Other travelogues : Sailing 1 : Sardinia to Corsica Collioure, France Sailing 2 : Turkey ; The Lycian Coast Acapulco Derbyshire Dales Egypt
We had a couple of weeks in South Africa in February and March 2008. It was pleasantly warm; cloudy on occasion with cool evenings. One sunny day it reached 40C and we spent a lot of that day in a pool but I would say that we picked a good time of the year for our visit.
We flew to CapeTown and were based in the Portwood Hotel near to the Harbour, which is smart, with a huge shopping centre and lots of harbour-side restaurants. Food prices were very reasonable throughout our stay, giving us a three course meal with good South African wine for under £10 a head including the obligatory service charge. Service was excellent.
We had booked a full day tour to Simondstown and the Cape of Good Hope and were well pleased. We were surprised to see a large colony of penguins at Simondstown
We were accompanied by another couple and, as we were both heading for Stellenbosch, the historic town settled by the Dutch in the 17th Century, in the wine country. So, the following day, we arranged to meet them there.
One of the many Stellenbosch Vineyards
Historic buildings in the main town
The next day we visited Franschhoek, famous for its wines, situated in a beautiful mountain encircled valley. Whereas Stellenbosch was very Dutch, Franschhoek was an area which French people settled. Both very smart places. The tour included a stop at a superb botanical garden in Kirstenbosch.
The hotel in Stellenbosch (one of the Protea group), was bordered by golf links and full of golfers. Although we managed pretty well I would recommend anyone booking that would do well to get a car as it is 3 miles out of Stellenbosch and, strangely, taxis in South Africa do not seem to be marked as such and we were at a loss as to how to find one. We had been warned about problems such as mugging and other security problems but we did not come across any examples. People were universally friendly and one did not just feel it was just because we were tourists. There were a few youngsters in Cape Town hoping for handouts but not as bad as London, despite the terrible unemployment rate.
We returned to Cape Town airport and flew to Port Elizabeth where we picked up a car and were escorted to the Hopewell Private Game Reserve about 35 miles from PE. This was indeed a privilege. The game reserve has only been established a few years but already has dozens of animals, including elephants, giraffe, zebra, white rhino, hippos, scores of antelope - (at least a dozen different breeds) - and, the star of the show, a couple of adult cheetah, who have recently had three cubs, now growing fast.
Bruce, the Manager/Game Warden, is a committed conservationist and was pleased to take us on numerous drives, which always terminated in a bush picnic, the grandest of these being a full candlelit dinner under a large tree.
Later, we then motored on to a small place near Kenton (on Sea) where we stayed in a villa overlooking the Bushman's River. It is a superb tidal river which is navigable for 35 kilometres up country. We were able to walk down to the mouth of the estuary, where the sand dunes reminded us our favourite UK spot of Wells next the Sea.
We booked a couple of horses and did our best to trot along the sand and
along some frightening cliffs !
After a week at Bushmans and brief visits to Grahamstown and Port Alfred we returned to Hopewell for one night (and one more safari) before returning to Port Elizabeth for out flight home (via Johannesburg)
We were fortunate to see elephamts, giraffe and zebra all getting on well
together
Happiness is........holding Mum's tail
To see another one in action click HERE
While we were travelling to and from airports in Cape Town and Port Elizabeth
we were astounded to see miles of 'townships' each side of the motorway.
I had thought of townships as being groups of shanty dwellings, not the endless
accumulation of shacks that I saw. Many had electricity poles running
down each dirt roads between the shacks but little else in the way of amenities.
Some attempt has been made to build small bungalows to rehouse people.
Some townships are 'official' and some completely unofficial and
unregulated. If one is lucky one can get electricity if you can afford
a card to use it. If you are lucky you are not too far away from the water
standpipe. You are unlikely to be lucky enough to have a toilet and drains,
so your 'loo' is a bucket. If you are lucky this will be collected and emptied.
But what puzzled me was that the children, especially schoolchildren.
were well turned out, and their clothes, spotless. We visited some of these
areas where we saw various attempts to help, with creches, play areas, craft
workshops and some teaching of pre-school children. Also a Training Centre
for teenagers, many of them AIDS orphans, where they can live in, learning
carpentry, domestic skills, catering etc. See
Umzi
Wethu and Oliver
Foudation
** It was encouraging,
but the housing problem seems overwhelming.
A computing class in a township and a pre school group
** Anyone wishing to donate to this charity
can do so via my Paypal Account at
kpaterson1931@ntlworld.com
or directly with a Credit card to
http://www.justgiving.com/oliverfoundation
I can assure you that 100% of the money will
be used to help these young people.
Some people will have heard that my daughter did a spnsored climb of
Mt Kilimanjaro in aid of this fund. The news is that Chris Oliver and
son, Callum, are intending to emulate his wife's effort. You can sponsor
Chris by going to
http://www.justgiving.com/honey-badgers
Go for it Chris and Callum !
However, South Africa is a country on the move. See
http://www.southafrica.info/ess_info/sa_glance/facts.htm.
It produces over a third of the wealth of all the 44 sub Saharan countries,
has massive untapped resources, including increasingly valuable gold.
South Africa does not have large oilfields but converts some of its
vast coal resources to oil (and petrol is only around 56p a litre). Its
GDP grows at an annual rate of over 5% and has grown every quarter since
1996. Tax revenue has tripled in ten years. It spends more on education
than almost any other developing country, with 90% of the school child population
in school. 17% of government expenditure is on education. The
infrastructure is well ahead of other African countries, especially in
telecommunications and roads. Its main weakness has been a lack of
foresight (as in Britain) in the demand for electrical
power, resulting in frequent power cuts ( locally called power sharing)
the government is having to impose restrictions on permission for power hungry
projects, including factories and large homes with underfloor heating and
air conditioning. I did not see evidence of solar heating ( as in places
like Greece) but, on the Sunshine Coast, it would seem like a winner.
Despite the mass of substandard housing the price of better standard property
is very low compared with the UK. I have here an advert for what is described
as a "Beautiful Home" in Uitenhage, which is a largish town north of Port
Elizabeth with one of the biggest Volkswagen factories outside of Germany.
It has 2 bedrooms, a kitchen, lounge and toilet. The price is 38,000
Rand or.. £2,500. To someone from the UK that is part of a Credit Card
allowance ! Although I feel sure it was in a township but it just illustrates
how poor people are if they cannot get even £2,500 together so they
can enjoy the convenience of a toilet. But there is no way most can
get a mortgage and if they did it would be at 14.5%. At a more expensive
level, for £111,000 one would get this bungalow in a pleasant suburb
of Port Elizabeth, with 3 spacious bedrooms, 2 bathrooms and large pool,
double garage and an additional two bedroom flat (hitherto called servant's
quarters).
For even less you can get a 3 bed 2 bath, two car garage house with
a view of the Indian Ocean on the Sunshine Coast in a quiet conservation
area 20 miles from Port Elizabeth.
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