Port Elizabeth

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Today we headed south from Bloemfontein to the southern coast. The grassy landscape gradually became more mountainous and greener. We passed through Olifantskop (elephant head) Pass and into the area occupied by the Addo Elephant Reserve. This is absolutely gorgeous country, all green and full of trees. Unfortunately, when we stopped to photograph it, we discovered that our camera had stopped working. We saw hillsides covered with blooming aloes of various kinds, and among all the hardwoods were interspersed various large succulents and cacti. In the US we have “century plants” that have large leaves and 15’ flower stalks; we saw hundreds of those with their stalks starting to come out. Apparently, they bloom more than once a century here! We decided to save our trip into the elephant reserve for a later visit and proceeded on into the city of Port Elizabeth, or “PE” as it is called, and there we had our first glimpse of the Indian Ocean.

Another translation problem: street signs may be given in English, Afrikaans, or both. Our directions into PE included exiting on Cape Drive. We passed it right up and went way too far, only realizing on our way back into PE that Cape Drive is the same thing as Kaapweg. We were so happy to figure it out, we decided not to be disappointed about missing it in the first place! PE is quite modern and has a population of about 760,000 people. We were invited to stay in the home of another Bahá’í family, a Persian couple and their seven-year-old son, Anre Anis. Jamshid and Monique came from Canada as Bahá’í pioneers in the 1992. They are both terribly busy, with multiple businesses to run and a host of pet birds and a garden to care for. Jamshid’s brother, Houshmand, was one three Persian Bahá’ís who had been killed in Ciskei in 1994 for not distinguishing themselves as being either black or white. All three of those martyred had been buried in the South African port city of East London. We hope to visit their graves during our travels. Tonight our hosts took us for a walk along PE’s big promenade next to the ocean under a beautiful full moon.

In this part of the country, most of the people speak Khosa, which is also one of the 11 official languages of South Africa. I have managed to pronounce Khosa with the characteristic click sound that begins the word. It took some time before Bob could merge the click and the word into one and not two separate sounds, but now he can say it, too.

Tonight when we walked into our room, a HUGE spider on the wall greeted me, which sent shivers through my innards. Bob valiantly killed it for me. Near the ocean, one must expect this kind of wildlife; what next?

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Photos

Anre and his bird
We took this photo with the camera in our MacBook.