Boock's blog: Escaping Bedfordview

SOMEWHERE IN SOUTH AFRICA - Some people have a knack of being able to change into a compass wherever they are in the world; others - like cricket commentator Bryan Waddle - are blessed with photographic memories that act as a mental road atlas.

Sadly, your Herald correspondent doesn't fall into either category.

In fact, he was reflecting on this earlier in the week when he attempted to make the reasonably straight-forward drive from Johannesburg International Airport to Sandton, missed the looping off-ramp in the chaos of merging traffic and, for maybe the tenth time in his career, ended up in a small town named Bedfordview.

There's not much you can say about Bedfordview other than it's a lot harder to find your way out, than it is to find your way in.

Maybe it was designed that way deliberately, as a way of forcing people to part with their cash. Sooner or later you have to stop for gas; on a bad day, accommodation.

I've probably seen more of Bedfordview than many of its inhabitants. It's almost got to the point where the locals give me a wave.

What it lacks in aesthetics (almost everything), it makes up for in friendliness, with people happy to give directions whenever asked.

Trouble is, ninety-nine per cent of them don't have a clue either.

It's a bit like being trapped in the Hotel California song.

You're trying to find the passage back, but nothing is as it seems, least of all the confidence that underpins much of the advice.

"Take a right at the first robot," one toothless old man offered. "Then take a right at the next robot, and another right at the one after that. Then you'll be fine."

"But won't that bring me straight back here?," I inquired, only to be dismissed with a cheerful wave and grin of complete incomprehension.

About 10 minutes later we met once more.

I managed to restrain myself. He'd only been trying to help.

By this stage the Gauteng twilight was rapidly moving in the direction of pitch black, and I knew that if I didn't quickly find an exit route I was facing the possibility of filing my tour report from the passenger seat of a rental car, using a data-card modem and the dateline: Somewhere in Africa.

It was lucky then that that the oasis appeared when it did - a petrol station seemingly designed for the navigationally challenged.

Here the service attendants actually knew what they were talking about, and chanted off the detail like a religious mantra.

"Turn left out of the forecourt, take a right at the first robot. Go straight, pass under an overbridge and turn left at the next robot. Stay in the right-hand lane, you'll see the signs."

Even better, there was a huge lit road map on the forecourt, showing relevant arterials and the much sought-after exit in highlighter green, above which was festooned a large red arrow and the words, "road north".

It was as if they were actually helping people escape, like in The Underground Railroad. I wondered what would become of them when the local authorities found out.

And moments later there it was, just as the nice man on the pump said. The most wonderful sign I've seen in my life, a kind of poetry for the perpetually lost: "N1 Pretoria".

Not everyone's idea of art perhaps, but on that night, after 19 hours on a plane, a masterpiece of sorts.

There was enough relief at this turn of events to prompt some hysterical cackling as I hurtled towards my destination, feeling lucky to have escaped the clutches of that apparently possessed little town.

But then the rest of Hotel California came floating back:

Relax, said the Nightman, we are programmed to receive.
You can checkout any time you like, but you can never leave.

He was right, of course.

I missed the final turn-off to Sandton in sheeting rain and poor visibility and was soon lost again, this time in an even creepier place of indeterminate origin.

It would be another half an hour before the hotel was located.

To top it off, that night there were dreams of being lost on a road-trip, and of pulling into a garage after garage to make an inquiry, only to be greeted by the same cheerful pump attendant from Bedfordview, the same sign on the forecourt, same set of instructions.

It's enough to make you want to buy a map.