There's more to South Africa than the World Cup, which is just as well since Ireland won't be there, writes CAROLINE WALSH
WE WERE flying along the mud track through the gorges of the Cederberg Wilderness in the interior of the Western Cape when the bus came to a sudden stop. The Matjies river was flooding the road, full and rapid, like as if there had never been a crossing there in the first place.
As Steve our guide waded ominously ahead, looking back like Lot’s wife, a car pulled up. It was a Nieuwoudt. Every second person around here bore this surname, we’d been told. He’d know what the odds were and sure enough he did. Just drive straight through, he told Victor the driver, don’t stop till you get to the other side. One minute we’d been swapping stories at the back of the bus and chewing beef chilli biltong, now some of us had our heads in our hands till the cheers broke out when we were across.
It was a far cry from the cities we’d passed through, Johannesburg, Durban, Cape Town, all on red alert for the World Cup, vuvuzela plastic horns blaring, makaraba supporters’ hats at the ready and talk everywhere of the chances of the home team, Bafana Bafana. “South Africa. It’s Possible’’ is the slogan for this first football World Cup on African soil in which so much is invested financially and psychically.
“The World Cup will forever change the world’s perception of South Africa,’’ is the mantra of president Jacob Zuma, who we saw in the flesh twice during just a week in the country as he zooms around spreading his gospel that the years leading up to kick-off on June 11th will benefit South Africa for decades to come.
All this against rumblings that fewer foreign fans are flocking in than expected and that cut-price tickets for locals are now the best bet to ensure good attendance at all 64 matches.
Out in the Ceberberg, 200km north of Cape Town, all was silent. The most you’d get is the tweeting of the long-tailed Cape Sugarbird. Though it’s turning towards winter now, the sun was blazing for our hikes through its red sandstone peaks. Far from the veld and the karoo, here it’s all fynbos, Afrikaans for fine bush, part of a floral kingdom filled with more plant species than you’d meet elsewhere in a lifetime.
We heard so much about proteas, ericas, and restios they became like part of the gang. With rock paintings of people and animals in abundance here by South Africa’s earliest inhabitants, the hunter-gatherer San, there is a mystical feel to treking trails these ancient bushmen knew long before the white man came.
Our base was Clanwilliam Lodge in Clanwilliam, a town with a frontier, pioneering feel to it, that acts as a base for the remote hamlets of the wilderness. The best thing about the lodge is the way it’s in sync with the feel of the town itself – you can book the presidential suite if you want, but there are hiker’s rooms too.
Clanwilliam is also home to the Rooibos Tea company where guided tours explain “the secret of the Cederberg’’, the tea plant that only grows around here and is naturally caffeine-free. You can get it in Ireland, but we stocked up big time and will now drink Rooibos for life.
The roaring Atlantic is only a short drive away at Lamberts Bay. It’s out there in the dunes above the shore that the Turner family run Muisbosskerm, an open air barbecue eatery where dried mullet bokkoms are followed by stumpnose and snoek, hottentots fish and yellowtail, all sizzled on the braai. No light pollution here as we hum Paul Simon’s Under African Skies and amble the beach at night pointing out Scorpio, the Milky Way, the Southern Cross, as close and clear as if they were spotlights on a navy ceiling.
“It is something splendid, an almost superhuman experience, to see the tip of a continent, alive, at your feet ,’’ wrote Nobel prize winning South African writer Nadine Gordimer of the clear, calm, perfect day when as a little girl her father took her on the cable car to the top of Cape Town’s Table Mountain which towers over and defines the city.
And to be down so close to the Cape of Good Hope with all its legendary provenance does make you catch a breath or two. It was Portuguese sailors who gave it its magical name when they first rounded it in the 1480s, but theirs was a fleeting presence.
Europeans didn’t put down permanent markers here until the mid-17th century when the Dutch East India Company made this part of the Western Cape a revictualling point for fresh produce for their ships travelling between the Netherlands and the East – the embryonic start of the process of colonisation that dogged South Africa’s destiny for centuries.
Amazingly, the Company’s Garden in the so-called Mother City of Cape Town set up by the Dutch for growing greens, and worked first by imported slaves, still stand. With squirrels so friendly they’d jump into your handbag, and lined by tall white ash trees and gum myrtles, their gum running in rivulets down their trunks, strolling these gardens is to witness botany and history mesh.
The best night of the trip was in Cape Town at the Gold of Africa Museum on Strand Street which serves dinner at night accompanied by African dance performances – but that’s after the drumming lessons. Eventually, we all got the hang of it, giving root to the idea that it could be the perfect instrument of protest for the anti-cutback marches back home. Xhosa breads, Cape Malay samosas, ostrich kebabs followed and the slightly daring sensation of being allowed roam a museum late at night, exploring the history and artistry of African gold.
History is everywhere in Cape Town with the story of slavery, precursor of apartheid, told in the Slave Lodge Museum built in 1679 for the largest slave holder in the Cape, the Dutch East India Company. Hairpins, combs, a fan, a necklace – the possessions of those once contained here tell their own story, as does the shocking video in the museum’s small theatre. Nearby is St George’s Cathedral from which in the dying days of apartheid Desmond Tutu led 30,000 people to City Hall making his famous speech: “We are the rainbow people. We are the new people of South Africa.’’
One of the great glories of the Western Cape is its wineland estates. We opted for the Waterford Estate in Stellenbosch only to discover on arrival that it’s named after a waterfall, not an Irish county. Here you climb aboard a 10-seater Land Rover for a guided tour through the vines – ours with proprietor Kevin Arnold. South African wines can be high – 14.5 per cent is common – in alcohol volume, so it’s worth remembering that it’s a tasting, not a shindig. Otherwise you’ll be too woozy to take in the breathtaking views.
In South Africa it’s amazing how you can be in different worlds within a matter of hours. If Cederberg is wild, then Stellenbosch with its Cape Dutch architecture and avenues of ancient oaks is the opposite. It’s also where the fish eat our feet.
Unsuspectingly, we went to the Lanzerac Hotel Spa for lunch, only to be lured into the latter for the Dr Fish treatment where up to 500 tiny cyprinids from Tokyo exfoliate your feet by nibbling away at the dry skin as you sit in a mini jacuzzi. One hundred of the more passive garra rufa fish from Israel are on hand in a small tank if you need something mellower. They do hands too, and the whole body up to the neck – if you can stand the tingling.
With its scenery and climate, tourism is rightly seen by the powers that be in the new South Africa as an industry with huge potential. But it’s one that sits uneasily alongside the poverty that still visibly prevails in the townships. The fact that crime is a problem is evident from the yellow and blue armed response security signs emblazoned on even the most modest houses in cities and towns.
The only drawback of being in South Africa in the run-up to the World Cup had nothing to do with South Africa – and everything to do with Thierry Henry. That the Irish flag, team and fans won’t get to test themselves in one of the most beautiful landscapes in the world remains lamentable. Thankfully South Africa will still be there – and never more open to visitors – long after the final whistle.
Caroline Walsh was a guest of South African Tourism, southafrica.net. Flights were with South African Airways
If you go
African travel specialists Mahlatini is offering the following packages:
Cape Town, Winelands & Hermanus tour, from €2,100 per person. Includes return flights with Etihad Airlines departing Dublin to Cape Town via Abu Dhabi, four nights in the Cape Riviera Guest House in Cape Town (B&B), two nights in the River Manor Guest House in the winelands (B&B), one night in the Windsor Hotel in Hermanus (B&B), and eight days car hire.
Cape and Garden Route Safari, from €3,100 per person. Includes return flights with Etihad Airlines departing Dublin to Cape Town via Abu Dhabi, four nights in the Cape Riviera Guest House in Cape Town (B&B), two nights in the River Manor Guest House in the winelands (B&B), one night in Montana Guest Farm in Outdshorn (B&B), two nights in Knysna Hollow (B&B), two nights in Botlierskop Private Game Reserve (full board) in Mossel Bay, and 12 days car hire.
mahlatini.com
Where to stay, where to eat and where to go in South Africa
Where to stay
15 On Orange Hotel. Corner Grey’s Pass and Orange Street, Cape Town, 00-27-21-4698000. africanpridehotels.com/15onorange. With its cool white Volakas marble foyer, chic is the byword here. Close to shopping on Victoria and Alfred Waterfront. If in one of the glass-fronted rooms backing onto the multi-storey atrium, draw your curtains so no one sees you in bed. From Rand 3,660 (€388) for a double room per night.
Mount Cedar Guest Cottages. Cederberg, Western Cape, 00-27-23-317-0848, mountceder.co.za. Sitting on the stoep of these self-catering lodges dotted midway between Clanwilliam and Ceres is a great way to take possession of the Cederberg. But heed that notice which warns about keeping windows and doors closed if sleeping during the day to keep out the baboons. Heed too the note about nearest petrol stations; they are more than 90km away. From Rand 625 (€66) per cottage per night.
Franschhoek Country House and Villas. Western Cape, 00-27-21-876-3386, fch.co.za. The Francophile influence of the 17th-century Huguenots who settled in the wine valley that’s the setting for this hotel is extraordinary given there were only 200 of them. Rates vary by season but start at Rand 895 (€95).
Where to eat
The Oriental Restaurant and Takeaway. Workshop Mall, Durban, 00-27-31-304-5110. Go to this casual take-out style restaurant while the outdoor market is in full swing at the weekend and try the local speciality of bunny chow, part of a hollowed out loaf of white bread filled with curry. Rand 34.95 (€4). Indian families wouldn’t pack in here as they do unless the fare was delicious – which it is.
Southern Sun Elangeni. 63 Snell Parade, Durban, 00-27-31-362-1300, southernsun.com. With a few restaurants here this hotel on North Beach is a good vantage point for the city’s Golden Mile of strand stretching down to the Indian Ocean.
Reuben’s Restaurant Bar. 19 Huguenot Street, Franschhoek, Western Cape, 00-27-21-876-3772, reubens.co.za. This award-winning restaurant presided over by chef Reuben himself was packed when we were there. Special winter set menu Rand 150 (€16) excluding wine; Rand 220 (€23) including a tasting portion of wine with each of its three courses.
Where to go
The Moses Mabhida Stadium. Durban, 00-27-31-582-8222, mosesmabhidastadium.co.za. See one of the brand new stadiums built for the World Cup. In this one you can ride the “arch of triumph” that towers over the stadium in the funicular SkyCar and get a 360-degree view of the city from the SkyPlatform at the top. And it’s been engineered to host other types of events long after the Fifa caravanserai has passed through. If you’re brave – or just nuts – try the Big Rush Big Swing, a bungee-type jump that swings you down into the stadium. Rand 595 (€63) per person.
Robben Island Museum, Cape Town, 00-27-21-409-5100, robben-island.org.za. See the island prison where Nelson Mandela lost years of his life to imprisonment during the apartheid years. A place of banishment from the 17th to the 20th century, it’s now a World Heritage Site. Ferries leave from Nelson Mandela Gateway on the VA Waterfront at 9am, 11am, 1pm and 3pm, weather permitting. Tickets: adults Rand 200 (€22), children Rand 100 (€11).
Walk in Africa with Steve Bolnick. 00-27-21-785-2264. walkinafrica.com. As a guide he promises centuries of histories – and he means it. Rates according to duration of the trek.