Back in Hillbrow

When I was a teenager, Joburg's inner city suburb of Hillbrow was where it was all at: the bookshops, cult cinema, record shops and clubs, bohemian flat life, the tatoo parlors and that bit of grunge that came under the Apartheid state's radar. In the 1990's that bit of grunge rapidly grew into a no-go area as the cool shops closed and the drug dealers moved in to get their piece of the street action. I hadn't been there for a decade.

Today I returned with my friend Anna who, on her way back to Germany, went to say goodbye to friends at the German Lutheran Centre in Edith Cavell Street. Hillbrow was less scary looking than I'd imagined ... just very run down, although I still would not like to have had a break-down there. And the visit to the Lutheran centre was colourful and fun. They have a sewing project (the skirt shows the Hillbrow skyline) and a lot of other self-help projets. Saying goodbye was hard for Anna, especially because she had to do it over and over again.

Punctures: Good in Bad

I had a puncture deep in the Kgalagadi Park, after lots of jolting on corrugated and rutted roads. I replaced it early in the morning with the spare, and then jolted back across the same corrugated and rutted roads hoping I wouldn't get a second, and be forced to change it surrounded by a ring of interested wild animals. The tyres held through the park ... and down 250km of straight desert to Uppington ... and across the brown and green plains of the Northern Cape and North West province. I had about 1300km to drive altogether to get me home.

When I arrived in Vryburg, with still about 400km to go, my first reaction was that I was back in the high crime zone - the land of high fences and gated communities that I had been out of for a while. My second thought was that the town wasn't such a great place to hang out in ... the streets were dirty and buzy, even late on a Sunday afternoon. My third thought, at the petrol station, was - "Oh damn. Here's the second puncture".

All the workshops were closed for the Sunday, and suddenly I was faced with the thought of an unwelcome overnight in an unlovely town when all I wanted was to get back to Joburg and sleep in my own bed.

Then the guy at the petrol station saw the flat, and said "Call Bande!". He gave me a number, I phoned and 5 minutes later a giant tow truck with a young black guy with dreadlocks came roaring down the road. I could still drive, so I followed it around the cornder into Vryburg's dusty suburbs ... and there was Bande, who was prepared to sacrifice 20 minutes of his Sunday afternoon to repair my two punctures, and get me back on the road for about 80 Rand ($8).


This is Bande with his brother and son. It turned out to be a fun experience, in fact the best thing which happened to me in that long day of driving.

Kgalagadi National Park

This park lies in South Africa's hook, the point in the NW of the country at which there is a common border with Botswana and Nambia. I had never been there before, and it was a long ride. Worse, the web site warned "the roads in the Kgalagadi Transfrontier Park are not sedan friendly" and since the car I was in, a sometimes-faithful sometimes-not Ford Escort was the ultimate sedan, I was not confident that I would be able to see anything there without being stuck in a bed of soft sand. But I took the chance anyway and drove the 200 km through the Kalahari desert to the park from the Northern Cape town of Uppington.

It was really worth it. The roads were corrugated but otherwise very navigable in the Ford. And the scenery was dreamlike: softly undulating hills of bright green 'sour grass' shimmering with thousands of butterflies, and large herds of Gemsbok, Springbok and Gnu roamed alongside the road.

Dawn in the Karoo

I'm on my way to the north-western extreme of South Africa (to the border with Botswana) to visit the Kgalagadi National Park ... this was dawn just north of the town of Uppington, about three hours ago.

Kokerboom

This is a kokerboom, or a quiver tree - they grow in the Northern Cape, where they're something of an emblem. I came across some at sunset as I was barreling up towards Keimoes on the Orange River.

Flamming through the Cederberg

The Cederberg is a mountainous area where dry mountains raise fantastic rock formations above thin ribbons of intense green cultivation of fruit and vineyards. Made for great hiking, but the real adventure started after the afternoon hike as I was in the car heading back to the campsite: suddenly a red light I'd never seen before blinked balefully on the car dashboard, and soon afterwards acrid white smoke was pouring out of the bonnet. Yikes! I stopped the car, openned the bonnet and woosh: flames came out of the battery case. Meltdown.

I huffed and puffed and used my last half litre of water to put them out. And then, in a cell-phone dead zone, I had no option but to leave the car on the side of the road and walk in the dusk to a nearby vineyard to use their phone. The people at the backpackers I was staying at (The Oasis) were really good to me: they came 20km down a dirt road to pick me up, and gave me the run of their place and, most importantly, a phone to use. Gerhardt and Chantel: thanks!

The next morning a mechanic came out 100km from the next town of Clanwilliam, and the best of all possible outcomes happened: a new battery and some tape got the car started again. Still, it meant that instead of getting away at 4am, I left at around 2pm and headed up through the deserts of the northern cape towards the Orange River.

I wish I had photographs of the car in flames ... and of the mechanics, they were really funny. But I had my hands full at the time.

SA Groceries Part III: Ceres

I felt like Charlie the first time he entered Willy Wonka's Chocolate Factory: after years of drinking the fruit juice and reading on the carton how Tucked away in a crescent of mountains lies a beautiful, fertile valley ... I finally made it to Ceres, which lies North East of Cape Town. The reality wasn't far off the advertising.

Ceres is now sold all over the world ... I used to buy it in the Williams Morton supermarket opposite Columbia.

Franschoek (and its wine)

I'm on my way back to Joburg after an amazing 3 weeks in Cape Town. I haven't made it too far, though - I got caught up in the wine area around Franschoek, which is where a lot of the early French Huguenots in South Africa settled. The valley there is beautiful, and it was my first visit. But it too had been, in part, ravaged by fire recently. I went to one - and only one - wine farm, tasted five of their wines and bought a bottle.




The town itself is pretty ... this woman was selling common utensils (garden spades, screwdrivers) enameled with flamboyant wallpaper like patterns. I bought one ... and asked for the photo to go with it.

South Africa's Shoddy Foreign Policy: Tibet

In just one more example of how its current foreign policies are totally divorced from its 'struggle' past, the ANC government has just denied the Dalai Lama a visa to visit South Africa to attend a conference of Nobel Peace Laurettes. Through odd coincidence, China opened an office in Johannesburg of its China Africa Development Fund last week (16 March) and announced investments of 2 billion US$ in Africa.

Here is an article in the Mail and Guardian and another in IOL. Some hilarious explanations of the government decision by its spokesmen are that it would "divert attention" from South Africa's World Cup celebrations [Thabo Masebe] or this gem of a sentance by Ronnie Mamoepa:

"As far as the South African government is concerned, no invitation was extended to the Dalai Lama to visit South Africa so therefore the question of the visas doesn't exist."

Thanks for clearing that one up, Ronnie. Our government is so logical.

Mrs Balls Mango Chutney

like Melrose Cheese, this is a classic of South African foodstuffs ... unlike Melrose, its really good, and its wonderful to be able to go into a supermarket and just buy it (although I did see it in Fairways in Harlem when living in New York). This photo was taken at Giovannis deli in Greenpoint, and they've repackaged it, but I liked the image.


Opposite the deli, the huge new stadium is being built for the 2010 games ... after having a cup of coffee, I went on a tour.

Mountain Biking: Just Let Gravity Work

My sister lives close to the Tokai Forest, which has one of the best networks of mountain bike trails in South Africa. Today I took my nephew James up to the top by car, and we mountain biked all the way home. He's a champion ramper.

Proteas in Bloom on Table Mountain

One of the great experiences in Cape Town is to hike up Table Mountain in the late afternoon, have a beer (with a view) at the upper cable station before catching the cable car down.

Today I started hiking late (4pm) and took longer than planned to get up the mountain, because I had to turn back from a route up Slangolie Ravine my map recommended (the 'path' turned into a very steep riverbed and then an old old concrete staircase and then abruptly nothing). So I got up onto the plateau at about 6pm as the last sunlight was stroking across the mountain, and found proteas (South Africa's national flower) everywhere in bloom.


I made it to the upper cable station just in time to get this piece of beautiful sunset and jump over the turnstile to catch the last cable car down for free.

Goldfish at Spier

I saw Goldfish, everyone's favourite electro-jazz band, for the second time last night at the Spier Wine Estate close to Stellenbosch. I wasn't pulled by the music as much as the first concert at Emmarentia, but it was a great opportunity to take pictures - difficult conditions because of the low ambient light but bright strobes and lots of movement. Here are some of the ones I like most.

Take a listen to the band on their website if you'd like to hear their infectious sound.

Cairo to Cape Cycle

A couple of South African cyclists are currently cycling from Cairo to Cape Town to raise money for a school in the Eastern Cape, blogging as they go. Its interesting for me because they are following some of the route I did on my own backpacking trip through Africa - in fact, they've just completed the grueling section through the badlands of Northern Kenya, where the armed bandits are many and tarred road is just a distant dream. Respect!

Fire on Devil's Peak

I've been commuting a lot between Sea Point, where I'm staying, and Tokai close to Muizenburg to see my sister and her family. The road there winds around the base of Devil's Peak, the craggy cone to the left of Table Mountian, going past both the University of Cape Town and Groote Schuur, one of the big city hospitals. Both are at the base of the mountain.

On Tuesday night as I drove back past the university, there were clusters of cars flashing blue emergency lights on the side of the road, and then suddenly the road lead through a cloud of smoke. When I looked back a little further on, I saw stretches of orange fire light leading up Devil's Peak; a massive veldt-fire had just broken out.

Last night (Wednesday), after a day spent battling the flames, the fire department said the fire was 'contained', but as I drove past at 10pm, bonfire-sized blazes still pockmarked the hillside, some way up the side of the mountain.

There are some spectacular photos of the fire here.


[Later] I took this photograph from Lion's Head in the late afternoon ... most of the one side of Devil's Peak has been scorched by the fire; there was a lot of smoke and a helicopter was still buzzing between the flames and a reservoir in the city. So much for the fire being under control.

Music Practice

My sister Sheila inherited the music gene in our family, and she is passing it on to her children (sometimes the gene requires a little encouragement to activate it). Here is music practice at home.

Emily at Mdzananda

My niece Emily has a requirement from her school to do a number of hours community service each term ... so today I took her with me to the Mdzananda Animal Clinic, where she spent an hour and a half filling dog shampoo containers. But more fun: she got to feed the litter of puppies that the clinic had just rescued.


Emily also made it onto the Mdzananda Blog.

Whales by Full Moon

Sounds like the stuff of a bad New Age poster, but it was an amazing experience: I went for an evening paddle in my kayak with a bunch of others down the coast off Sea Point ... and we saw a small school of whales (three?) from very close up. And then the full moon rose over the water. No photos - I didn't trust my ability to use my camera in the Atlantic swells.

Boulders Beach

There might be beaches in other parts of the world which have better surf or warmer water, but I think Boulders Beach rates as the cutest beach in the world ... because you share it with a colony of Jackass Penguins. The penguins aren't always cute, though: they attacked Farrel a couple of minutes after I took this photo ....

Argus Bike Tour

The real reason I came to Cape Town was not to take a road trip, do volunteer work or lie on a beach ... it was to do the Argus, the classic 110 km bike tour around the Cape Peninsular. This was my first time, so I had nothing to compare it to, but the headline the next morning in the local newspaper stated Toughest Argus Ever! There was a crazy amount of wind (60km/h) which, on the sections of the route near beaches, blasted sand into your face. Thousands of people registered just didn't turn up; one cyclist who did had his cycle blown off a cliff (although he leaped off the bike at the last moment).

Despite the weather, I loved the race. It takes you past some of Cape Town's most beautiful scenery, including the opened-again-closed-again Chapman's Peak Drive. I loved it even more for those few precious moments of riding in a wind shadow.

Oh Boy - Remember Melrose?

My old friend Farrell is visiting Cape Town too ... on Friday we celebrated his birthday by going up to the top of Signal Hill and watching the sun set while drinking a bottle of superplonk with crackers and Melrose Cheese. It felt so South African. Melrose Cheese, for all you non-South Africans, is gooey processed yellow plasticate which you can only eat if you have grown up in South Africa and still remember the classic jingle: Oh Boy! Mom Remembered Melrose!

Mdzananda Animal Clinic

I'm spending several days at the Mzananda Animal Clinic in Khayelitsha, one of the sprawling townships on the Cape Flats, about 20km from Cape Town. I've been setting up a network (read: drilling holes in shipping container walls and stringing long lengths of network cable underneath corrugated iron roofs) and installing vetinary software for them.













There is a permanent clinic (the only one of its kinds for the hundreds of thousands of people in the townships) and a roving clinic for people to bring their sick animals - mostly dogs - to. Mzananda has a group of really friendly staff and a group of just-as-friendly resident dogs and cats. Pictured above: a woman with a sick puppy, Gabriel with 'No Name' and Lazola with a new-born puppy. It was great fun to help out there.

Rediscovering Landscapes

One of the many good things about this road trip I'm on has been the rediscovery of parts of South Africa I remembered as just being the dry, dusty stretches inbetween. One of these regions was the Overberg, immediately East of Cape Town - I remember it as dull brown landscapes; driving through it again I was struck at how beautiful it is. This is a photo of the N2 highway taken close to Swellendam.

Storms River

Left Bulungula way too soon for my liking, but also way too late in the day, and ended up driving until deep into the night across the Eastern Cape through a spectacular lightening storm to the aptly-named Storms River, just over the border into the Western Cape and the start of the gorgeous Garden Route.

Today, I hired a mountain bike and rode through the Tsitsikama Forest down to the mouth of the river. The forest was populated by baboons, schools of the famous red-wing louries and an entire field of brightly coloured grasshopers mating in the biggest grasshoper-orgy I had ever seen.

Accidental VIP for the UDM

April 22 is South Africa's next election day; today the outside world sent a reminder in the form of a United Democratic Movement political rally in Nqileni Village. The UDM is strong in the region because its head, Bantu Holimisa, is from the Transkei.

The rally was held in a tent at the top of a hill, alongside the village school; it was accompanied by and sponsor of some kind of soccer tournament. I was there with a local guide (Pikiswa) and tried to keep a lot profile at the back of the tnet. But at some stage the organizers spotted me and a couple of other white faces from Bulungula, and were were hustled in to the centre of the tent and given chairs; indeed at one stage the speaker switched from Xhosa into English to address us and we were treated like VIPs.

The UDM speaker, at least in the English section of the speech, spoke about the corruption within the ANC government (giving the terrible state of roads in the region as an example; they haven't been graded for 7 years). I felt embarrased at being the token, priveleged white guy there, but it was a great opportunity to take photographs of people.

More on Bulungula

The fact that Bulungula is 40% owned by the surrounding Nqileni village and its embedded in the village, rather than trying to keep seperate from it, is part of of what makes it different from the normal backpacker experience. Its also got a beautiful location, right on the beach in an isolated part of the coast, and its done with a lot of creativity and attention to detail - from the windmill power generator via the murals to the amazing and terrifying rocket showers (add a half a teapot of parafin to the end of a long pipe, set it onlight and you roar your way to a lot of hot water).


I went for a long walk up and down the green hills alongside the coast today - here are a couple of photos from it