Like Sands Through the Hourglass...

That said, Southern Africa is a land of great countryside and crappy cities. That’s really true through out the world, but everything here seems to be amplified. The countryside is greater and the cities are much worse (Cape Town excluded) than almost everywhere else we’ve visited. And in terms of wildlife, S. Africa has the world beat, there’s an amazing diversity of things to see here.

To top it all off, it’s one of the few places we’ve traveled so far where the American Dollar is still strong! Thank goodness the currencies of Southern Africa are falling in value faster than the dollar, because you’ll need them all. Because transportation is so spotty and semi functional in this part of the world to get around you’ll either need to hire a car and drive yourself around or book yourself on a package tour – and neither option is cheap.

Travel in Southern Africa is one of the parts of the trip I have to admit I wasn’t super excited about, but it’s really exceeded all of my expectations, and I have to recommend you look into it.

All Your Base Are Belong to Us

Don’t Call Me Whitey…

First, I have never met a group of people as humorless and vaguely unfriendly at all times as white Southern Africans. Maybe it’s a result of being a ruling minority for over a hundred years, maybe it’s just the German blood coming out, but it’s hard to get a response from many of them even when you (try) to look them in the eye and wish them a good day – and I’m white like them! Somehow this hasn’t effected our (generally) good opinion of them.

And we’re constantly surprised at how many whites we see here. Everywhere we go, there they are: Namibia – full of Germans, Zambia and Zimbabwe – full of English and Dutch, South Africa – All of the above and a huge number of Portuguese for good measure. Many are members of old families that have been here for generations, and they consider themselves Africans, despite whatever problems they face this is their home.

But for how long will they be there? It’s apparent that there’s white flight, but one person we spoke to was taking it to the next level. One of our drivers in Kruger was a white Namibian living and working in South Africa. When we spoke to him about the future he shocked us by pointing at the back of his hand and saying “This isn’t a racist statement, but I’m just the wrong color for this continent.” Now, that is a racist statement, but what he said next was even more shocking to me. He was living and working in South Africa just long enough to qualify for a South African passport, then he was picking up the family and moving to Australia. It’s much easier to immigrate to Australia from S. Africa than Namibia as S.A. is a member of the British Commonwealth like Australia.

The Cult of Robert Mugabe

Almost as shocking is how Robert Mugabe, Zimbabwe’s leader, is held on high among African governments. Despite the fact that the country is a shambles and it’s estimated that 1/4 of the population has fled into neighboring countries illegally there are a surprising number of monuments to him around Africa.

In Johannesburg, where there are over a million Zimbabwean refugees, the main square in downtown is named after him. It’s not uncommon to look for an address on “Robert Mugabe Street” either. It seems that while most people will admit that he’s a bastard and not helping his country or his people he is “Their” bastard, and that is preferable to the alternative.

I’m not trying to talk anyone out of coming here, far from it. Many of these issues are the same that we encounter in the US, but here unlike the US people are much more open about their prejudices and much more determined to stick to their guns. It’s awful and interesting and familiar all at the same time.

Cape Town Rules

Why all the enthusiasm? Well, this place looks great (especially since we’re coming from Johannesburg), for one – you can walk the streets (how novel!), you can even walk many streets after sunset (amazing!) and most implausibly, there are things to do here! Within a block of our hostel on Long Street there is a Vegetarian restaurant, a Mexican restaurant, a bar that shows EPL soccer, an internet cafe a movie theater and laundromat. Have we arrived or what?

Those are just the creature comforts, the setting is also top shelf – Table Mountain sits behind the city and the Ocean is in front. The temperature is temperate and it even rains here – take that Jo’Berg.

The city is centered around the harbor area, which has been made a bit too sanitized by construction of a series of malls (think Fishermans Warf in San Francisco), it’s still beautiful. You can take the San Francisco analogy a bit farther by taking a ferry from the harbor out to Robben Island – South Africa’s version of Alcatraz. Nelson Mandela was imprisoned here for much of his 27 years behind bars, now (like Alcatraz) it’s been converted into a tourist attraction.

One of the many highlights here is a hike up Table Mountain. It stands some 2000 meters above the city streets below, so you can guess the view from the top is special. You’ll need to get good weather to really enjoy it though. And if you’re a bit tired from the hike up, luckily you can take a Cable Car down. It’s probably the best Cable Car you’ll ever ride, to take full advantage of the scenery the car spins 360 degrees around as you descend to the bottom.

Two Oceans

One of the big natural attractions outside of Cape Town is the Cape of Good Hope, where the Indian and Atlantic oceans meet. It’s protected as a national park and there are lots of great hiking tracks around the Cape area. LeeAnne and I rented a car for the day and drove down for a little sightseeing and hiking. I wish we’d had more time, if we ever come back it’d be great to spend a few days there hiking and camping.

Whales, Why’d It Have to Be Whales?

It’s Whale season in Cape Town and on our day trip we kept our eyes open for the elusive buggers, but we didn’t spot any. We did have more luck seeing African Penguins at the hatchery in Simionstown. It’s also Penguin hatching season and we saw literally hundreds of the cute little buggers.

All in all, I have to say we really loved Cape Town, and would recommend it to anyone considering spending time in SA. It’s the best place here by a long shot.

Try to Avoid it...

But we’re getting ahead of ourselves. Let’s start at the beginning: LeeAnne and I realized that our passports where slowly filling up. In fact, we probably wouldn’t have enough room for all the immigration stamps we’d get before returning to the states. The solution seemed easy enough – we’d go to the US Consulate in Cape Town and have them add extra pages, it’s a free service and it take 20 minutes.

Now, the issue is the location of the consulate. Despite all the empty office space downtown the US Consulate is located way, way, way out in the suburbs, past the train lines. We’d have to take a train, then a cab to get out there. Okay, no problem – we hop on a train and head out to “Retreat Station”.

Now, downtown there are cabs and buses flying left and right. Not so out in Retreat. Here there are only “Public Taxi’s”. So what is a Public Taxi? Public Taxi’s fill the void between Cabs and Buses, they’re independently operated like cabs, but carry a lot of people like buses. And in many African cities where public transportation is sparse they are the only option.

Here’s how it works: The Taxi’s are really vans converted to carry as many people as possible. Imagine 15 to 18 people in a minivan. They run set routes like buses, so don’t expect to get in, tell them where you want to go and have them drop you off there like a cab. You’ll have to whistle or yelp to get the drivers attention when you see where you want to get off.

From the train station you go to the taxi stand and ask someone which taxi will take you to a certain part of town. From there you load up and wait for the van to fill up, the driver won’t leave until he’s full. When you’re off on the road, keep an eye out for your destination (hard to do when it’s your first time in town), as the driver is not looking out for you.

We made it out to the embassy in something like a timely manner, had our pages added in nothing flat and then had to figure out how to get back into town. We were very open to non Public Taxi options so we consulted the good ladies at the Consulates main gate. “Where’s your car?” was their first question. They then gaped at us in disbelief as we explained we took a public taxi out – it seems there aren’t a lot of white tourists taking Public Taxi’s to the Consulate these days.

After taking a moment to grasp what we said they gave us directions to the nearest public taxi pick-up, told us not to pay more that 4.50 Rand and wished us the best of luck.

Overall, I’m glad we did it. It’s good to see how normal folks get around when you travel, but I’m glad we don’t have to go out to the Consulate again. Thanks Crazy Taxi.

Kliptown, Soweto

We visited quite a few landmarks throughout Soweto, but one highlight was certainly walking through Kliptown with Bob and learning about his work with the SKY Foundation. Kliptown is one of several townships that make up Soweto (South Western Townships). At the surface it didn’t seem significantly different than some of the squatter settlements that I have visited in South America. People live in varied housing from more established brick houses to small tin shacks, the water and sanitation services are limited at best (there are 18 water faucets for 45,000 people!), and there appears to be some sense of community and self help support.

The real difference seems to be that the townships were intentionally set up as part of a state strategy. These communities are not just the result of people leaving the countryside to look for opportunity in an urban area. Some of the first inhabitants of Soweto were forcibly removed from Sophiatown, a vibrant black community closer to Johannesburg. Once the houses were bulldozed, a new white suburb replaced Sophiatown.

I’ll admit that for me, Soweto was just the name of a township where I imagined a lot of poor black folk live. I had no real sense of how it came to be or the important role that it played in the fight against apartheid. (Did I miss this day in school? Probably not.) Similarly, I can remember talk of apartheid and the boycotts against South Africa back in the 80s, but I could never have grasped the extent to which people were oppressed.

Though this trip is equal parts fun and adventure, it’s also been an opportunity to better understand other peoples’ history and their struggles. No matter how much we learned (or didn’t learn) in school or by reading books, there’s no substitute for seeing, listening and experiencing first hand.