Africa Revisited: The Whole Story, August - September 2006

Robert Tyabji, Johannesburg, 2006

For most people, a couple of years exposure to Africa is enough for its spirit to invade the bloodstream and inhabit the psyche. Little wonder, then, that 11 years in Africa have made Hootoksi and me lifetime addicts! So, when our dear friend Thandi Lujabe-Rankoe, currently South Africa's High Commissioner in Mozambique, invited us to visit her in August, it was an offer we just couldn't refuse!

Our agenda was as exciting as it was action-packed. First, we flew to Maputo, Mozambique, where we were to stay at Thandi's official residence and participate in a glittering series of events in celebration of South Africa Week. Staying at Thandi's was a party in itself, as her house quickly filled with other guests: Ogi from Nigeria and his daughter Teju from Antigua, Thandi's sister Nolwazi and her husband Mnctisi from the Eastern Cape, her daughter Tsheli, Tsheli’s son Jemelle and a cousin of his, and her friends Hadiza from Nigeria and Rebecca from London, Christiane from France, and us. I have to say that Thandi and her staff managed this diverse group with great style and sensitivity, with copious supplies of food and drink always at hand, and transport to and from events on tap.

Among the events was an exhibition of South African businesses in Mozambique, a wine tasting evening at the Standard Bank headquarters (!), a cocktail and dance night, and a family day at the American International School.

At the week's crowning event, the Gala Dinner, I was supremely privileged to be seated at the same table as former President Nelson Mandela and his wife Graca Machel, along with a Mozambican cabinet minister and senior officials from both countries. All the while, Yvonne Chaka Chaka, the livewire “Princess of Africa" and her group kept 300-plus guests jumping.

After a week's merrymaking in Mozambique, we all flew to Johannesburg. Then, on 9 August we drove to Pretoria to join thousands of women in a reenactment of the 9 August 1956 landmark women's protest march on State House, the then bastion of apartheid policy. There's more about this here on this website.

Then, on 11 August we celebrated Thandi's 70'th birthday in grand style at the Johannesburg Hilton. Thandi had invited 350 guests including former Mozambican president Chissano, many senior national leaders, diplomats, and two Bishops. She also launched her book A Dream Fulfilled: Memoirs of a South African Diplomat, parts of which Hootoksi had helped her draft back in Tanzania.

After these two weeks of back-to-back partying, we decided to pull ourselves together and explore the country by car, which we have found to be the very best way to explore a country and get to meet local people. After that, the plan was to stop over in Oman for a week on our way back to Malaysia.

We began our overland travels in the company of Thandi's sister Nolwazi and her husband Mncetisi, a retired school headmaster from Mnandi in the hills of the Eastern Cape. We flew to East London (on 1Time, South Africa's version of AirAsia), rented a car (a Ford Ka, one of the smallest and finest vehicles I’ve driven) and then drove into the highlands of the Eastern Cape to their home in Dutywa. We also visited their farm in Mnandi, a further hour's drive through rolling pastureland with huge skies and picturesque villages. We spent three exhilarating days exploring the hamlets of their childhood, meeting family members and becoming acquainted with the Xhosa community.

In Ngcingwane, we called in on President Thabo Mbeki's mother's modest village home and spent an engaging hour chatting with this wonderful lady, who at 90 is as active as ever, running several rural women's development projects out of her home. For more on this story, click here.

Driving on, we were incredibly lucky to happen upon a huge tent in a field, where students of all the Eastern Cape schools were holding a competition of traditional Xhosa tribal dances. We drove past the village homes of Nelson Mandela and Walter Sisulu, which gave me a strong sense of the deep historical significance of the area.

Our plan was to drive west along the famed ‘Garden Route’ to Cape Town, then north into Namaqualand to see the flowers which we had heard were in full bloom as a result of the timely rains. We would then return the car in Cape Town and fly back to Johannesburg, and still have a few days free before we'd have to say goodbye to everyone and leave for our next destination, Muscat.

The drive westward on Highway 2 was uneventful, but the scenery was wonderful and we had time to stop at some of the numerous private game parks. Turning off the highway, we spent a night at Kragga Kamma Game Park where we played with Duma, a full grown cheetah, and Hootoksi cuddled lion cubs.There's more on this story here.

At George, we turned turned north towards Oudtshoorn and headed towards the spectacular Swartberg Pass which crosses the Groot Swartberg range between the lush coastal strip and the dry, rolling plains of the Great Karoo to the north. As it happened, the passes were closed due to recent downpours, flooding in some areas, and poor visibility, but we managed to cross anyway! From there, the landscape was quite different. We drove through horizon-to-horizon undulating bushland with only the occasional Boer farm, the rare vehicle, windmills, and an endless succession of telegraph poles for company. Crossing the N1, we kept heading north along the mostly unpaved R 354 into Namaqualand in the Northern Cape, through Calvinia, and westward on R 27 to Nieuwoudtville and Vanrhynsdorp.

A word about our little rented Ford Ka, known locally as "The Frog". An ugly duckling perhaps, and apt to squash passengers to a pulp, but its performance was stellar. She would hum along quietly and with perfect control at 100 kph on the highway , and yet plough ahead with confidence along potholed, wet and slushy country and mountain roads, even with a couple of large passengers in the back. With these attributes and its lively acceleration and ease of parking, this is a highly desirable vehicle.

Believe it or not, everything we had heard about the seasonal blooming of flowers in Namaqualand was true! While we didn't - couldn't - count them, there are at least 2,000 different species of wild flower here! They grew along the road and covered the rolling grasslands, hills and fields as far as we could see. The scent and color of billions of flowers in the clear, dry, sun-drenched highland air was exhilarating and quite intoxicating!

Back in Johannesburg, we rented another car and drive southeast to the giant rampart of mountains known as the Drakensberg, bordering the eastern part of the mountain kingdom of Lesotho. Here, a long stretch of rugged cliff plunges precipitously to the foothills below. We drove three days into the great plateau of the Free State and through the lovely rolling hills and wooded valleys of the KwaZulu Natal Midlands, spending our nights at the Amphitheatre Backpacker's Lodge.

One morning, we joined a small group to climb to the base of Beacon Buttress, a towering rampart on one end of the imposing arc of cliffs known as the Amphitheatre. Having lived in Nepal, we considered ourselves competent mountain trekkers, but this 5-hour climb was tough and arduous. Near the top, it was a really difficult scramble up a nearly vertical, dry, rock-strewn riverbed called The Gully. The only way up was to climb a 30-foot steel ladder fixed to the rock face. Finally, at 2,970 meters above sea level, we emerged on a wide grassy plateau. One could crawl to the very lip of the Amphitheatre and look down vertically 1000 meters. Here, the Tugela River which meandered across the plateau, tumbled 950 meters over the lip, forming the world's second highest waterfall.

Hootoksi writes: “The descent was my scariest experience ever. Our guide, Simon, led us to the edge of a sheer cliff. From the lip were suspended two steel chain ladders.

These ladders, in two stages, were our "short cut" to the path below, which wound around the mountain to the carpark at the bottom. To get a foot onto the first rung of the ladder, one must crouch at the very edge, dangle a leg in the void and grope around, all the while gripping the chain while the knuckles whiten with the strain, and the wind howls and threatens to pluck one from the ladder to be hurled onto the rocks three hundred feet below. But once I reached the bottom, I admit that I rather enjoyed the adrenalin rush!”

Just half an hour from the bottom, Hootoksi cried out and fell groaning and clutching her ankle. She'd heard it crack and now was in great pain. Supported by Erin, a young nurse from Canada on one side and me on the other, Hootoksi managed to hobble to the bottom. Back at the lodge Klaus, a young German footballer, gave Hootoksi a balm which he said was used by sportsmen and would soothe her swollen ankle. The next day, I took Hootoksi to Dr. Prinz in the miniscule town of Bergville, where he x-rayed her and put her in a fiberglass cast which he said should do until we got back to Malaysia.

Thus it was that our South Africa sojourn drew to a close and before long I was pushing Hootoksi's wheelchair to the departure gate at Johannesburg International Airport. Our Emirates flight to Dubai was on time, and we were already anticipating another adventure at our next destination, Muscat, Oman.