radiac.net

So, with all of this politics stuff going on in the past few weeks, and with general elections rumoured to be just around the corner, I feel it is the right time to announce my intention to run for Prime Minister. So, without further ado, I present:

My Manifesto

(or Why You Should Vote For Me)

Click for full manifesto

I trust I can count on your vote?

Today I saw a hedgehog. It was a bit larger than I thought they were. It ran across in front of me and I followed it into a ditch. It was very cute.

I did a website last night, I thought it was nice, but it needs work. But I have a lot of other website stuff to do tonight, so no bed for me just yet.

I now have a passport, foreign money, plane tickets, rucksack, laptop and charged up camera batteries. I'm ready. Let's go to Saath Afreeka!

I should pack some clothes, huh...

I think I'm already! My bag is 5kg though, and I'm only allowed 5kg... I'm blatantly not going anywhere ;)

I hope I'll have internet access of some sort when I'm down there - if I don't, I'm back in 2 weeks, so watch for some updates and photos then :)

African Adventure Parts: 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10, 11, 12, 13

At some point in the next few months, I'll be re-jigging this website, and re-writing the diary to allow me to do posts like this a bit more sensibly. But for now, you will have to bear with the slightly odd layout and until I add time zones, you can take all entry times to be local (I'll fiddle them manually). I really should have planned my internet requirements a bit better before I left - but more about that in part 4 :)

I don't know when I'll be able to post my diary entries, but I'm writing them offline and just sticking them on whenever I get the chance. Because I'm writing them when there's nothing else to do does mean that they can be quite rambling.

For those who have no idea what I'm doing in South Africa, I'll give you a little introduction. I am friends with Paul, the head of music at my first school, and a few months ago I told him of my plans to have a year or so off and do some travelling after university. He told me that he was going to South Africa for a term and invited me to come over. He has swapped with Amke, a teacher from a school in the suburbs of Johannesburg, and as his half term starts halfway through this week, we thought now would be a good time for my South African Adventure.

Day One - Thursday 14th October
I finished packing just as my dad arrived, and after double checking I had my contact lenses and laptop (clearly the two most important things I'm bringing), we set off. I was told to check in about 3 hours before my flight, so leaving at 5 seemed like a good idea. And it was, because as soon as we were on the M23, a police car went flying past on the hard shoulder, and the traffic promptly ground to a halt. "Yay for traffic jams", I thought to myself. "Well, I can always run to the airport." But the traffic started crawling, and after a while we drove past a single car parked on the hard shoulder with no sign of damage. Then the traffic sped up, so I don't really know what was up with that. Still, arrived at Gatwick early, checked in on time, and got into duty free with plenty of time to spend (do you see what I did there?). Unfortunately, what I hadn't counted on was the fact that Dixons were a rip-off - even with duty taken off, their mp3 players were still far more expensive than their internet rivals, so I gave up on that idea and hoped for more luck in Dubai.

The flight to Dubai was pretty good. Although I had flown before, this was the first time that I had flown on my own, or at least without any supervision - the time I went to America I was under 16, so was escorted to and from the plane. I was therefore rather concerned with the procedures, not least the security checks, but they didn't even ask me to turn on my laptop to check my battery was not made from C4. I was almost disappointed. Once on the plane, I watched a couple of disappointing films, ate a couple of meals, and gave up on any thought of sleep. Although I should have had an aisle seat, I was asked to move so that a guy could sit next to his girlfriend, and being the nice person I am, I did so, and ended up in the middle of the 4 middle seats. We were fed a meal, I waited until we were over France before I went to the toilet to empty my bladder, and then the people in the seats either side of me promptly fell asleep purely so that I couldn't get up any more. So I spent the next few hours feeling rather cramped, and mildly concerned at how close to Baghdad we were going. Still, I shuffled around and emerged the other end mostly undamaged, apart from a slight general body ache.

Day One, Take Two - Friday 15th October
The first thing that struck me when I stepped off the plane in Dubai was how hot and humid it was. The next thing was someone's carry on luggage, quite hard, right in the back of my head. Being something ridiculous like 6am local time, it took me a while to remember that I had to walk down the steps, but I did eventually. Part of the reason I hung around at the top of the steps for so long was because I was looking at the airport. For those of you who haven't been there, Dubai has a massive airport, the tarmac goes on forever, and almost every plane belongs to Emirates. Not really a surprise I guess, it being the national airline, but it was all rather impressive, especially the hangers that stretched for literally as far as I could turn my head without turning my body. To be fair that wasn't very far, due to my now crippling neck and back ache, not to mention my headache, but the hangers were still pretty big.

Going through Dubai was mostly painless - after a quick scan of my bag, I was into duty free once again. This time everything was a bit cheaper, but amazingly they didn't have anything that I wanted. So I settled for a small bag of chocolates to keep my energy up (it was 6am), and 4 bottles of water because I was so thirsty, and then wandered off to the departure lounge for my flight to Johannesburg.

I am currently sitting on the plane. I've been a bit luckier this time - I have a window seat, right at the back (literally the last window). This is really good - due to the shape of the plane back here, I have lots of room for my hand luggage and stuff down next to my seat. Very handy. I have had a couple of hours snooze, but the lady woke me up to give me some food and I haven't been able to get back to sleep over the relentless chatter of the engines and the constant drone of my fellow passengers, so I watched 'Supersize Me' instead. According to the flight map, we're now over South Africa, but all I can see are lots of little fluffy clouds. Still, shouldn't be long now!

Next part

African Adventure Parts: 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10, 11, 12, 13

While the rest of the flight was uneventful, the landing was quite alarming - I'm sure planes shouldn't be able to turn at 90 degrees without falling out of the sky, and when we actually hit the runway, we rocked violently from side to side and I thought I was going to die. I clearly didn't, but by the time we had come to a stop, it was raining. Joke.

And the jokes just kept on coming - since I pretty much had the last seat on the plane, I ended up on the last bus to the terminal, and then because the person in front of me had a problem with his passport, I ended up being the last one through customs. However, Paul was there waiting for me, and we set off for home. Unfortunately he didn't know the way back, so we turned the wrong way out of the airport and went for 30 minutes in the wrong direction before we noticed. By the time we got back to the right road it was dark, and then rather than getting to the house in the suburbs, we ended up right in the centre of the city, and had to drive for 20 minutes back out again. When we were nearly there, we stopped and bought some tomatoes from the local 'Pick n pay'. I love the names of the shops here.



I had heard stories about security in South Africa, and Amke's house is no disappointment. First there are 3 electric security gates into the complex, followed by a padlocked cage to keep the car, and a large security gate over the front door to the apartment. Every door and window then has bars across it - for example, the back door has a locked security gate, and the door itself is not only locked, but it is also padlocked to the wall. But the house is very nice and is quite spacious.

Once I had put my bags down, we went out again for dinner and my first real experience of Johannesburg. The main difference between here and London seems to be that there are security guards everywhere. Most of the shops and menus are essentially the same - we went to somewhere very similar to Cafe Uno, so I had pasta. And then we went home and I was in bed by 11pm, which was only 10pm UK time - reasonably early, I thought...

Day Two - Saturday 16th October
Unfortunately, what I had not really considered was that we had to leave the house at 8. And, as many people can testify to, to be ready by then I'd better get up at about 5.30. Having calculated this the night before, I had set one alarm for then, and another for quarter of an hour later, just in case. But like I said, in my mostly-awake-for-36-hours-and-the-rest-of-the-week state, I didn't really consider the fact that I'd only get 6 hours sleep and have to get up at 4.30 UK time, so it was a bit of a shock when my watch went off at what was to me 4.45. I'm still tired.

Anyway, I figured out how to use the shower, got dressed, packed some stuff, and left the house with Paul, following Amke's cousin Albert and his wife Elma in their fancy truck thing. We drove north-east for a while, and stopped at a small shop at the side of the road, selling biltong.

Biltong is a South African delicacy. We eat chocolates, they eat this - dried, shredded meat. Note how 'meat' is not animal specific, so I'm still not sure what it came from, just that it was something that bleeds. And I believe my bit had hair.

After this short stop, we set off again, and a couple of hours later we arrived at Pilanesburg National Park.

This place is great. It sits in between mountains created by volcanic activity, and is brimming with wildlife. I saw elephants, giraffes, zebras, hundreds of random (apparently exciting) birds, cheetahs, wildebeest, things I kept calling wildebeast but apparently weren't, impalas, baboons, hippos and rhinoceroses (rhinoceri?). I also saw a lion, but sadly no tigers, so I haven't disproved the theory, yet. During the day we saw two male impalas fighting over the ladies (they have harems of up to 30, apparently), a rhino protecting her baby, and a hippo grazing a few feed away from a hide, zebra wandering on the road past our car, and a giraffe that thought about coming up to us at a restaurant, but decided against it.



It was awesome. Sure, it's a typical touristy thing, but I don't care. Doing the safari thing was one of the top things on my list of things to do in my time off, and I am really glad it was - although some people said it was nothing special, just like visiting a zoo, it's actually more like visiting a zoo in 125,000 acres of fantastic national park, driving all day with nothing but beasties, mountains, trees and grass for as far as the eye can see.

And to finish the day, Paul and I drove to a hotel thing just around the corner to stay and eat food, and having done that, I'm now off to bed.

Next part

African Adventure Parts: 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10, 11, 12, 13

Day Three - Sunday 17th October
Another ludicrously early morning. Had to wake up at 7.30 (6.30 UK time) so that I'd be ready for breakfast. Food was conventional, but the juice was most disappointing. Having checked out, we set off for Sun City, which is right next to the Pilanesburg national park, sitting in between a couple of the mountains, and so just around the corner from where we were staying.

"Oooh, I lived in Johannesburg for a couple of years! Make him take you to Sun City, it's fantastic!", said the woman at the place I bought my plane tickets.

Well, it was certainly different. We paid a small entrance fee, and, full of anticipation, parked the car and rode the Sky Train into the city.

Well, 'city' is the wrong word really. The legend goes something like thousands of years ago, a people came to Pilanesburg and created a city. Then the volcanoes trashed it, the people fled, and it was up to the Sun corporation (no, I doubt there's any relation between them and the people who wrote Java) to clear the vegetation and sort it out ready for the tourists. This legend was, in fact, invented by the Sun corporation, and it's actually just a holiday resort, built in the 1980s, along with it's 'Sky Train' and curious 80s architecture. In the 1980s, gambling was illegal in this country apart from in the homelands (areas granted sham self-rule by the government to appease the natives), and since Sun City was one of these, it was incredibly popular. I got the impression that since the legalisation of gambling, it has struggled a bit.

But having said all of that, it really is a lovely place. Beautiful surroundings, friendly people, lots to do, and the best orange juice I have ever had. But more about that later. The resort was quite spread out; there were 4 or so hotels, an 'entertainment' centre (read eating, drinking and gambling), a water park thing with slides and stuff (that we never actually found), and a large lake with various outdoors water-based activities.

When we arrived we went into the entertainment centre and did a spot of gambling. Well, we played the one-armed bandits. I started off with 40 rand on my card, almost immediately winning over 20 rand. I promptly lost it all, put in another 20 in an attempt to win my money back, and I did, with interest - at one point I was up to 70 rand! Woo! But Paul wasn't finished, so I kept playing and ended up with 40 again. At that point I decided to cash out, and I got my 40 rand back - approximately £4. Hey big spender...



After the gambling binge, we went for a drink, and then decided it would be a neat idea to figure out what else you could do at this place if you had forgotten your swimming stuff. We had heard that the palace gardens were pretty good, so headed off in that direction. Paul then decided that it would be the perfect opportunity to have a diabetic sugar low, so I got him high on Sprite and pizza, then sent him off to the car to shoot up with some insulin.

As an aside to those of you who remember the days of my Sprite addiction, I'm finding it extremely hard here, and have given in to the urge more than once. Everywhere you go is selling Sprite, or giving you Sprite and then asking for money and tips, or waving Sprite at you from behind the little glass doors of the millions of vending machines. I haven't quote broken the 5/day mark yet, but there's plenty of time for that.

So, once I had packed Paul off, I found that I was thirsty. It being about 11am and me having already drunk 3 Sprites, I decided to see what else there was to drink in this country, and found my new favourite shop ever. Apart from play - don't worry guys, I won't abandon you. This shop is called Juicy Lucy (told you shops in SA have great names), and it sells juice. Such very, very good juice. They have lots of different fruits, but I went straight for orange. And it was good. I had a 500ml glass of it, and I must say that I haven't ever had any juice as good before, ever. And that includes Tropicana. If anyone from Juicy Lucy is reading this and thinking of opening stores in Bath and Sevenoaks, you can't fail, just as play about their business model.

Upon Paul's return, we set off for the Sun City palace and gardens. The palace is actually a hotel, but we didn't realise this until we were there. It would have been nice to have had a map of Sun City, because then we would have understood why there are busses to take you everywhere. Or it would have been nice if they had given us a bit of paper explaining that if you want to go to the palace and gardens, you have to book a tour in the information centre before going up, otherwise the people at the door will stop you from going in and will send you straight back down again. So we didn't bother seeing the gardens.

We did, however, see Animal World, which was quite curious. Not curious that we saw it, but curious that somewhere that calls itself 'Animal World' should only be home to a couple of guinea pigs, a few goats and a large black pig. But we saw it nonetheless, and wandered around the bird aviary. After that we found ourselves by the lake and watched people paragliding, before getting on a boat and being guided around the artificial lake, with the lady pointing out various bird varieties. The South Africans appear to like their birds. The whole afternoon was quite surreal, but enjoyable nonetheless, and once it was over we headed back to the entertainment centre for some dinner. I got to choose the restaurant - Juicy Lucy. We had a sandwich, and the lady who took our order luckily misunderstood when I attempted to cancel the large orange smoothie and replace it with a large orange juice, so I ended up with both. 1.5L of orange juicy goodness. Mmm. Then we drove back to Johannesburg in the dark, but didn't get lost once.

Day Four - Monday 18th October
Finally, a lie-in! I think I have mostly caught up with my sleep now, after sleeping for about 12 hours. Paul went off to work extremely early and I just slept until I woke up at about 11. At about midday, I had a phone call from tonbschl telling me that there was an emergency with the website - turns out an event needed moving in the calendar from Saturday to Thursday, but I couldn't get on the internet to fix it, so it'll have to wait. I spent the rest of the day doing stuff on my laptop and charging batteries for my various toys before Paul returned at 4. I should point out that he had locked all of the security gates when he left in the morning, so I actually had no way of getting out of the house until he returned, short of breaking windows and angle-grinding off the bars. We then went off for a drink at the local shopping centre, and then went off to a different shopping centre for a meal with someone that he works with, which was very enjoyable. They warned us about some things we might come across in Cape Town, like how we shouldn't drive along a certain road in the dark because people will throw stones at the car, wait until we pull over to check the damage, and then come car-jack us and bury us in a ditch. At this point Paul described our journey home the night before, in the dark, and they looked shocked then laughed and said that was far more dangerous than cape town, because we went through 3 poor areas - after surviving that, we'll be fine. Joke!

Next part

African Adventure Parts: 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10, 11, 12, 13

Day 5 - Tuesday 19th October
Are you getting bored by now? I am. I've just spent the past, err, 2 hours sorting through nice e-mails I want, random e-mails I don't want, and typing out my diary entries. I really wish I'd remembered my USB key, or at least bought a USB floppy drive. Wireless doesn't appear to exist in South Africa. Neither does fast internet - this connection is slower and laggier than my mobile phone. Still, it's not costing me, so it's better than nothing. Having been without internet for 4 days has made me realise how addicted I am to it, so it's probably not a bad thing that I mostly won't get online for another week or so.

This morning I came into the school that Paul is teaching at, and have pretty much been sitting on the internet ever since. It's amazing how many e-mails there are to get through, and I haven't even started on slashdot or sluggy yet.

That's not to say I've only been using the computer - I've had a look around the school, and watched Paul help with a choir rehearsal in the chapel. It's a lovely place, and its grounds are huge.

I'll probably be on the computer again a bit later - Paul is working till 4. But now I think I might go for a wander outside and see what I can see.

Next part

African Adventure Parts: 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10, 11, 12, 13

After I left the internet, I wandered the grounds of the school for a while, before bumping into the lady we'd had dinner with the night before. She's organising a design technology conference, and I somehow got roped into helping to pack bags for the delegates. There were pens, but I didn't get one; instead I was given a Sprite and a cake. Guess I can't complain too much, although it took Paul 3 hours to finish what he was doing and come rescue me...

That evening, we returned to the school for a concert. It was soloists and groups, and it was all quite good. What suddenly dawned on me towards the end though was that of about 40 items, only one piece was native African - a piece played on the mbira, by the son of the mbira teacher, and amongst the pianists and wind players playing classical European music, it felt to me more like amusement for the audience - here's something native, isn't it quaint? I realised that I was sitting in a school that essentially the same as the schools I went to in England, and that it had lost virtually nothing in its journey to this suburb of Johannesburg. I was sitting in a predominantly white school in a predominantly black country, listening to music from home, in a building from home, in an establishment from home. I have felt it before on this trip, but I think that this was the first time that I actually figured out what it was that was wrong; that my country and others like it felt they had the right to come over here and stamp out the indigenous people, their culture, their entire way of life, and that in the hundreds of years since they arrived, they have been so insular that they haven't stepped outside their compounds to see what the country is really like, to such a degree that the European culture has survived virtually intact. So I sat through the rest of the concert a little disillusioned, and wondering whether the rest of the country was like this.

The next day suggested that it was.

Day Six - Wednesday 20th October
I had a bit of a lie in, and Paul returned from school at about 10 and took me over to Sandton City Shopping Mall.

For those who don't know, Sandton is apparently the rich bit of Johannesburg, and Sandton City accordingly the biggest shopping mall in the city. And I was here until Paul finished teaching at 4.30. While some people may think that 6 hours of shopping is even better than sliced bread, which is pretty damned neat, I was slightly concerned that I may get bored. So the first thing I did was go to a cinema and get rid of a couple of hours by watching 'The Bourne Supremacy', which was quite good.

Getting to the cinema, however, had been a bit of a shock. Here I was in Africa, walking past exact clones of 'Accessorize', 'Claires' and 'The Body Shop', past shops that were identical to Marks and Spencers, Waterstones, J&B Sport and Clinton Cards (often having the same colour scheme on their logo), spread out by big-name shops such as Gucci, with the occasional tiny shop full of tourist trash. After the film I spent several hours going through all of these and found them to be exactly how I had guessed they were on the way past.

Still, I was here with a task to perform - holiday gifts.

I hate buying presents. I really do. Accordingly it's the bit of going on holiday that I dread - people at home pretty much expect a present of some sort - fair enough, I would too if I was in their position - but I never know what to get, because the present must be related to the country, but it can't be tacky or useless because where's the point in that. The last full day of my holiday to America (6 years ago now? Eep) was basically spent going around shops looking for presents, and it rather spoiled the end of my holiday. I therefore decided that on this trip I would buy presents as close to the start of the holiday as possible, so I had the second half free to enjoy.

Unfortunately, it wasn't to be. Everything 'African' is incredibly cheap and tacky, and everything else is just like home. Who would like a Zulu-style wooden spoon? Or a stuffed toy lion perhaps? No? How about a crudely carved wooden giraffe? Or perhaps a tacky plastic bead necklace would be more to your taste? Seriously, it's either this rubbish or things from the non-tourist-trash shops, which are all identical to the ones back home - where's the point in buying someone a book or a cd or something, especially as it's cheaper back in the UK...

So, having bought myself a zulu-style wooden spoon and a crudely carved wooden giraffe, I gave up on the whole presents idea and went off to find somewhere to eat. Deciding I wanted something different to home made this task quite difficult - I walked past McDonalds, Wimpy, a Cafe Uno clone, somewhere that had a menu remarkably similar to Pizza Express, promptly gave up and went to somewhere called 'Global Wrapps'. I ordered the most exotic things on the menu - a Mexican chicken wrap, and a strawberry and banana milkshake. They were both very nice, and I am currently sitting with the empty wrappers in front of me, waiting for Paul to ring me and tell me he is outside waiting to collect me.

Next part

African Adventure Parts: 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10, 11, 12, 13

That evening, after Paul had collected me, we went round for dinner at the home of someone he works with. Their home is actually on the school campus - the school has a vast amount of land, and on it they have built houses for their staff to live in. We had roast lamb which was delicious, and then went on to a concert, although neither Paul nor I were quite prepared for what we were about to see.

It was a boy band concert.

Not just any boy band, but an Afrikaans boy band. They started off singing some of their songs, which are apparently doing very well in the South African charts - I personally wouldn't have bought them, partly because they were mostly in Afrikaans and partly because I don't want to give people the wrong impression regarding my sexual preference, but after their short introduction, they started singing Abba and Beegees medleys, which was quite surreal. At one point one of them performed what I assume was a comedy sketch, but even though it was in Afrikaans and I didn't understand a word of it, I found it funny (although probably for different reasons to the rest of the audience). But it was a most entertaining evening, and the rest of the (middle-aged mixed-sex) audience agreed. This is a strange country indeed ;)

Day Seven - Thursday 21st October
I have now packed my bags and am sitting in the living room waiting for Paul to get back from school so that we can leave for Cape Town. I'm watching the TV - it's a soap in Zulu. I can't understand a thing, but it's great - the acting is atrocious. A girl just passed out, and a woman came running in screaming along to some rather dramatic music. Then a man came along to see what all the racket was, said something that appeared to mean "Oh, it's just that stupid girl passing out again", and wandered off. And then there's the girl who keeps ringing people; I think she's prank calling them. Bored now, I'm going to see what else is on.

Next part

African Adventure Parts: 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10, 11, 12, 13

Today we flew to Cape Town. The teacher from last night gave us a lift to the airport, and I had an uneventful flight, apart from being asked to swap seats yet again so that a girl could sit next to her boyfriend. Almost every flight I have ever had I have been asked to do that - and I bet you if when I get on a plane with my girlfriend and we're separated by a row, nobody will swap for us. Still, it made them happy and cost me nothing, so who cares.

After we landed, we picked up a funny little blue car that smells of wet dog, drove to the hotel called 'Cape Castle', and checked in. They had us down as Mr and Mrs Woodward-Terry, and, confused by the fact that we ordered a twin room, had pushed the beds together to make a kind of double bed, which was both amusing and extremely disturbing. So we swapped a bedside table over, and all is well.

Once we had sorted out our stuff, we walked to the Victoria and Alfred Waterfront. Yes, walked. In the dark.

Paul is fearless, but mostly because he doesn't see the things to be fearful of; he has walked around Newtown (a poor suburb of Johannesburg, somewhere between Sandton and Soweto) on his own and someone tried to mug him, and then he was apparently going to go into Soweto on his own, before someone at his school told him that this was suicidal and that he should get a guide to take him into the safe bits. So, we walked to the Waterfront, in the dark, with me constantly saying "We're going to die!" and him repeating "We'll be fine!". We made it there alive, ate some food, and somehow made it back without incident. Once back at the hotel I went to my book and read out the passage that says "Although it's tempting, don't walk between the city and the Waterfront - muggings are common". Next time, I'm making him drive.




Next part

African Adventure Parts: 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10, 11, 12, 13

Day Eight - Friday 22nd October
We started the day by heading into wine country, and for Boschendal wine farm in particular. As I think most people know, the cape is renowned for its fruit and wine production; wine production started here when the french, not content with contaminating one country, wandered through and decided that the flat land between the cape mountains would be a perfect place for vineyards. After a while the vineyards became infected and were sold off cheap to someone who replaced them all with fruit farms. In recent years many of them have had vineyards re-introduced, and Boschendal is one such farm.

First we were given a tour of the wine making facilities. We were in a group of 6, and purely by chance they were all from the UK, two from Badgers Mount (just around the corner from home), which we thought was quite a coincidence. We were shown where the grapes were loaded into the crusher, forced into the fermentation vats, and then loaded into barrels and stored until ready for bottling and sales.



After that it was on to the wine tasting - we got to choose 5 wines, plus any expensive ones at R6 each. I chose 5 normal ones, and the most expensive one on the list, which apparently had a forward nose of cassis and chocolate flavours. I was quite disappointed at the distinct lack of chocolatiness - although it was pleasant, I think I preferred the Le Pavillon Rouge 2003, a delightfully unassuming and affordable wine, which is youthful, ruby-coloured and packed with upfront berry fruit and aromas. And a particularly fine year too.

Having pointed out to Paul that buying 15 bottles of wine would be a bad plan since we're flying back, we went around the corner to Le Pique-Nique (still at Boschendal). As you may have guessed, this was a picnic, and it was absolutely brilliant. The french may not have manners or be house trained, but they sure do make a good picnic. We were given an absolutely enormous basket each; mine had a spinach, cream cheese and red pepper marmalade roulade to start, followed by snoek pate and cucumber and herbed feta hummus and an entire massive french bread to myself. Then there were three different types of cold meats with two different salads. Then there was cheese and biscuits before the ice cream and chunky berry sauce in a wafer basket. I ate nearly all of it, and felt very full. Paul had two bites, gave up, and got the man to pack it all up to take home. Wuss.



I waddled back to the car and we went back to the waterfront (by car all the way this time, woo!), and went into the aquarium. Before we left Johannesburg, we were given several lists of things to do, and the aquarium was on one somewhere. While I have been to aquariums before, I hadn't ever been to one in South Africa, so that made the whole experience a lot more worthwhile. No, I do it an injustice - it was very good. Cape Point is where the Indian and Atlantic oceans meet - as a result on one side of the cape you have animals that like warm water, and on the other those that like cold, and the aquarium reflected this. There were lots of fish, eel-type things, a kelp forest, a large shark enclosure where you can actually go swimming with them - if I had had more time I assure you that I'd have been straight in, but unfortunately we were a bit pushed for time... what a shame...




Next part

African Adventure Parts: 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10, 11, 12, 13

Day Nine - Saturday 23rd October
The start of today was quite typical:

Paul: "We have a tour booked around Bo-Kaap today."
Me: "Around who?"
Paul: "I don't know, my book said something about it, so I booked it."

And I'm very glad he did.

When we arrived, we found out that Bo-Kaap is the Muslim area of Cape Town, and is home to the cape's first mosque. With many of the people who live there descended from Malay slaves, the area was declared a coloured area by the government, who started forced removals of the people to the townships outside Cape Town in order to re-use the land for the business city's hotels and skyscrapers.

We went to the Bo-Kaap museum first of all, where we were met by our tour guide. She led us around the small museum, where she explained some of the history of Bo-Kaap, explained some Muslim customs and then took us off on a short walk around the buildings in the area, pointing out various features and explaining everything, from why some windows have deeper window sills, to how the apartheid racial classification worked in practice. She even took us into a corner shop to buy us some Malay sweetmeats to try, and they were very tasty.

She was clearly very passionate on the subject, and, living in the area, seemed to know everyone who was there. This made the whole area seem very friendly, and I was impressed by the resulting sense of close community, something we see very little of in this country these days. After the previous days of the shopping malls and casinos of modern westernised South Africa, the whole experience was extremely valuable and fascinating, and it really gave me an insight into how the country used to work and how it works now.



Once the tour had ended, we drove over to the Waterfront and got a ferry to Robben Island. This went through many transitions - at one point it was a leper colony - but for most of its inhabited history it has been a prison of one sort or another. It is probably most famous for being the place where Nelson Mandela was imprisoned for most of his sentence. It was a very good and worthwhile experience, where we were led around and shown what's on the island and given a small amount of history, before being taken on to meet a former inmate who discussed his experiences. The whole trip was good right up to the point when the former prisoner told us that his book was on sale in the gift shop, which somewhat destroyed the atmosphere of the place.



That evening we met up with my art teacher from my first school (a friend of Paul - they had worked in the same building at the same school for 12 years), and we had an extremely tasty dinner out at the first restaurant that I had visited in South Africa that sold something other than pasta, pizza or burgers. I ordered some kingklip (like cod) with melted cheese, and it was delicious. I then couldn't decide between the four different types of chocolate pudding, so I went with the waitron's advice and had the 'Chocolate Nemesis' - very nice.

Day Ten - Sunday 24th October
Today we met up again with my art teacher and her husband - although they were on a tour of South Africa, they had the day off, and since Paul had a car, we all spent it travelling around the cape. Our plan was originally to go up Table Mountain for breakfast, but unfortunately the cable cars were all closed and they advised against walking up, so we moved to the next thing on our list - Chapmans Peak Drive, one of the most scenic costal drives in the world, and in parts it really was quite stunning. Then on to Simonstown, where we visited Boulders Beach, home to African penguins - they started off about 20 years ago with just 2 pairs, but they breed like bunnies so now there's about 3000 of them. Although I had seen penguins before, they had not been in the wild, but since these ones were just lying around on the beach and not running off into the ocean I wasn't too impressed.




We then went on through to the Cape of Good Hope National Park. Which, as you may have guessed, covers the end of the cape. This national park is apparently home to zebras and eland and various antelopes, but they must have all been out for the day because all we saw were baboons and tortoises. Got to Cape Point, took lots of photos of it and the Cape of Good Hope just across the bay, and then we went and had lunch in a restaurant there.



On the way back to Cape Town, we stopped at Cecil Rhodes' home, the house where he died. He was sent to South Africa from England due to ill health, got rich mining diamonds, consolidated the various mines into De Beers Consolidated Mines, becoming one of the richest men in the British Empire. He was one of the great empire builders, basically founding Rhodesia (named after him, and which at one point consisted of Zimbabwe, Zambia, and Malawi) by getting mining rights and permission from Britain to colonise it and its resources, and he became Prime Minister of the cape colony. He was a big character in the history of Britain and Southern Africa, helping in the Boer War and working on his vision of running a railroad from the Cape to Cairo and getting the whole of Africa under British control. But he died at the age of 49, with the words "So little done, so much to do". The museum was small but packed with information about him and his life, and was a fascinating insight into the earlier history of the cape from the other side of the coin to the Bo-Kaap slaves.




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African Adventure Parts: 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10, 11, 12, 13

Day Eleven - Monday 25th October
Being our last day in Cape Town, we wanted to see the view from the top of Table Mountain. And as it's only 1073m, we thought we might as well climb it. So we went to the Waterfront for supplies in case we got lost or stuck (water and chocolate), and headed for the cableway station at the bottom. Unfortunately, on our way over we noticed that the tablecloth was on (there were clouds pouring off the top) which wasn't a good sign, and sure enough when we got there, they said the mountain was far too windy for the cable car. I managed to persuade Paul that climbing a mountain in the middle of a cloud might be just a little dangerous, and that even if we survived to the top, it would be a little pointless since we wouldn't be able to see anything, so we decided to wait for the afternoon.

We passed a couple of hours by going back over to the Waterfront again, this time for a drink and a last wander around. We saw that the clouds had lifted, and rang the cableway station again, who said that they were now open. Result! But when we got there, they said that they advised against walking, on account of how incredibly windy it was. Never mind - we got the cable car instead. We wandered around on the top for a few hours, and I spent that time taking lots of photos and generally standing as far away from the edge as possible. What can I say, I'm a wuss.



After coming down the mountain, we went around the corner to the last of the famous bits of Cape Town - Kirstenbosch National Botanical Garden, situated in approximately 2,000 acres of land at the bottom of Table Mountain, and home to almost half the 22,000 South African plant species. But in the visitors centre, I found it was home to more than just plants - I found an i-point! But there was no information on spousal abuse to print out, and there wasn't even any e-mail facility. Bitterly disappointed, we went into the gardens themselves.

Growing up with two keen gardeners, I have been dragged around a fair number of gardens as a child and have therefore seen some of the best in England, but I was impressed with the scale of Kirstenbosch and variety in the plants they had, not to mention the backdrop of the mountain we had just been up. Not really a gardener myself, I was mostly just impressed by all the pretty colours, and I rather liked The Dell because there was a river and a pond, where I saw a frog swimming, which I'd never seen before. At one point we got extremely lost, but I figured out how to make the electronic guide we had been given speak in German, so we wandered around for a bit listening to someone explain the plants we were looking at in a language that neither of us understood, which I found far too amusing. I'm sure if I had been an avid gardener I would have loved exploring the different varieties of palm-like plants, but they all looked the same to me so I can't help but feel that the experience was a little wasted on me, but I enjoyed it nonetheless and I reckon that's really what gardens should be about.




Day Twelve: Tuesday 26th October
Today we have said goodbye to Cape Town, and are sitting in the airport waiting for our plane to land and be sorted out ready for us to board. I've found some wifi! I have bought internet access for an hour, and have mostly been talking to people on MSN, something I couldn't do at St Stitians. I have put a temporary entry up with the photo of me on top of Table Mountain to show everyone I'm still alive, but this one will replace it when I have longer to put up all the older entries!

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African Adventure Parts: 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10, 11, 12, 13

Right as the hour ran out, our flight was called. Great timing or what?! The two-hour flight was uneventful and quite boring - I must be getting used to this stuff, this being my fourth in two weeks. But nevertheless, I do enjoy it, and after we had landed I found myself quite attached to the plane. Well, to be precise, my trousers were; they were stuck to the seat. It turns out that for the past two and a half hours I had been sitting on some chewing gum that some kind soul had carefully positioned for maximum damage to my trousers. Now I understand why my attitude towards trousers is flawed - no longer shall I wear them until they break, and then go and buy replacement trousers (sluggy style).

Luckily some part of me must have foreseen trouser-related problems, so I had some emergency pants in my suitcase. When we got back to the apartment, I changed and put my gumified trousers into the freezer, and then we went out for food. When I got back, I realised that although I had frozen the gum successfully, I now had no idea what to do with it. So I spent literally hours scraping it off with my pen knife, before putting it into the washing machine and crossing my fingers really tightly. After that I went into the bathroom and found the toilet black with tiny little bugs, smaller than ants. There must have been hundreds of them. Most of them were in the bowl, feeding on the water, so I flushed. What I hadn't counted on was their ability to swim, so by the time the toilet had re-filled, they were wandering around the bowl again. I ended up squashing them individually with toilet paper, which was extremely time consuming, especially with crossed fingers. By the time I had finished with that, the washing machine had finished, so I've now put them in the tumble dryer and am waiting for it to finish before I assess the damage.

Next part

African Adventure Parts: 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10, 11, 12, 13

Day Thirteen: Wednesday 27th October
My last full day in the country. Paul left early in the morning, I woke up shortly after and got ready quickly, because Wednesday is the day for Amke's cleaner, or as she calls her, her maid, and I thought it would be better if I was dressed before she arrived and I went down to introduce myself. She's a very nice lady, although only speaking broken English made it quite difficult for me to explain that I wanted to leave the house. After much conversation, I persuaded her to unlock the doors and open the electric gate, and once outside I saw a guy in a large car, so I got in and we drove off. I didn't know his name, and I still don't, but he looked kinda Mexican, so for the purposes of this entry I'll call him Pedro. Pedro worked for a tour operator, and on Monday, Paul had booked me a tour of Soweto.

Most people have heard of Soweto, but I'll explain it a bit for those of you who haven't, such as regular reader and rapper Ja Rule who, when in a press conference in Johannesburg publicising his recent tour, thought it was a nightclub.

Soweto stands for South West Township, and it was a march by students on June 16th 1976 that was pretty much the turning point for apartheid. The children were protesting against Afrikaans being the only language being taught in schools, and according to several eye-witness reports, they were marching peacefully until a policeman threw a rock into the mass. They threw some rocks back, then the police fired tear gas and bullets into the crowd and several people were killed, most famously a 12 year old boy, Hector Pieterson, who was photographed while being carried away from the fighting. It was essentially international condemnation and sanctions against the government concerning this and the subsequent violence in the area that eventually forced the end of apartheid.

Currently home to approximately 3 million, with around 60% unemployment it is a mostly no-go area for most SA whites - it has been frequently alluded to that if you go in you'll probably not make it out again, and if you do you'll probably have lost your car, your wallet and a fair amount of blood. Which is probably why everyone you speak to tells you to book a tour. It is a mostly residential area, with few shops or places of interest; middle-class families have expensive brick houses literally across the road from shanty towns made from corrugated iron and old tyres, while the horses and carts of the locals pass by the tour vans of the curious foreigners.

I was, unfortunately, one such curious foreigner. I say unfortunately because I feel dirty being a tourist and doing tourist things. I mean yes, that is what I am, but it doesn't always feel good, especially not when you're part of the machine that has turned one of the poorest areas of the world into a tourist attraction. But I felt that after I had seen the shopping malls of Hyde Park and Sandton City, the absurdity of Sun City and the glamour of the Cape Town Waterfront, that I should go into a township and see how the rest, a major percentage, of the country live.

As opposed to Bo-Kaap where I was shown around by a resident, I saw the outside from the outside. Some township tours I had read about are run by people who live in the area, and they show you into people's homes and lives to see exactly how they live. Although even more voyeuristic and wrong, I couldn't help feeling a bit let down as we drove through; "and this is another shanty town", Pedro would say. Not that Pedro was a bad tour - far from it, he knew his stuff, and it was very interesting to hear someone from the country speak his mind very frankly about the people who lived in Soweto.

We stopped off at the two tourist hot spots - Nelson Mandela's old home was first. This was a shrine to the man, but it was all very uninspiring - there was more on his love of boxing than anything else, and two rooms were devoted to gifts from foreign dignitaries and organisations, with virtually nothing about his involvement in South African politics. And the talk by the guide was uninspired as she read from her mental script - she was so bored giving it at one point that she sent a text message. Pedro then went into the shop with me to pay my entry fee, and then stood there waiting for me to buy something. I had read about this in my guide book, and heard something about it from the two girls from Badger's Mount who we met in Boschendal - they love making you feel awkward so you'll buy things. It's an unwritten rule for tourists entering townships; you have to buy things from the locals, bring some money into the area so they can better themselves. But I had been so unimpressed by the 'tour' that I just stood there, staring at the shelves full of caps and "I visited Mandela" t-shirts, waiting for Pedro to understand that I wasn't American.

After literally 5 minutes of this, we went back outside and got into the car, and continued on to the Hector Pieterson Museum, named after the boy. This was much better than Mandela's home, although I guess that's not saying much so I should back it up by saying it was very interesting and made the tour worthwhile. They explained much of what I already knew of the history of Soweto and apartheid, but it filled in many of the gaps and built on it with lots more information and personal comments. When I got outside, I was accosted by a gang of street salesmen - getting into a conversation with these people is fatal to your wallet. I left there with R3.70 (about 35p) and lots of stuff that I really didn't want.

After Pedro had returned me home and I had re-stocked my wallet with the last of my cash, Paul came back from school and took me over to Gold Reef City. Johannesburg was founded and grew as a result of a gold rush to the area, and Gold Reef City is a theme park, located on the site of a disused mining operation. It is, unsurprisingly, themed upon gold mining, although we weren't there for the rides - we wanted to go on a tour down the mine. After being kitted out with helmets and lights, we were taken down 200m to the first level of shaft 14 of the mine and led around, shown how mines worked, how the levels are dug and the gold seam is dug out, and how deep the mine was - very, something like 1.5km. Ouch.



After that we went across the road to the Apartheid Museum. It had a very unique entrance to try to give you a taste of race separation, where people were arbitrarily classified as black or non-black and you had to take a different route into the museum according to your classification. Once inside, it was packed full of information and exhibits and videos - unfortunately we had spent an hour and a half in Gold Reef City, and only had 45 minutes to go around the museum, as opposed to the 3 hours that they suggest. As a result it was a bit rushed, but it was still worthwhile, and it just about finished off the picture of the country that had been painted by the various museums and tours and experiences that I'd had over the past 13 days.



That evening I went over to the dress rehearsal of the St Stithians school play, Flat Stanley, about a child who gets flattened by a notice board and posted off to America for a holiday. After that there was a practice for the marimba concert which was to follow the play - I'd only seen marimbas played once before by some young children, and I was very impressed, especially by the elder groups.




Day Fourteen - Thursday 28th October
I am currently sitting in Amke's flat watching television, with all of my stuff packed by the door, waiting for Paul to come back from teaching to take me to the airport. I really do love South African TV - I've been watching soaps all morning, and I'm sure that's the first time I've ever seen an advert so long it needed credits.

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African Adventure Parts: 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10, 11, 12, 13

Day Fourteen, Take Two - Friday 29th October
I have arrived back in England after an 8 hour flight to Dubai and a 7 hour flight to Gatwick, plus half an hour or so by car either end. Next time I don't think I'll be so convinced by an indirect flight, although the 2 hour break in the middle was good for some extra duty-free. Plus I got to sit next to two very interesting people this time - I was on the window seat both times, first I sat next to a South African who exported citrus fruit, and then I sat next to someone who worked on oil rigs. I had the misfortune of sitting behind someone on both flights who insisted on having their seat fully reclined from take-off to landing, although the oil rig worker took pity on me and sorted it out for me on the way back from Dubai...

All in all, I have had a wonderful two weeks. Having been there for such a short period of time and having seen so little of the country, I do wonder what right I have to draw any conclusions, but it has made such an impression on me and I have so many thoughts on it that I feel I should say something.

Even though South Africa is on the other side of the world to England, most of it has almost exactly the same culture as at home. This very probably has something to do with the fact that it used to be part of the British empire and so there are many links back to this country - it seemed that almost everyone I spoke to knew where Sevenoaks was, had relatives in Bath, or had worked in Tunbridge Wells. But it also somehow seemed very wrong.

I felt that South Africa is still very divided. Ten years on from the start of their democracy, there is no doubt that the country has changed; no longer are jobs and places separated by race by law, and equal opportunity laws ensure that everyone has the same chance, but in reality the country has simply shifted its separating line slightly, from skin colour to money. And since it was the whites who had the money ten years ago, they are mostly still the ones in power. It obviously isn't quite as divided as it was and there is no visible attempt to discriminate, but of all of the restaurants, petrol stations, car parks etc I went into, I was only served by 4 whites in the whole of my trip, and of those only one was working in a place with any non-white staff.

What makes it worse is that poverty is rife amongst the black population living in townships; unemployment before democracy was 10%, now it is about 40%, and the populations of these townships are exploding far faster than housing can be built - the waiting list for affordable (about £1600) government housing is apparently 25-30 years. With such poverty and no financial support from the state, the only source of money for many people is crime - as a result, the rich lock themselves away in gated communities, safe from the poor outside, and appear to live in constant fear of being mugged and attacked by the poor. The rich get richer, the poor stay poor.

And as a result of these various separations in South Africa, I can't help but feel that the native culture of South Africa has been damaged. This very probably happened back when the British invaded and tried to stamp it out, but I don't see it getting any better. Generalising dangerously, I have seen three groups of society in my two weeks - the rich, the poor and the tourist. The rich try to live like the west, the poor want to be like the rich, and in between the tourists walk around visiting museums and points of history, but very little of the current. All of this seems to leave very little space for the development of any culture other than that which has been imported, with anything non-west being labelled a curiosity and packaged up for the American tourists' cameras.

The history of South Africa is incredibly rich and varied, but as I drove through and watched, I couldn't help feeling that they are having difficulty deciding what they want to be in the future, and I wondered if the history of their future will end up reading similarly to that of the west, which would be a great shame. If this country can find a way to solve its problems of population and poverty, and most crucially if the people continue to learn to stop fearing each other and continue to learn to embrace each others cultures, then this will certainly be one of the richest countries in the world.

I've had a fantastic couple of weeks. I've seen things I've never seen before, I've learnt about things that I had no idea about, and despite all of the warnings, I wasn't mugged once. South Africa is beautiful, lively, interesting and full of things to do - if you ever find yourself with a free couple of weeks and money to spare, there's no better place to go.