"Two young men turn on Don McLean and enjoy the ride"

Having made our prayers, slept enough, and with caffeine pulsing irrationally through our our veins, we rented a gloriously white Chevrolet Corsa fuelled by “Super Nafta”, which incidentally lived up to its title by carrying out 500 km on half a tank (cue applause), costing us 20 pounds. The car was to be named “The Don”, for a number of reasons. Not because it was so white and M...cLean? or that the radio didn’t work or the music.had.died? Or that the man who rented us "The Don" looked either like Marlon Brando in ‘The Godfather’ or suspiciously like a chipmunk in Autumn?...

With Don filled up, we set off into the wild for three days to the beat of our own drum...passing desert, mountains, vineyards, rivers and a lot of very small, squat looking Saltean moutain people. T’was as if god had taken a raisin or saltana, pinched it between his thumb and forefinger and created the Saltean mountain people in this very image. Combined with arrid desert, mountains and a range of flora and fauna, it was not unlike driving through a large box of muesli.

Amid all this healthy stereotyping, one thing struck us quite firmly: a generation of Saltanas was and I assume still are missing, generally those between the ages of 18 and 25.

I posed this observation to someone recently, to be told that a likely explanation was education. I full heartedly believe this to be a fabrication. Saltanas appear to have little need for education, everyone participates in team-building farm work or tourist exploitation. Yes, by all means browse over the “beginners guide to getting the most out of the white man” but honestly, I fail to see the need to dedicate seven years of one’s life to the carefull price manipulation of a scarf made from the wool of an anorexic mountain goat.*

Another mystery, also to be found in many parts of Asia, is the mystery of the “expanding 29 year old woman”:

On reaching 30 a saltana will duly grow laterally. Again, I was offered another mundane explanation for this. It too balanced on a foundation of lies. This was....”childbirth”. My parry to the ill-informed suggestion: “the majority tend to reproduce at around the age of 18 or 20 (please refer back to paragraph dedicated to religion). For this reason, any attractive Saltana is likely to be holding the hand of a small child. Why? Because it’s HERS. Thus the chances of finding an educated, attractive, child-free Saltana are fractional, the men just won’t allow it. Fact."

Expect proceding chapter to follow in the week to come, addressing why it is that holiday 4x4s are used soley to transport grandparents sandwiched between children (like church) and vinyards will be sure to expell you from their premises at half 6 in the evening.

* I have recently been alerted to an update on the missing generation story: Apparently they all tend to find girl/boyfriends and focus “all” their energies on the relationship. So, in short, I had “love” or “infactuation” to blame for nearly going to jail.... What?...I don’t check driving licences.