a black girl coming the other way
>Say hey, she spits in my face
>About an hour later notice 3 or 4 black youths trailing me
>3 -4 becomes 10 - 12
>They stay about 500 metres back but begin shouting insults and threats
>Check my phone, no signal
>Pass by a township or settlement of some kind
>12 -14 becomes 30+
>They're whooping and smashing bottles now, I hear the words 'kill him' several times
>Pick up truck coming the other way, stops, driver is black
>Looks at the mob, looks at me and say 'jump in, quick'
>I jump in the back, the mob starts running towards us
>Driver does a 180 and we tear up the road, they got to within 5 metres of me, but we leave them behind
an hour or so later he drops me at a deserted service area just outside Mthatha, burnt out motel, petrol station all smashed up. Driver tells me the bus won't be here till tomorrow afternoon. I thank him, and say goodbye.
I spent the night in the back of the only vehicle
there, an old beaten up VW camper with 2 flat tyres, it's owner an Italian had been here for 3 days waiting for someone to come with new tyres, he had a pillowcase full of weed and I had whiskey, we got wasted. My Italian friend looked very nervous, at about 10pm he turned out the camp light and said 'shhh when is dark they come
about 11pm they came, 4 vehicles all blacks, all drunk and they had guns, they spent a few hours shooting motel windows, doing donuts and dancing to bongo drums, we hunkered down, stoned, drunk, paranoid and fully expecting to die for several hours, 3 times they shot in our direction, but they never approached the van, eventually they left, we calmed down and the following day I caught my bus and left the mad paranoid Italian alone, I wonder if those tyres ever arrived.