Unexpected encounter

After dropping HH off at the club, I decided to walk the dogs round the top of the gorge where the river plunges over a high waterfall. There used to be a bunch of poor houses and shacks along there, far more than I thought, as I discovered today. Not far along the road, I greeted a grizzled old fellow coming in the other direction. He stopped for a chat and immediately asked "Don't you recognise me?"When I confessed that I didn't, he told me he had worked at the club as a caddie years ago - and we've been members for over forty years. We wound up walking right along to the end of the road together, recalling all the people who used to play there, very few of them few left now. He took me back to his shack and his nephew gave Kayla water while Walter showed me his kitchen, bathroom and bedroom. It was sobering to see how tiny it was, and dark and damp to boot, with a small, ancient-looking bed and precious little else. And he was so proud of it, left to him by his mother, who he cared for till she died.

He then walked me back to where I had left the car, where Chacha was waiting for us, not having made it past some food someone had put out as a macumba offering. I was kicking myself for having grabbed the camera with the long lens has we left the house earlier, and not the whole camera bag - I'd have loved to take some photos of Walter. Anyway, I've said I'll go back to do so sometime soon, while he has promised to show me the old paths beyond the end of the road, up to some ruined houses, abandoned since the 2011 floods. All of the houses and a church between (below) the road and the river were either washed away at the time, or demolished later. There is still an air of desolation and tragedy about the place.

So no photos of Walter or waterfalls, just a blurry one of the rain-drenched flowers on the tree at the end of the lawn. There were better ones, but I rather like this one.