A quick tour of South Africa plus pix

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This South African Explorer was a bit of an experiment, but having really enjoyed the coach trip in the middle of my New Zealand adventure, I was sure that an escorted tour was the best way that a middle aged woman could safely discover a country like South Africa in such a short space of time.  And anyway, I had a voucher to spend with this particular tour operator and I picked one of their trips for singles.

Thankfully, it was pretty clear that no-one had come on the holiday looking for the love of their lives, but for reasons similar to my own.  And frankly, if anyone had been that optimistic, their hopes would have been shattered by the time we had sussed out our fellow travellers in the check-in queue and the executive lounge.  29 people, mostly women of a certain age: divorcees, widows, married women with grumpy/poorly husbands and singletons like me.  It became clear very early on that, with one honorable exception, it was the women in the group who were going to offer the best conversation.  Indeed, we were a very mixed bunch, all backgrounds and ages, from 30 to 75, though the mean age was probably mid-50s.

We landed at Cape Town at breakfast time and, because the sun was shining, we trundled up to the cable car station on Table Mountain, despite feeling like death warmed up after 11 hours in economy.  Apparently Cape Town's weather - especially given that it was Spring there - is so changeable that local advice says 'if you can see the top of the mountain, get up it quick, as it could be covered by a tablecloth tomorrow' (ie hidden in cloud).  The views were stunning, the strange pavement-like rocks at the top a bit like the Burren in Ireland, and the plants and animals all distinctly foreign.  That afternoon, having enjoyed the view from the top, I opted for a 30 minute helicopter flight around Cape Town and the Mountain - as a bank of cloud rolled in from the sea as a foretaste of the showers and sunshine we would have for the next couple of days.  Cape Town really must have one of the most stunning settings of any city in the world.   Auckland and Vancouver are the only other places to match it (possibly).

The following day we drove out into the vineyards of Paarl and Stellenbosch on a wine-tasting tour and the afternoon passed in a bit of a blur.  We didn't have enough time to appreciate the Cape Dutch architecture as far as I was concerned, and a guided walk around Stellenbosch would not have gone amiss. 

On Sunday the weather really turned quite Springlike - ie cloudy and showery by turns, with glimpses of sun.  Those travellers who had assumed that South Africa was going to be hot and who had only brought shorts and T-shirts with them were a bit shocked, but then the lack of preparation shown by some, in terms of reading guidebooks and knowing what to expect, rather surprised me. Why would you pay £2,000+ to go somewhere you were not that interested in reading about? 

Off we went to the Cape of Good Hope itself, which is not in fact the most southerly point of Africa as I had always been led to believe, but it is certainly the most blustery. After the Cape, and Cape Point, we visited the penguins at Boulder Beach and ended the day in the truly stunning Kirstenbosch Botanical Gardens.  Most followed our guide on a general tour while a few hiked up the sloping site to find the proteas.  I really had chosen my travel date well: the South African Spring is a wonder and the different varieties of proteas were something to see.  I had only encountered them as dried accessories from Mum's flower arranging days, precious and expensive trophies to be treasured and re-used. After three nights in Cape Town, which sadly did not include much in the way of historical insight, nor a visit to Robben Island, nor a Township, nor time to enjoy the watering holes of the V&A Waterfront, we headed east... 

After a spot of cliff-top whale watching (Southern Right Whales) at Hermanus, we left the dormitory towns of the Cape behind.  The journey across the Little Karoo was enriched by the desert-like landscape bursting into flower after recent Spring rains, so that what was normally an arid semi-desert was a blaze of yellow and purple, covered with daisy-like flowers of the mesembryanthemum family (if that's how you spell it!) as well as small proteas and aloes with rust red flower spikes.

We had a short stop at Swellendam and an overnight at Oudtshoorn before a visit to the Cango Caves (very impressive) and an Ostrich Farm (a lot less impressive).  Close up, ostriches are such ugly birds that only their ludicrously lush eyelashes save them from being repugnant - at least in my book.  And I can't think why anyone would want to ride one - which feat consists of clinging on like grim death as the poor bird tries to run away from you, while three men try to stop you from being thrown off.  We had a couple of nights in Knysna, a very pleasant resort town, but were thwarted in our expectation of a ride on the Outeniqua Choo Tjoe steam train as the tracks had been swept away by flooding (and the train is not likely to run until early 2007).

After a boring drive to the industrial city of Port Elizabeth we flew to Durban but were bussed straight out of the city (new coach, new driver and new guide) to a resort a little further north, as many UK tour operators won't risk naive tourists in Durban because crime is so bad there.

So, onwards the next day into the state of Kwa Zulu Natal and, as our guide said 'this is where the real South Africa starts'.  But as so much of the next few days were spent on motorways driving for hours at a time through - admittedly - lovely landscape, it was a little difficult to touch, talk to or meet this 'real' South Africa.  We did visit the obligatory Zulu village, and by all accounts a relatively authentic one, though of course run as an income-generator by the local people.  But here were young warriors leaping and dancing; married women ululating and bare-breasted maidens carrying pots on their heads (at whose appearance the men in the group suddenly went very quiet and retreated behind their digital cameras). 

Heading to the hotter and malarial north, we stopped just south of Swaziland for a night in a private game park, Ithala.  A brilliant camp, with individual thatched bungalows artistically laid out on the hillside around the central buildings of bar, dining room etc...  Lovely if you were looking for a relaxing couple of days and had come prepared with torch and 'something to put on the brai' but not quite the right choice for a group of single travellers.  Of course we had a bungalow each, which was fine, except that finding your thatched hut in the bush without a torch after dinner was a bit of a challenge and once there you discovered that this 'back to nature' experience included no locks on the doors and rather too friendly wildlife.  Stumbling my way down to dinner at dusk, I rounded a corner to come face to face with a little antelope: I was far more spooked than she was... and the next morning I was woken by guinea fowl tapping on the bedroom window - obviously used to being fed by indulgent wildlife watchers.  The isolation of the huts was undoubtedly charming if you were bunking down with a Robert Redford lookalike for an Out of Africa fantasy, but left little old me feeling unusually vulnerable - not that there were any big cats in this particular game park, but who knew just how clever the resident monkeys were at opening unlockable doors?! 

The 4.15 wake up call for a dawn game drive was, after all worth it.  Ithala is packed with game and not over-run with visitors so we seemed to be a million miles away from the real world as the sun came up over the hills.  Giraffe, Zebra, White Rhino, Wildebeest, umpteen types of antelope, Elephant and lots of birds were sauntering around, apparently oblivious to their visitors.  Sitting, the jeep's engine turned off, looking at the animals in a completely natural setting was magical.  Not a sound apart from the birdsong (which was surprisingly varied and loud), not a telegraph pole, vehicle, train track, building or even another road anywhere as far as the eye could see. Just mile after mile of rolling hills.

We drove through the independent country of Swaziland to reach the Kruger Park. Swaziland is beautiful but incredibly badly run by the supposedly benign dictator King Mzwati iii (educated in England, more's the shame). It is a very fertile country, but thanks to poor management, people scrape a living by subsistence farming.  The litter is terrible and poverty glaringly obvious in a way that it is not in South Africa (even in the Townships). It is a great shame for this lovely race of people and we were all affected by our drive-through.

Having crossed back into South Africa over the northern border (lots of stamps in the passport on this trip) we entered the Kruger Park... and oh boy did we have a good time here... to start with we once again got to spend two consecutive nights in the same hotel (four nights in/around the Kruger in total), which seems a small thing, but 3 overnights and hundreds of miles in the coach had done nothing for our grumpy levels and we were all a bit cheesed off by the time we arrived at the four-star Protea hotel by the Kruger Gate. 

But at last we were happy.  A well designed hotel with a pool we actually had time to swim in, an outdoor restaurant, a bar overlooking the river bed where the elephants came to drink each lunchtime and just a walk from the hippo family under the bridge over the river... we liked this hotel a lot and had time to relax in it. 

And time for more game drives, led by a family team: Daddy Chris looking like Hemingway in his white beard and khaki shorts, Mummy Pat tanned like a strip of biltong and Baby Andrew who was a dead ringer for South African all-rounder Jacques Kallis. These hardy souls each took a jeep and led our group out into the wilds of the Kruger.  I say 'wilds' but what I really mean is the carefully-tended and highly-organised park that is the Kruger, criss-crossed by neatly tarmacadamed highways and informative sign-posts.... was this really the bush? Hhhm. 

It may have looked a bit neat and felt a bit sanitised but the animals were there alright: I had three close encounters with elephants, one of which was a very big male 'in must' (surging with testosterone) and therefore very unpredictable.  I saw only the tip of a lion's tail and missed the leopard because I passed up the chance to do yet another 5am drive - early starts never having been my strong point!  So yes, I missed two of the 'big five' by having a lie in that day, but I must say, sipping a pre-lunch gin and tonic, with feet up on the rail of the pool bar, watching a herd of elephants not 100 yards away, I really didn't care!  And let's face it, it's a good excuse to go back and do it again.

Our last couple of nights were at Hazyview, where our hotel pool and some of the rooms looked out across the valley, a lovely view framed by purple-flowering jacaranda trees (a recurring and delightful theme during the northern part of the trip) and enlivened by grazing emus (at least I think they were emus).  We enjoyed a scenic drive up to the Drakensburg escarpment and - slightly less enjoyable after seeing so many animals in the wild - made a visit to a cheetah-breeding project where we also had our fill of wild dogs and vultures...

And so another long drive across the high veld to Jo'burg airport and home again.  I was ready to come back, not because I didn't enjoy South Africa, but because I had had enough of making polite conversation with my fellow travellers, with whom I seemed to have little in common.  In some ways, being among other single people was more irritating, because it was assumed we would all be sociable with each other all of the time.  This was a contrast with the New Zealand trip where I found it easy to 'withdraw' from my (mostly) married travellers to find my own space.  I guess I am just becoming a grumpy old woman after all. 

But South Africa is truly a marvellous country.  The varied landscape and changing climate from south to north and west to east are enough for three or four lesser countries.  Everyone we met was gentle, friendly and so glad to welcome visitors to their country.  So much has been achieved in such a short space of time (the first free election was only in 1994) and yet there is so much more to do.  It remains a mystery to me why South Africa has not done more to lead African opinion when it comes to what is happening in Swaziland and Zimbabwe, and in the case of AIDS the head-in-the-sand approach is quite baffling. 

Whites and blacks and coloureds still live in distinct ghettos, separated by language, culture and income brackets just as much as by race.  For instance, there is only a handful of black tour guides in the country, because one of the greatest injustices is the education gap between white and black - so our received view of South African history was very much a white one. I was never served by a white person, except in upmarket shops or galleries.  All the hotel staff were black or coloured - but at least the management teams in hotels are now mostly black, not white.  I learned that there is a big difference between British-descended South Africans and the Afrikaaners descended from the Dutch colonists.  I would have liked to have learned more, but this whistle-stop tour was never going to provide the real encounters that is necessary to understand South Africa fully. 

Postscript: in a Zulu village I found a brand new beaded doll which is the same traditional design as one my great uncle brought back from the Boer War and which is now in my possession (though very fragile). In terms of family and national history, it was not hard to imagine young British soldiers facing Zulu warriors on  the open range. After all, it was not that long ago: South Africa is at the same time both a very old and a very new country - and it is absolutely fascinating.