Under Southern African Skies: 2006

Cape Peninsula

Another long overnight flight took us to Cape Town where we stayed in The Backpack, one of the better hostels, called backpacks in South Africa. We stayed five nights, getting over jet lag and exploring the city and surroundings.

Our first full day, Friday, dawned clear and calm. One of the managers at The Backpack advised us to visit Table Mountain that day as the weather could change quickly, preventing a visit. She was right. We had a lovely day before the winds picked up and the famous Tablecloth of clouds covered the mountain for the next three days.

The cable car ride to the top of the mountain, at 1086 M, is a treat. Cape Town is a pretty city nestled between a mountain range, including Table Mountain, and the ocean at Table Bay. The huge circular car revolves as it ascends, allowing everyone to get superb views in all directions. An extensive system of well-maintained walking paths, leading to several lookouts, covers the relatively flat top. We explored many of the trails for the next three hours, snapping photos of the many wild flowers in bloom and marvelling at the different vistas around each corner.

Rather than take a taxi back to The Backpack, we elected to walk back. Our route took us past some of the more expensive residential areas of the city. As we found out is the norm in all the bigger cities in South Africa, each house was surrounded by high, secure fencing and security guards were on alert throughout. That is the price paid to live in South African cities. Apartheid has been dead for fourteen years but unemployment, especially for the black people who make up 77% of the population, is up to 40% in many areas and therefore there is still a big discrepancy between the have and have-nots.

The narrow Cape Peninsula stretches about 50 km to the south of Cape Town, ending at the Cape of Good Hope. We took a day minibus tour, which was both fun and informative. Our first stop was Hout Bay where we had the option of taking a boat ride to visit a seal colony. Ray and I have seen several seal colonies so we elected to go for a walk along the beach and visit the working fishing wharf. The rest of the group who went on the boat ride came back more excited about seeing several Southern Right whales than the seals. These huge mammals visit the relatively warm waters of South Africa from the Antarctic each year between June and November to calve. October was a great time to view them as many females with their calves and some of the males are still around. We continued to see them just offshore all along the Cape Peninsula route.

Every March thousands of cyclists follow a 109-km route from Cape Town down the peninsula and back. We passed several groups out following the same route along the coastal road that includes the Chapman's Peak section dramatically cut into the cliffs beside the water. With its many hills the route would be challenging but very scenic.

African penguins come ashore on the Southwest coast of Africa and there was a colony of them to visit at Boulders, a protected area just outside Simon's Town. They were in their moult stage when we visited and were standing around obediently allowing us to photograph them. One let out a loud bray, reminding us that they were formally called Jackass penguins before their name was changed to be more politically correct.

The bottom half of the peninsula is a Nature Reserve where we saw baboons, ostrich and the colourful Bontebok antelopes. We stopped in the park to choose a bicycle and cycle about 10 km to our lunch spot. From there it was on to Cape Point where we all climbed up a long set of stairs to see the view at the "new" lighthouse, built in 1919. Once again we were treated to the sight of whales right next to the rocky cliffs. Of course the day would not be complete without a picture of our group at the Cape of Good Hope, so we all walked across the cliffs and down to the sign near the waters edge.

Nearly all commercial outlets are closed on Sunday in Cape Town. The exception is the very touristy but fun Victoria & Albert Waterfront. We walked through town to join the throngs eating in the many restaurants, shopping for souvenirs and listening to the New Orleans style buskers. The ferry terminal for Robben Island, the infamous prison for anti-apartheid protestors, including Nelson Mandela. We had tried to get a reservation to visit the island but the next few days were fully booked. We made a booking for the day before we were to start our Drifters tour and visited the informative museum at the ferry dock building.

Besides visiting Robben Island, we were interested in exploring more of South Africa's difficult history. District Six, in the center of Cape Town, is now mostly a wasteland but it was once a vibrant multi-racial community. In 1966 the White areas of Cape Town were looking for more land for housing, so District Six was declared a White Area and by 1982 all 50,000 residents had been evicted and moved to the impoverished Cape Flats townships near the airport, nearly 24 km out of town. The existing homes were bulldozed but very little was ever built on the area. All that remains are a few churches and mosques that were considered bad luck to remove. The President of South Africa, Thabo Mbeki, signed a document in November 2000 handing back the confiscated land to former residents, provided they can produce documents proving prior ownership. Of course, many of the elderly have died and families have moved far away, so this process will never be fully resolved. In the meantime the District Six Museum is open for all to visit. On the floor in the main room is a large map showing all the streets of the district. Former residents have been encouraged to come and sign their names next to the location of their homes. On the walls are photos of former residents and stories of their life in the district. Upstairs are recorded histories of several residents. It was extremely moving.

The Backpack offered tours to the Black Townships near Cape Town. The evening tour was recommended by fellow travellers so we joined three other tourists, our guide Sylvia, a security guard and a driver for a minibus trip to Mandela Park, just outside Hout Bay. In 1990 the town of Hout Bay decided to amalgamate and relocate the three Black townships nearby. The existing 200 families were promised 30 hectares on which to build new homes and told to move. As a start 16 hectares were given and the families moved in. The population has swelled to 20,000 people with the influx of people from all over South Africa looking for work near Cape Town, but the land has never expanded. Several years ago an Irish aid worker became concerned about the poor living conditions in the area and promised to come up with a solution. He went home to Ireland, raised funds and returned to build several simple concrete bungalows, with electricity and an indoor toilet, to replace the makeshift shacks the people were living in. Even though the residents had to prove they were one of the original families moved to Mandela Park and have to pay a monthly fee to buy their homes, it is considered a privilege to have an Irish home. Sylvia told us her name is on a long waiting list for one of the homes, should it come up for transfer. In the meantime, she lives with her brother in a typical shack that looked as if the first windstorm would blow it away. We were impressed by the cleanliness of the crowded community and by the fact that steps are being taken to deal with petty theft and house break-ins that had plagued the surrounding areas.

Our first stop was to the home of a traditional healer, a woman who displayed some of the herbs she gathers and explained what they were for. Accompanied on a drum by her mother, the healer performed a ceremonial dance and chant for us. She assured us she didn't have the cure for AIDS, just remedies for common colds and stomach ailments.

We were invited to share a typical meal in a Shebeen, a local pub in the township. We sampled several tasty mealie (corn) dishes, salad and meat. To entertain us, some of the local teens performed energetic street dances and later a group of about 20 men, dressed in traditional costumes, sang and danced for us. This portion was very popular with the locals who crowded into the shebeen to watch the performance. We were pleased to see that the people were very interested in keeping alive their traditions. After the performers had left the women and children got our small group up dancing to their favourite music. The locals were much more accomplished than we tourists were, but we were game to try.

Overberg Map

We still had time on our own before our Drifters tour started so we rented a car for ten days. Our first stop was in Hermanus, 80 km along the south coast. Once a quiet fishing village, Hermanus is now a popular resort town where tourists come to view the Right whales. The deep waters below the cliffs that demark the town are perfect feeding grounds for the whales. Several times a day we walked along a boardwalk the town had built above the cliffs and sat on the benches along the way to watch the whales. If we got tired of the whales we watched Dassies, that looked like a furry groundhog, eat the fynbos (native flowering shrubs) in the gardens along the boardwalk. Dassies amazingly have been found to have a related DNA to elephants. Talk about distant cousins.

We drove further along the coast to take our pictures at Cape Agulhas, the southern most point in Africa. That didn't take long as it is simply a rocky, rough beach with a sign. We had time that afternoon to visit De Hoop Nature Reserve. The visit included a 35 km dirt road detour each way to get there, quite different from the good paved roads we had encountered so far, but it was worth it. There we saw our first ostrich, baboons, some zebras, wildebeest and various antelopes grazing in the fields beside our car.

There were some nice cabins in the reserve that we wished we had known about beforehand. Instead, we continued north to Swellendam, in the Langeberg Mountains. We had intended to do one of the many hikes in the mountains but the next day the clouds were hanging low over the peaks. We took a chance and set out anyway and by the time we reached a plateau about half way up, the clouds had lifted. As was typical of other hikes we did in South Africa, we met only one other hiker, but the trail was well marked and maintained.

Karoo Map

Our original plan had been to visit various towns along the south coast, known as the Garden route. Reports from other tourists made us change our mind. Instead of the more touristy Garden Route, we headed inland to the semi-desert of the Karoo. We set off over the lofty Outeniqua mountain pass, with the fabled beautiful views indistinguishable in low cloud and rain. To our surprise the sun was shining on the other side and the skies stayed clear from then on. From there it was a deserted straight paved road with towns few and far between until we reached Graaff-Reinet, the fourth-oldest European Town in South Africa. In the early 19th C this was an important trading center for Voortrekkers heading north from Cape Town. Built in a cleft of the Sneeuberg mountain range on the Sunday River and surrounded by nature reserves, with Cape Dutch and Victorian architecture retained, it is a scenic little town. We ended up staying three days in the home of a retired military man, now the bartender in the Graaff-Reinet Club, and his wife. We visited the Club, second oldest "mens only" club in South Africa, as guests of our host. It has changed little since it was originally built more than 100 years ago as a meeting place for British Officers. It still has a full-sized pool table in a room hung with hunting trophies and photos of the first members.

Our first walk was short but scenic. We drove into the Valley of Desolation Reserve up a steep road to walk among rugged, piled dolorite columns and look down on the town set amongst the endless Karoo plains. Late that afternoon, when the heat of the Karoo had disapated, we drove into the wildlife-viewing area of the Reserve to see antelope, ostrich, vervel monkeys, wildebeeste and the strange secretary bird. Another day we explored the Drie Koppie Trail in another part of the reserve. In Old Dutch or Afrikaans, kop is head, koppie is a small boulder piled hill, and we were to see lots of koppies all over South Africa. We drove as far as we could on progressively worse dirt roads and then walked uphill for an hour to a round hut, a rondavel, that can be rented by the night. We had the reserve to ourselves and saw small herds of antelope and several rare mountain zebras.

On our route back to Cape Town we stopped in Oudtshoorn, surrounded by ostrich farms and billed as the ostrich capital of the world. We took advantage of the ostrich braai offered for the evening meal at our backpack and found it tender and tasty. We even had scrambled ostrich eggs for breakfast.

A popular tour is a mountain bike ride from the top of the Swartzberg Pass mostly downhill for 40 km back to Oudtshoorn. Unfortunately it was raining the morning we were supposed to go, but six of us went anyway. We piled into a minivan and drove up the hill in the rain. The last 7 km of the road was unpaved so Ray suggested we avoid getting mud-splattered and start at the beginning of the paved road. Everyone thought that was a great idea. We got on the bikes and started off right next to a field with a large flock of ostrich. To our delight, one of the ostrich decided this was a race and before we knew it the whole herd were racing neck and neck next to us downhill through the fields. We won and left the ostrich behind. We were only disappointed that none of the other herds we passed took up the challenge.

Our first stop was at Cango Caves where we joined a tour to view the caves. The caves were discovered in 1760 and showed evidence of prehistoric habitation. Although only a small portion of the caves is open to the public, it was still impressive. Luckily by the time we were finished our tour the rain had stopped.

You can't visit Oudtshoorn without a visit to an Ostrich Show Farm. After a good lunch at a pretty restaurant farther down the road, we rode over to see the show. In the late 1800s, Oudtshoorn residents grew rich on the profits from ostrich farming. Until the market for ostrich feathers collapsed, they were used as a commodity richer than gold. After our ostrich lecture we all trooped outside to meet the mating pairs of ostrich that were the stars of their breeding program. Bonnie and Clyde and Adam and Eve all had large broods of adopted chicks to raise. We got to pet a tame ostrich and then were invited to ride one around a small corral. I volunteered for this short and speedy experience. I was helped up onto a blanket on the back of an ostrich and took off with two handlers alongside the bird to make sure it didn't try to take off. The one man who took a turn was permitted a few meters on his own but thankfully women were accorded the handlers. From the ostrich farm we rode the last 15 km of mostly flat road back to town. It was a fun way to see the sights.

From Oudtshoorn we took a scenic route through the mountains to the extensive wine district. We stopped at the large Robertson winery for a tasting and to buy a few bottles for our dinners, then drove over a mountain pass to Franschhoek and on to Stellenbosch where we stayed overnight.

We got back to Cape Town in time for our scheduled tour to Robben Island. The weather cooperated for our one-hour boat ride to the island, which gave us more views of the city backed by Table Mountain. Guides on the island are ex-inmates of the prison. Our guide on a bus ride around the island had been imprisoned for six years after he was arrested at age 17 during a student protest march. He was very passionate about his experience on the island, telling us how Nelson Mandela had turned an angry youth into a scholar and writer. We heard several times how revered and what a positive influence Mandela was on the inmates. For the first 15 years, from 1963-1978, there was no schooling or other activities allowed on the island. After several petitions by the inmates, sports activities were allowed and the mandate became "One to teach another" . This was still very difficult as all conversations were monitored and there were few pencils and paper. Nevertheless, the literacy rate skyrocketed. Our bus guide managed to get a University degree after being released. Our second guide gave us a walking tour of the main prison area, taking us through a typical prison room that housed up to 80 prisoners. We were also shown Mandela's small prison room and the courtyard that was their exercise yard. The visit gave us a lot to think about and be glad that Apartheid is no longer in effect.