Friday 3 March
When we came home from our round the world trip two years ago, my first journal entry was a list of the high and low points of the trip. This time, after a month in South Africa, that's easy to do.
Low points
• delay on the outward journey (see below);
• missing the entire winter Olympics (South Africa is a sports-mad nation, but their sports are rugby and cricket, not winter sports. They didn't seem to have any TV coverage at all of the Olympics. If they did, we missed it. In fact, their TV stations seemed dire even by normal TV standards, and we scarcely watched any TV while we were there.);
• for Mary, a persistent stomach bug that stopped her enjoying the excellent food for most of the trip (but at least she didn't put on as much weight as she might have done).
Highlights
• just about everything else in the entire trip, from the first glimpse of Table Mountain to the final dinner at Stellenbosch in the heart of the winelands.
The outward journey was admittedly stressful. We had to set the alarm for some ungodly hour of the morning in order to be at Leeds airport for the 6 a.m. flight to Amsterdam. We checked in without any problems, but the flight was not called when it should have been. Eventually there was an announcement that it was delayed because of freezing fog at Amsterdam. We only had 90 minutes at Amsterdam to transfer to the long-haul flight to Cape Town, and as time dragged on it seemed more and more likely that we would miss the connection. We were told that if that happened they would put us up for the night in a hotel in Amsterdam and we could take the flight to Cape Town the following day. Gee, thanks a bunch, we would just love to trade a hot summer's day in Cape Town for a day without any luggage or warm clothing in freezing Amsterdam. We decided that the only thing to do was to go to the airport restaurant and get some breakfast. But just as we got there, we heard an announcement that our flight was boarding. It still seemed unlikely that we or our luggage would make the connection at Amsterdam. But then they told us that KLM were going to hold back the departure of the Cape Town flight until all the feeder flights from other cities had arrived. This meant that we had plenty of time to make the connection, and the rest of the journey went smoothly. Because of the delay it was well after midnight local time when we arrived at Cape Town airport, and 2:30 the following morning by the time we had picked up the rental car and made our way to the hotel.
So that was the worst thing that happened all month, and the rest of the trip was simply fabulous from start to finish. Rather than give a detailed travelogue, I'm going to spend the next few days editing some of the dozens of photos I took, and putting them on the family web site. After that, I'll try to write down a few impressions of some of the things we saw and thought about while we were there.
Wednesday 8 March
Pictures of our month in South Africa are now on the family web site, at http://homepage.ntlworld.com/thelances/ (nine pages, with over 100 pictures; don't feel obliged to wade through all of them).
The first week of the trip was spent in and around Cape Town, and we did all the regular tourist things (cable car up Table Mountain, Kirstenbosch Botanical Gardens, Cape of Good Hope, the Waterfront area). But the thing that stays in the memory is the visit to Robben Island. The ferry that took us there was the same boat that was previously used to transport prisoners to the island. One of the crew had been a prisoner there. He showed us the tiny hold in which twelve or sixteen prisoners were stowed for the 40-minute trip, and demonstrated how they had to climb down the steep ladder into the hold shackled together in pairs. He explained graphically how it felt when the hatch was closed and they set off, some of them never having been in a boat before, in darkness on a journey of unknown length towards an uncertain fate.
When we arrived at Robben Island, we were first taken on a bus trip around the island. The guide on the bus was a young student with a sharp sense of humour. "English is my fourth language," he told us proudly. "Xhosa is my first language. I haven't yet acquired a second or third language, but English is the fourth."
For the tour of the prison, we had another guide. His name was Luvuyo Qeqe, and like all the prison guides he was a former prisoner. (The q's in his surname are clicks, which makes it virtually impossible for a European to pronounce.) He told us that he was the youngest person ever to be sent to the prison, having been sentenced at the age of thirteen for fire-bombing a post office. He admitted quite cheerfully that he was guilty of this offence, which he justified as part of the African National Council's campaign against apartheid. As so often, yesterday's terrorist becomes tomorrow's freedom fighter.
His teenage years were spent in the oppressive regime of the prison. His education came from fellow prisoners as, under the leadership of Nelson Mandela, they developed their political consciousness and formulated the astonishing policy of Truth and Reconciliation, whereby those on both sides who had committed atrocities were granted amnesty if they admitted their offences, preferably in the presence of those they had wronged. In the twelve years since the end of apartheid, this policy has been unbelievably successful in defusing racial tensions and healing a bitterly divided nation. It makes one wonder why the same process has not been attempted in other troubled parts of the world like Northern Ireland or Israel/Palestine. I think the reason must be that it takes leaders with outstanding charisma and magnanimity to initiate it, and to rise above years of hatred and division. The ANC was fortunate to have not just Mandela but many other impressive leaders such as Robert Sobukwe, Walter Sisulu and Steve Biko. They were also fortunate that the leader of the National Party, F W de Klerk, also had the vision and the courage to stand up against the white supremacists and initiate majority rule. In comparison with these men, the leaders in the world's other trouble spots look like squabbling pygmies.
South Africa still has a long way to go in terms of reducing inequality and curbing violence. Mary and I never felt threatened in our travels round the Cape provinces, though in Cape Town we were warned not to go out after dark unless by taxi. The northern cities like Johannesburg, Pretoria and Durban are a different story, and I wouldn't want to go there if I could help it. But the visit to Robben Island made us see what a huge change has taken place in South Africa in the past twelve years, and I'm still amazed that this revolution should have been entirely peaceful.
Saturday 11 March
There has been snow in the air all afternoon. It hasn't settled yet, but the forecast is that it will tomorrow. Hard to imagine that two weeks ago we were basking in 40°C heat in the African summer.
In a trip that consisted entirely of highlights, I suppose the best part of all was the two days we spent in the Kariega game reserve. There are two large commercially run game reserves in the Eastern Cape area, Kariega and Shamwari. Shamwari is better known, and is recommended by the normally infallible Lonely Planet guide, but it is very expensive and I decided to book us into Kariega, which is also expensive but not quite so exorbitant. This turned out to be a very good decision. The accommodation at Kariega was luxurious and the staff were first-class. While there we saw all the big game animals of Africa in their natural surroundings (except for leopards, which are secretive, nocturnal creatures).
We were assigned to a group of eight people in the care of a ranger/driver called Salomon. There were about six of these groups, each with a highly competent ranger in control. In the early morning and again in the evening Salomon took us on a game drive, in an open Land Rover-type vehicle. There was a friendly rivalry among the rangers to get their group into the best position to see the animals, and Salomon was one of the best. He seemed to sense just where to find the game, and to position us to get the best, close-up view of lions, rhinos, giraffes and all the other game on the park. There was only one occasion when he didn't do so well. He thought he knew which route the elephants were taking, and he drove us across country to where he thought they heading. But the lead elephant decided to go another way, and the other groups were all in a better position than us to see them. I think this must have piqued Salomon, and he started to drive a bit recklessly. He tried to make a sharp turn onto a narrow, rutted track up a very steep slope. The vehicle ground to a halt, slipped back a bit and the two nearside wheels sank into a very deep rut. I was sitting on the other side of the Land Rover, which keeled over alarmingly. The offside wheels were at least two feet in the air, and I was sure that the vehicle was going to overturn. I grabbed the anti-roll bar in front of me and leaned out sideways as far as I could, like a yachtsman, trying to provide a bit of balance. The man sitting behind me did the same, but the other passengers all slid across to the lower side of the car. For a moment it was touch and go, but Salomon put the car into reverse, locked the wheels and slowly backed down to the track we had just left. He made light of the whole incident, claiming that these vehicles could tilt to an angle of 60° without tipping over. But I was sure that we had been very close to a disaster, and we were all quite shaken by this incident.
For the rest of the drive, Salomon teased us about this. Driving along a track beside a steep ravine, he saw an overgrown path leading down into the canyon, called out "Hold TIGHT!" and swerved towards it, before turning back to the track at the last moment. We laughed and swore at him, but forgave him because with that one exception he gave us two days of very memorable experiences.
That's not quite the end of the story, though. Two days later, we had left Kariega and were staying in self-catering accommodation. We went to a supermarket to buy some provisions, and as we were waiting at the checkout we saw a stack of local papers. I was horrified to see this headline:
[Front page story in The Herald, Tuesday, February 21, 2006.]
Oh, God. That described almost precisely what happened to us, except that instead of being a slightly alarming moment that was turned into a joke, it ended in catastrophe. This tragedy happened just one day after our little incident, at the other game reserve, the one I had decided not to go to. I tried not to think how I would have felt if I had been the husband of one of those women, an exhilarating holiday experience changed in an instant into unimaginable horror. It so nearly happened.
Tuesday 28 March
The biting cold easterly winds that have dogged us all month have at last moved round to the west and brought milder weather. We spent February in South Africa, thinking that we would escape winter altogether. But winter caught up with us when we came home, and for most of March it has been bitterly cold, with flurries of snow from time to time. At last that seems to have changed. The clocks have gone forward, snowdrops are belatedly making way for daffodils in the garden, and it's almost possible to believe that spring is on the way.
It's more than two weeks since I updated the journal, and I have to admit I'm not motivated to write much at the moment. We have embarked on a major programme of renovation around the house, and frankly that doesn't make for entertaining reading. You don't really want to know that I have been painting the ceiling and installing additional electrical sockets in the family room, or that we have spent our days shopping for new furniture, curtains and carpet. Maybe I'll put up a couple of "before and after" pictures when the job is done, but I think that after nearly eight years of online journalling I'm ready to ease off and take a bit of a break.
I don't intend to give it up altogether, though. We're going to spend a few days in Northumberland next month, to mark our 40th wedding anniversary, and I'm sure I'll want to report on that trip when we come back.
