Our last trip (an extra one since there was money in the budget left) was to Coffee Bay, a long six hour drive away. Most of it was through an area that had once been designated a “homeland” by the South African government, the former Transkei. This was where Ashwin had lived when he was very young. He described to us how every time his family wanted to cross the river separating them from the “real” South Africa they had to show a passport.
As we crossed the wide Kei river we didn’t have to show our passports but it did seem like we were suddenly someplace different, a step back in time. This area had been left untouched and unindustrialized for more than fifty years- ignored by a government which washed its hands of responsibility by declaring the area its own nation. Until 1996 there were only 19,000 telephones in the whole area, which held around 4 million people. This has meant that the Transkei is currently a combination of incredible beauty and incredible poverty.
Rolling hills were covered with tiny houses, many of them the traditional brightly colored mud huts with thatched roofs. Their brightly painted walls almost shone in the afternoon sun. A stark contrast to the wide open spaces of the rural areas, the tiny towns we drove through were crammed with people. Cars were bumper to bumper and the crowds of people doing errands or coming home from school were nearly shoulder to shoulder. We’ve probably driven through more than 50 of these tiny towns by now on our trips. Every one looks the same. The roads in and out are always dotted with people hitchhiking, their hands out or holding cardboard signs. I always wonder where they want to go and how often they depend on hitchhiking to get there. How often must they have somewhere to go and can’t get there? Or do they have no place to go, and they’re just trying to leave where they are?
As we drove farther into the Transkei the road got worse and worse, until it was dotted with so many potholes that Ashwin couldn’t avoid them, the van jolting and shaking every time we hit one. Finally we could see the ocean in the distance. Even though I knew where we going I was almost surprised to see the water, the green hills seemed so unlike the ocean side.
Our first view was driving down into the valley that made up the little bay. We were put in a little house on the side of a hill, where we could see the whitecaps of the stormy water and hear the waves crashing. After getting settled in we headed down to the main building for dinner. On our walk there we were surprised to find that the high tide had brought the ocean up so far that it had made a wide shallow river between us and the main building. Taking off our shoes we quickly forded the temporary river and went on to dinner. Outside a large fire was burning keeping away a little of the winter night chill.
The next day the rest of the group left to hike to see a nearby rock formation called the “Hole in the Wall” but I decided to skip in favor of a little walking around by myself with my camera. Taking both my cameras (though the large one’s battery sadly died soon) I explored the two beaches which made up the bay. The first, smaller beach was enclosed by large craggy cliffs. I spent time climbing up and over and through the closest cliffs, finding little passages and high edges where I could sit and watch the roaring water below. I followed a path through the cliffs and sand dunes to the second bigger beach. The path left me on top of a high hill, I could see all the way down the curve of the white sand beach to where it was stopped by more cliffs. I walked down the hill through small trees twisted from the ocean wind. The beach was covered with children. I saw a few tourists and some surfers but mostly the beach seemed to have been completely conquered for the purposes of sandcastle building and playing soccer. I headed back a few hours later with a couple o shells in my pocket and many more pictures on my camera.
We forded the small river again that night and had dinner and drinks at the hostel. More people had arrived that night including some American students we knew from Rhodes. The next morning we walked along the beach and bought some things from the many local women who walked along the shore selling jewelry. Then it was back to our last month.
Our second to last trip was to a tiny place called Hogsback. Named after the three mountains or “hogs” that surround it, the little village is probably not what someone pictures when they think of South Africa. Thought to have possibly been the inspiration for the settings Tolkien describes in the Lord of the Rings, it was a place of rolling hills and dense forests. Everything was incredibly green and incredibly blue. It was the usual warm and sunny during the day but at night we felt how cold Africa could really get. Apparently during the colder months it actually snows much of the time. Everywhere was beautiful and I didn’t have trouble imagining this as the inspiration for Middle Earth. And whether it really was or not, the locals have certainly decided to capitalize on the story. Everywhere were places named after Lord of the Rings- like Hobbiton, and even The Ring Hardware Store!
The first day we went on a hike through the very old, very beautiful, indigenous forest. We first made our way up a high cliff to see the forest laid out below us enclosed by the three mountains. We also found a random bathtub, perched on the side of the cliff. It would definitely be a nice place for a bath, but a little odd all the same… We then headed down, into the forest we had looked at from above, to a tree marked off with a little gate around it. Ashwin, who had been coming to Hogsback since he was very young, told us the tree was eight hundred years old. After resting for a while in the shade of the ancient tree we moved on through the forest to the Madonna and Child Waterfall. The waterfall was lovely the water spilling from a high cliff to water pools at our feet. It had not rained that much, it hasn’t rained much in all of South Africa, but the misty downpour, steaming in the sun, was still impressive.
The way back was almost straight up, to the road at the top off the cliff. We ate lunch in a little restaurant, than separated, some heading back to the hotel, and the rest of us driving the forty five minutes to the place where we would go horse back riding. We rode across green, rolling hills for two exhilarating hours, watching the sun set over the mountains. Occasionally we let them run, and I felt the wind in my face as I tried to remember my long ago riding lessons.
The next day was quiet. The rest of the group took their turn at horseback riding and I walked around and enjoyed the remoteness. I also watched TV on an actual television for the first time in weeks. Our last day we stopped at a spot at the top of a cliff called, appropriately, the Edge. The view was amazing, you could see almost all the way to the ocean. At the Edge was also a series of outdoor sculptures, called the eco-shrine, created by a woman who lived there. The sculptures were lovely stone and mosaic abstract shapes, some of them forming frames for the view they overlooked. On some of the sculptures were set vibrantly coloured paintings meant to symbolize a connection between humans and nature. We stood and looked at the beauty around us, and as we walked back through the woods to the van, a group of monkeys started jumping from tree to tree above us.
I meant to get this second part of this Capetown two-parter up so much earlier but sadly actual school work has started to catch up with me.
Sunday evening after a nap we had a quick dinner at a Chinese/sushi place and walked down the block to a bar named Jo’burg. Some of Katie’s friends from Rhodes along with their friends from UCT (University of Cape Town) were there. So we all sat down at a long table with our drinks and talked. The bar was relaxing, with lots of wood and dark reds. Large comfortable booths rested along the walls under colourful pieces of art depicting old Johannesburg. The soft light from funky shaped wire lamps made the lit up the colors of the large murals, and the rest of the bar just enough. We sat and talked, getting to know each other, as a Rasta band played Bob Marley on the small stage in the corner.
Monday we all slept late. As we eventually all got of bed, sitting on the balcony drinking instant coffee we saw a large film crew setting up directly under us, outside our building. This apparently happens a lot in Capetown- the other day another crew had been filming up the street. We found out later this was for some sort of commercial. As all of us were fast running out of clean clothes we decided to take this day to go do laundry. Making a large circle around the wires and lights in the middle of the street, we lugged our clothes a block and left them with the nice ladies who said they could do it all for us. South Africa, we’ve found, is not a self service country. There are people who pump your gas, wash your clothes, someone even came in a couple of days ago to wash the windows in my dorm room! All this service can be a bit unsettling in its convenience, especially since it almost a black person doing the work. But it was, in fact, convenient and we left happy to have some time to explore Long Street.
The next day we had arranged for a visit to the US consulate in Capetown. We took a cab around the mountains through wealthy tree-lined suburbs, far into the outskirts of the city. Our cab driver pointed out Pollsmoor Maximim security prison, which is known for holding some of South Africa’s most dangerous criminals, and at one time Nelson Mandela. The sun was burning hot as we stepped out of the cab, people standing in line for visas looked tired and uncomfortable, holding up papers and hats to attempt to manufacture some shade. Turning we could still see the tops of the barbed wire fences of the prison. The consulate certainly didn’t seem lacking in security, after handing our passports in to the guard in front we walked through a metal detector and left all our possessions, bags, cellphones cameras, with them before crossing the courtyard to the main building. A diplomat met us, showing us into a sparse room with chairs lined up lecture hall style. He told us about South Africa, some warnings about safety (pretty much too late since we had already been there 3 months) and about what the consulate did. The most interesting was when he talked about himself. The life of a diplomat in South Africa seems very isolated. He pointed out the distance the building was from the city center, telling us the consulate had been located in the city until after 9/11 security concerns moved them far away. His house was in a designated area where he lived surrounded by other Americans. His children went to special schools specialized for international students and the children of diplomats.
When we got back we scheduled a tour of the townships as or guide at the embassy had recommended and we were picked up at 8:30 the next morning. Our first stop was at the DistrictSixMuseum. Our guide explained that District Six of Capetown had been a pretty successful interracial community, many of the people benefiting from their close location to the city centre. In 1966 under the Group Areas Act, more than 60,000 people living there were forcibly moved from the city to the CapeFlats- where most of the townships are located today. Almost the entire district was bulldozed but pieces were saved by former residents. Eventually they started a museum. On the outside wall next to the door a plaque reads “All who pass by remember with shame the many thousands of people who lived for generations in District Six and other parts of this city, and were forced by law to leave their homes because of the colour of their skins. Father, forgive us…”
We left the city and headed for the townships. Our guide at the consulate had been right, compared to Capetown the townships around Grahamstown were almost nice. At least most of the people had real (though tiny) houses. Many of the buildings we saw as we drove away from the wealthy city centre were shacks, their walls leaning in on each other.Our second stop was in the township of Langa, at a shebeen - or a bar- formerly places that sold alcohol illegally in the townships during apartheid. The tiny, one-room shack was furnished only with a few benches and a large barrel, where a woman was mixing the home made beer we had come to taste. Our guide told us that during apartheid the men from the townships would gather and drink this beer. It was now drunk mostly in traditional ceremonies. A bucket was filled of the white, foamy drink. It was passed around to each person, and we each took a sip. The drink tasted less like beer and more like fermented milk- definitely an acquired taste.
We were handed off for a while to another man who lived in the township for a short walking tour. We walked down narrow streets, lined with colourful shards of broken bottles. As we walked next to sand filled back lots enclosing broken down cars and lines of drying wash, I again didn’t feel comfortable. There’s a line between concerned interest and gawking tourism but I’m not sure where it is and I’m never sure if I’ve crossed it here. I brought my camera with me this time but was still hesitant to use it. I was glad our guide let us know us we were welcome to take pictures of children but to please ask first if we wanted a picture of an adult.
But no one seemed to be especially troubled by us stumbling around their neighbourhood like bewildered alien invaders. Not even when we walked into a home, led by our guide. Everyplace we visited was cramped, mattresses shoved next to beds, bags stored on top of each other in the rafters of the low ceilings.
Our guide took us up some steps to one apartment. Inside, the tiny front room, consisting of a sofa and a TV, merged with the kitchen, making one, almost as tiny, room. The floor was all bare tile. In the kitchen a woman was preparing something, and on the sofa, lay a man, all elbows and ribs, a thin blanket covering him. He was dying, I was sure. Anyone that thin would have to be dying. We thanked the couple and left, a little quieter than when we had come in.
Our next stop was at a traditional healer. The room, where the healer received people was itself fascinating, animal bones, pieces of plants, and even numerous lottery tickets were hanging from a web of strings tied to the low ceiling rafters. Shelves in the back held rows and rows of stoppered jars. Lit by only the light streaming in from the open doorway and a couple of candles, the whole place had an eerie quality.Despite that I got the feeling from healer and the place that it was more for the benefit of tourists. Jerica did buy a small jar filled with herbs that were supposed to ward off bad dreams..
Our last stop on our tour was in the township of Guguletu. The township is known best for Amy Biehl, the American Fulbright scholar, who had been working in the townships when she was killed by a mob in Guguletu in 1993. This would not be what we remembered most about Guguletu, however. We stopped in front of a small school, its outside walls covered in colourful tile. Inside a group of children, all no more than six years old, stood expectantly. They began to sing in Xhosa as we walked in. We watched, smiling at the unexpected adorableness, and as the song ended the children looked at their teacher, who nodded, giving the signal for them to all rush us, arms open for hugs. This was for tourists too of course, but we were all willing to take some pleasure in it. As we each picked up a child, with three more tugging to our sleeves, and made or way outside we were all laughing at the sheer enjoyment of dancing in the sun on a township street, with crowds of little kids.
After many waves goodbye, we left the school and the townships and headed back to the Victoria and Albert Waterfront to catch the ferry to RobbenIsland. The island is a beautiful place for a prison, with long beaches filled with penguins. The island seemed to have gotten a bit commercialized with buses filled with people and tour guides with a standard spiel. The tour guide in the prison, though, was a former inmate at the prison, there at the same time as Nelson Mandela. I didn’t get to find out why he had been there. We saw Mandela’s tiny cell, remarkable from the rest of the tiny cells going down the hall, only in that it had once been his, home for eighteen of twenty-seven years in prison.
We got up early again the next day, this time for a day of slightly guilty pleasure. We were picked up, along with a few others, at 8am for our tour of the winelands around Capetown. A beautiful drive through the district of Paarl led us to or first stop, the Fairview Estates. A beautiful mansion, set among rolling green hills, with the high grey mountains as backdrop, the estate was very much a contrast to where we had been the day before. There was even a small pen where goats were climbing and munching grass comfortably, in keeping with one of the brands of wine sold at the estate- Goats do Roam. After a brief look at the winery we were handed a list of wines and told we could pick any six to try. None of us knew much about wine, but it was fun to try and pick out the flavours on the descriptions and compare one to the other. We stood at a long wooden bar staffed by many knowledgeable bartenders who filled or small wine glasses and answered or questions. Remembering our guide’s instructions to us, we carefully swirled the glass each time we ordered something different. As we sipped we snacked on the row of cheese samples in the other room, also made at Fairview.
Relaxed and happy already with three more estates still to visit we headed to Franschhoek for our second estate. We sat outside this time, under the shade of the trees with the mountains behind us. A woman brought out a six wine bottles and explained each one as she poured us a series of small glassfuls. We made our way through our second six and got back in the van for the short drive to our next estate. At this estate, which apparently specialized in pinotages, we sat at a sleek black bar as our guide poured us each wine himself. A few wines through, he stopped us, telling us this wine was to be drunk at lunch and leading us out to the patio. After lunch, we finished tasting the wines and left for our last stop, an estate in Stellenbosch. We took a tour of the winery, where we saw how what were grapes move from wood barrels through giant stainless steel equipment. Then we sat down on a long bench for our last wines of the day. We drove back with the late afternoon sun, a day well spent.
On Friday we split up a bit, each going to spend our last day in Capetown how we wanted. Scott and Katie had rented a car and took a few people with them to drive down the coast to Cape Point. Other people walked around or did last minute packing. I decided to see the Kirstenbosch Botanical Gardens. The fifteen minute cab ride alone was beautiful, as we made our way around the mountain and through twisting tree-lined streets. Leaving my cab to pick me up in two hours, I walked through the small courtyard entrance to a breath taking view. The gardens are placed right at the foot of TableMountain, with paths winding through brilliant green grass and strange, vivid flowers. I walked up, from the cacti, to the shade loving flowers, to the trees that had existed in prehistoric times, to finally a large grassy lawn where I sat down and enjoyed where I was. On one side I was enclosed by the mountain, the bright sun making it just a grey silhouette. And on another side I could look out and see the city, and the ocean, spread out and glinting behind it.
Tutorial 2: Model AnswersTutorial 2: Model AnswersTutorial 2: Model AnswersTutorial 2: Model AnswersI got back just in time for happy hour across the street and for our last night in Capetown.
My first sight of Capetown was at night as we drove down the twisting highway through the mountains that surrounded it. It came into view and all I could think was, this is no town. This is a sprawling, sparkling beauty of a city. The lights went on in all directions until they stopped, at the deep blackness that could only be the sea. This was what happened to a city when it had room to spread out.
We couldn’t enjoy it quite yet, though. First there was the minor hell of returning the rental cars to get through. At a strange airport in a strange city, we were of course immediately lost. We finally managed to get rid of the cars, (which we had seriously considered at one point just ditching in a parking lot and making stupid Imperial Car Rentals go try to find them themselves) got picked up by the shuttle to our hostel, and were driving up Long Street by 1am.
Our first impression of this street that would be our home for nine days was pretty much pure insanity. Every building was lit up and crowded, the streets were swarming with people. Music was blaring, people were shouting, the cars were bumper to bumper. We got out in a daze. After six hours of driving ending up here seemed like a dream. Our shuttle driver had given us our keys, so we unlocked the heavy wooden door and made our way quietly up the stairs to our rooms. Katie, Lindsey, Liz, Scott and I shared a room – with Luke, who was only staying for three days then going to Mozambique, on a mattress on the floor. Nouria, Jerica and Sheneita were downstairs and shared the room with three other girls.
Before bed, we stood for a moment on the large wraparound balcony that gave us a view of most of the street. Directly across from us one of the clubs was packed, loud music pumped from its open widows and its own balcony was full of people. We could hear everything from the window of our little room, but we were so tired I don’t think any of us cared.
We slept late. Our tired bodies only waking up when the intense sunlight coming through our window, and transforming our room from bedroom to sauna, became unbearable. Outside it was not much better but we were distracted by our first site of Capetown during the day. In the sun we could see Long Streets white Victorian architecture enclosing small crammed together shops and restaurants. Towering above it all, against the blue blue sky was the wide flat cliff of Table Mountain.
The next morning Katie Scott Liz and Luke left to hike up Table Mountain. The rest of us, having no real desire to hike up a mountain in the heat, decided to take the cable car up at a later time, and instead went to the beach. Because it was by a city and not more isolated, as we had begun to get used to, this beach Clifton Beach, was more commercialized and crowded then we were used to. It was still beautiful, though. The mountains surrounded us in the distance, the sand was white, and the water was crystal blue and directly from Antarctica. It was so cold I could step in for less than thirty seconds before my feet turned numb.
The next day we celebrated Easter Sunday by going shark diving. We were picked up a little after 5am, the sky only just beginning to transform from black to that early morning dark blue. The van was full of other young people whose idea of a good time was also to get up at 5am to go swim with sharks. The ride was long, around two hours. I nodded off for a while and when I woke I could see the sun, just rising, burning red over the mountains. We stopped at a little building and got of the van, stretching and yawning. We paid, signed our life away on a few forms, ate a small packed breakfast, heard a few facts and instructions and then were off to the bay to get on the boat.
The boat was not small, but it was not big either. Especially with a large group of hopeful shark divers crowded on board. We all found a seat for the ride out to open water, though. I sat near the rail, enjoying the bright sun and the still slightly misty feeling of the morning air. The ocean was calm, but the boat rode high in the water bouncing rhythmically up and down. I saw signs of seasickness on some people, including some of my friends, and I was glad that my dad had somehow associated bumpy rides and turbulence with “fun” when I was little.
We stopped maybe twenty minutes out, in an area known for its migratory birds and near an island with a large seal population. If we had just kept going eventually we would have hit Antarctica. As soon as we stopped and the first piece of bait, tied to a rope, was thrown over the side, a shark was spotted. This was apparently pretty unusual, usually they had to wait a little for the sharks to find them. This one, I guess was eager. We scrambled to the side of the boat, grabbing for cameras that weren’t out of their cases yet. The shark was beautiful, small for a great white, which still means it could probably have eaten me in about two bites. I most clearly saw its fin, slicing through the still water, just like in the movies. We were ready and looking around now, and more started coming. Some tried to attack the bait, making enormous splashes, so large that in all the foam and angry movement I could only get glimpses of grey fins.
Then I got to go in the cage. I had put a wetsuit on, which was making me slightly cold and damp. The cage was tied to the boat, all the way submerged in the water except for a little room for our heads. I dropped into the cage to join the four other guys already inside and moved to the edge, grabbing the inside rail. We waited, staring, for a shark to come near the bait. When the captain saw a shark he would yell “down!” and we would lower ourselves completely underwater, our eyes straining to see the shark swim past. I often didn’t see the shark underwater- despite the weight belt that had been dropped over my shoulder, I still tended to float up a bit, and I wasn’t always looking in the right direction! But then I saw it. We submerged and there was a great white shark swimming right towards me. It’s its mouth I remember. It was like staring into some enormous dangerous, living piece of machinery. A mouth that could break any of us in two without a thought. We had been warned to keep our hands and feet inside the cage, not because they might become food but because a shark could press up against them when swimming by, and the scales could scrape us. I hadn’t thought of that much while in the cage, but at the sight of that mouth I checked my hands and feet and found myself moving back a little. And not, I think, because I was worried about scrapes.
Between the shock of the cold Indian Ocean, the amazement at having an up close experience with a shark, and the simple enjoyment of being in the water in a beautiful place on a beautiful day, I was feeling pretty happy when I finally climbed out of that cage. I spent most of the rest of my time on the boat, lying on the bow in the sun, occasionally holding things for seasick people as they threw up over the side, and spotting more sharks. We headed back after almost four hours, the sharks starting to lose interest and most of us content. The total at the end of the day: 7 individual great white sharks. The smallest 2 meters (about 6.5 feet) the largest 3.5 meters (about 11.5 feet).
I’m updating! Here is the first week of April break- Capetown will come soon…
After finally getting our rooms packed up and everything stored in padlocked rooms, we left Grahamstown around noon on what was probably one of the hottest days of the semester. Opening the windows as we drove down the highway only managed to blow more hot air on us. It was a relief to pass through Port Elizabeth and get closer to the coast and the cooler sea air.
We got to Jeffreys Bay in the late afternoon. Our hostel was called “Island Vibe” and set right on the beach. Made up of a bunch of low, wood buildings it was crowded with other vacationing backpackers. We had a small dorm room that we shared with three other people. We didn’t do much there, just relaxed, enjoyed the beach and celebrated our first day of vacation.
We drove off the next day, all of us a bit tired from a fun night, toward Tsikimma National Forest and Djembe backpackers. Arriving in the evening we were given most of the run of a large cabin, down the road from the main building. I was happy to sleep in the large open loft with its wood panelled walls and garreted roof. It was rainy that night but we made the short walk to the main building for a drink. We sat around the outdoor fire, still burning in the drizzle.
The next morning we were up around nine, and packed around ten. We said goodbye and drove the twenty minutes to Storms River and the world’s highest bungy jump. The bridge over the narrow gorge was certainly high and the gorge was definitely deep. We said farewell to Lindsey and Shenita as they strapped on their harnesses, promising to tell their mothers they loved them if they died, and made our way to the view point. From where we stood, looking at the platform balanced right in the middle of the arch of the bridge and under the road, everything looked tiny. The people were indiscernible, just movements in the shadow. The first person jumped, and the cord looked like a piece of string. Like the dolls tied to string that I used to launch from the backs of chairs in pretend bungy jumps. Yes I remember I used to do that. I sometimes got bored of playing dress up with my barbies.
I had brought my new camera with me, so I used the zoom to look for our friends. They were some of the last to go, falling straight, the cord loose and trailing behind, until suddenly, it snapped and their bodies hurtled up again, and then down, until they were just softly swinging upside down, in the shadow of the gorge.
After that excitement we went back a little further into the Tsikimma forest to go on a ziplining tour through the canopy. Standing on platforms at the tops of such huge ancient trees was amazing. And the ziplining wasn’t bad either!
After lunch we headed again for the coast, to the small beach town of Knysna. We stayed in a small house down the road from the quiet downtown. Filled with shops and restaurants, the town and waterfront reminded me a little of a beach front version of Old Town, Alexandria. And behind the more expensive stores, in the parking lots of the supermarkets, the large Rasta community of Knysna has their vending stands. Bob Marley t-shirts, knitted caps, jewellery and herbs of all kinds are in plentiful supply here. Jerica made friends with a rasta named Brother Charles. His dreads falling past his waist, he would smile showing the gap where his two front teeth used to be, and tell us the healing properties of the herbs he was selling.
After two nights in Knysna we left for a small beach house right outside of Mossel Bay. Probably the nicest place we stayed at, we had the whole upstairs to ourselves including a large tv and a kitchen. We walked up the road to the beach which was incredibly beautiful in the early evening light. A small river ran into the ocean- over the bridge running across it the sun was setting, and opposite, over the water the moon had just risen. We drove into the city to pick up some food and wine, and used the barbecue area (or braai area as we call it here!) to make dinner of hamburgers and sausages.
The next morning we had planned to go shark diving, but we had been warned by the very nice owner of our beach house that no sharks had been spotted in a while. So, not wanting to waste a trip, we decided to cancel and wait until Capetown. We drove over to the Cango Caves near the town of Oudtshoorn instead. Carved out of the side of a chain of mountains, the caverns were beautiful, and hundreds of millions of years old. They reminded me very much of the Carlsbad Caverns in New Mexico, although I think some of these formations were even older. Walking out on the observation deck after our tour I noticed the mountain across from us dotted with forest fires, sending white smoke into the blue sky.
By late afternoon we were driving away from the caves and, finally, toward Capetown.
Our third weekend trip was to the Ganora farm in what’s called the little Karoo. The Karoo is desert land that covers a major portion of South Africa. The little Karoo is the smaller, semi-desert area, about three hours from Grahamstown. The farm was beautiful, surrounded by rolling hills covered alternately with tall grass and huge cacti. It wasn’t near any other house or town for miles. Just sheep. Lots and lots of sheep. And many dogs, all Jack Russell terriers which would often follow us wherever we walked. Two of us each shared a comfortable room that had been converted from a horse stall. After arriving around five, we had dinner in another converted barn, in front of a stone fireplace. Outside it was so dark and clear that we could see the milky way. We lay on our backs in the darkest part of the driveway and just stared up for a while, spotting shooting stars. We went to sleep early and one of the dogs slept on my bed.
The next morning after breakfast and a visit to the pet owl and meerkats, we went on an extremely long but mostly enjoyable hike through the canyon that made up part of the farm. Although South Africa is going through one of its worst droughts on record, the farm had just gotten a little rain so we ended up walking through the river that ran through the canyon a lot and getting entirely wet and muddy. The rain also filled up the small rock pools in part of the river, so Alice and I stopped and went swimming for a bit. The inside of the canyon was beautiful with steep rocky walls covered by flowers and bushes. We could hear baboons, on the very tops of the walls, calling to each other with hoots and barks. When we looked up we would see them for quick moments running across the cliff face.
After our hike we drove a short distance to the Brewery, where the owner brews and sells his own beer. We were still sweaty and muddy from the hike so many of us just took our shoes off and walked in barefoot, to sit down at tables in a small green backyard. We were served a delicious lunch of different kinds of cheese, meat and bread. And of course, beer. I’m not much of a beer drinker, but the beer I had, which the owner said was brewed with a little honey was probably the best I’ve ever tasted
We then made a short stop at the little town of Nieu-Bethesda (not much like the US Bethesda) and at the Owl House. Owned by a woman named Helen Martins who went a little crazy living isolated in the tiny town and began to obsessively decorate her house, turning it into a piece of art. Sculptures surround the house, mostly of people, many of nativity scenes. There are also many of owls, as the name suggests, and small shelters constructed from green glass bottles. The inside of the house was all color. The window glass was all different colors, each room carefully painted in red, or yellow or green. Huge mirrors in the shape of the small old-fashioned hand mirrors hung on many of the walls.
We went back to the farm and most of us rested for a while. That evening we were shown the many, many fossils that had been found and collected on the farm, all older than the dinosaurs. We learned that while we had been hiking we could have quite possibly walked past a few 350 million year old fossils. The karoo is apparently one of the few places in the world where fossils this old are discovered and the farm is often visited by scientists and researchers. Many of the fossils discovered are in museums throughout Africa. I was most impressed by the man who showed us the fossils. He had apparently discovered most of them himself. He had no formal training, I think, he was not a scientist or a professor. He just, as he said, had a “knack” for spotting a fossil when most of us would see a rock. He went through the fossils showing how one was a piece of jaw, another the impression of leg bones. As soon as he showed us we saw it, but I have no idea how he managed to see that jaw in the ground in a pile of rocks.
The next morning we walked to a couple of the caves where we could see cave paintings by the San people and the Khoi. We then said our goodbyes to the farm owners, and to the dogs, and started the drive back. We stopped on the way at a national park and walked up the high cliff face to get a view of the Valley of Desolation. I don’t know why it was called that. The valley was in fact quite beautiful with a large lake and a small town in it. Not very desolate at all.
Next week is the end of term and April break! We will be driving up the Garden Route to Capetown…
