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Published: January 23rd 2021
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This is a special day. Nui’s birthday, so Nenad was committed to have dinner with her with the sun setting into the Indian Ocean. What is 650 km driving, when the reward will be a happy smile from Nui !!! As destination we chose the area of St Francis Bay, about an hour South of Port Elisabeth. This is a holiday destination at the Southern end of the Eastern Cape, known for surfing, biking fishing and hiking. Famous also for its building style of houses, especially roof constructions in the village of St Francis Bay. All buildings are same in style of white painted houses with black roofs (mostly made from thatch, a technique taken from the Xosa tribe). The material is extremely pretty and very practical when it rains or to absorb the heat, but you do not want to have a fire. In 2012 76 houses burned down in a fire in this up market estate, all of them with thatched roof. The Kromme River running into the ocean in St Francis, is navigable for 14 km upstream, and is linked to the St Francis canals system, where luxury property is built on its shores. Boating, kayaking, jet skiing
in the canals, surfing in the ocean. St Francis Bay is the start of the famous Garden Route of South Africa. But there is a darker side we discovered. A shanty town, or call it ghetto of totally run-down huts, with no visible proper infrastructure, garbage everywhere and lots of poorly dressed kids running around lies not even 5km from the St Francis villa city. Of course, its citizens are all black and one can see them making their way in the morning to St Francis Bay working in all sorts of unskilled jobs for the mainly White residents. A legacy of the apartheid concept, where the black population was closed up in Townships and Homelands, needing a special pass allowing them only to leave these areas for work related travel.
Before we reached this holiday paradise, whose weather forecast promised sun, sun, sun, we had to drive, drive, drive a long way leaving the Umngazi Resort and the Wild Coast behind. It is the traditional home of the Mpondo people, a tribe from the Xhosa, and the birthplace of many prominent South Africans, including Nelson Mandela and Thabo Mbeki. Passing the city of Mthatha, the hometown of Nelson
Mandela was the first reference point of our journey today.
Nelson Rolihlahla Mandela (18 July 1918 – 5 December 2013) was a South African anti-apartheid revolutionary, political leader and philanthropist, who served as President of South Africa from 1994 to 1999. He was the country's first black head of state and the first elected in a fully representative democratic election. His government focused on dismantling the legacy of apartheid by tackling institutionalized racism and fostering racial reconciliation. Ideologically an African nationalist and socialist, he served as the president of the African National Congress (ANC) party from 1991 to 1997. A Xhosa, Mandela was born to the Thembu royal family. He studied law at the University of Fort Hare and Witwatersrand before working as a lawyer in Johannesburg. There he became involved in anti-colonial and African nationalist politics, joining the ANC in 1943 and co-founding its Youth League in 1944. He was influenced by Marxism and was briefly a member of the banned South African Communist Party (SACP). As apartheid became more extreme, he committed himself to overthrow the regime. In the 1952 he led the Defiance Campaign and the 1955 the Congress of the People. He was repeatedly arrested
for seditious activities. Although initially committed to non-violent protest, he co-founded the militant Umkhonto we Sizwe in 1961 and led a sabotage campaign against the government. He was arrested and imprisoned in 1962, and sentenced to life imprisonment of which he spent 27 years in Robbin Island and other prisons. President F. W. de Klerk released him in 1990. Mandela and de Klerk led efforts to negotiate an end to apartheid, which resulted in the 1994 multiracial general election in which Mandela led the ANC to victory and became president.
A national hero in the eyes of most blacks, he never fully could resolve the age old conflict between the Zulu and Xhosa. We met and spoke to many especially younger whites, their disappointment is growing visibly. His successors have never fulfilled the expectations. The country is plagued by corruption up to the highest level in Government (especially under past President Zuma), unemployment (around 30% of South Africans have no jobs) and inequality (poverty is also on the rise among the white population). Many, especially Whites, are asking where the journey is going. A prevalent opinion is that South Africa will slowly become a second Rhodesia (Zimbabwe); not very
optimistic.
Driving through the center of East London, one of the main automotive manufacturing hubs of the country we were shocked to see how dilapidated the city center is. The crime rate is high and the city is considered simply unsafe. Our observations fully confirmed that and Nenad locked the car and applied the technique of not stopping, not even at red traffic lights (as advised by South Africans). We passed a statue of Steven Biko and wondered what he would say seeing how 18 years after the end of Apartheid this city presents itself. Biko, a Xhosa by birth, was a South African anti-apartheid activist. Ideologically an African nationalist and African socialist, he was at the forefront of a grassroots anti-apartheid campaign known as the Black Consciousness Movement during the late 1960s and 1970s. He had a deep, philosophical outlook on life and believed that the emancipation of the mind was necessary before political freedom could be attained. As the leader of the Black Consciousness Movement, he took the organization from one of student discontent into a political force that was unprecedented in the history of South Africa. A gifted speaker and charismatic leader he became a dangerous
figure for the regime. South African security assassinated him in 1977, a shock to the movement, causing a huge international political outcry.
Following the Sunshine Coast south of East London, the weather and the environment visibly improved. In Port Alfred, a lovely town on that stretch of coast, we definitively reached the promised blue skies and sun. We also found an "Italian" restaurant with a nice verandah overlooking the ocean with its waves pounding into the sand. Nenad needed a break, he drove with no stops for already five hours. The restaurant had good looking sea food but did not know what seafood pasta Arrabiata is. Italian restaurant ?!?!?! So Nui and Nenad explained and the chef did a great job cooking it. We do not know if he subsequently he added the dish on his menu.
We decided to by-pass Port Elisabeth as time was passing too quickly. Remember, Nenad wanted to have dinner with sunset with his birthday girl. We reached just in time St. Francis Bay to check into our (another) lovey accommodation, make ourselves pretty and go for dinner to Mauro's Italian (this time a real one) restaurant, famous for fish and seafood, exactly
what the birthday girl is liking. Gung (shrimp and prawn) galore and lobster thermidor with Thelema Merlot. Desert was on the house and Mauro, the owner himself, made sure we had a good time.
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