Advertisement
Published: December 18th 2007
Edit Blog Post
Bunny Chow
An alien visitor to Planet South Africa enjoying the local cuisine known as Bunny Chow On Sunday 2 December 2007 I landed on Planet South Africa. It is a friendly planet but feels very alien in many ways. Its 13% white population seem to speak a language not unlike English and mostly seem to drive large 4WD or Mercedes cars. Its black population seem to be often poor and many live in unbelievably large sprawling shanty towns or townships away from the white dominated central parts of many cities.
Tom and I have been here nearly two weeks and we are having a truly wonderful time . Yet I am still experiencing the most intense culture shock. We have travelled from Durban to the mountain kingdom of Lesotho via the Sani Pass and sheared sheep in cold temperatures with Lesothan sheep shearers who seem strangely out of place in a climate and terrain like North Wales in November. We have been with hippies in Coffee Bay, a part of South Africa which seems to have shaken off Apartheid long before the country did it officially. We have stayed on amazing surf beaches in Cinsa and Jeffrey's Bay. We have visited Pietermaritzburg where the Voortrekkers, the original Dutch settlers went and established the Church of the
More Aliens
Tom has integrated so well on this alien planet it is hard to tell him from the residents. Vow. We have been to the surf beach at Cinsa and stayed at the highly popular if rather holiday camp like Buccanneers, a backpackers with amazing views over the ocean. We have travelled through Hogsback where Tolkien is alleged (inaccurately I think) to have drawn inspiration for the landscapes of Lord of the Rings. One can see why though.
As I write this paragraph I am in Jeffrey's Bay which is like Byron Bay with Aussie looking surfers but they speak Afrikaans ( a Dutch based language spoken by South Africans of Dutch descent who still often refer to themselves as Dutch). The strange thing is that the Black South Africans here also speak Afrikaans. As I speak some German I catch the meaning sometimes and it is very surreal to me hearing a native African talking to me in a Dutch sounding tongue.
From Jeffrey's Bay we travelled for a day trip to Addo which is a National Park which has African elephants in abundance, and many other beautiful creatures. This was one of the highlights of the trip for me and at one point we counted over 60 elephants in one place. They are such magnificent
Taking AIDS Seriously
There are many hopeful signs here and this is one of them creatures and as I explained in an earlier blog, I feel some affinity with elephants. I believe in a former life I must have been one. Some say I still am!
When we arrived in Durban I met another backpacker who had made the long bus journey from Maputo previous day and we shared our complaints concerning our aging bodies confined with 20 others in a minibus for 5 hours.A few days later I met this man again in Sani Pass, the approach to Lesotho.We got talking and it transpired that he like me lives in Australia, that he like me lives in Darwin and that he like me lives in Rapid Creek. His name is Wolfgang and he is a professional drummer who works with an old colleague of mine. To use a hackneyed phrase, it is a small world. Wolfgang,Tom and I have become firm friends and have travelled together since Sani Pass all the way to Cape Town.
After Jeffrey's Bay we moved on to a town called Wilderness which is a very beautiful coastal settlement which has something of Seachange about it with a population of mostly white South Africans who seem to have
One of my family
I told you I always wanted to be an elephant forsaken city life to follow a more relaxed lifestyle.They have a night market and play live sixties music.I noted the band perform Bob Dylan's Love Minus Zero/No Limit. We stayed in a caravan park with self catering caravans run by a couple of older Afrikaaner hippies. It was superb and utra peaceful. Much of what I have seen in South Africa is similar to Australia at times to such an extent that I find myself forgetting where I am and then I have the rude awakening of the sound of the accent, the use of Afrikaans or more sinisterly the high number of security guards just about everywhere. The roads here are generally good but the driving rules seem to be either very different or non existent compared with Australia or the UK. Lane changing generally occurs without any signal. Speed limits seem to be totally ignored by just about everyone. Traffic lights are referred to as robots which although logical was rather confusing when we first asked directions and were directed to 'drive past two robots'. Crossroads are usually '4 way stops' where priority is apparently decided by who has arrived first.Complicated when you all think you have arrived
Kute Kudu
Just look at those horns at the same time.That said drivers are generally more tolerant and less aggressive than most other places I have driven. We hired a car in Durban which broke down on our second day and caused us to meet real South Africa on the side of the highway when getting towed in became an extremely complicated process involving several hours of waiting and then a complex set of negotiations to get us to the replacement car. We did however get an upgrade and this was great until the key was accidentally locked in the boot in Coffee Bay by a tired young man who had been driving all day. After two days of phone calls,it seemed we could either pay a locksmith $700 (300 quid) or pay a man to bring us a spare key from Jo'burg which would take a day or two and cost a lot or smash one of the windows which ended up being the option. We then had to drive into the city of East London to get it fixed which was extremely straightforward. I must say the South Africans I have met in car towing business and car window repair business have been some of
Friends in Jeffrey's Bay
From Left to Right: Wolfgang, Tom, Kev, Alison and Reagan the most friendly and helpful people I have met.
At the time of writing this section, I am in Cape Town which is one of the most beautiful cities I have ever visited. Cape Town is a wonderful city with beauty, variety and the most exquisite location. Yesterday we went to Robben Island where Nelson Mandela spent 18 of his 27 years imprisoned. Our guide was a former political prisoner and I was moved to tears when he spoke of the hardship and torture endured by the inmates. We also went to the top of Table Mountain which provides the most amazingly beautiful backdrop to the city. Today we went to Cape of Good Hope and Cape Point and visited a colony of Penguins. Magnifique!
I have only had a brief taste of South Africa which is really like many different countries or has many different faces yet I find myself falling in love with the place. Having grown up in the time of Apartheid and the Free Nelson Mandela campaigns,I had all sorts of preconceptions and misconceptions:all of which seem to have been completely wrong some of the time and partly wrong most of the time
Elephants in the Wild
My brothers the elephants and a little bit wrong all of the time. Yes, there is racism. Yes, there is a vast black underclass and yes, most of the whites seem to be obscenely rich compared with the poorest people who are nearly all black but from listening to South Africans talk I gather that there seems to be an honest attempt to fix this which will certainly take a long time. Many people seem very happy and positive. I will miss South Africa. I will only see Jo'burg from the airport transit lounge as I have run out of time and I am going to spend Christmas with my mum.
Before I sign off on this blog, I want to publicly say how wonderful it has been to spend the last 10 weeks with my son Tom. He has kept a watchful eye on his aged parent and done nearly all of the organising and hard work. He has kept his temper and not demonstrated any frustration with me which must have required great personal resources. Thank you Tom. You are a star! I love you very much.
Thank you everyone for your indulgence in reading my blog. I hope to
New Student?
I always wanted to go back to uni! add British entries soon, as I fly to the UK tomorrow 19 December. A Happy Christmas to you all.
Advertisement
Tot: 0.065s; Tpl: 0.011s; cc: 8; qc: 44; dbt: 0.0391s; 1; m:domysql w:travelblog (10.17.0.13); sld: 1;
; mem: 1.2mb
aili
non-member comment
hi Kev! Souns like you had a great time here in Africa, and im truly happy that I got the oppurtunity to meet up with you and Tom again...its been along time ago,hey... Keep on posting those bloggs, they are only getting better and better.... Me and bobbie just spend 4 days in paradise on an island in lake bunyoni i the south of Uganda. We will cykle around the country for 3 weeks with our friend thats flying down from sweden to meet up with us for christmas.Keep ur fingers crossed that we wont contract the ebola virus;0). Take good care of urself Kevin.. Peace, love and happy christmas xxx