SoetKaroo

Cape Town, 22 nd of August 2018 – On our first full day in Cape Town, we step onto the boat to visit Robben Island. The waters in front of Cape Town are treacherous and sometimes the trip to Robben Island gets cancelled because of bad weather or a wild sea. We are lucky; it is only cloudy and a bit nippy. We sail on the Madiba 1 and although the island seems to be within arm’s reach, it takes us about one hour to get there. Once there, we get onto a compulsory bus, taking us on a tour of the prison island. On the bus, a pretty, self-conscious woman wearing a headscarf and a rainbow coloured necklace, welcomes us in a loud and clear voice: “My name is Wwwwendy, and I will guide you through the island”. The headscarf or ‘Doek’ in Afrikaans used to be a sign of submission, as black workers had to wear it as part of a cleaning uniform. It can also be a religious, cultural or fashion statement. During our trip, we saw the most intricately folded and colourful doeks and they do look styli...

Cape of Good Hope, 21 st of August 2018 – On the southern tip of Table Mountain National Park is Cape of Good Hope. Ever since primary school, this name has mysteriously attracted me. Before we go to that mythical spot, we drive to Boulders Beach, home to a penguin colony. These birds are great fun to watch, the way they clumsily come out of the water, changing from top-level swimmers to helpless walkers. For a moment, I doubt if I am in Disneyworld or in a nature reserve. Tourists from all over the world want to see a glimpse of these ‘Jackass’ penguins. Yes, that is their name! Italians elbow their way through the crowd to reach the best photo spot, the Japanese politely wait their turn and nod their heads off if you let them pass. Further down the beach there is a spot where you can ‘swim with the penguins’… I remember a ranger who told me that tourists are not that bad. Without them, endangered species would never get any attention, nor the money to set up conservation programs...

Cape Town, 21th of August 2018 – Today we are walking up Table Mountain, 515 years after Portuguese explorer Antonio de Saldanha. He got separated from his fleet and needed a lookout point to see if his mates had sailed off without him. Scary thought! Saldanha climbed up the narrow gorge and spotted his fellow seamen. During his ascent he saw the sweet water flowing down, great discovery for the rest of their voyage. The narrow Platteklip Gorge is the most direct way to walk up Table Mountain. It is made of rock-steps and very steep, but with an average fitness you can do it in less than 2 hours. You don’t need a map, you start and just look up all the time, following the serpentine. We leave our car at the ranger post and take the bus to the lower cable station. From there we walk to the starting point. A ranger joins us and we have a chat. “Where are you from?” followed by the “Aha Kevin De Bruyne” sentence. “In Table Mountain National Park, there are only fifty rangers, we patrol ...

Cape Town, 20 th of August 2018 – Bartolomeo Dias in1488 and Vasco da Gama eleven years later, were the first Europeans to sight the Cape. The Portuguese, however, had little interest in the Cape and it would take another 150 years before the Dutch started colonising it. Bucket listed by so many, we want to experience it by ourselves. We sleep in Seapoint, west of Signal Hill. On the motorway, we drive past the ‘Groote Schuur Hospital’, where Christiaan Barnard performed the first heart transplant. Then we see the Cape Town Stadium, where many matches of the Football World Championships of 2010 were played. Can you remember the deafening sound of the vuvuzela’s? The Spanish beat the Dutch, the final was played in Soccer City in Johannesburg, Iniesta scored. We check into the Glen Boutique Hotel and we are offered an upgrade in the annex building. To our amazement, we get the Mandela Suite on the top floor of a ‘belle époque’ house. Paintings of Nelson Mandela everywhere and a librar...

From Camdeboo to Prince Albert, 19 th of August – We are heading back to Cape Town and have to find a nice village for an overnight stop. We drive hours through the Great Karoo on the R61 without seeing a living soul. Except maybe a lonely sheep grazing on next to nothing. The wind blows from the north and I have to keep both hands on the wheel to stay on the road. My fuel gauge reads almost empty and in Beaufort West, we decide to fill up the tank. Strangely enough, the brand new petrol station is attracting a strange mix of people, who seem to spend their Sunday in and around the shop. We are the only whites. The service station attendant is very friendly and we small talk. A young woman with a young boy on her arm starts asking me for money and when I refuse, she puts the boy on the ground and tries to convince me to donate. The little boy starts stroking the car tyres with his hands in a circular movement. His palms are jet black. His mother walks to the other side of the car an...

Camdeboo, 19th of August 2018 – When we wake up, the sun pierces through an opening in the curtains. It is as if someone shines with a flashlight on the wall. Our room at Drostdy is a tastefully renovated ‘freed’ slave cabin. Not only the indigenous black population had to do slave labour, also people from nowadays Angola and India were imported to work. I need further reading on the complex history of slavery in South Africa. We drive to Camdeboo National Park, just outside of Graaff-Reinet. Every year 100 000 people visit this park in the Eastern Cape Karoo. The rangers take their check in and check out procedure very seriously. Poachers try everything to get into the parks, even the official way. They use false identities, stay behind and go for the rhino horns and elephant tusks. The volcanic dolerite columns are 200 million years old and are in stark contrast with the endless flat Karoo behind. There is a tarred road to the top of the Valley of Desolation and the views from here...

Graaff-Reinet, 18 th of August 2018 – Karl from Schotia gave us a tip. ‘Go to Graaff-Reinet, it is my favourite village in the Karoo’. It is a Saturday but we are almost alone when we drive on the N10 North to Cookhouse. We fill up the car just opposite the Slagtersnek Monument. The short story: ‘In 1815 a Frontier Boer mistreats his Khoikhoi-worker, a Hottentot; sorry I use this word in these days of correctness. Bezuidenhout, that is his name, refuses to appear in court. When the British go and get him, he fights and is shot... by a black soldier. His brother wants revenge and there is a rebellion. The Brits impose themselves and sentence five Boers to death. Four of them will be hanged twice because their ropes break… Some historians see this as the start of the Great Trek. What a story. We drive West on the R63 to Graaff-Reinet and the sun is strong, low and in our face. Visibility zero. When the sky turns orange and red, we can start to enjoy this magnificent landscape, thinkin...

Schotia, 18 th of August 2018 – We visit Addo Elephant Park with Karl from Schotia in his very luxurious white Landrover with leather seats. In the car with us, two girls, who work as temporary volunteers in an animal farm nearby. One is Swiss and a primary school teacher, the other works for the French multinational Alstom in Brasil. Yes, they look like you think they look! Two stereotypes! I ask Karl what the most silly question is a tourist ever asked him. He thinks for a moment and says: 'What do giraffes hunt?' In the thirties, there was a war between the farmers and the elephants, who ate or destroyed the crops. At some point, there were so few elephants left, that there was need for conservation. That was when Addo was created. Today about 600 elephants live here. As we are not in a self-drive, we get professional info from Karl. Close to one of the watering holes, a thirsty male appears from the fynbos and we enjoy the show. Slowly he fills his trunk, brings it to ...

Schotia, 18th of August 2018 – Kurt drove us to our tent in the middle of the park yesterday after dinner and closed the fence, promising he would be back at 7 a.m. We are the only ones sleeping in a tent in the park. Woohaa! Outside temperature minus 1° C, inside temperature plus 3°C. The night is full of strange sounds; we definitely hear the lions roar. The complimentary bottle of wine remains untouched.   I wake up at 5 a.m. and go outside for a pee. Flying from above the toilet hut, a yellow bird almost scalps me. At 7 a.m., we hear Kurt’s jeep. He is on time, must be his German genes! He helps me to light the small gas stove and I put on the kettle to make us some coffee. We slowly wake up to the sound of singing birds with the low sun in our faces. Now, our morning tour starts. This is the best part of the safari. The animals are in a state of slow motion, as if they are waiting for instructions. A giraffe slowly walks by and his cracking joints amaze us. Apparently, arthr...

Schotia, 17 th of August 2018 - From Wilderness, we drive along the N2 towards Port Elizabeth on the Garden Route. The weather is improving but the sun breaks through only when we get to our destination: Schotia Game Reserve. This private park is next to Addo Elephant Park and has the ‘big five’, the must for every tourist. Don’t know what the big five are? Lion, leopard, rhinoceros, elephant, and buffalo. Why those? They are the most difficult animals to hunt on foot. We are lucky because the four persons who had to be with us in the jeep, cancelled. Therefore, Karin and I have our own private ranger: Kurt von Maltitz. Where his ancestors came from is a no-brainer. On top of that, he has blond hair and blue eyes. We have to open and close a couple of gates and then Kurt skilfully manoeuvres his Landrover over the tracks. We spot warthogs (think of Pumba) everywhere, and kudus with impressive corkscrew horns. Not much later a couple of elephants. They do not seem to bother and do th...

Wilderness, 16 th of August 2018 – We leave Prince Albert, but first we have a wonderful breakfast in the elegant glasshouse of Dennehof. The sun is shining and tries to kill the morning chill, in the glasshouse there is a small heater. Fine white table linen, nice cutlery and a great selection of hot breakfast. The waitress is very friendly and speaks with a guttural ‘r’. ‘Arrrre you rrrready for brrrrreakfast?’ The soufflé is wonderful and so are the pancakes. Next to the glasshouse weaverbirds bring their nests to perfection, flying on and off and chirping extremely loud. We pay, cross the gate and drive towards the Garden Route. Almost at the coast, the sun makes way for rain clouds and soon the windscreen wipers are on maximum speed. Forced by the elements we immediately go to our hotel, the Dune Guest Lodge. It stands on a spit of dune between the Ocean and the Touwsrivier. ‘Some day it will be swallowed by the ocean, but those fools keep on building’, someone tells us later o...

Prince Albert, 15 th of August 2018 – We are heading to Prince Albert, a picturesque village in the Little Karoo. From Oudtshoorn it is only a stone’s throw but you have to get over the Swartberg Pass to get there. The 23km long pass is untarred and built by convicts about 140 years ago. ‘Can be driven in any vehicle’! Yes, but I would not recommend it in the rain. Towards the top the rocks and stones gently stroke our car chassis. A magnificent drive with many hairpins and great views. Here and there an isolated farm. We reach the tarred part and almost immediately drive into Prince Albert. In the tourist office, two bored girls give us a brief overview of this one-horse town. Wine and olive oil are the local export products. We go to the Soetkaroo wine estate in the Kerkstraat (less than one hectare) for a tasting. We go round the back and ring a bell. Nobody! We see the vines at the end of the garden. In this valley, the sun mercilessly radiates the grapes until they are thick wi...

Oudtshoorn, 14 th of August 2018 – ‘Ostrich Capital of the World’ is what you read in guidebooks about Oudtshoorn. Indeed, approaching the town we see more and more ostriches on each side of the road. There are show farms everywhere. Oudtshoorn used to supply most of the ostrich feathers to fashion houses all over the world. When the feather vogue was over, the farmers had to rethink their business. Today tourists watch these big birds in shows, their meat is low-cholesterol and from their eggshell they make beautiful things. Check out the African gift website of www.avoova.com . We decide not to go to a show farm and move to ‘Buffelsdrift’, a resort with tents around a pond in the middle of a private game reserve. ‘Thanks Romina and Wim for the tip’. From your luxurious tent, pitched high over a two-metre wall, you are virtually on the stage! In and around the pond it is teeming with wild animals. Antelope, elephants and hippos. By sundown, we see the hippos move out of the water ...

Montagu, 13 th of August 2018 – From Cape Agulhas it goes up straight north to the beautiful village of Montagu at the extreme West of the Kleine Karoo. On the A62, after a narrow passage through the Langeberg Mountains, lies the sleepy village in front of us. We check into the Mimosa Lodge, just around the corner of the tourist office where we inquired for accommodation. Colonial style, dating back to the mid 1800’s. In the garden in front of us, a sausage tree! I do not believe my eyes. Baboons like them, but unripe they are poisonous for humans. We walk the historic walk and have a glass of wine in a pub where we are the only visitors. On the TV we see our compatriot Thomas Pieters swing his golf club. Rather boring atmosphere. We pay and get a genuine A4-invoice for two drinks… In the room, the African winter evening takes over and gives everything an unpleasant chill. I discover a cast iron electric heating plate mounted on the wall. This is an area of zero insulation, single g...

Cape Agulhas – 13 th of August 2018 – From the wine area we drive south to Hermanus, where we want to spot whales. The sun has disappeared and it is pouring when we walk along the cliff path. At the Grotto Beach we are soaked and decide to go back to the hotel in Sandbaai. We will have to come back to enjoy this iconic place. In the hotel, I want to make tea, but our host jumps in front of me and says ‘Let me take care of that, or don’t you want to be spoiled? ’. The hot Rooibos tea warms me up and I peer through one of the many binoculars on the coffee table. No whales, no sharks, not a single sardine. We change quickly and go back to ‘The Burgundy’ in Hermanus. The Springbok Carpaccio is delicious and so is the Pinotage wine. With the wind and rain battering the single glazing, nobody wants to sit at the window with the ocean view. We have a good night’s rest; dozing off with the roaring Atlantic in the background is unique. The next morning we drive to Cape Agulhas, the southernm...

Franschoek, 10 th of August 2018 – It is a sunny day and we drive east to the wine making areas of Stellenbosch and Franschoek. Almost immediately upon leaving the airport, the harsh reality of this magnificent country hits us in the face. Hundreds of shacks line the motorway. Townships. Miserable dwellings in unpaved streets, a dangerous wire jungle of electricity cables tangled over the corrugated iron roofs. Remnants of apartheid. When racial segregation was imposed in 1902 and ‘whites-only’ areas were established, coloured people were forced to relocate to the outskirts of Cape Town and form communities, now known as townships. The contrast of extreme richness and absolute poverty will confuse us every single day we spend in South Africa. After driving miles and miles through vineyards, we enter Franschoek, a village established by French Huguenot refugees. We check into ‘The Ballon Rouge’ and go for a walk on Huguenot Avenue immediately after. Nice shops, wine tasting bistros, ...

Cape Town, 10 th of August 2018 – With one day delay we are finally on our way to Cape Town. We missed our flight to Frankfurt due to bad weather and subsequently our direct flight to Cape Town. After a free Lufthansa night in a Brussels hotel, we now fly over the droëland. The land below is the Karoo, a semidesert, where only the strong survive. The Airbus took off in Johannesburg and takes us in less than two hours to Cape Town. The flight is peaceful, as if there is no motor in the plane. I stare at the plane’s beautiful wingtip. The elegant black flight attendant wears a nice scarf with the rainbow colours, the colours of her nation. We enjoy our hot breakfast and then prepare for landing. It is calm at the airport. We go to First and pick up our car. A Dacia Duster with the steering wheel on the right, stick shift on the left. South-Africans drive on the left. First destination is Franschhoek, the Huguenot wine village. The beautiful wingtip of South-African, flying over ...