THE ANGEL IN THE DESERT
Guardian angels exist. I know this because my wife told me.
Her proof was an incident a few years back, during a road trip home after a holiday in the Cape Peninsular.
It was a blue-sky Easter Sunday as we loaded up — packing the four tons of apparel that a wife and two daughters deem essential for a three-week break directly into the boot, to obviate the need for space-consuming suitcases. Then I set the cruise control and pointed the car’s bonnet in the direction of Kimberley.
The scenery was, well, scenic. The road was smooth and endless. As the sun climbed higher, however, so did the temperature gauge. It was quickly noticed by Mrs B, who likes to keep tabs on the speedometer.
We stopped at Laingsburg, replenished the water in the radiator and drove on. For a while the gauge behaved. Then it climbed again, higher still. So did Mrs B’s stress level. More water at a roadside petrol station failed to help.
I discarded the thought of stopping to check the engine. If it stalled, would it start again? I drove on, quietly praying Victoria West would soon come into view.
When eventually it did, we coughed and spluttered to a stop in a cloud of steam, at a petrol station on the edge of town. The gauge was as far as it could go. Likewise, the car. An attendant pronounced: “Jy’t hom
seergemaak” (you’ve hurt it).
Further diagnosis involving water, removal of a spark plug and the emergence of bubbles confirmed I had blown the gasket. The car would need to stay for repairs. Such reparations would involve sending the engine block to De Aar by road the following week and getting it all back together some time beyond that.
Could I rent a replacement? I asked. The attendant smiled and shook his head. Victoria West had no car-hire shops. What about a train? Not until next week, he said. A bus? Taxi? I even contemplated chartering a light aircraft.
The prospect of a few days in a Victoria West motel, if we could ever find one while tramping through town carrying four tons of luggage, was not one I relished.
I was about to implement the only remaining feasible plan — to sit on the edge of the pavement and wee p—when a foreman proprietor-man-in-charge fellow appeared with a clipboard to check the petrol-pump takings.
“I think I can help,” he said.
He needed to deliver a car to Pretoria in the near future and would require transport back, he explained. So he would lend me a station wagon (with space for four tons of luggage) to take us home and collect it from me when he came to Pretoria.
In the meantime, he would arrange the repair of my car and I could make whatever plans were needed to fetch it.
“Here you go then,” he said, handing me the keys (and even a valid third-party disc) after we had swopped details and transferred the four tons. “Drive safely and I’ll see you sometime in Pretoria.”
As it happened, all went according to the arrangements.
Driving away from Victoria West that Easter Sunday afternoon, we realised it had all taken less than an hour and no money had changed hands.
“Quite an amazing stroke of good fortune,” I commented.
“Not at all,” Mrs B told me, “we have a guardian angel and, as you just saw, they work on Easter weekends.”
Do you have a funny or quirky story about your travels? Send 600 words to travelmag@sundaytimes.co.za and include a recent photograph of yourself for publication with the column.