Essay: Maze-walk in Sunctity

The bus driver said Sun City was a befitting name. It occurred to me that it would be hot but that didn’t prepare me for the 40 degrees summer heat; it was a sharp contrast from the chilly December breeze in Johannesburg. 

The group arrived and settled into the Cabanas Hotel. We were scheduled to visit the Village People Shebeen the next day, so I decided to do some exploring of my own. I had read in a review, that the Maze of the Lost city was able to keep you running in circles for 3 hours. 3 hours. Pfft. That had to be an exaggeration.

I layered up on sunscreen and bought a straw sun hat and water bottle from the souvenir shop at the lobby. The ticket attendant greeted me with a cheerful ‘sawubona’ and gave me directions to the maze entrance. I reached and for a moment, I froze. 

In my excitement to conquer the labyrinth, it had not registered in my mind that the way into the maze was through a 90m suspended bridge that went over the highway, to a rocky path that could have snakes. Ok, the snake part was in my head but snakes like rocks right? 

“Courage is being scared to death but saddling up anyway”.

That quote crossed my mind. I was already saddled up in the right shoes, sunscreen and a sun hat. I wasn’t going to let a fear of heights or imaginary snakes get in the way. 

The mouth of the maze gave the option to start the run by going left or right. A quick chant of ‘ini mini maini mo’ resolved my conflict and just before I went right, I looked at my watch. It was 1.25pm. I lost count of turns after the 9th and dead ends after the 7th. I used a stick to draw a hexagon at a dead end and sighed when I found myself there again, twice. I heard voices of other patrons and bumped into some. 

At first, I stayed on my way, only sparing time to say a brief hello to those I met, but when weariness kicked in, I changed course to walk with a total stranger and chat about how lost we were. It’s easy to bond with a stranger when there is a shared challenge. We met another lost lady and all three of us formed a determined team. It was 2.58pm.

We laughed when we found ourselves at spots we had been before and when we arrived at the exit, it took us a moment to realize we had finally made it. 

As we stepped out into the refreshment arena, we were all glad it was over and that the craft beer was cold, the roast meat was tender and the ladies serving us said ‘wenze kahle’ to us, with thumbs up. Most of all, we were glad that we found one another. 

I looked at my watch. It was 4pm.