SOUTH AFRICA: January 2020
THE WESTERN CAPE & THE GARDEN ROUTE
Why South Africa??
The end of 2019, and we decided to go on a trip to a part of the world we hadn't yet visited. Our first choice was Oman but unfortunately we had left it too late to book and we had second thoughts too when we looked more closely at maps of the proposed itineraries and saw just how close to the Yemeni border, a very active war zone, we would be going through.
We had never journeyed to Africa (apart from an unsatisfactory day spent in Agadir in Morocco as part of a cruise primarily to the Canaries) so plumped for South Africa but not a safari. Cape Town sounded much safer than Johannesburg, and a friend had taken the train through the winelands of the Garden Route and recommended we visit, so the decision was made.
Steve was keen to give Saga the benefit of the doubt again despite mixed verdicts on our previous trips with them. A lot depends on the guide and Lindsey was an interesting lady with an excellent grasp of South African history and commendably forthright views on the evils of the apartheid era. But perhaps because she was semi-retired and had done little homework on this route, her knowledge was primarily based on memories of long-ago family holidays. Therefore she wasn't so good on the basics to 'guide' us: like giving everyone the same time to get back on the bus(!); daily itinerary organisation; ensuring the bus stopped near toilets for the men among us and, if not, knowing where they were; and tips about the best places to eat, shop etc. It usually felt very much as if everything was being made up as we went along. This was good if, like the Table Mountain visit, the schedule couldn't be followed as planned, but not so good when we set off on long drives and no-one could elicit from her just where we were headed and what we were likely to see.
The success of any guided holiday also, of course, depends on the group dynamic. Lindsey wisely made no Butlins-style attempt to try to turn us magically into life-long friends from Day 1. But our small group of 16 included 6 (3 separate couples) who had been in Cape Town on the Saga extension for 5 days before the rest of the party arrived. No problem there, we knew from previous trips. But these 6 acted as if they had allowed the rest of us to join them, blithely assuming they came first in every way: where they sat on the bus determined where the rest of us could sit; they tried to ensure they were always first to do anything as they were 'together' and even rudely caused partners to move and have to sit on separate tables to eat as they were 'together'. In normal life such boorishness and lack of grace could have easily been put a stop to but a bus-trip holiday is not normal life.
CAPE TOWN
HISTORY:
Evidence of a nomadic hunter-gatherer community 30,000 years ago changed about 2000 years ago with the acquisition of sheep and cattle transforming the nomads into herding communities, Khoi.
In the 1480s the Portugese mariner Bartolomeu Dias first rounded the newly-named Cape of Good Hope with resulting violent skirmishes between the Portuguese and the indigenous Khoi. European settlement had to wait until 1652 with the newly-established refreshment station at Table Bay designed to feed sailors on Dutch East India Company ships trading between Europe and the East. Colonization developed as more and more Dutch men were granted 'Free Burgher' status, annexed land, stole the Khoi's cattle and sheep and, with the use of slaves, set up a prosperous community with a separate identity while the Khoi were decimated by disease and dispossession.
By the 1790s Dutch global influence was eclipsed by Britain who occupied Cape Town in 1795 and increasingly, despite British-born residents being in the minority, gave it a British political, economic and cultural character. The rapid growth of communications in mid 19th century reinforced the city's status even before the discovery of the world's largest deposit of diamonds at Kimberley in 1867. That, plus the discovery of gold around Johannesburg in the 1880s, made Cape Town the gateway to the world's richest mineral deposits. But this all hid enormous growing poverty and vice in the cheap labour force of immigrants, Africans and people of mixed-race which disquieted the Anglo-centric middle class who stemmed immigration, other than from Western Europe, and introduced racial segregation.
1910 saw the establishment of a federated Union of South Africa, after the defeat and surrender of the Boers in the Anglo-Boer War, with its capital in Cape Town. Accelerated industrialization resulted in a huge influx of rural Africans which, in turn, spurred the authorities to pass the Urban Areas Act, the precursor of Apartheid. By 1945 new townships were being built and Cape Town had more black and poor white Afrikaner residents than white. The National Party with their increasingly repressive and immoral policy of so-called separate development clung onto power until the release of Nelson Mandela in 1990 and democratic elections 4 years later.
Despite Mandela's Affirmative Action policies, and the emergence of a Black middle class, Cape Town remains a much-divided city, as our coach driver William explained to us in detail. Tourists and investors have been attracted, but so have so many poor rural Africans from the Eastern Cape and the rest of Africa in search of a better life. Housing is a major problem as is the resultant pressure on essential services, not least water, for a population projected to increase to about 6 million by 2030. There is also rampant poverty, unemployment, crime and very high levels of HIV
GETTING THERE
After an uneventful journey we met up with our guide, Lindsey, at the airport and headed for our 2 night stay in the Southern Sun, the Cullinan Hotel, conveniently within walking distance of the Victoria and Albert Waterfront. We couldn't but notice that it was extremely windy and Lindsey told us we had arrived on the second day of a severe cyclone with winds gusting at over 80 miles an hour. Cyclones are not frequent in Cape Town, and certainly not ones as strong as this, so unfortunately our immediate tour plans would have to be put on hold until we saw how the weather would pan out. The first trip was to have been up Table Mountain but all access had been stopped because of safety concerns and unless the wind dropped remarkably it looked increasingly like we wouldn't be able to take the cable car even the following day.
We were offered the option of an afternoon guided bus ride around the hotel area but we felt we had been travelling enough that day so we opted to take the hotel shuttle the short distance to the nearby waterfront and see what was to be seen in the relatively short time we had available before we had to be back at the hotel for a reception.
The bus took us to the Victoria and Albert Waterfront, Cape Town's original Victorian harbour. Despite continuous calls for a harbour for the Cape of Storms, so called by Europea eexplorers because of its vicious weather, the British government held out against building it because of the cost until in 1860 work on the breakwater finally began.
Redeveloped in the 1990s, it incorporates 19th century buildings, flashy shopping malls like Victoria Wharf, waterside piers and a functioning harbour. Since the end of apartheid it has also incorporated the Nelson Mandela Gateway the embarkation point for trips to Robben Island. All of this is set against the backdrop of Table Mountain: the nearest we were going to get to it that day.
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| The view across the waterfront |
TABLE MOUNTAIN
Table Mountain has announced Cape Town to seafarers for centuries as it dominates the peninsula and its flat top can be recognised from miles away. At 1806 metres high, it is one of the world's great physical symbols. The Tablecloth, the cloud which blankets the plateau, in folklore was created with his pipe by Van Hunks.
Because of the continuing high winds access to the cable car was impossible but, determined that we should not miss out on such an iconic visit, Lindsey arranged for William, the coach driver, to take a detour so that we did get to see the mountain from a lower vantage point.
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THE CAPE AND PENGUINS
Most people wrongly believe that Cape Point, not Cape Aghulas, is where the Indian and Atlantic oceans meet. It is in fact Africa's most southwestern point, a promontory in the south eastern corner of the Cape Peninsula situated within the Table Mountain National Park.
Some of the animals we only glimpsed through a vehicle window .......
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THE WINELANDS
Our next hotel was to be the NH The Lord Charles in the largely uninspiring town of Somerset West, established in 1672 as a cattle post by Dutch soldiers and overlooked by the Helderberg Mountains, our base for the wine lands area.
Franschhoek
Before our wine tasting session that afternoon we had departed from the advertised itinerary and taken the scenic drive to the small town of Franschhoek (Afrikaans for 'French Town'). We enjoyed our pleasant morning but it turned out to be a prime example of Lindsey's poor pre-organisation that played into the hands of a number of grumblers. The coach stopped near the Huguenot Memorial Museum, quite a walk from the town centre. Disappointingly very few of the group were interested in visiting the museum or its grounds but started complaining they could have been set down earlier and so were too far from coffee, toilets and shops. Lindsey unfortunately had only a passing knowledge of how to get to them and ended up also giving different times for our return to the coach!
Between 1688 and 1700 about 200 French Huguenot refugees fleeing religious persecution in France took refuge here and began establishing farms and businesses, many settlers naming their new farms after the areas of France from which they came. This heritage is shown today in the Huguenot Monument, completed in 1943, which stands at the end of the town. It comprises three skinny interlocking arches representing the Holy Trinity, with the Sun of Righteousness above the three arches and above that the cross of Jesus.
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The Monument shows an allegorical image of a woman standing on top of the world in a gesture of freedom: images of the Fleur de Lis on her dress underline the Hugenots' French origin, the Bible and broken chain in her hands, together with her cloak symbolising the rejection of religious repression.
The Museum was built in 1967 in an 18th century building that had originally been in Cape Town and had been the home of a Dutch East India employee. It was demolished and rebuilt brick by brick in Franschoek.
Neetlingshoff Wine Estate
Neetlingshoff Wine Estate is one of the oldest wine estates in the country, first farmed in 1692 by a German settler who mistook the many jackals living in the hills at that time for wolves and originally named it 'De Wolwedans' ('Dance of Wolves'). Wine production started in 1802 and in 1825 the name was changed to Neethling's Hof. Our approach down a kilometre-long avenue of pines to a beautifully restored Cape Dutch manor dating from 1814 promised a pleasant time but unfortunately it was a disappointingly rapidly choreographed visit aimed at getting us into the shop as quickly as possible. This view is borne out by many of its reviews.
Stellenbosch
En route back to the hotel we briefly visited Stellenbosch
Founded in 1679 by Simon van der Stel, who named it after himself, Stellenbosch means '(van der) Stel's Bush' and it is the second oldest European settlement in the province and its Dutch East India Company legacy shows in its architecture. It became known as the City of Oaks due to the large number of oak trees that were planted by its founder.
When some Huguenot refugees settled in 1690 grapes were planted in the fertile valleys surrounding and it soon became the centre of the South African wine industry. The city also houses Afrikaanerdom's most prestigious university, dating from 1863. With our limited time we were unable to do much more than find Dorp Street and grab lunch in one of its busy cafes.
With its student vibe, colonial architecture, fine cuisine, and pretty streets and squares it is easy to forget that Stellenbosch was and is a conservative place and was once the intellectual engine room of apartheid.
