Travels in KwaZulu Natal

By John Page

Dawn Patrol

It was seven in the morning and by chance, my birthday, so I had expected to be having a lay in with my wife, Rosemary. Instead I was looking into the eyes of a matriarch African elephant at about half a trunk’s length distance and she (not Rosemary) seemed intent on sniffing at my neck. We had been on a game drive in thick bush since five o’clock and had stopped for a flask of coffee fortified with the local milky Amarula liqueur, which is similar to Baileys. The elephants appeared from the trees in single file like the Dawn Patrol in Disney’s version of the Jungle Book. Our ranger, Sipu, had reversed the open Land Cruiser to clear their path but had come up against a boulder so they came rather closer than intended. It did not feel threatening as the elephants’ posture was clearly relaxed; the younger ones commenced tussling with each other while the adults trashed the surrounding trees and browsed on their thorny leaves. After a few minutes, they ambled off and magically disappeared into the bush again.

We were staying at Amakhosi Lodge, an excellent five-star establishment within a vast private game reserve. It has eight “villas” and we were initially disappointed to be allocated number eight which was a fair trek from the restaurant and reception area but turned out to be the honeymoon suite with its own “Do Not Disturb” gate and private plunge pool on the veranda. We were ten days into a tour which had been dogged by electrical storms. During our first night at Amakhosi, the lightning knocked out the air conditioning and wall sockets in our suite. When the alarm wakes you at four o’clock and covered in perspiration, you fumble sleepily through the mosquito net in the darkness for the alarm clock and a bedside light switch which doesn’t work anymore, it is not the best start to the day. The coffee, elephants and breakfast make it all worthwhile.

The number and type of animals on South African game reserves are regulated according to their area and type of vegetation. The reserve may cover several thousand acres but it is ultimately enclosed by fences nine feet high, so the only large animals which can range freely across the area are leopards. Amakhosi has more elephants than they should, but it is not permitted to sell them (transporting them would also be difficult) or cull them. In a humane attempt to control the numbers, a local vet calculates a suitable dose of contraceptive which is darted into selected females and lasts for twelve months. The land here is forest, unlike the open plains that I had previously seen in Kenya, so spotting animals can be more difficult but encounters are frequent and sometimes very close.

We had already booked a holiday in Italy when a brochure arrived from Titan Tours which including a new tour of “Battlefields of KwaZulu-Natal”. Having limited interest in battles, I put it to one side until Rosemary inserted it between my eyes and computer screen. She has the patience to read itineraries properly. The attractions were its unusual mixture of history, native culture, scenery and animal watching, so the children’s inheritance had to be raided. The party size is limited to fourteen; there were thirteen of us of whom only two were battlefield tour veterans. The eighteen seater bus was a little “cosy”, but we later realised that a larger vehicle would not have been able to access some of the places we visited.

After arriving from an overnight flight to Johannesburg, we drove out past the Marikana chrome and platinum mines where strikers were fired on by police in 2014. I was impressed by the high standard of the national highways, many of which are toll roads developed to support the football World Cup in 2010. They are four lane roads with modern, clean service areas and are extensively regulated by average speed cameras and traffic police. In two places, like all commercial vehicles, we had to pull off the road to drive slowly over automated weighbridges which have removed from the roads unsafely overloaded vehicles from countries to the north.

First port of call was Kedar Lodge set on land which was once the farm of Paul Kruger, the last Boer President who had declared war on the British Empire in October 1899. The owner of the Lodge is claimed to have the most extensive collection of Boer War memorabilia in the country and one has to believe that. The public areas of the lodge are covered in armaments, uniforms, photos, documents and cases of smaller items from the war. A talk was arranged with Major Pennyfather, an elderly historian who laid out the reasons for the war and gave details of some of the more interesting artefacts at Kedar. The lodge offers air conditioned huts and excellent food. Thanks to President Zuma wrecking the currency, a bottle of beer in the bar cost just under £1 which increased the country’s attraction.

Within the lodge grounds were numerous life size bronze and steel statues of personalities associated with the war including Gandhi, who led a first aid detachment, and Cecil Rhodes. In view of the controversy in Britain, it was interesting to note the prominence of Rhodes’ statue and the descriptions of his life which were mounted behind it. Our tour manager confirmed that many South Africans have a balanced view of Rhodes as an unscrupulous, imperial manipulator who caused a lot of trouble whilst lining his own pockets but was also a man of vision, planning a railway from the Cape to Cairo, who eventually left his wealth for good causes. The description given of him behind his statue erred on the kind side. It claimed correctly that his man, Dr Jamieson, had treated Zulu King Lobengula, but neglected to mention the allegations that he had addicted him to morphine in the process, allowing a degree of leverage over the mining concession that was then negotiated.

A small game reserve around the lodge has no large predators, so we were able to take a walk amongst the termite mounds to irritate the antelopes. After a pleasant minor game drive next morning, we visited Kruger’s original farm buildings. His first house still stands with its floor of mud and cow dung. There are a few artefacts from his time including a completely hairless old lion skin, his first game kill. A photo shows him sitting in a meeting at the end of his cabinet table with his feet resting on the bible. It is claimed to be the only book he ever read and he consulted its teachings in all his decisions. His two subsequent houses, still quite modest in scale stand nearby along with a chapel come schoolroom where he arranged for all comers to receive an education. The corrugated chapel roof was interesting as too few sheets had been ordered from Europe and took weeks to arrive before the error was discovered. They solved the problem by visibly stretching out the corrugations slightly to increase the sheets’ width.

The next morning, we were due to move on but delayed breakfast slightly as a horde of camera flashing Chinese had appeared, occupied all the tables and swept the buffet bare. The staff were struggling to replace things fast enough.

We reached our next stop, Spion Kop Lodge, in a sudden violent hailstorm which slowed our bus to a crawl. South Africa was suffering a severe drought but it seemed a pretty wet one to us. The first thing we noticed was a memorial seat to the Hillsborough disaster- British football kops take their name from this place. Our room was in the building which had been Winston Churchill’s billet as a young lieutenant in the Boer War and had been preserved, externally at least, in the same style. The Lodge’s owner, Ray Heron, had studied A Level history in his youth under the British Empire and found little of the Boer War in his syllabus, so he joined a local history group. He had been able to meet a few old men from an earlier generation who had witnessed the Battle of Spion Kop and gave first-hand accounts. He led our visit to the battle site and clearly had a real feel for his subject. The battle had been fought in an effort to relieve the siege of Ladysmith where Baden Powell had led a bold defence but it turned into a disaster for both British and Boers.

On Alice Hill, we stood where British General Redvers-Buller had watched through binoculars as his men were being slaughtered four miles away across the valley. We then visited the Kop which had been taken by the British in a night attack which had then left the troops exposed, in hot sun on a small, barren rock, under shell and bullet fire from an adjacent peak where, as the sun rose in their eyes, the soldiers could not even see the enemy snipers. It was not possible to dig trenches in the rock. The Boers had previously dynamited some shallow depressions for their defenders which the British captured by bayonet charges. After the battle those depressions were turned into mass graves, mostly for unnamed soldiers. The army issued wool weave tunics with first aid kits built in to their breast pockets containing a paper showing their only identification. In the heat, the tunics had to be abandoned. As night fell, the Boers withdrew, fearing that their artillery was in danger of capture and the British withdrew due to their losses.

The Boer War was described as the last of the “civilised” wars; there was no fighting on Sundays and both sides were allowed to recover casualties the day after a battle. One officer was identified as he was about to be placed in an unmarked grave when Churchill saw him and recognised him as a school friend. Standing there amongst the memorials was an evocative and emotional experience.

We unwound with another short game drive before departing towards the Drakensberg Mountains. Their name translates as Dragon’s Back in Afrikaans but they are known as the Wall of Spears in Zulu. They rise to over 11,000 feet and the approaching view was spectacular. The Cathedral Peak hotel complex was excellent and there were numerous marked walking trails in the surrounding mountains.

When we awoke next morning, the weather had caught up with us again and the peaks were lost in cloud. A planned visit to a raptor and reptile sanctuary was cancelled because the eagles could not fly without thermals, so we decided on a “short” walk on a trail labelled as Ashlea’s Amble. It was said to take twenty minutes.

An hour later, having crossed three streams and helped (make that hauled) Rosemary up some of the inclines where rough steps had been dug into the slope, we decided we were off track on a different trail. A further forty-five minutes brought us back to the hotel, passing a grazing antelope next to the track which seemed quite unperturbed by our presence. The planned afternoon walk was cancelled due to the danger of lightning strikes so we visited a small centre with exhibits of the San people. They were Stone Age hunter gatherers who moved down the south east coastal area as the Sahara advanced and they left cave art of animals such as the eland which they both hunted and worshipped. It seems that the last of them died early in the twentieth century and they interbred with the later Bantu population, passing on their features of high cheekbones. Nelson Mandela was believed to have some San blood in his veins.

We passed hundreds of modern Zulu settlements which typically consist of three or four single room square, breeze block buildings with flat roofs set apart from a small privy. Amongst them there were frequently two or three round, usually mud walled buildings with thatched or occasionally corrugated conical roofs. I assumed these to be store rooms but was wrong. One is a spirit house where the ancestors’ spirits dwell and the others are dower houses. The head man of the family lives in the largest of the square blocks; his wives occupy the smaller ones with their children.

The circular buildings are built for Granny and are shaped to protect her from a mythical creature called the tokoloshe. He is a small, hairy, brown coloured creature who likes to lurk in dark corners from where he spreads malevolence and misfortune – I had a boss like that but we called him Roger. The round houses have no dark corners for the creature to hide. Some Grannies have their beds raised on bricks to prevent him from biting their toes. When a Granny dies, it is not uncommon for her hut to be left to decay naturally and she may be buried beneath its dirt floor.

The next port of call was Durban where we stayed on the twelfth floor of a twenty-one storey edifice overlooking the broad sea front. It was a fine hotel but it, along with the city, felt a bit sterile after our previous lodgings. After a showery city tour and visit to the botanical gardens, we were happy to move on to Shakaland.

Shakaland was originally set up as a film set for a 1982 TV series and movie called Shaka Zulu so we were sceptical, expecting a Disney World Zulu experience. Our tour manager, Doug Hawkins, turned out to be a qualified guide who had written a book on Zulu culture and history. He assured us that the clan we were visiting were real and lived in huts on site. They certainly seemed authentic and demonstrated their traditional skills and dances with enthusiasm. The young “warriors” were certainly competing with each other in assegai throwing and the high kicking, stamping dances where they kicked so hard they fell over backwards. The drumming and stamping made the ground shake. One instrument in particular was interesting. It had a cylindrical drum case with a cowhide stretched across one end, its centre pierced by and fixed to, the end of a wooden rod about a centimetre in diameter. It was played by inserting the hands into the open end of the drum case and stroking the internal rod as if milking a cow to produce a sort of rhythmic wail.

One of the Zulu demonstrations was of beer production. Maize and a millet-like grain are ground up and boiled in water which is strained off after cooling by squeezing out through a woven rush mat. The murky liquid, wort to a modern brewer, is then left to ferment naturally for two or three days in the heat. The spent grains are thrown to the chickens who cluster round as the straining operation takes place. A ladle of beer was passed round after the dancing but most people just sniffed it politely. Small beer was widely drunk in Britain in earlier times because, having been boiled and containing alcohol as an inhibiter of micro-organisms, it was safer to drink than water. On that logic, being reluctant to pass up free alcohol, I took a swig. It tasted quite pleasant but more like cider than beer with no ill effects.

Shaka was the illegitimate son of a clan leader called Dingiswayo and was subject to bullying treatment by his half-brothers as he tried to defend his mother’s name. He left to join an inferior clan which paid tribute to his father and became a warrior there, rising to be a general. He introduced formal military tactics to them and realised that the traditional assegai throwing spear had limitations. If one missed, the spear could be returned, sharp end first. Accordingly, he had a short stabbing spear forged, its Zulu name ikiwa being the equivalent of ‘squelch’, based on the sound it made when inserted and retracted.  After Dingiswayo’s death, Shaka returned with his troops and took over as chief, naming the clan Zulu. He remained chief, conquering other clans and incorporating them into his empire until he was eventually murdered by one of his half-brothers. The Zulu were thus founded and raised as a warrior race with a formal army structure. Regiments had their own leaders and were distinguished by the patterns and colours of their shields. Young warriors, on the wings of horn shaped battle formations, had brown shields while the more mature fighters had lighter colour shields and fought in the centre of the formation.

We stayed overnight in comfortable thatched huts and awoke surrounded by horned cows and chickens. After breakfast, we moved on via a two-hour cruise on the St. Lucia estuary which is rich in bird life, crocodiles and hippos. The water is brackish, with mangrove swamps along part of the banks. Hippos do not swim, but rather bounce along on the mud, coming onto land only at night to avoid sunburn. They browse vegetation and move through the local town, smashing garden fences and devouring the plants. It put my own annoying badger incursion problems into perspective and made a pleasant break on the way to the aforementioned elephants and wildlife of Amakhosi.

Our final stop was Isandlwana Lodge, built into the rocks of a mountain from which, in 1879, the Zulu general commanded his 24,000 troops as they slaughtered and disembowelled most of the British 24th Regiment of foot. He had completely outmanoeuvred Lord Chelmsford, the British commander by diversionary tactics, leading him off into the hills with half his forces then attacking his base camp. Chelmsford had been warned by friendly Boers that the Zulu were superior to the other natives that he had encountered. He ordered the commanders of his three invading columns to make a defensive laager of wagons and build ramparts whenever they camped but then disregarded his own orders at Isandlwana. Adding to that he left in command Brevet Lt. Colonel Pulleine, a talented staff officer with no combat experience, as he marched off to where he thought his enemy was.

Many errors were made as the battle commenced, including not striking the tents by kicking out their centre poles. That was standard military policy as it prevented the enemy from hiding behind the tents and signalled to the telescopes of any relief force that the camp was under attack. One of the few errors that Chelmsford did not make when eating his breakfast in the hills was to send a naval officer with his telescope to check their rear. The officer reported that the tents still stood, so no serious attack was imminent.  The ensuing battle had everything, including a partial solar eclipse at its height. Our historian guide was Colonel Rob Gerrard who first gave a military-style briefing on the Lodge’s terrace overlooking the battlefield. He described the key terrain features, dead ground, tall grass and marsh areas, along with the disposition of forces on both sides. The lodge walls behind us were covered in photographs of the participants and Victorian era paintings of the battle.

Descending to the battlefield, the experience was more affecting than Spion Kop had been. The battle’s progress, with the detailed actions and heroic last stands of individuals whose photos we could recall, was outlined blow by blow. “Colonel Durnford made his last stand here. He had only one usable arm so raised his sword as his remaining men rallied around him. His grave and theirs, is just over there.” It made the hair stand on end as we moved amongst the cairns marking the graves of around 1,800 souls.

Towards the end of the battle, two young Lieutenants Melvill and Coghill gained posthumous Victoria Crosses when they were ordered to retreat on horseback with the Queen’s colours. They fought through the Zulus, but could not take the track back to Rorke’s drift as it was blocked by four thousand warriors. They were pursued over a hill to another river crossing, now known as Fugitives’ Drift, where they rode into the Buffalo River which was in full spate and they were swept away over rapids to land, still clutching the colours onto Coffin Rock along with a third fleeing officer. The colours were eventually swept away as they staggered, wounded to the far bank where the third officer climbed the hill and located three run away horses. As he urged his exhausted comrades on, they were hacked down by local Zulus out for revenge against the British. Their graves stand out on the hillside where they fell.  A cavalry patrol later recovered the colours when they spotted the pole amongst the riverside boulders.

We eventually moved on to Rorke’s drift, famously portrayed in the film Zulu which made Michael Caine a star despite him lacking the whiskers of the real heroes. The film was not made on the battle site but was largely accurate allowing for artistic licence. I recalled the film showing the hospital building being defended and escape holes being made through its walls from one room to another. I was never clear where the patients came from, or why they had to break through the walls. The original building was burnt during the battle, but a replacement has been built on its site with the same layout and it serves as a small museum.

The hospital had been the accommodation block for Rorke’s trading post and after his death by suicide (he was an alcoholic who ran out of gin), it was taken over by missionaries who created a chapel there. The army requisitioned the site to take wounded soldiers from a minor early action. A local Zulu clan chief had committed crimes against the British and Chelmsford had detached some of his local troops to attack his kraal in revenge as he wished to test their mettle. They were backed by a few regular troops and when the clan made a last stand in caves, the regulars had to finish them off at close quarters, resulting in some casualties.

The hospital building must have been built originally as a store, because it had several small rooms around the outside walls, most with no windows and each accessible only through an exterior door. There were no interior doors so as the defences were prepared, a volunteer soldier was placed in each room behind the barricaded outer door to protect the patients.

Unlike in the film, there was no debate between the officers as to who should take command. Lt. Chard had been placed in charge by Major Spalding, the detachment commander who had departed in search of a company which was overdue. Chard had gone forward to Isandlwana to clarify his orders and returned to Rorke’s Drift by wagon to warn them that Zulus had been observed locally. Given the choice to fight or flee, impeded by the wounded, they decided to make their famous stand which resulted in the award of eleven VCs.

The attacking Zulus were disobeying the orders of their king, Cetshwayo who wanted the British driven from his land in a decisive manner so that he could negotiate a settlement of their dispute and he had ordered no incursions to be made across the Buffalo River into British territory. The attackers consisted of a regiment of 4,000 men who had blocked the line of retreat from Isandlwana where they had seen and heard the battle but taken no part. Their blood was up and rather than have them rampage, their commander led them in an organised assault.  At both Isandlwana and Rorke’s Drift there are memorials to the Zulu dead in addition to the British soldiers’ graves. The Zulu removed their dead for burial at home and their numbers are uncertain.

We made our way back to the airport via a coffee stop in Ladysmith whose name has an interesting origin. In the 1812 Peninsular War against Napoleon, Wellington had laid siege to the Spanish town of Badajoz which he eventually shelled. When the town fell, two fourteen-year-old Spanish girls who were known to one of Wellington’s officers made their way to his headquarters where, in a scene reminiscent of Bernard Cornwell’s Sharpe novels, they met a smart officer decked out in the green uniform of the Rifles. He fell for one of the girls, Juana Maria, and within three months, they were married. His name was Harry Smith and she followed him throughout the war, combing the field after each battle in case he was wounded. He was eventually knighted and became a Provincial governor in South Africa. Harrismith was named after him although he was never very popular, unlike his wife in whose honour, Ladysmith was named.

The trip was both exhausting and stimulating. It was also timely – like many places, South Africa is changing rapidly. Land claims by natives who can show that at some time their ancestors lived there, maybe a hundred years ago are threatening the game reserves. The historians who so vividly guided us to the battlefields are growing old, so we are moving a generation further away from the first-hand accounts. If anyone is tempted to go, then go soon.

First published in VISA 128 and 129 (August - October 2016)

Cape Town to Victoria Falls

By David Gourley

 

This was a holiday that took my wife Cathy and me to five countries in all: South Africa, Zimbabwe, Zambia, Botswana and Namibia. The highlight was a five-day trip on the luxury train Pride of Africa (run by Rovos Rail) between Cape Town and Victoria Falls.

We flew out to Cape Town with Air Namibia. We were pleasantly surprised by the high standard of the in-flight service but it did involve a rather circuitous route via Frankfurt, Windhoek (where we changed planes) and the Namibian coastal town of Walvis Bay. On this latter stretch we had splendid views over the Namib Desert.

The bridge across the Zambesi,
connecting Zimbabwe with Zambia

In Cape Town we had a three-night stay, based at the Vineyard Hotel, located fairly close to the SA Cricket ground in the district of Newlands. I felt whacked after our long overnight flight and just wanted to crash out, but Cathy was determined to go straight away to Table Mountain. I do hate saying this - she was right! The rule when visiting Cape Town is: if the cablecar to the top of Table Mountain is running, go for it. For all too often it is closed. This is nothing to do with the cloud - the "Tablecloth" - which frequently covers the Mountain. The authorities don't mind if people go up and don't seeing anything. The problem is the frequent strong winds, the "Southeasters". We got to the top successfully and enjoyed superb views over what is undoubtedly one of the loveliest cities in the world. But a strong wind blew up even while we were up there; they'd closed the cable-car by the time we got down and it didn't run again for the remainder of our stay.

We had a city tour the next morning and in the afternoon took ourselves off to Robben Island, now preserved as a national museum. There were two tours: of the Island itself and of the actual prison, where one is shown inter alia the cell where Nelson Mandela was kept. We were guided round the prison by a former political prisoner and were struck by the conciliatory attitude that he had towards his former political enemies (it is even the case that some ex-warders have joined the former prisoners in working to preserve this monument).

He had been sentenced in 1988 to a 25-year term but said he'd inwardly laughed because he knew the system wouldn't last that long. He was out after four years. Any worries we had that we were being voyeuristic were put to rest when we purchased a book about the Island: it is described as a place of hell, true, but of heaven as well. It is prized in the new South Africa as the place where apartheid was finally defeated.

The next day saw us on an all-day trip to Cape Point, through fine coastal scenery. The following day was the start of our rail trip. First-class meals, and as much South African wine as one wanted, were included - I think I'll have to up my visits to the gym as a result! (As one tour guide said: people always complain about the food in South Africa - they eat too much of it and put on weight!)

We stopped en route at Kimberly, where an ancient electric tram took us to the Big Hole, the world's largest manmade hole, where diamonds were once mined. The next evening saw a break in the train journey, with an overnight stay in Pretoria. This was preceded by tours of Johannesburg and of Pretoria itself, both with the same guide. She was excellent but we were rather thrown when she asked us where we wanted to go in Jo'burg. Surely she knew best where to go, we thought.

Tentatively I enquired about the possibility of going to Soweto, expecting her to say it was too far, or simply that, as a white South African, she didn't want to go there. But she was happy to take us there and it was a fascinating visit. One has an image of Soweto as a place full of miserable shacks and there are indeed plenty of these, but much of the housing is decent and well-maintained, and there is even a local "Beverley Hills", where Winnie Mandela lives in her mansion. There are so many BMWs that they are known as "Soweto bicycles". There is now a university - and somehow we did not expect to see a KFC outlet in Soweto!

The place has, of course, its problems and no sensible visitor strays far from the beaten track. But we felt safe enough and were moved by our visit to the area that has been set aside as a memorial to Hector Pieterson, the first schoolboy to be killed by the security forces in the 1976 uprising, the trigger for which was the protest by black schoolchildren about being taught in Afrikaans, which (unlike English) is regarded as an alien language. This really marks the definitive start of the final struggle against apartheid. We were told that parents were somewhat ashamed that it was their kids who were making the running, when they themselves had been passive. Some estrangement between generations resulted, a cause perhaps of the present degree of lawlessness in Soweto, which local community leaders agree is a problem. We also visited Nelson Mandela's former house, which is now a museum; Archbishop Tutu still lives nearby, when he's in town, making this particular street the only one in the world to have housed two Nobel prizewinners.

Soweto has at least one and a half million, and maybe as many as four million, inhabitants, and by any standards is a city in its own right though it has yet to acquire all the trappings associated with big cities. It is by no means a place without hope and maybe it is not fanciful to suppose that one day Soweto will be the dynamic heart of the metropolis with Jo'burg just a rundown suburb. Downtown Jo'burg is seriously crime-ridden and ranks as the grimmest city we have yet visited; previously we'd given that accolade to Lima, which we've now promoted a notch! Pretoria on the other hand is an attractive city.

We rejoined the train the next day and had another two nights, continuing into Zimbabwe, where we had a tour of Bulawayo, a pleasant city with a very good museum (the best in Africa, we were told by our possibly biased guide - apart, he conceded, from the one in Cairo). In Victoria Falls we stayed at the eponymous Hotel, one of the finest anywhere. From our room we had an excellent view into Zambia and the spray from the Falls can be seen from the gardens. The Falls are every bit as spectacular as we had imagined. We visited them four times in all, once from the Zambian side, and also had two helicopter flights over them.

Tours in Zimbabwe included an elephant trek and a visit to the Hwange National Park. Like the name of the country itself, many towns in the former Rhodesia have different post-independence names. Salisbury to Harare is the most well-known change whilst Essexvale Man is now Esigodoni Man. In the case of Hwange the change is very much for the better - it was formerly known as Wankie.

Our foray into Zambia took us not just to that country's side of the Falls, but also to an authentic African village (which benefits financially from such tours and welcomes visitors), the city of Livingstone (a pleasant city still, though this former capital has known better days) and a game drive. To get from one country to the other, we had to walk across the Bridge over the Zambezi. In the middle, precisely on the boundary, bungee jumps take place and we paused to watch a couple of them. For four days the Zimbabweans do the necessary organizing, then the Zambians take over for the next four, and so on ad infinitum. We decided to forego the pleasure of doing a jump!

A young boy struck up a conversation with us as we walked across; learning we were English he came up with what must be the standard patter: "ah, England - Tony Blair, John Major [John who?], Michael Owen, Alan Shearer". I gave him an old baseball cap of mine and he seemed well pleased with it. It had started its life in Petra, Jordan!

We had six nights in all in Victoria Falls, punctuated by three nights over the border in Botswana in the Cresta Mowana Game Lodge, close to the Chobe National Park. President Clinton had stayed here during his tour of Africa earlier in 1998. The Lodge is on the banks of the Chobe River. On the other side is Namibia and we went across there in a dugout canoe and were shown round the village there by a local lad. For this short excursion, there were four lots of forms to be filled in by both of us - exit from Botswana, entry to Namibia etc. We went on game drives in the Park and on boat trips along the River and saw plenty of game, including lions, elephants and hippos. We had seen giraffes, zebras and wildebeests in Zambia and Zimbabwe, which was as well as we saw none in Botswana.

As well as viewing game, I also ate a fair bit of it, both in Botswana and in an African-style restaurant in Zimbabwe. Warthog is recommended, also zebra. To anyone who objects, I would say that, if one is not vegetarian, there is no difference in principle between eating a sheep, say, and eating game. The killing of game for food is the result of a strict culling process and in no way threatens the eco-system.

Our flight home from Victoria Falls was in two stages, with an overnight stay en route in Windhoek. The first stage constituted just about the strangest flight we have been on. The plane was tiny - even the shortest in our party had to lower their heads as we boarded and, in the absence of any in-flight personnel, snacks were handed to us by the pilot as we boarded. This was hardly a comfortable journey but, not to worry, I thought, the flight will only be an hour or so. We duly flew over a city, which I assumed to be Windhoek. Cathy says my face was a picture when I saw the sign welcoming us to Lusaka International Airport. Unexpectedly we were back in Zambia, having travelled in precisely the opposite direction to the one expected.

A German chap in front of us got his word in first - yes, the pilot assured him, the plane was going on to Windhoek, but we'd have to get out here whilst the plane was refuelled. We had a second stop in a remote part of Namibia and again we had to get out for refuelling. To round off our day, we landed in Windhoek in a thunderstorm. In all we'd been in this uncomfortable plane some six hours, on and off, but the journey had been so enjoyably bizarre that somehow we didn't feel we had grounds for complaint! Our flight back to London the next day seemed positively tame by comparison.

First published in VISA issue 32 (winter 1998)

The Western Cape

by Tim Grimes

We wanted a short break in the sun, in the middle of the dismal British January weather; somewhere within reasonable striking distance, a change from Europe and the USA. Never having set foot in Africa, we decided on South Africa’s Western Cape.

The huge land mass and low labour rates, combined with the low Rand, at R12.5 = £1, make South Africa exceptional value. But the catch is the rack rate for the flight, which is something like £700 per adult, This may not be unconnected to the fact that only BA and SAA and, to a limited extent, Virgin fly to Cape Town, from the UK. We arrived in Cape Town at 6.30am, after a tedious and sleepless 11 hours on a BA plane. BA leaves Heathrow at 4.50pm, or at 7.30pm. We didn't see any point in hanging around for the later flight.

Cape Town: The Waterfront

We made our first stop at Stellenbosch, which we reached at about 8.00am on Sunday. We were the first customers at the local Mugg & Bean Cafe, the only place in town which was open. Stellenbosch is a small, historic, town where Dutch Cape colonial architectural still predominates. After an hour or two, a few more people appeared and, until we returned to Cape Town a week later, that’s just how it was. Few people in quiet towns, and very few cars on the roads. We rarely saw municipal car parks and we were struck by the ease of driving up to a high street and just parking outside a shop and walking straight in. (In smaller towns, parking is free of charge, but with a R2 or R3 tip for the “parking host” – unemployed black boys who “look after” your car in your absence – and why not. In larger towns, there is a card system for meter payment.)

We continued through the Winelands, where visitors can call in without notice at wineries for a tasting or a meal, stopping next at Franschhoek, the centre of the former French Huguenot community and credited with bringing wine growing to South Africa. A cynic might think the French influence (e.g. rue la Rochelle and rue de la Rey) somewhat over-worked to attract the tourists. The raison d'étre of the place is to service the vineyard visitor, with local arts and crafts. But we weren't visiting vineyards. So we didn't stay long.

We spent our first night at Montagu, passing through Robertson which is, what we have come to understand to be, an archetypal Western Cape small town - a wide dusty street without cars, a few shops, a huge and well-kept church, and some bungalows on the outskirts.

Montagu is a charming village with a couple of dozen properties on the historic houses register. Many of these are guest houses. We stayed at the delightful Malherbe on Route 62, the main road, with the equally delightful Joop and Micky who welcomed us as their first bookings. Even if our room had been at the front, there wouldn't have been much worry about noise. I reckon a car passes every 5 minutes at busy times of day. The sleepy town has useful shops and some arts and crafts galleries.

The next day, we continued along the R62, to Oudtshoorn, via Barrydale and Ladismith (not Ladysmith of Boer War fame), which were unexceptional and typical; and Calitzdorp with some very attractive houses around the atypically English-styled church. The Country Pumpkin, on the main road outside Barrydale, however, served an extremely good lunch, but we didn’t stop at Ronnie’s Sex Shop between Barrydale and Ladismith – having already discovered it to be a café.

Oudtshoorn was bigger than any of the other towns we had seen since leaving Stellenbosch. Much of its architecture was 19th century colonial, with a fair bit of post-War colonial which I can remember being represented as modern, by colonial tea and coffee companies who used to tour prep schools with promotional film shows. Some of the shops of Oudtshoorn clearly catered for the less well-off. At Oudtshoorn, we stayed at the spectacular Baron’s Palace Hotel, built as a residence by one of the many colonial “feather barons” - entrepreneurs who made piles of money out of ostrich feathers for the fashion trade.

Just outside Oudtshoorn is the really professional Cango Wildlife Ranch with its collection of endangered cheetahs, white tigers and crocodiles which have been bred there. I had never heard a crocodile’s jaws snap shut – a chilling crunch like a car door being slammed. There are several ostrich show farms in the neighbourhood; we stopped at the Oudtshoorn Ostrich Farm, for a 45 minute tour - and an opportunity for a ride.

As we drove east, great craggy ranges of the Outeniqua Mountains rose up quite close to the road, from fairly barren scrubland. From Oudtshoorn, however, scrubland began to give way to ostrich grazing, then some cereals.

It is always interesting to spot the innovations in another culture. At Oudtshoorn, I was particularly impressed by the card-operated parking meters in larger towns (pressing the card to a meter debits the appropriate fee from a card which has been topped up at the local retailers). A curiosity is that the same card can also be used for petrol purchases - beware, petrol stations don't take credit cards, but petrol also is cheap - about £15 for a tank. I also liked the innovative banking feature, which allows account holders to pay their traffic fines at ATMs.

We continued to George, where we stayed at the stylish and comfortable Oakhurst Manor Hotel. The hotel is within walking distance of George, a busy town with a few decent shops and a scrappy end too. The hard-to-find railway museum is a vast warehouse which also houses quite an impressive collection of British and American cars. If you can stand the embarrassment of its name the Outeniqua Choo-tjoe, pulled by a fairly serious steam engine, takes passengers to Knysna and back - about 3 hours each way. From George, we drove to Plettenberg Bay. Having an air of Worthing on a very hot summer's day, it answers a need for South Africans seeking a seaside resort. Despite its spectacular, empty beach (most beaches we found were spectacular and empty) it is not a “must see” for visitors from overseas. Plainly the architects had been selected from the City of Coventry’s rejects list. It’s not that there is a genetic inability amongst South Africans to create seaside towns - Camps Bay, just south of Cape Town, is a very attractive beach resort with lively bars and restaurants.

Plettenberg Bay was our easternmost point and we drove back to Cape Town along the famous Garden Route, which is closer to the coast. Unlike most of the northern road which we had driven, the Garden Route runs through low hills folded into more hills until they recede into the distant Outeniqua Mountains on the inland side. The Indian Ocean can be seen, from time to time, on the seaward side. For most of the journey, the land is cultivated as far as the distant mountains, and sheep, cows and ostrich grazed on stubble from the recent cereal harvest, and clover growing between.

Knysna

Knysna is a bit of a tacky sea-side town, but with some redeeming features, which include views over the lagoon towards the Heads - the two rocky headlands which nearly enclose the lagoon. We stayed, just outside Knysna, at the Fish Eagle Lodge, a delightful log-cabined estate on a hill overlooking the lagoon and the hinterland.

Mossel Bay was the third seaside town we found. Pretty tired and scrappy, it does house the Bartholomew Diaz Museum complex containing a replica of the Cape discoverer’s ship and some of the town’s historical buildings. Also enclosed was the Post Office Tree - a tree said to have been used by early 15th century sailors for leaving letters for home. That would have made the tree about 500 years old. Visitors will make up their own minds about how long trees live.

Midway to Cape Town, we stopped overnight at Adin and Sharon’s award-winning Hideaway, in Swellendam – a really delightful town with some very attractive buildings. The Hideaway is apparently the only five star guest house in South Africa. Significantly dearer than average, it is even more accommodating than the very high standards we found everywhere else.

The centre of Cape Town is in the early stages of decrepitude, with disused buildings, poorly tended public gardens and no shortage of vagrants. Hardly a white face was to be seen and the atmosphere was just a tad threatening. Surprisingly, a couple of older buildings were to be converted into luxury apartments, many of which were claimed to have been pre-sold, so maybe some degree of recovery is in prospect. Plainly the best way to see the legislative capital is from the 2-hour hop-on hop-off “Topless Bus”, which picked us up close to our hotel. Out of a sense of adventure, and ignoring best advice, we decided to get off the bus in the centre of the city, and walk. Clutching bags and cameras as inconspicuously as possible, and snatching only surreptitious glances at the street map, we walked through the overgrown Company’s Gardens and along Darling Street with ostentatious nonchalance. We saw the City Hall and some other formerly fine pieces of architecture, and the Castle (really a fort) whose thick walls now give tourists the sense of security which had been offered to the Dutch East India Company soldiers in the 17th century. From just a few steps outside the centre, there are still some very respectable and attractive residential areas. Eschewing political correctness, we found our trip was complete without a visit to Robben Island.

On the quayside, we enjoyed the Waterfront - a civilised and stylish shopping centre with loads of restaurants and bars created out of restored and rebuilt dock buildings. It has to be said, however, there is nothing essentially South African about the Waterfront, which could be anywhere in the world. Parts of it strongly resemble San Francisco’s Fisherman’s Wharf, other parts Boston’s Quincy Market. The unexceptional, but perfectly serviceable, Waterfront Holiday Inn, where we stayed, must be so called because it is near the Waterfront, not because it is at the Waterfront. In fact it takes a 15 minute (probably safe by day) walk, or a 20 minute hotel bus ride to get to the Waterfront.

We couldn’t take the Table Mountain cable car, once because of high winds, and once due to low cloud: the lesson is to grab the first opportunity available especially if time is limited. However, there is a pretty good view of the city from the lower cable car station, about a third of the way up and, contrary to expectation, that is a really cheap place to buy polo shirts and souvenirs.

Down the Cape Peninsula, 30 minutes’ drive from Cape Town, is Groot Constantia, the oldest winery on the Cape. Access to the relaxing grounds is free, with a small charge for the principal manor house. There are a couple of good restaurants on the campus, and wine tasting. And the views are spectacular. Simon’s Town, about 1 hour’s drive south of Cape Town, is an absorbing former Royal Navy base, with an attractive shopping street, some interesting walks, and an apparently very active local history society which has erected plaques all over the place. Just beyond the town, lies Boulders Beach, where we walked amongst dozens of penguins.

Prices in the Cape generally are almost embarrassingly low, although the tourism journals have expressed concern that some hoteliers and restaurateurs are over-charging. At today’s R12.5 = £1, a good restaurant will charge 50p for a beer, £8 for dinner for two. In the most attractive villages, 2 hours from Cape Town, a 4-bed house with land could set you back £120,000: we saw some rural 2-bed bungalows at £9,000.

We were surprised at the strength of Afrikaans, in the Western Cape. It is almost prevalent in conversation and common in road-signs, although most Afrikaans speakers also speak English. In the countryside, the pace of life is really really slow. People are welcoming and helpful and seemed anxious to talk to Britons. We found everyone whom we spoke to - black and white - very pleasant and helpful. We were frequently approached by strangers who seemed very anxious to tell us about their connections with the UK, and how many generations of their families had lived in South Africa. Some even insisted on showing us their homes. Good manners extended noticeably to driving: slower drivers pull over to be overtaken and drivers approaching crossroads wait their turn to proceed. Society seems well ordered, having reverted to the pre-apartheid era. Perhaps with the exception of central Cape Town, the Western Cape seemed settled and peaceful despite (or, maybe, because of) warnings on most houses and shops of “24 hour armed response” provided by private security companies – the sign even appeared on the walls of police stations. But, whilst we didn’t feel threatened by day, my night-time walk in George was more of a dare than a constitutional.

Eschewing travel agents, inbound tourist agencies, and similar parasites, a good place to start is the Cape’s own tourist website, which accesses hotels and guest houses directly. This not only connects you to the hoteliers (eg for directions) and at direct prices, but also avoids the need to pay for accommodation before arrival. And resist the request from hoteliers to charge 50% up front - there are enough places not requiring this, to make it negotiable. (Here’s another tip for saving money: I bought a digital camera at the duty free, at Heathrow, on the way out. Having decided what model I wanted, research showed that was cheaper than any available in the whole of Tottenham Court Road, the internet, and South Africa. And you can buy it by phone, in advance, and collect it on departure). Most of the major car hire companies are represented in South Africa, and therefore car hire is accessible in advance, by internet. A local wrinkle to beware, is the widespread insurance excess (£900 in our case) which can be bought down significantly or, if agreed in advance, reclaimed from the UK provider retrospectively. It would be wise to sort this, in the UK, when booking.

Having criticised some of what we saw, was it a good trip? Unreservedly yes. In my opinion, the climate is ideal, the countryside is spectacular and, whilst the towns are not all overflowing with architectural gems, they are the real thing. It has whetted my appetite to see more of South Africa and to learn more. Although I imagine the Western Cape is not representative of the whole of South Africa, it was a fascinating insight into the similarities and the differences of a European way of life which has developed in Africa. We met so many people and had the privilege of discussing their backgrounds and ways of life and hopes and fears for the future. Whether the new majority-elected government will recognise this unique opportunity in Africa and develop it; or lay waste its wealth and potential, is for the pages of another SIG’s journal.

First published in VISA issue 56A (June 2004)

Land of Good Hope

by Glen Strachan

Our visit to South Africa started in Johannesburg in the same fashion as many first-time visitors to the Republic and, while this most modern city is of some interest, it has its problems. Our advice is to try to make Cape Town the entry point for your South African trip. While it is not easy to arrange travel this way round, the benefits are such that the effort will be rewarded.

Johannesburg is a huge sprawling modern city with a very ritzy upmarket suburbia and a terrifying crime-soaked city centre downtown area. Murders are routine and muggings commonplace with a range of car-jackings and random shootings adding spice to this cosmopolitan city. The police force is being overwhelmed and the swelling tide of crime shows no sign of abating. Downtown and the old business district are now out of bounds to most locals, who will not even drive through this district in daylight. In general, driving at night is not recommended but, if you are challenged and stopped, the advice given is that you pass the keys of your vehicle to your assailant and then hand over your wallet. A combination of the two may be enough to save your life.

That ends the warning and mostly it ends any negative feelings about this remarkable country. I began with the warning because it is so important that all visitors heed it, when planning their South African visit. It might be a good idea to plan your trip around a flight into Cape Town and out of Durban. This could cost a little more but there is more than enough to see without even passing through Johannesburg or Pretoria, its neighbour.

Leaving Cape Town, the journey along the coast to see the fabulous Garden Route is a real treat. The solitude and the stunning beauty of this coastline make this a journey to be taken very slowly and with as many stops as you can work into your itinerary. The South African Tourist Board in the UK is most helpful in providing the literature that will help you to get the most out of your visit and the local offices of the Board were tremendous with a wide range of helpful and friendly staffers. The stars of our visit were the National Parks administrators and rangers.

The wide range of parks is nearly beyond belief and, since many of the parks carry accommodation, a little careful planning can see you in log cabins inside the parks. Don't worry about being wakened by an elephant or a lion. You might be sharing the park with such animals but you will be well warned that your car must be back within the living quarters before darkness falls. The South African passion for the brai or barbecue, as we know it, means that you will probably get an invitation to join in and, if this is not the food that you like to eat, the National Parks also run excellent restaurants in almost all of the parks.

Most parks have their own distinct characteristics. They should not be confused with either theme parks or the sort of recreational parks that we have in Europe. Firstly, they are enormous - as one incredulous Welshman told me, he had been in two parks which were both bigger than his native Wales - and it is also important to remember that the animals in the parks are left to their own devices. This is not some kind of outdoor zoo and, if the animal has to eat, then it will look for a food source which it can kill.

Carcasses litter the water holes and we were also confronted with the sad spectacle of an elderly lioness, which had been deserted by the rest of the pride. Weak and sick, it was left to fend for itself against the nocturnal attacks of the hyenas which had spotted it by day. The thrill of driving along a road in the early morning light and coming across a family of lions or a leopard or even a group of elephants is one that must be experienced. The video films and camera pictures that we brought home barely capture that sensation. Just remember that the animals are mainly nocturnal and, if you do want to see the scarcer ones, it is important to have your eyes and ears wide open and, above all, speak to the ranger and to your fellow-visitors.

Animals will often stay in one area for a few days and move on. You can drive for a whole day and only see a few springboks and zebras, while on other occasions we were very lucky. Two lions came over to look at our car as we drove down a deserted tar road, while a number of fellow visitors had headed off down dirt roads to search for big game just minutes earlier. Not content with staring into the car for a few minutes and posing for some really sensational pictures, the lions walked alongside us for almost a kilometre.

That happened on our last morning in Kruger National Park and the only beast on our whole list that we had not seen was the leopard. We were not too disappointed as they do not enjoy the heat of the sun. As a result, they sleep in the trees well off the road in order not to be disturbed. We could hardly believe our luck but, within minutes of leaving the lions and only a short time before we drove out of the park, there it was before us - a fully-grown leopard. We stayed close to it for almost twenty minutes as it went through a series of stretching exercises that precisely mirrored the waking routine that our beloved family cat performs each morning. There are trips which can be arranged at considerable expense but, if you are willing to do a little work for yourself and avail yourself of the great support offered by the Parks Department, your stay in the world-famous Kruger National Park can be achieved within a reasonable budget. Try not to miss this place. I promise the thrills will stay with you for the rest of your days.

If you choose to drive north from Cape Town towards the Namibian border, there is one park that you must not miss. Just north of the town of Kakamas is Augrabies National Park and while most of the literature highlights the waterfall, drive on and experience something like a lunar landscape. This park might just be the best kept secret in South Africa. Do yourself a favour - visit the park and eat in the restaurant. Be there as the sun goes down and stay in the Park accommodation if you can arrange this in advance. On the Garden Route, Knysna is a great place to stay but, if you are planning a honeymoon or even a second honeymoon, I think we may have found the ultimate destination. The log cabins in Tsitsikamma National Park beside Storms River Mouth are set in one of the most beautiful seascapes that we have seen anywhere and, if the time of year is right, you can even watch the whales performing their courting rituals. We were lucky enough to pick up a cancellation for one of the best-sited cabins on the day but, to avoid disappointment, I would recommend booking in advance.

Mostly, rural South Africa is more rewarding that the rather tense environment of the cities, but we do recommend that you consider landing in Cape Town, hiring a car right away and driving the short distance out to Stellenbosch. Base yourself there and travel the thirty minutes or so into the city each day. Stellenbosch and neighbouring Paarl will be familiar to all who have enjoyed the excellent wines that are now being produced in the Republic and the entire district is known as "the wine route". Once again there are expensive tours of the region available, but we recommend that you arrange your own visits to the wineries - they will all be happy to show you round and give you a little sample of their produce without any charge. A number of the grape-growing farms in the region will provide bed and breakfast and you will quickly become part of the family. Forget the costly hotels and make some new friends - and please your bank manager.

This country has a wide range of problems that grows daily, despite the titanic efforts of the remarkable Nelson Mandela but, if you take the precaution of avoiding the problem areas, you will make a journey that you will never forget. The Cape of Good Hope is an easier travel from Stellenbosch and, if you fly home direct from Cape Town, then a cable-car trip to the top of Table Mountain and a walk around its summit to watch the sun go down will round off your trip in perfect style.

First published in VISA issue 23 (winter 1996)

Paradise, Razor Wire and the of Ghosts of Alex

by John Keeble

It is Freedom Day in the tourist paradise of South Africa and the razor wire is glinting dully under an unusually glowering sky in real life Johannesburg. On the streets, BMWs and Toyotas whish past jobless black men standing on corners hoping for someone, anyone, to give them a day’s work. In the shopping malls, rich whites and blacks are buying electrical goods and considering the latest boutique clothes. In the black townships, there is little freedom from poverty. In the coastal tourist areas in the south, the sophisticated living moves up a holiday notch; in the money-spinning game reserves, hopefuls rubber-neck from crawling cars; and in rural areas, farmers wait for the next murder.

For a country that once defined itself as white and black, South Africa’s complicated life is very tricky for an Africa novice like me to comprehend in a few weeks. It is full of contradictions, yawning social chasms, easy living and desperate poverty, big city violence and small-town leisure.

It would be easy to portray South Africa as guns and razor wire, or breath-taking coastlines, or game parks with the thrill of coming nose to nose with a lion (either side of the car window, hopefully), or social injustices … or dip into the past, taking sides and forgetting the white liberals who helped end apartheid… forgetting, also, that the victors in any social change are always innocent heroes and the vanquished are always fiends from hell. Journeying through the country – from the northern game reserve of Kruger National Park, where the lodge warned guests to beware of the hippos, to the southern tip at Cape Point where the Indian and Atlantic oceans meet – was a fascinating, beautiful and sometimes shocking trip through the nation’s jigsaw of realities.

It occurred as one of the not-infrequent outbreaks of racial tension was gripping the nation: the ruling factions were insisting on singing the ANC song that included the words: ‘Kill the farmer, kill the Boer.’ Then former apartheid strong man Eugene Terre’Blanche was hacked and battered to death on his farm. Four days earlier he had given a TV interview, shown after his death, in which he alluded to the widespread horror of farm murders by saying: ‘We are not going to be murdered. We will fight back.’ He was a sad and unconvincing figure, appearing broken from the uncompromising leader of the apartheid years.

I was lucky to have South African friends with the patience to help me catch up, what little I could, on events that have shaped and coloured most or all of their lives. As a tourist, I would have seen just the fabulous sights and read the news in the local papers.

Maybe that is the joy of being a tourist anywhere: you take the beauty and the fun, you leave the ugliness and strife. Maybe the best of being a traveller is trying to make some sense of strange places, though we see them through the lenses of our own cultures and experience… an understanding as far from the reality of the local people as a translation is from a living language and culture.

It was in Johannesburg that I first felt I was touching real life in South Africa, but then I came to realise that the country’s ‘real life’ was everywhere and everywhere it was as different as the patterns in a kaleidoscope. Johannesburg’s streets could be on a different planet to Cape Town’s and neither gelled with the small towns like Colesberg; and the black townships hardly seemed to be in the same universe as the white holiday paradise of Glentana down on the Atlantic coast.

We ate alfresco soon after I arrived in Johannesburg, a warm night, takeaway pizza and dry local wine, discussing the political situation and life in general in South Africa. The quiet garden, Lulu the gentle Rottweiler sitting hopefully nearby… it could have been a peaceful summer evening in southern England apart from the African plants – and, of course, the 8ft walls topped by electric fencing, the security gates and razor wire at the front of the estate, the security gate at the front of the house, and the stark warning to would-be criminals: Armed Response.

Johannesburg is like that. Every house has maximum protection against the threat of violent criminal attacks but the streets, in daytime at least, are safe and cheerful. For the tourist, there are things to see and do but transport can be both difficult and expensive. Many people fly into Johannesburg as the hub from which to visit the game reserves and the coastal areas far to the south.

My favourite ‘Johannesburg’ trips were to the black township of Alexandra [see below] and a bike ride through Soweto, where nationwide fury and protests were sparked by children being killed and injured by police and security forces when they marched in 1976 against a government decree that all teaching would be in Afrikaans. No one is sure of the exact death and injury toll during the second half of 1976 in Soweto – they range from 300 to 600 killed and up to 15,000 injured in six months of bloody protests. Today, there is a memorial area, full of symbolism and so peaceful that ideas of violence and suffering are as foreign as I felt standing on this sacred ground.

From Johannesburg, I took the tourist route to the biggest of the game parks – the Kruger National Park, to see as many of the iconic animals as possible. The park is so popular that you have to book 11 months in advance if you want to stay there overnight. It stretches 380km along the Mozambique border and lures visitors from around the globe to see its animals roaming free.

As we drove through, giraffes were munching on leaves by the track; hippos and crocodiles were idling in the rivers; and dozens of other species were enjoying their habitat enough to ignore us. Other local highlights included what would have been a spectacular vista across the low lands: the high point was called God’s Window but s/he had the curtains drawn on that day with the mist thick and mysterious.

The long trek south – a thousand miles or more – took in eye-catching scenery and places to linger, like the Valley of Desolation (which was quite jolly, really, in a beautifully desolate way) and Vanderkloof dam and reservoir, which was lovely but the real interest, for me, was along a mud track guarded by thorn trees: the site of a Boer War concentration camp and its cemetery, now an overgrown monument to the inhumanity of British forces and the suffering of Boer prisoners. Eight hundred names are listed, more round the sides, many the same family names from a sparsely populated new land.

And there were little towns, quiet and quaint. Forget the big city razor wire, chat with the small town residents who welcomed travellers like us as sources of income and interest. Many had Afrikaans as their first language and even those with English had difficulty with my southern England accent but humour and determination got me vegan breakfasts and lunches... even if one restaurant owner had to pop out to get the strange ingredients and another breathed ‘straf’, the Afrikaans word for ‘punishment’, to describe my diet.

On the south coast, the Eastern Cape where the waves crashed and the mist hung in the air even as the sunlight pierced it, we stayed at a borrowed house in the incredibly beautiful Glentana. The house was owned by generous friends who could visit it only a couple of times a year – a gleaming white structure that looked like it had materialised from a fashionable living magazine.

There, life is so casual that the gates have no more than a small bolt for convenience and hidden away, just for those who know them, are nice little places to eat when you tire of the endless, incredible beaches.

A few miles away, in Mossel Bay, commercial development meets leisure with everything anyone could want… for us, it included a climb to the clifftops overlooking the town and the lighthouse. After a little further on, beyond what most tourists wanted to climb, there were just us and the wildlife, including overgrown rabbit-like creatures called Dassies that live among the rocks.

In the other direction the town of George must have the largest population in the world. Not in numbers. In size. All those ancestors who had dragged wagons across the Karoo with hawsers clamped in their teeth have an echo today in the queue for coffee at Mugg & Bean – men who look like 7ft mounds of bone and muscle and their women matching them. ‘We have a lot of very large people in South Africa,’ understated one of my friends, a 5ft 10in midget, as we hiked round the mountains to peer in for empty tables. Near the coffee queue, in a big shopping complex, a guard stood out of the way of passers-by. He had a smart outfit, an efficient look and enough firepower to conquer a small nation or fight a deadly battle with armed robbers in a crowded shopping mall.

A fast, interesting road put Cape Town a comfortable five hours away but we had other plans: a look at Cape Point, with the historic lighthouse sharing its highpoint with hordes of tourists snapping down at opposite coves where the Atlantic and the Indian oceans can be crammed into one frame.

Cape Town is a tourist joy – it must be great to live there, too – with its interesting hilly streets, shops and restaurants. And its location puts visitors on easy routes to follow the coast, stopping at spectacular views or cosy resorts … and, just behind the town, the obvious must: Table Mountain.

It is not cheap to take the ride to the top, 1134 metres above sea level, but the experience is beyond price. On the top, we walked in the light breeze and easy sun, for once free to indulge our need for an adrenaline hit by tap dancing along the edge of sheer drops to the next world. We sat on the edge and watched a pair of birds, eagles we thought, but compromised on a technical term: big black birds with white on them. We were not skilled enough to really tap dance but the birds put on an amazing aerial dance, swooping and soaring, rocketing towards the rock faces and sheering away. We clumsy humans sighed with envy and plodded on to the next thrill.

On a good, breezy day you can see Table Mountain from above. Local paragliding firms will take you for a 30 or 40 minute flight for about £100. We booked, climbed the Lion’s Head mountain by Table Mountain to reach the launch site but the weather changed. The wind dropped and we watched one paraglider plummet to the bay beneath in five minutes – which works out at £20 a minute and no real excitement – so we told the company it did not look worth it and they cancelled flying for the day.

There are a number of places from which you can see Robben Island, where Nelson Mandela was imprisoned, and you can get tours there too. From a distance, it looks flat and unimpressive… the geographic image not living up to its role in the formation of modern-day South Africa.

The geography in the wine region around Stellenbosch certainly lived up to expectations and our efforts were rewarded with a little sun and dramatic skies, several times slashed with colour as rainbows formed and melted. Nearer Cape Town, the old British naval base of Freetown tracked time with a museum - it had the story of Just Nuisance, a Great Dane which became the friend of British naval ratings (though he did not like officers, women or anyone not wearing the square rig of ordinary seamen). He used the railway with the seamen to get into Cape Town in the late 1930s and rail officials threatened to shoot him as a freerider – so the Navy signed him up as able seaman Just Nuisance, put him on the base staff and gave him a free rail pass just like any other seaman. Ho hum, those were the days.


After Cape Town, it was back north to see lions. But the weather got bad and the lions were saved from yet another rubber-neck photo party… My friends offered to take me to the zoo. But vegans do not like zoos. So we went for some Bunny Chow instead – half a loaf with the centre scooped out and filled with curry. Wonderful.

**

Lingo chancing:

Eish! (‘aish’) Exclamation, like wow! but used more widely
Lekker Nice. ‘South Africa is a lekker place.’
Robot Traffic lights
Woema (‘woma’ like woman without the ‘n’) energy, get up and go
Biltong doggie chews for people
Shalawala my goodness!
Spaza shop home or street shop
Mielies (like ‘millys’) corn cob
Vet Koek (‘fet cook’) aka Fat Cake … doughnuts without the egg or milk
Pap (‘pahp’) dry porridge from maize meal
Madala term of respect for old people
Boerewors (‘buravors’) farm sausage

**

‘Alex was very different then,’ said apartheid protest veteran Pam as we drove to the black township of Alexandra near Johannesburg. There was an edge of interest and excitement to this trip: it was her first visit since those violent times.

Pam was one of the white South Africans who rejected apartheid – despite being able to trace her ancestors back to the original settlers – and she was ready to put her own life on the line to visit fellow Christians in no-go Alex.

‘My church had been collecting clothes and other items to help the people there in the worst of the trouble in the mid-1980s,’ she said. ‘We used to visit a house in Second Avenue and the people used to come to us there.

‘I remember driving in at night, when murders and bombings were everyday horrors. We were not banned from entering the townships but, being white, the security forces did not like it.

‘Even the black residents we went to see were shocked that we would drive in. But I had my Ford Escort and I was determined. The security forces tried to insist on giving us an escort but we told them to keep away from us with their big vehicles and guns – if we had been seen to have their protection, we would have been even less safe.

‘Many of the houses were good. They had been part of a government project. But in other ways it was a terrible place then. The “roads” were just dirt, running with water and everything you can imagine, and there were animals everywhere.’

In Alex, we searched for the house she visited but could not find it. In the 1980s, the houses had open areas at the front but in the intervening decades, thousands of shacks have been squeezed on to every available space to provide income for the owners and homes for the incoming population.. We walked the street where the house stood, chatted to the locals… but the past had gone.

So we rode round the colourful and vibrant area, walked through the market… we were greeted by friendly people surprised to see us and wanting to know why I was shooting them (the current way to say ‘photographing’).

The era of real shooting died with apartheid. We were just looking for ghosts.

**

The shebeen, the one-time secret drinking shack of the black population, was dark, very dark with the only light coming from the entry gap in the corrugated metal sheets that were perched uneasily on uneven ground on the edge of the apartheid-era men’s lodging rooms in the township of Soweto.

We sat opposite a dozen or so locals, all of us crowded in on wooden benches trying to make conversation with people whose difference made it as difficult as if they spoke an entirely different language. We exchanged names, told them where we were from, tried to get individual conversations going.

This was today’s poor Soweto, or at least part of it because the township is huge with a population put at more than three million. We were there on a cycling tour, led through the byways of yesterday’s disasters and today’s slums and comparative mansions.

Sepo, our guide, eased himself into the 3m x 3m shack which had maybe 20 people in it. He was carrying the specialities of the house … home-brewed beer in a kalabash, a communal drinking bowl so much part of the culture that a huge new World Cup stadium was being built in the same shape a few kilometres away. Plus some other alcohol drinks, one flavoured with banana and one based on milk… we sipped, passed on, sipped, passed on. Our new friends drank deeply: a friend in need of a drink is a friend indeed.

For something more solid, we stopped half an hour later. There the brave ate cow’s face and pap (a maize staple of the black population).

Then we rode off again, on our mountain bikes, through the sites and sights of Soweto, where the apartheid battle scars – apart from the big memorial and a re-faced Mandela house – have been overwhelmed by the poverty.


First published in VISA 91 (Jun 2010)