Gardening Through South Africa

(Above: Top of Table Mountain, again.)

Cape Town Fireworks

On top of the highest point in Cape Town was a great way to spend the last day of 2006. A world heritage site, its flat top rises an impressive 3,300 feet from the nearby ocean. A ten minute "cableway" ride in a gondola from the bottom and presto, you have a 360 view, from the Atlantic Ocean to many miles inland from Cape Town. Many visitors brought cheese and bottles of champagne and wine to bring in the new year early at sun down.

Since I extended my stay at the Blue Peter for a night, I had a thirty minute drive from Cape Town drive back to the hotel which left me little time to change and get back to town. A quick changeroo sans shower and I was back out again, this time heading to the V&A waterfront in Cape Town where the masses gather to view fireworks at midnight.

On the wharf with ten minutes to spare, there were thousands of people electrifying the cool sea air. The bars were bursting at their seams, spilling onto the sidewalk. Local bands were belting tunes at various clubs and the night sky was clear overhead. At the stroke of midnight, the anticipated pandemonium erupted as people cheered, hugged and screamed. On cue, a rather light fireworks show followed. 2007 had arrived and my first order of business was to get some rest for the following day’s activities.

Garden Route

After a few days touring Cape Town, it was time to hit the road for greener pastures. Fortunately, this time I was able to find a car that I could actually take one way to Johannesburg. My plan was to drive the Garden Route from Cape Town to Port Elizabeth and then head north to Johannesburg for my flight to India.

It was refreshing to see Cape Town fade in my rear view mirror. Although Clifton Beach and Camps Bay were beautiful, I was ready for something less urban. An hour into my drive, the landscape changed dramatically, reminding me of a combination of Sonoma mixed with Cambria. Dramatic fog covered mountains rising in the distance with golden fields in the foreground.

With no reservations and no real plan as to where to stop, I drove until dark when I found myself in a town named “Wilderness”. I followed signs to a backpackers hostel and inquired at the desk for a room or a bed. A familiar, but unwelcome refrain sounded, “we are fully booked.’

“Can you recommend another place?” I asked, afraid that I was going to run into the same lodging problem I encountered in Cape Town.

With a blank stare in return, either from the late hour or from the fact that moments earlier she was serving drinks behind the bar, she explained that she did not know where else to try. Heading back down the driveway I elected to stop at any guesthouse, B&B or hotel on my path. Although I had no difficulty finding places to stop, the answer was the same each time, “fully booked”.

Finally one woman suggested I go back where I came from. She was smiling when she said it so I didn’t take it personally. Anyway, what she was really suggesting is that I back track to the nearest big town where I might have better luck finding a room. Now 10:00 at night, I took her free advice as a better option to knocking on B&B’s doors, rousing the proprietors from their bedrooms.

By 11:00, I found a “Road Lodge” willing to steal my money and take advantage of a 90% occupancy rate during the "high season”. I was willing to pay because I needed to regroup and plan the next few days. One night of highway robbery I could accept, but I vowed not to let it happen again and booked each night’s stay a day in advance thereafter.
(Plettenberg Bay)
Next day I was driving through the beautiful countryside, at times paralleling the coast much like Highway 1 on the west coast of California. Plettenberg Bay, Stormsriver and Jeffries Bay are just a few of the beautiful spots along the Garden Route. They are quaint towns dotting the coast similar to that of Carmel or Monterey. Each of them offered kayaking, mountain biking or sipping wine on the beach. As I came to find out the hard way in my search for lodging, many South Africans travel here on holiday.

My final stop was Port Elizabeth, and true to its name, as the morning light revealed, it is a big port and South Africa’s fifth largest city. Unless you’re in love with tankers and cranes, the coast of Port Elizabeth leaves a lot to be desired. Imagine recreational beaches right next to massive rusty oil leaking steel ships. But “PE” as the locals refer to it, has a pass time enjoyed by many, gambling. Comprised mostly of slot machines, the local casino, about an eighth of the size of a Vegas casino, was packed. Vegas baby, Vegas. Like moths to a light, people were feeding rands (SA currency) into the hungry machines in the hopes of hitting it big.

Even though I’m not adverse to an occasional gaming trip, this was not that trip for me. For one, there was no pool and two, I had enough trouble gambling with chips in dollars, much less a foreign currency. Cutting my stay in PE short by a day, I decided to head north early making it a two day trip instead of a straight 12 hour drive.

On the morning of my departure, I asked the girl at the B&B where to stay on the route to Joburg. When she replied with “Oliver North”, naturally I smiled. She looked at me quizzically and I repeated after her, “Oliver North?” She nodded and I explained why I thought that was funny going into way more detail than she cared to know or remember. On her assurances that there was a lovely lodge on the river in “Oliver North” I decided that I would find it along the way.

Five hundred kilometers into my drive I began to doubt my ears. Had I heard her say, “Oliver North”? During my entire drive I had not seen a single sign showing me how far it was to “Oliver North”. Pulling a tourist map from the passenger seat, I opened it up on the steering wheel while the countryside whizzed by. Tracing my finger up the entire N10 route, I did not see a town named “Oliver North”. I was stumped and needing a rest break. Driving on two lane roads with constant “close call” passing of trucks and slower cars required alertness, or as Homeland Security might refer to it, Red Alert Status. And with my handicap of driving on the right side of the car, but left side of the road, I needed every brain cell I could muster.

Then, in a stroke of luck, I saw it and laughed to myself (mostly because there was no one else in the car). There was a town on another route (the N6) named “Aliwal North”. Between her accent and the fact that it was on another route from East London and not PE further confused the matter. I was relieved just to put the matter to rest and that South Africa did not name a town after Oliver North and that Oliver North was not named after a town in South Africa. Now I could find any town along the N10 and stop, perhaps Donald Rumsfeld has nice hotels?

Goodbye Again

The last sunset of my first trip to southern Africa happened moments ago in Joburg. I paused on my way to eat to feel the last dry warm summer breeze until summer at home. Southern Africa is beautiful and this visit has only wet my appetite for countries like Botswanna, Zimbabwe, Mozambique and Madagascar. South Africa is the most modern African country that I have visited. It has the most developed infrastructure, i.e., potable water, nicely paved roads and is well signed. That said, for me it somewhat takes away from what I love about Africa, the continent that is more raw, soul to dirt (either the soul of your feet on the soil, or your soul of your spirit connected to the planet without interference). Sometimes the comforts of home make me lazy, but not so in developing Africa. In the wide open space I can hear the wind speak and watch the animals exercise their stunning intuition in the wild.

Though apartheid has officially ended, there are still glaring divisions. There are not only color lines drawn, but also lines between the “haves” and “have nots”, a situation that is like a heating crock pot clamped down with rubber bands. It’s not going to blow immediately as tensions are released through small outbreaks of violence. Most white neighborhoods I saw had homes behind large walls with three electrified wires on top and private security/alarm signs posted in front. Conversely, all of the townships I saw, where corrugated metal and brick or plaster are pitched up wall to wall, were predominantly, if not entirely, black neighborhoods.

How long will those living in material poverty continue to live across the freeway from large Mediterranean homes with views of the ocean? How long will they provide the homeowners with gardening, cooking and cleaning services before they move to break free from the leftover chains of an archaic system? Your guess is as good as mine.