72. South Africa: Grahamstown - Ladismith to Capetown

This our penultimate post.  At the time we were getting pretty tired of traveling, 11 months and 20 countries, depending on what you consider a country.  This was winter and a Mediterranean climate is defined by winter rainfall, but this was not particularly comforting to a couple of hitchhikers. We had a financial reserve and we were a week from leaving so we were tempted to rent a vehicle and travel the last days more comfortably.  However we stuck it out and had some of our more memorable rides of the trip.  Due to the rain and clouds we traversed the famous “Garden Route” barely stopping.

Our route marked in yellow

Grahamstown – Port Elizabeth, South Africa, Sunday, 24 July, 1983

It was still overcast and raining when we got up, so you can imagine how enthusiastically we set off for a day of hitching.  We were kind of toying with the idea of getting to Port Elizabeth, or more likely George, and renting a car for going along the famous Garden Route or maybe “doing” the Cape.  We waited a good hour before someone finally took pity on the two bedraggled hitchhikers, but it was well worth the wait.

Fred Castleman was a tall, young, very distinguished man of, so he said, 26 years of age (we decided he had to be older to get in all of his experience) who is the Transvaal regional sales manager for Duracell Batteries.  Normally he works out of Johannesburg, but the last couple of weeks he’s been in Port Elizabeth hiring someone to work in the Eastern Cape region.  He was in Grahamstown because he’d been visiting an old friend who had recently taken up farming.  He was a very successful businessman, but his ambition had always been to farm in the Grahamstown area.  So he and his wife had invested everything they had in buying land and getting started in the sheep business.  Unfortunately the present drought started about then, and the farm has been going downhill ever since.  The friend has been forced to take a job in town.

Fred was coming away from his weekend at their home.  Not only had his friend taken to drinking, but Fred had had to do without the daily hot bath that he considers essential.  “I have to have my hot bath and hot cup of tea.” When he found out our intentions, he offered to take us to Port Elizabeth, have a cup of tea, and after he had checked out of the Holiday Inn, take us on to George.  All he had to do was be checked out by noon and see if the man he’d just hired could travel with him, then we’d be on our way.

As things turned out, Fred stopped by Peter’s (the new employee) apartment, they decided to stay put today and go to Oudtshoorn tomorrow, and Fred invited us to stay in his Holiday Inn room if we didn’t mind sleeping on the floor.  Ordinarily we would have refused his generous offer, but since it was still pouring rain, we couldn’t quite make ourselves hit the hitchhiking road again.  With little thought for the consequences, we followed him past the desk (we just stopped a second to pick up information pamphlets on rental cars) and up the elevator to his room.  After a good cup of tea (brought by room service) with Mrs. Horne’s rusks, Fred bathed and left to have dinner at Peter’s apartment.  We felt honored that he would trust us with the room, telephone, and his things after knowing us so short a time.  He is someone else who decided to stop for us because we were obviously foreigners and a couple.

While he was out all afternoon (playing Monopoly, as we later learned) we bathed, wrote and watched some rather trashy television programs.  It was a bit awkward when he returned, so Dan and I decided to go downstairs in search of some supper.  We were both in jeans, so we weren’t allowed in the a la carte restaurant.  We couldn’t bring ourselves to pay the 9 Rand at the other place, so we stooped very low and bought potato chips and a chocolate bar apiece.

After a decent interval, and feeling as though everybody watched us knowing we weren’t legal, we returned to the room.  His room has a good view of the sea, so we had a stormy panorama, complete with gray waves, all afternoon.

Fred had spent the last two nights helping with the animals at his friends’ farm, so we went to bed early.  He felt guilty about our sleeping on the floor, but frankly it was one of our nicest, coziest sleeps in a long time.  The last thing he did before going to sleep was to call the desk to arrange for a wakeup call at 530 with a cuppa.

Port Elizabeth – Ladysmith, South Africa 25^th July, 1983

(DAN) Fred was really mad when he awoke at 615… and no tea.  This was the third time that this had happened to him at this Holiday Inn.  He bathed and went to chew out the manager while we got ready.  It was still rainy and very windy (we later learned that Port Elizabeth got 5” the 24 hours we were there) when we set out.  We felt kind of guilty and worried that we’d be “found out”, but the man at the counter did not even look our way as we waddled through the lobby with our packs and bags.

As we understood it, Fred and Peter were going to first run down “the Garden Route” talking with store owners and teaching Peter the art of representing Duracell Batteries.  They were eventually going as far as Oudtshoorn but would be stopping periodically.  First they were going to stop at Jeffries Bay and we were to find another ride.  After a while they decided instead to go as far as Oudtshoorn, and work their way back up the coast in the morning.  We had wanted to spend longer than a day on the Garden Route, but it continued to rain and the famous coastal mountains were mostly hidden by clouds.  We went right through with them (700 km) To Oudtshoorn.

Even with the low clouds the scenery was beautiful, sometimes with the ocean on one side and the Tsitsikamma  Mountains on the right.  We drove though the reserves which are about all that is left of SA natural (Mediterranean climate?) forests.  There is a lot of commercial lumbering going on, but it is mainly plain pine forests.  What has been left “natural” is a true rainforest not unlike the upper Yungas areas.

We stopped to get a cuppa just across the Storm River Gorge so had a chance to walk around and look.  It is impressive with a suspension bridge 139 m high crossing it and falls with successive water fall faces that have been left standing while the water has cut a narrow gorge down.  In the restaurant was a busload of Spanish speaking tourists – Argentine.

Storm River Gorge

 

Storm River Gorge

The ocean side was not that fantastic as every time a nice beach occurs, so do a number of obstructive, nice beach houses.  Historically (White history, that is) the area is not that old, as the interior was settled by eastward movement overland.  George is the oldest in this area, started in 1812 (while Graaff Reinet, 1000 km north, and inland, was begun in 1786). 

We turned inland at George, right up into the Ontenigua Mountains.  Again the summits were hidden by clouds, but we got an idea.  They are some form of folded mountains and the rock faces had wonderfully warped and curved patterns.  Once across the pass (700m?) the climate gradually got drier and soon we were in “Little Karoo” vegetation.  Normally the Little Karoo only gets around 10” of rain and Natal 40-80, but the drought has not been nearly so severe here so the vegetation seemed more abundant in the “Little Karoo” than in Natal.  Evergreen scrub is how I’d characterize the vegetation.

 

Scene at the beginning of the Little Karoo

Once in the Little Karoo we began to pass the famous ostrich farms with herds of ostrich grazing in irrigated alfalfa (Lucerne) or on the scrubby uplands.  I never had this confirmed, but it appeared that the grey females grazed together in large herds while the prettier “bulls” grazed singly off in the distance.

We learned later that Oudtshoorn gets some of the most sun per year of any place, but, with our recent luck, it was raining when the Duracell men dropped us off on the street corner.  Oudtshoorn is about 25,000 strong (Whites) and a year ago we would have shrunk down back alleys finding the least conspicuous way out of town.  Now we just shouldered the packs and walked down Main Street looking for a place to eat.  Not a person failed to notice, but so what.  The only place evident was our friendly Wimpey’s so we set our pack in a corner and had lunch.

As we were finding seats we recognized Fred and Pete motioning us to their table.  Maybe Oudtshoorn is not so big after all.  They continued to act gracefully with us, apparently not caring that they were in their three piece suits while we were wet and khaki clad.  One thing that cropped up was that a year ago Fred spent his vacation at the Club Med resort in Mauritius.  This year he and his girlfriend went to the Orient for three weeks and their vacation cost half again as much as our entire year across Africa.

We left to buy food for a long hitchhiking stretch and managed to see them again twice on the street as they made their rounds.

We did not have luck right away getting a ride at the edge of town.  There is a big army base nearby and a lot of the traffic was generated by it.  It was interesting to see that they appear to segregate the army (not surprising) yet, rather than have all the drivers white and the workers in the back of the truck Coloured, Coloured trucks went by where everybody, including drivers was Coloured.  Others went by where everybody was White.

Finally a 1960 Mercedes Benz pulled over and offered us a lift as far as Calitzdorp. His friend, who was following behind in case of a breakdown was actually going to Ladysmith.  They decided that we should ride with the first man until Calitzdorp, but put our packs in the pickup that would then take us to Ladysmith.  I was not at all thrilled with the idea, but took the chance.  It was the first time on the trip that our packs were ever on a separate vehicle.  Both Helena and I thought to take down the license plate.

The ride was enjoyable.  We mainly passed through ostrich farming area and we discussed the fine points of raising these birds.  You stock them at a lower rate than you do cattle on the same ground.  They are grazers but only eat grass and the most tender shoots on the shrubs.  The effect is that land in ostriches is in beautiful shape compared to that which is being grazed by sheep.  The sheep will eat anything to the ground.  According to him, ostrich raising is the most prosperous agricultural venture around  The males feathers are hundreds of dollars per kilo, the meat as jerky sells at 18$ kg.  The egg shells, whole, sell for 6$.  But, the most profitable thing is the skin which is made into an unusual and highly sought after leather.  We later priced a small ostrich leather coin purse – 40$.

According to our ride this is the only place in the world where they are raised commercially.  All the growers belong to a cooperative and in fine South African tradition have a world monopoly.  Ostriches are not even grown in other parts of SA, just in the Little Karoo.

When we got to Calitzdorp our driver pulled up to a bar and informed us that he had promised the driver of the pickup a drink if he would follow him, so did we mind waiting?  We were hardly thrilled when our next ride disappeared into a bar for 20 minutes, but we did not have a choice.  Calitzdorp is a neat town at that, 200 years old with a lot of old, small houses.  It is the center of a wine area and the capital of the dried fruit industry.  What a nice climate it must have!  The Groot Swartberg Mountains (Great Black Mountains) were covered in clouds but you could imagine that on a clear day this placid setting would have huge mountains rising behind.

We continued our ride a bit apprehensively, but the driving did not seem to be affected, so we relaxed and enjoyed the ride.  Our benefactor was Johannes Eybers, a very portly man about 65 years old.  He is a retired plumbing and electrical contractor but has since retirement restored old houses for reselling.  His English was very labored, but we got along fine, and pretty soon he invited us to stay with him and the wife.  We asked what his wife would say.  He shrugged his shoulders and said, “We are Boers” (literally farmers). “My wife she don speak English good.”

We drove quite a way through extremely twisted and folded mountains.  We drove past farmsteads with Cape Dutch housing, from the big house down to the many small houses for Coloured.  Many of the latter were roofless and in decay as many Coloured people have left the farm to find work in the cities; there are not “townships” in this part of the country.

When we got to Ladismith, he first took us by the house he is currently working on.  One son works “with” and they have four Coloured workers.  Mr. Eybers talked kindly with them and later said, “Did you see me beat them or yell at them? We treat the Coloureds well here.”

We had a most educational evening.  Mrs. Eybers came in and welcomed us most graciously.  For supper we had what they said was typical Boer food:  boiled kudu meat, a kind of hominy, cauliflower chutney, pickles and squash.  Very good.   Apparently they do not have domestic help, at least not full time, and eating in the kitchen the atmosphere was very similar to a modern US farm kitchen. 

The Eybers, a most hospitable Afrikaaner couple

 

We had a discussion (heated on his side) all through the evening about the policies and future of SA.  He distrusts English speaking South Africans and resents that they still have strong ties to modern England.  He claims that they are not concerned about the future of South Africa because they can always “run back to England” or immigrate to Australia.  The Boers have no other home and are caught with all the blame for trying to preserve their lifestyle while the English enjoy the effects.

He says that the British and not the Afrikaans, are responsible for the division between the two White tribes.  He recalled the concentration camps and several other grievances that were discussed in the Covenant.  He spoke bitterly of the days of British domination, etc.

When we asked what he thought should be done about the problems that face SA, he simply insisted that all foreign countries let SA solve its own problems.  It was not the right moment to point out that SA is actively trying to solve Angola’s problems herself.

Though always hospitable he resented that we should come to SA for only one month and expect to know the situation.  “Not even a year is enough.” Later we showed him our money collection[1] and he in turn gave us some oldish SA coins, back in the days when they used pounds that had the Queen on them.  Then he brought out two big strips of kudu biltong (jerky).  He had shot the kudu himself and made the jerky in a room that is for that purpose only.  Biltong is the national food here.

It has been a long day, so we retired to our comfortable beds.

Ladismith – Capetown (KaapStad), South Africa, Tuesday, 26 July, 1983

(HELENA) We were a little late getting up, so Mr. Eybers was already out working on his house by the time we ventured out of our room.  Mrs. Eybers had coffee with us while we had the snackwiches (grilled cheese on kudu meat sandwiches) she had made for us.  We remembered to get our hosts’ picture (he came back to say goodbye.), although Mrs. was rather embarrassed and felt she should change out of her house coat.  She insisted on driving us to the edge of Ladismith even though it wasn’t all that far.  It was still overcast and drizzling, so she felt terrible about leaving us out on the road.  Both of them had pressed us to stay at least another night, but we’re in a bit of a hurry to get down to Cape Town.  She felt a little better after she’d asked the gas station to ask customers about giving us a ride and she left with a warm farewell (complete with a kiss on the hand for me).

We set our packs on the side of the road near the petrol station (after all, Mrs. Eybers had been kind enough to talk to the attendant), but before long we moved across to the left side of the road.  We prefer to hitch without help from other persons.  We were there about an hour (mostly local traffic, judging from the license plates) before a shiny new cream-coloured Mercedes Benz pulled over to the side of the road with no hesitation.

Jannie Maree (of French Huguenot descent, and thus of the Afrikaaner “side”, although his English was excellent) is a very well-to-do ostrich farmer who was on his way to a Cape Province agricultural convention in Cape Town.  I don’t know if he chose today to do a little propaganda for his business or not, but he was wearing a very elegant pair of ostrich leather shoes and was using a chic briefcase and key ring out of the same bumpy material.  No, he wasn’t wearing any ostrich feathers.  We admired all of that, but it wasn’t until we looked around in the Cape Town curio shops that we realized what a luxury ostrich leather is: $us 40.00 for a tiny change purse.

We started out the day expecting to head towards Swellendam, even though we’d been told that there isn’t much traffic on that highway, but it took us seconds to change our plans when Mr. Maree said that he was going to Cape Town.  It seemed a particularly wise decision especially because of the gloomy day.  So… we settled down to enjoy the three-hour long trip.  According to what people tell us, we missed seeing some spectacular mountains what with the cloud cover.  But it was still beautiful.  A lot of it (after we got out of the Little Karoo) was vineyards and fruit orchards, though being winter time, all was bare of leaves.  Even the towns were special with their white-washed, in some cases thatched, Cape Dutch architecture.

 

Cape vineyards

We really sped around those curves in the Merceditay, and Mr. Maree really resented it when we’d get behind a slow moving truck.  He was obviously looking forward to the time when they’ll have completed a long tunnel through the worst pass, maybe in 5 years.  “It will only be a two-lane tunnel, but it will be for the fast traffic; the trucks will have to take the old road.”

His was one of the few rides offered that didn’t touch the race question at all.  He was a very pleasant and informative companion, and invited us to stop for a cuppa, even though he was in a hurry to get to Cape Town for his 1400 meeting.  His father before him was also an ostrich farmer and he naturally hopes that his son will continue the business.  His wife’s family has a vineyard in Paarl, and he told us that Paarl is one of the most beautiful towns in the world.  We passed through Paarl´s outskirts and so didn’t get a close look, but as we came over the last pass before Cape Town, we could see Paarl at the foot of the mountains and could well believe him.  Again, in spite of his hurry, he stopped several times so we could get pictures of that spectacular approach to Cape Town.

More Cape vineyards

As we passed by Paarl, he point out the monument to the event when Afrikaans was recognized as a true language and the farm belonging to his brother-in-law.  It was as we went over that final pass that the weather cleared up, so we arrived in Cape Town under sunny skies.  A bit windy, but nice and sunny.  Mr. Maree dropped us at the downtown air terminal and was all apologetic about dropping us in the middle of nowhere. After a year hitching across Africa his concept of “middle of nowhere” is a bit different from ours. 

Dan and Capetown... the end is near

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[1] The entire collection was lost upon return to the US.  Dan was opening a car door and put the collection on the roof to better grip the door, and forgot to retrieve the collection.  Somebody somewhere near Houston, Texas happened on a unique money collection including truly rare ones like Mauretania.