Bob and Jeanne go to South Africa November 17 – December 6, 2008
When Bob and I heard that fellow lawn bowlers from California, Ivan and Maryna Highland, were offering to take a group of Americans on a bowls/safari/cultural tour of their native South Africa, it was an opportunity we couldn’t pass up. So after nine months of planning and e-mails a-plenty, it all came together and we met up with the other 15 people in the group—mostly Californians—at the Washington Dulles airport on November 17 to begin our journey. The 15½ hour overnight trip to Johannesburg was bearable mainly because the South African Airlines plane had individual TV screens where we could watch our own choice of films. If Columbus could see us now.
Despite what one may have heard about the Joburg airport, it is swiftly being remodeled in hopes of handling all the World Cup Soccer traffic expected in 2010. In fact, that was a frequent theme as we traveled the country—get it ready (be it roads, mass transit, soccer stadiums, electricity supply) for the World Cup. We stayed at the lovely Johannesburg Country Club where the buildings reflected the colonial Dutch past, the spacious gardens were beautifully manicured, and the weather was perfect enough to eat outdoors under spreading oak trees. This was the site of the first of our 6 lawn bowling encounters where we quickly learned that combining our players and theirs on the same team was more fun than us trying to show our superiority (which proved impossible anyway). Foods new to us were babotie (a fruit and chutney enhanced mince-based casserole) and kingklip fish—both delicious.
Our small bus was able to maneuver just about anywhere so we got to see Soweto, the largest shanty town in the world (home to over 2 million mostly poor blacks), and Vilakazi Street (home at one time to both Nobel Peace Prize winners, Desmond Tutu--1984 and Nelson Mandela—1993). Unfortunately, because unemployment is very high, crime is also high and early on we learned that if you have anything of value in your home, you build a high wall around it and top it with razor wire or electrified fencing. EVERYBODY has a story to tell about why that’s necessary.
Central Joburg is not pretty and most of the downtown is now being used by the University of South Africa. Its gold mines are being reworked because the price of gold has risen. George Harrison discovered the gold here and sold his stake for 10 pounds in 1886 thus walking away from the richest gold field on the planet. If HE could see it now. . .
En Route to Lesedi Cultural Village a stop at the Voortrekker Monument outside of Pretoria, the capital of South Africa, allowed us to see via huge relief murals the story of the 6 year wagon train trek of 15,000 Boers to the area and the eventual Battle of Blood River of 1838 where 400 Boers defeated 10,000 Zulus. At the cultural village we saw (and slept in) recreated tribal huts, ate crocodile and ostrich meat, watched native dances and rituals and listened to rooster calls most of the night! High unemployment makes working here a privilege.
The African government has promised (among many, many other things—it’s the way you get elected) that each family should have its own house and so very modest homes are being built throughout the country and called “locations.” Unfortunately, the location of these “locations” is usually marginal, far from city and work centers, so they tend to house the unemployed. People still walk great distances—the bicycle has never caught on.
We stayed at Woodland Lodge in the 20,000 acre Nambiti Private Game Reserve and ate dinner on the open verandah. Eco tourism has become a popular and profitable land use, spawning a whole new industry. Outdoor showers were all the rage. Bob and I didn’t have one—just an extra long tub, which turned out to be the norm. You could float in it quite easily! Our several game rides left us with a long list of animal and bird sightings,and we were spoiled by the attentiveness and the information shared by our driver/guides. Open-sided 10-seater Toyota Land Cruisers, the vehicles of choice, can go 400 km’s on a fill-up, but average 1 tire puncture a week thanks to the rough roads.
Our next stop was in Durban, home to more than a million people of Indian descent. So of course, we had a typical Indian dinner—wonderful meal, but hot tongues! Indians originally came as indentured servants to work on the sugar cane plantations in the 1860’s. The Goble Palms Guest House was delightful, full of verandahs where we could meet for an evening drink. (Marula was the favourite liqueur, which we quickly learned was also favoured in its fermented fruit state by monkeys, elephants and others which could become inebriated by it in the wild.) In the morning, the group went for a dip in the warm(ish) waters of the Indian Ocean, and then we headed on to our bowling game—at the Royal Durban Light Infantry Club. Bowling and dinner at the club were followed by a hilarious variety show (all with lip sync) put on especially for us by club members. We all tried to picture OUR club members back home acting with so little inhibition. Bob did a presentation to the “best” bowlers on our side—one jar of Marmite for the best, and two jars of Marmite for the second best! Is there any North American who has developed a taste for Marmite or Vegemite? You have to try it to believe it!
The next morning we were on our way early to bowl at the Maritzburg Club. Lunch there was followed by an afternoon drive to a Guest Farm near Wartburg. The rooms were huge and we felt very pampered. Dinner that night was a braai (barbecue to North Americans) hosted by Jules and Jenny Gordon our local travel guides on their family estate. We actually ate in Jules’ former polo pony barn. Such a great experience. Local friends attended and chatting with them made us realize how tenuous their life there can be. Many of the farms are operating under the threat of land claims—often filed spuriously, with little chance of success—but as the black population grows industrious lawyers grasp at anything that will take back some of the 80% of the land that was originally deeded to the 13% white population. Unfortunately, while the government is committed to compensating farmers for their land should a claim prove to be valid, it is running out of money with which to do it.
CONGRATULATIONS. THE GOOD NEWS IS YOU’RE ABOUT HALF WAY THROUGH! THE BETTER NEWS IS THERE WILL BE NO TEST ON THIS!
Early the next morning we went on a driving tour of the Guest Farm and watched sugar cane being cut by hand, avocado trees growing, and wild animals grazing in the rolling countryside. Then we went on to visit “Georgie’s” park-like garden and beautiful century old home. The spreading ficus trees were breathtaking, the flora natural and vibrant, and once again we felt privileged to visit “real” people with real stories. Unfortunately the slums in the distance are coming closer and closer to their land, and their cattle has to be kept close to the farm or it will go missing. Muffins and tea in Georgie’s exquisite historic dining room finished off the morning.
Afternoon bowls at the Wartburg Club was a treat and despite the drizzle, we played competently enough against some of the people we had met at the braai the night before. The club had been preparing wonderful local stews for us all day in huge cauldrons, so our dinner was once again filling and tasty. Such fun and friendly people!
Away from farm country we moved through rolling hills, some plateaus, and prime KwaZulu-Natal battlefield territory (British-Zulus in 1879 and British-Boers in 1880 and 188). After lunch in the historic Dundee Hotel some of the group went to the bank for the simple task of cashing travelers cheques. NOT SO!!! About an hour later, they reappeared with tales of endless red tape. . . Our home for the night, Natal Spa, put on a superb Thanksgiving Dinner for us—even though they’d never heard of one before our request came in. Thermal pools at the spa, Rock Rabbits (Cape Hyraxes) scampering everywhere and a dazzling lightning display viewed from our balcony were sources of entertainment.
Our longest drive was the next day when we headed off to Kruger National Park through lush valleys, koppies and plains and made it to the Skukuza Rest Station which was to be our home for three welcome nights. As soon as we entered the park which is the size of Wales we started to see great numbers of zebra, elephant and impala. The animals have become used to the passing of motor vehicles and lead somewhat normal lives except that the migratory instinct is becoming lost—they would run into electrified fences!
Bob went on an early morning bus ride where they saw warthogs (his favourite), hippos, crocodile, iguanas and one cobra. When the bus driver backed up to let people get a better look at the cobra, it couldn’t be found. So the driver moved on but found it later in the engine, back at the camp, dead. Bob came back for breakfast and we calmly drank coffee under an open thatched canopy which was FULL of resting BATS and we have the pictures to prove it! An aside re our week old digital camera—we were really glad to have made the purchase just before we left Sun City (our old camera—25+ years—was held together with elastic bands and had no zoom feature so we felt the upgrade was justified!). Now we truly could shoot with abandon, that is, until the batteries wore out—which they did with great regularity. Fellow travelers kept us stocked, however, so we really never missed a shot!
We had a private braai for dinner and everyone had a chance to express their appreciation to the Hylands for arranging such a fabulous trip. Monkeys were proving to be pesky here, opening frigs (located on the verandahs) and tossing food about
The next day was the climax of the trip for everyone. We set our alarms for 3:15 am and set out at 4 am in the dark with lights on the sides of the open sided safari vehicle. About an hour into the ride we spotted a leopard (the rarest to see of the “big five”) and by the end of the three hour drive we had seen all five of the five most dangerous to hunt animals on the continent—leopard, elephant, lion, white rhinoceros and African buffalo. The last time our driver had seen all five on one outing was six months before. We also saw the “little four”—babies of all the big five except the leopard. All so exciting!
On our early drive exiting the park the next morning, we saw two elephants fighting near/on the road 60 feet ahead of us with a third standing by. Stunned, we watched the loser start down the road in our direction but he turned away when he recognized we were not another threat. End of fight, and we continued on our way.
Our goal that day was to fly from Joburg to Cape Town and settle in before dark to the 200 year old former vintner’s mansion called Alphen Hotel and Country Inn. Mission accomplished and what we saw of Capetown on our arrival reinforced what we had heard about its beauty! The next morning we toured the Kirstenbosch Botanical Gardens learning about the varied floral species. The Gardens sit amidst the smallest of the world’s 6 botanical Kingdoms and is home to more than 8,600 kinds of flowering plants. Afternoon bowls at Newlands Club was followed by supper featuring their wonderfully barbecued meats. Our suite at the hotel was huge and we all met for drinks in our lounge after the busy day.
A geography lesson come alive is the only way to describe the next morning which started with a cable car ride up Table Mountain (a flat-topped block of horizontally bedded sandstone and granite). Here the “tablecloth” of cloud had risen, just for us, and we had a perfectly clear 360 degree view of Capetown and the Atlantic Ocean. The topography, mosses and lichens on top of the mountain were eerily similar to those of Georgian Bay in Ontario but this one is thought to be the oldest mountain on earth.
We took a beautiful costal ride to see the Boulder Bay penguin colony, took pictures and relaxed over a fish lunch in a restaurant overlooking the ocean. Spectacular! But the best was still to come. We continued south to Cape Point, climbed to the “old” lighthouse (which was built too high and was so often enshrouded in cloud that it was useless to passing ships, 400 at least of which went down in the rough seas here). A more useful one is now in place. From here we could look out at both the Cape of Good Hope and Cape Agulhas (which is actually the southernmost tip of the continent and which marks the meeting of the Atlantic and Indian Oceans). Breathtaking!
One more morning of bowling—this time at the Constantia Club. Wonderful clubhouse, gorgeous greens, backdrop of Table Mountain and again a memorable babotie lunch. We did our first real shopping thing after leaving the club by visiting the Victoria and Alfred waterfront development which rivals all other waterfront retail/commercial/entertainment developments in the world. Low rise, sprawling and intricate, it was a neat place.
So all that was left was to celebrate our last night in Africa with a group dinner and then make our way (slowly) back to Arizona.
Congratulations! You’ve read it all! It was a great trip!
