The Rissington Rag

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Portfolio Blog – It looks like rain, dear.
Portfolio Blog November 2018

Our intrepid blogger, Chris Harvie, takes a foodie trip to Finland, of all places …

 With the rainy season coming to the northern parts of South Africa, and Christmas also a-coming in a month or so, funny food seems like an apt topic and a good excuse to wheel out a very old pun.

One of the principal joys of travel is eating well, and differently to the way one is used to eating at home. (Warning: vegetarians and vegans should look away now. This piece is not suitable for sensitive readers …!)

My little lodge, for example, offers springbok carpaccio and a very fine crocodile curry, made from the tails of crocodiles from a friend’s farm. The tail is the only tasty bit, apparently. The rest of it is turned into shoes and handbags. Of course, this is no worse than what happens to cows but the difference is that, where cows don’t eat us, crocodiles do.

I have always thought (my offering of crocodile on the menu notwithstanding) that a basic premise to work from, is that we really shouldn’t be eating carnivores, which cuts out dogs, lions, baboons and so on. I suppose the inherent risk is that, by eating a carnivore which has recently tucked into a human, we might be ingesting human remains and therefore end up as cannibals, which is not good in anyone’s book, barring maybe a couple of remote Indonesian tribes who are apparently still partial to chomping on the neighbours.

We once had a plumber who was eaten by a crocodile, whilst swimming in a nearby river, and I hate the idea that by some quirk of fate I might have accidentally ended up pulling pieces of Pete out of my teeth.

South Africa is renowned for its delicious food and its generous helpings, so home takes a bit of beating in terms of gastro-fare, but having just returned from the Nordic countries, I can tell you that I have never tasted such delicious, fresh, tasty food in my life.

Of course, it is easy to grow food when your land is almost completely without undulations, it rains a lot and there is so much water lying around. Finland, to choose but one, has 188 000 lakes, only 5.5 million people and a territory extending to almost 400,000 square kilometres, of which 75% is under forest. That makes it a third of the size of South Africa but with only a tenth of its population. With only 7% of the land used for agriculture, there is still plenty of fluffy bread and bouncy salad for everyone, lakes and seas full of fish, and forests full of reindeer and elks.

But, refreshing though this change of diet in Finland might have been, there were still a couple of things I wouldn’t try, both for cuteness and anti-cannibal reasons. I loved the pickled herring and I could just about stomach the reindeer-flavoured chips, which were basically round slices of crispy biltong, but I couldn’t do the eel and eating bear seemed just about as wrong as making them dance in a circus.

It makes you think, doesn’t it? Horses for courses and all that (but only for main courses in parts of France, it would seem, where they actually have designated butcheries – boucheries chevalines – for buying horsemeat)…

The most bizarre statistic of all is that the Finns eat 14.2 litres per capita of ice cream every year, making them fifth in the league table of ice-cream eating nations, presumably because they break out in a sweat on every rare occasion that the temperature rises above 5 degrees.

The ice cream market grows by the day in South Africa, especially with the fast food outlets, so who knows what we shall be offering up next? KFC-flavoured lollies, or burger and gherkin stipple? But not leopard or hyena, I am sure.

Either way, travelling to experiment with the food in other countries is always going to be big draw. As long as there is not too much crunchy crocodile or hairy bear on the menu, I think we shall be OK. And with Christmas coming up and Santa on the way, we had better steer clear of eating Dasher, Dancer, Prancer and the team or they will never make it to our rooftops. So, Finns, if it looks like reindeer, don’t eat it. Rather come to South Africa and eat real biltong and ice cream in the sunshine instead.

It may not be Christmas but it is snowing in Africa.
Portfolio Blog June 2018

Chris Harvie, our intrepid weather-resistant blogger, goes in search of the white stuff on the Dark Continent.

You get snow? In Africa? Oh yes. Plenty of it.

The lives of farmers (and tourism people) around the world are dominated, obviously, by the weather and their conversation is often peppered with wise meteorologically-connected sayings. ‘Red sky at night is a shepherd’s delight’ as they say in England. ‘Rain before 7 and clear by 11’. ‘Ne’er cast a clout before May is out.’ I know. It’s an odd one. Something to do with not putting away your winter clothes too early. There are still people who actually ‘put away’ their winter clothes? How quaint is that?

It would probably surprise a lot of readers to know, though, that in South Africa, many of our weather predictions are to do with, of all conditions, not heat, but snow. It is the first sign of winter when ‘daar is sneeu op die berge’ (there is snow on the mountains) and when something surprising happens – someone turns up unexpectedly for example – we say ‘nou gaan dit sneeu!’ (now it is going to snow).

Snow is not common throughout the country, of course. Much of the area north of the central dry area, the Karoo, never receives snow. It snows in the Free State, though, and sometimes also in Gauteng. The most snowed-on areas are the Drakensberg Mountains in the Eastern Free State and KwaZulu-Natal, and the Maluti mountains to the south of Lesotho. The mountains in the Eastern Cape Karoo near Graaff-Reinet and Somerset-East receive annual snow as do the Cederberg mountains to the north of Cape Town near Ceres. In the North-East, the Dullstroom and the Long Tom Pass are occasionally turned white, on the Great Escarpment leading to the Lowveld and to the Panorama Route.

And yes, like everywhere else in the world that has snow, we have road closures and accidents as a result, and everyone goes mad, dons a funny-coloured jersey and a silly hat, makes snowballs and goes sledging. In fact, so few South Africans have ever seen snow that people will travel great distances just to look at it.

We also have real ski resorts, which will be opening soon for the winter.

Afriski, in neighbouring Lesotho, holds an annual WinterFest of music in the snow to mark the opening of the two-month skiing and snowboarding season in early July and another one to mark its closure at the end of August. It calls itself ‘An Unexpected High’. I like it.

Tiffindel, 2270 metres above sea level near Rhodes, in the Eastern Cape, offers a slightly more traditionally Alpine experience, complete with several long runs, a snow park, competitions and après-ski. It is open from June to August, and if there isn’t enough snow, they make more. In fact – would you believe it? – CNN voted Tiffindell number 19 in the World’s Best Ski Runs in 2014.

The one thing we can agree on, though is that – as the Live Aid song has it – there won’t be snow in Africa this Christmas time, because we get our snow in the southern hemisphere winter. But what does the rock world know about snow in Africa? Toto even believed that ‘Kilimanjaro rises like Olympus above the Serengeti’ which of course it doesn’t. It is nowhere near the Serengeti, it rises above Amboseli. It does have snow on it permanently, though. Ask Ernest Hemingway. Ask anyone. At least for now.

Anyway, while the glacial snows of Kilimanjaro are slowly melting, the ski season in Southern Africa is about to kick off, so dig out your ski-suit, your gloves and your helmet – and your dancing shoes – and head to the high spots. Daar is sneeu op die berge.

Assume Best Intent!
Portfolio Blog May 2018

Chris Harvie, our (relatively) tame, animal-loving blogger, takes a look at a few East-African-style accommodation options to avoid when travelling and makes the guaranteed quality offered by Portfolio establishments look all the more appealing, especially when it comes to the dreaded ablutions …

I love camping. I know it’s not everybody’s thing, but it is mine. I love getting up-close with the wildlife and I am never happier than when holed-up in a pop-up-in-20-seconds tent, with a suitably tog-rated sleeping bag, a self-inflating mattress and a thick feather-pillow. And, on colder nights, maybe a thermal blanket and a beanie against heat-loss through the somewhat-balding head.

I don’t mind a few close-scurrying animals outside, either, but I am not too keen on them inside. I have been brushed up against by hyenas and I have had lions wander through my camp. Illogical as it seems, one somehow feels safe and secure tent-bound, albeit that there is only a thin layer of canvas keeping out the gnashing teeth and sharpened claws.

Just don’t sleep with the zip open and you will be fine, goes the story. Lions really struggle with zips, apparently, and a friend of mine had part of his ear chewed off by a hyena once when he left the tent open. I wondered why he didn’t wake up and chase it off, but I didn’t like to ask. There must have been a good reason.

Every now and then, though, even the most hardened camper needs to move in under a proper roof and indulge in a little luxury. The ability to stand up and fully extend one’s neck, for example. Maybe running water, as opposed to a bucket, and a proper flush lavatory instead of a maggot-infested pit, dug in the ground.

Conversely, however, sometimes the horrors of the more formal accommodation are enough to send even the toughest traveller beetling back to his or her tent…

On the southern shores of Lake Tanzania, after a tough slog on potholed roads through northern Zambia and following a respected guidebook (not Portfolio, obviously), we found ourselves in a glorious campsite, among huge colourful shade-trees full of brachiating monkeys, with lovely views of the vast shimmering lake and its lively local fish-market. The park-like grounds were strewn with what are known in that part of the world as ‘bandas’; usually a round hut with thatched roof, hard floor and ridiculously soft bed.

In this particularly beautiful venue, we thought we were ready to deal with the basic rooms, but we later drew the line at the bedbugs, the rats’ droppings, the torn kikois that passed for curtains and the ripped mosquito netting. The torn mesh wasn’t going to keep the rodents out – and, from the size of what they had left around the base of the beds, these were Narnian rats of Reepicheep proportions. And not the friendly, talking ones either. So it was back to our squeaky clean tents.

We were, it seemed, nevertheless stuck with the frog- and bat-infested ablution blocks for showering – and I particularly hate bats. Then someone helpfully suggested we take a swim in the lake, which seemed like a fair plan, until that evening, a local fisherman explained the system for choosing a new chief in the neighbouring village, whereby interested candidates would face one another across a dug-out canoe and try to bat their competitor into the lake with a paddle. The loser, on falling in, would promptly be chewed up by throngs of crocodiles. So it was back to the ablution block, bats notwithstanding. After all, as the old song says, there is no point in stopping ‘to talk a while’ with a crocodile, no matter how spaciously-grinning and talkative he might be looking.

A few days later, in Mwanza on Lake Victoria, we again felt the need to try for a ‘proper’ shower and a loo, but were surprised to find that, in this so-called ‘hotel’, both shower and loo were actually inside the tiny bedrooms and accessed by climbing onto and walking across the bed. We literally had to stand on the loo to shower – and we did it. After all, we were desperate by then, taking it in turns to stand on the rim of the lavatory with our backs to the bed and wash, shave, even brush our teeth. The water was hot, at least, but then everything was.

The ablutions in the nearby Serengeti during the migration, even without the need physically to stand on the loo, can come under serious pressure from the sheer numbers of backpackers and overlanders in need of them. It is a depressing-enough experience already, to be sharing a camp with truckloads of these characters, but on one occasion it was rendered all the more uncomfortable when I found myself trapped inside the small hut that houses the long-drop loo. Gangs of the great unwashed were standing atop their vehicles, shouting “Don’t come out now – there is a lion outside the door.”

And there was. I could see it through the cracks in the door, I could smell it and I could hear it breathing. Bowel movements came easily, and at least I wasn’t under pressure to vacate the bathroom for a while, until he moved off. It wasn’t exactly peaceful though. After all, this was no Aslan. And I am no Dr Dolittle.

I sure missed the safety and comfort of my tent – and, better still, the petal-scattered feline-free luxury bathroom of a fine Portfolio establishment …!

Oh, What a Show!
Portfolio Blog March 2018

Our roving blogger Chris Harvie takes an up-beat look at the South African cultural scene.

There is a perception out there, I feel, that South Africa is something of a cultural backwater. That all we can do is bang the drums and sing loud praises to our Lord in beautiful tribal harmony, but we can’t act for toffee. Or put on a decent musical. Regardless of Charlize Theron. Or maybe because of her?

Well, this perception couldn’t be further from the truth. While it is a fact that we have churned out some pretty dreadful soap operas (or ‘soapies’ as they are known here), nothing about Isidingo or Egoli is even half as ghastly as the The Bold and the Beautiful and they are infinitely better than the Nigerian ones we are subjected to on satellite television. And surely you remember such musical classics as Ipi Tombi (to which my godfather took me, when I was nine and for ever afterwards blamed himself for my deep love of Africa, derived, he thought from the bouncy maidens belting out Mama Thembu’s Wedding)? And Sarafina!? And The Lion King, great chunks of which are in Zulu. Ingonyama nengw’ enamabala …

So let us put that misperception right. All the major South African cities – even many minor towns and villages – boast thriving theatres, comedy shows, musicals, concerts and choirs.

Johannesburg’s Montecasino complex, for example, not only has a casino (because every town worth its salt in South Africa has to have a casino these days) but it also has a range of larger and smaller theatres which have hosted huge international shows. Everything from Evita to The Play that Goes Wrong, The Illusionists to The Shaolin Monks, Hamlet to a Bagpipe Tattoo.

Deeper into town, theatres like the Civic Theatre and the Market Theatre stage a wide variety of local works, often edgier and born out the South African Freedom Struggle. A bit of Athol Fugard, for example. Or a South African take on Shakespeare.

From a classical perspective, though, what could be more uplifting than the regular concerts of the highly professional Johannesburg Youth Orchestra, made up entirely of schoolchildren, the youngest of whom is only 12 years old?

And, of course, there are world-class art galleries, like the Everard Read Gallery in Rosebank, and more off-beat regular events like WWE and Top Gear in the northern suburbs. Something for everyone – and music concerts for the young, ranging from Bastille in the Botanical Gardens to Justin Bieber at the FNB stadium which also, as Soccer City, hosted the opening ceremony of the 2010 World Cup, as well as numerous other musical love-fests including one of U2’s Bono loving himself in front of 95 000 people, for over two hours.

And that is just Johannesburg. Cape Town, the Mother City, boasts numerous galleries and museums, as well as the Baxter and Labia Theatres and The Theatre on the Bay. Durban’s Theatre Royal puts on, among other thrills, an annual pantomime and its stadiums host regular concerts; Pietermaritzburg has The Pig and Whistle amateur dramatic group, which stages a different old favourite every year; Bloemfontein has its own Performing Arts Centre and Pretoria is home to the State Theatre with its feasts of Ballet and Opera plus some smaller theatres and, like so most South African cities, its own Symphony Orchestra.

Less populous towns like Nelspruit (Mbombela) often receive visitations from touring circuses, magicians and hypnotists whilst more culturally-aware Grahamstown, famed for its forty places of worship and known as ‘The City of Saints’, is not surprisingly riddled with choirs. In tiny, not-far-away Steytlerville, the Karroo Theatrical Hotel puts on an extravagant cabaret dinner every Saturday night. See it, to believe it! The town of Darling in the Western Cape has national treasure Pieter-Dirk Uys’s own theatre, Evita se Perron, and there are Barnyard Theatres across the land putting on shows by local comedians and bands. The world-touring Drakensberg Boys Choir has its home-base high in the mountains near Winterton in KwaZulu-Natal and puts on a weekly concert in term-time and an annual festival in April. Clear voices, clear air, clear skies.

Even the Kruger National Park hosts a series of Baroque in the Bush classical concerts, annually in September, at Shingwedzi camp in the north. The Lion Sleeps Tonight, indeed.

So next time you go touring, wherever you go, take the trouble to find out what is showing in town. Or in the village. Or in the bush. There is no better way to get to know a country and to meet the locals than to support the local cultural scene. You will be amazed at how all the different regions of South Africa can put on a good show. Literally ….

Hit the Road, Jack. But Slowly
Portfolio Blog February 2018

South Africans are big Road Trippers. After all, ours is a big country and it can often be quite a distance to get from where we are to where we want to be. From home to the game reserve, for example. From the mountains to the sea. From the big city to the open Karoo.

So, out of necessity, we have turned road journeys into an art form. A real-life high-quality art form, that is, not the 57% that the Rotten Tomatoes website awarded to the questionable American movie Road Trip, from the year 2000, or worse still, its sequel, Road Trip – Beer Pong, which mercifully never made it into theatres.

So how can a long journey be an art form? Well, here are some of the ingredients for a successful Road Trip:

• Food and drink. We call it padkos, which translates literally from the Afrikaans as ‘road food’. It must be healthy stuff, especially if you are travelling with children. Take biltong, nuts, dried fruit, juices. Definitely not fizzers, unless you want to turn yourselves and any children accompanying you into fizzers themselves. Then there will be no peace. There will be shouting and clouting.
• A stash of cash – to buy goodies on the roadside. Petrol stations might offer fuel and food top-ups (although probably not much healthy food) but South Africa is littered with superb roadside stalls, often signposted as a Padstal (road stall) or a Padstalletjie (small roadside stall). Afrikaans is good at that. It has a diminutive for everything. Imagine an English word ‘road-shoplet’ and that is what we are looking at. Anyway, they sell everything from from smoked fish to honeycombs, frech springbok fillet to Granny’s lace doilies, sliced pickled carrots called koperpennies (you got it – copper pennies) to home-made catapults, replica baby windmills to artisanal flip-flops. I know. Some things that you probably wouldn’t even touch with someone else’s bargepole, but you are getting the picture. If all else fails, you can just top up your biltong and nuts.
• A good map. Yes, you can take your GPS but it will get lost. They always do. Give your GPS a name, like Eric or Mavis or Jehoshaphat, so that you can belly-laugh when it tries to send you down farm track D345 to Putsonderwater when you know full well that the N1 Cape Town is straight on. “Ha, ha, ha. Eric’s lost the plot again; he thinks we turn right here. Ho ho.” Endless fun.
• A book of South African place-names so that you know that Putsonderwater means ‘well without water’. We have fascinating place names. There are many settlements named Onverwacht (meaning ‘unexpected’), for example, and Allesverloren (‘all is lost’), which leaves you wondering what whoever-named-it found in each place when they first got there. There is a Hotazel in the Northern Cape, which is, well, exceptionally warm. And there’s even a Collywobbles in the the Transkei, which is enough to make you shake with wonder. And did you know that Ladysmith (in KwaZulu-Natal) and Ladismith (in the Eastern Cape) were both named after Lady Juana Smith, the wife of Sir Harry Smith (the military man after whom Harrismith is named)? Juana was Spanish and she introduced the Cantaloupe melon to South Africa as a breakfast dish, which is why, here, it is called a Spanspek, or ‘Spanish bacon’ in Afrikaans.
• You will need entertainment for the STOP/GO controls. We are (quite rightly) not trusted to use contraflows sensibly in South Africa, so wherever there are substantial road works under way, a STOP sign goes up and you can wait for as long as 20 minutes, while the traffic from the other end comes through, then the GO sign goes up, they wait, and it is your turn. So play I-Spy, then the Number-Plate Game, then the Farm-Name Game but when you have tired of those (or if you don’t know them) always have a pack of cards ready for Gin Rummy or, if you want to get highfalutin, take Travel Scrabble. And don’t abuse the people with the STOP/GO signs – they are only doing their jobs. In fact, wave and thank them for looking after you.
• Finally, as above, bring your manners. You will meet many people. Fascinating fellow-travellers, many of them also on road trips. You can compare notes. And weather. And recommendations. “We had 47 degrees in Montagu two days ago, so today’s 37 degrees is bliss”. Or “Don’t miss the art museum in Graaff-Reinet – it is filled with South African masters”. Or “There’s a little padstalletjie just this side of Magoebaskloof that sells the most delicious skilpadjies.” A skilpadjie is a baby tortoise, except of course it is not really. These are chunks of liver wrapped in bacon and held together with cocktail sticks. They only look like tortoises and they are excellent on the braai.

So, talking of tortoises, obviously we all know the story of The Tortoise and the Hare, the moral of which, above all, applies to the good old South African Road Trip. If you go haring around, you will miss out, so Think Tortoise. Go slowly. Stop and go – not only when the signs say so, but whenever you feel the urge to take an ompad – a detour – because that is what a Road Trip is all about. Following the backroads.

Maybe Eric (or Mavis or Jehoshaphat…) is sometimes right, after all.

Born Again Zimbabwe
Portfolio Blog January 2018

This is serious. Well, fairly serious. It is serious in a happy sort of way.

A few months ago, I wrote a blog piece about borders in Africa and particularly about Beit Bridge, the infamously inefficient and awful border-crossing over the Limpopo from South Africa into Zimbabwe. And I wrote about Lovemore, my least-favourite Zimbabwean border-fixer and his equally appalling and corrupt co-conspirators Playmore, Trymore and Givemore.

Well, I am happy to report that it seems that soon we may be required to Give No More, as the new Zimbabwean era dawns with a massive crackdown on corruption by border officials and police. The Beit Bridge clean-up is still only a promise, but plans are in-hand to create a One-stop Border, rather like that boon of the obese, the KFC Drive-Thru. Finally, it seems that we may have found a constructive use for such a horribly lazy concept!

On the streets of Zimbabwe though, everything has already changed. And very quickly.

In June last year on the 760-kilometre, eight-hour drive from Victoria Falls to Beit Bridge, we went through 47 road blocks. That is one every 16 kilometres. Or looked-at differently, one every ten minutes. Naturally the ride was also much longer than eight hours – more like ten – due to the numerous delays caused by Temporary Importation Permit and Third Party Insurance checks, licence inspections, random vehicle searches and unproven illegal speeding fines. We even received a fine for having a fire extinguisher which was too small and a further long delay while the car was searched – almost dismantled – in a search for our non-existent cyanide supplies, with which we were accused of having been involved in some recent elephant poisonings in Hwange National Park.

The story had it – and this may have been, at least to some extent, a conspiracy theory – that the Zimbabwean Police had been posted to the roadsides by the old regime and told to raise their own salaries in fines due to a lack of cash to pay them. They were also posted at the toll plazas to ensure that everyone paid their $2 without arguing, and this payment was said to go straight into the pockets of the minister. Being thorough and efficient Zimbabweans, though – and however corrupt – they did at least have the decency to add a veneer of legitimacy to their activities by handing out receipts for everything.

Either way, I am happy to report that it is all over now. Just before Christmas, on the 300-kilometre drive from Harare to the Bvumba Mountains, near Mutare in Eastern Zimbabwe, we went through only two roadblocks and we were not pulled over at either of them. This is evidently the ‘new normal’ with the regulation being that there must be at least a 100-kilometre stretch between roadblocks. What a change and what a relief. Apparently 70 per cent of the police are to be laid off.

The road trip around Zimbabwe has therefore once again become a realistic option and it will be even better once Beit Bridge has been reborn in a new format. For now – with border crossings for private vehicles still taking up to three hours and with trucks taking as long as four days – road trippers should consider using the Plumtree border from Botswana for access or going via Pafuri or Giryondo into Mozambique. It is that bad.
Roll on, the New Zimbabwe, though. The people seem to believe in it. The Zimbabweans are inherently polite and composed people but December was one huge countrywide party with ubiquitous shouts of “Happy Freedom Christmas” and “Happy Second Independence”. It was as if we had flown into a national celebration, all the more palatable once were over the shock that the Airport Immigration desks were sponsored, with huge hoardings, by who-else (?) but KFC. I am sure this is unique to Zimbabwe. I certainly hope so.

Soon I genuinely believe that the police will be gone from the roadsides altogether and that the road borders will all be straightforward. Then Workmore and Stealmore should all be finally consigned to the dustbin of the past forever – maybe they should go and work at KFC and sell the Corruption Chuck-it Bucket dinner at the Drive-Thru instead – and we shall all be able to go to Zimbabwe and, not Pay More, but Play More.

How Green is my Vellie*
Portfolio Blog 28 Feb 2017

* a vellie (pronounced ‘felly’ and short for veldskoen) is a suede bush boot popular with bush-walking types

Our regular blogger, Chris Harvie, takes an uncharacteristically almost-serious look at the importance of going green.

There is an old joke about a call centre operator who is told to make up a sentence including four colours and he says:

“The phone goes green-green, green-green and I pink it up and I say yellow, blue am I speaking to?”

Colour is everywhere and all the colours are significant for different reasons, most of them bad. You can be red with embarrassment, purple with rage, feeling blue, green with envy, yellow from cowardice, white with fright, grey from illness, orange from too much fake tan …

All of them are negative and all are exaggerated – I mean did you ever actually see anyone go purple with anger, except in a cartoon show? – but there is a good green, a positive green, a green that saves the world. It is the green of environmentalism, the green of recycling, the green of clean air and a pollution-free environment. The Green Lobby. And it is the only such metaphorical colour to which the colour actually applies. You look at a picture of a leaf and you think green. (Or maybe you think toothpaste, but you know what I mean).

And its importance is such that it has a verb. You can’t red something, or blue it, but whole areas of the world are being greened, and there is no industry that is taking this greening more seriously than tourism. Only this morning, I was explaining to a guest in my little spot in Hazyview, Mpumalanga, that, like many game reserves in South Africa, I had planted spekboom in my garden to offset the carbon imprint of getting our visitors to South Africa by plane. It is a ‘wonderplant’ in that it removes more than 100 times as much carbon from the air than does a pine tree of the same size.

You see? We can all take this stuff seriously. Only a few years ago, we were worrying about CFCs in our fridges and our deodorants. Now we are gardening with carbon-eaters. And they really work. Like the blueberry superfruit or the macadamia health-nut, of which South Africa is now the largest producer.

Of course, there are the cynics, and the greenies who take it too far, but who are we to decide what is too far? Well, we are allowed a view. A banana and kale smoothie, which is very green, but also obviously disgusting, is taking it too far in my view. So is cucumber, which is also green. I also can’t think why nobody else seems to have worked out, as I have, that cucumber is poisonous. Otherwise why would it give you such bad wind?

But then again, there was a time when smoking and even drinking and driving were not frowned upon. Nowadays, both are more and more unacceptable, as is a failure to recycle. Even in the third world and in countries with huge social challenges such as ours, much has been done to mitigate the effects of pollution and bad living. We were one of the first countries in the world to introduce a levy on plastic bags, for example, and the first to propose a sugar tax.

South Africa may not be a great example when it comes to recycling, but we are doing our best. And as an industry, tourism is blazing a trail for others to follow. So, pink with shame, white with shock and feeling blue from the criticism, we saw red and went green and long may we remain that way, recycling, promoting sustainability and planting spekboom around every corner to offset all that jet damage.  We are all coming to the realisation that, unlike all those emotional reds, yellows and greys that paint such gloomy pictures, green is not a colour.

Green is, literally, a way of life, so make sure you go green right down to your boots, or you will really be putting your foot in it.

Spring has Sprung

July 2017

There are, of course, four seasons, as Vivaldi confirms – with his proof being most frequently heard in lifts and as holding music when reporting a fault to a parastatal – but almost everyone’s favourite is Spring. In Europe, there is the gambolling of the lambs and the sprouting of the daffodils, there’s Easter and the forwarding of the clocks in preparation for summer.

In April, it is what Chaucer, in his Canterbury Tales, called “his shoures soote”, or sweet showers, that herald Europe’s spring, although naturally in the southern hemisphere, everything is the opposite and we celebrate Spring Day at the other end of the year, which is now. Our Vernal Equinox falls on 22 September and it is an easy downhill run to the holidays from there.

Am I getting too high-brow? OK. Let’s keep it simple. Here’s another old piece of doggerel, often attributed (probably incorrectly) to Ogden Nash, about the coming of Spring. One version – there are many variations – goes like this:

“Spring has sprung, the grass is riz,
I wonder where de boidies is.
Some say de boid is on de wing, but that’s absoid,
De wing is on de boid.”

This one sums up more succinctly (although less idiomatically) what is exciting about our spring; the migratory birds return. The swallows, the barbets, the flycatchers and the cuckoos pour in from ever-chillier faraway climes, with all number of other species including some of the eagles and falcons, rollers and bee-eaters. We measure how close to full summer we are by the birdsong, the mating calls and the nest-building as the migrants return to re-join their cousins who stayed behind. Love is in the air – and the dawn chorus is positively deafening.

In addition, while the bush is still parched brown in northern parts of the region, many if of its trees and shrubs are in flower. The indigenous species, like the coral trees and the kudu lilies are ready to seed and the exotics like the jacarandas and the flamboyants celebrate the oncoming subtropical rains.

As far as the wildlife is concerned, it is time for a release from that collective knee-crossing as hundreds of thousands of antelope and many other species drop their young in anticipation of imminent green shoots of grass.

In the Cape, with the rain coming to an end, the warm summer of the region’s Mediterranean climate starts to take hold and the flowers come out in full splendour. On a more prosaic human level, the healthy (and the vain) head back to the gym to trim off the winter flab and prepare their physiques for the beach in a couple of months’ time.

Of course, going mediaeval again, the Chaucer quote is from the Prologue of “The Canterbury Tales”, the first part of which ends with the words: thanne longen folk to goon on pilgrimages.

What better time of the year to make a Pilgrimage to any part of southern Africa than when Spring has sprung?

Or, in the words of the late great Robin Williams: “Spring is nature’s way of saying ‘Let’s Party!’…”

It’s not called Spring Fever for nothing.

Bored by Borders

July 2017

I have always said that each of Africa’s former colonial powers, for better or for worse, has left behind a legacy that reflects its own national characteristics. You can experience the finest croissants in the former French colonies, for example, but maybe not the best lavatories. Namibia offers German sausage and some of the world’s best beers. Ethiopia’s national dish, apart from injera and wot, perversely, is macaroni cheese, resulting from a brief Italian occupation in the 1930s.
Unfortunately for us South Africans, most of our near neighbours were, like us, British possessions at some point, so we are left, not with good food, but with a complicated and unworkable bureaucracy that requires myriad lengthy forms to be completed with carbon paper in quadruplicate. Remember carbon paper? Yes, you thought it was redundant nowadays didn’t you? Wrong. It is alive and well and living in Africa. When available. Otherwise, we simply have to fill in the forms four times.
Beit Bridge Border Post. A Sunday morning in late July. Zimbabwean side, heading back into South Africa. “It is very busy today. I can help you!” Torn jeans. Holed T-shirt. Smart-looking badge around his neck, which on closer inspection, bears a photograph of the wearer and the word OFFICIAL. Nothing else. Clearly home-made. Good try, but no thanks.
There was no queue, we needed no help and the entire process of clearing both sides of the border, with a variety of different nationalities of passport, required less than half an hour. Had we agreed to have a ‘helper’, it would undoubtedly have taken much longer.
Contrast this with the inward journey to Zimbabwe a month earlier, which took more than two hours, also on a Sunday, and with unnecessary payments made to speed up the process. It had started badly, when we easily negotiated the need for Unabridged Birth Certificates and Affidavits for them, only to have two of our children arrested, aged 12, for exporting a stolen car to Zimbabwe. The official had misread my handwriting and the system had flagged up our incorrectly-entered number-plate as belonging to a stolen car. Alarms sounded. Processing ground to a halt. Everyone stared.
Luckily, the said official wanted lunch and was in a rush, but still it took several visits to the police station to get the arrest reversed. Our German fellow-travellers were then sent back to obtain a customs stamp on their gate pass. Luckily, as former East Germans, they could drive a HiLux through a fence and a wall without being noticed.
“Don’t speak to anyone else. If anyone approaches you, tell them you are dealing with Lovemore.” That is the thing about Zimbabwe. There’s always a Lovemore. Or a Praymore, a Talkmore or a Workmore.
I don’t know why I engaged Lovemore in the first place. I have crossed at Beit Bridge many times without help, but with two vehicles, including the Germans’ hire car, it seemed practical. And he looked very official. There was the Bridge Toll to pay, Immigration to negotiate, then Third Party Insurance and Carbon Tax to pay with the Temporary Importation Permit, a Customs Inspection to undergo and Police Clearance to obtain; all of which I could have done perfectly easily instead of being royally ripped off by Lovemore and his buddies, who then finally set about trying to sell us redundant reflective tape.
I was thus determined not to be taken for a mug again on the return journey, and when one of Lovemore’s alter egos on the exit side tried to persuade me that I owed him $20 for helping me to avoid a full vehicle inspection, I was ready. Instead of paying him, I willingly submitted to the search, albeit amongst much foot-stamping, only to be told that it didn’t apply to me. Sharks!
During the month between our visits to Beit Bridge, we crossed from Zimbabwe to Mozambique then into Malawi, then into Zambia, back into Zimbabwe and then home. Six borders in 28 days – and all of them took less than an hour and offered helpful signage and free assistance from officials.
There is much advice to be given on dealing with African land borders but primarily, remember that a border is made up of humans. Be polite, don’t rush them, stay calm, avoid major trade routes and and try to cross on a Sunday, when they are under less pressure, and at lunchtime, when the humans want to go eat and might rush you through. And don’t allow yourself to be taken in.
Had we not crossed at Beit Bridge at midday on a Sunday, I genuinely fear that we might well still be there, waiting for a Police Clearance Stamp, Lovemore or no Lovemore. And eventually, I would simply have had to break it to Lovemore that I simply didn’t love him anymore. In fact, I couldn’t have loved him less. Sorry.

Does Everybody Hate Winter?

June 2017

Winter. Hectic cold. Squalling rain. Short days. Soggy roads. Foggy commutes. Muddy carpets. Snotty noses. Gasping coughs. Boring television. Miserable adults. Grumpy children. Smelly dogs.
The WORST time of the year. The only good thing about winter is skiing – but apart from that, it is the one season that everybody dreads, right?
Wrong.
We South Africans love winter. We look forward to it and we embrace it, as one of our outdoor-wear stores likes to tell us in its advertisements, every year. Especially in the northern parts of the country, where it fits us perfectly, like a warm slipper.
So let’s go back to ad-speak (employ voice; maybe Liam Neeson or Morgan Freeman …)
“Imagine a place … where the sun shines reliably; every single day. Imagine … endless warm days and clear blue skies without a cloud; for months on end; walking, wildlife, long uninterrupted views. Imagine giant deeply-defined dark mountain ranges backed by dusty ochre and red sunsets. Imagine warming soups, fine steaks and a hearty glass of Shiraz in front of a warming fire in an open hearth. Imagine star-studded nights and cool, silent sleeps.
Then imagine that every day is like this, from autumn right through to spring. You are imagining … winter in subtropical South Africa.”
Thanks Liam. Or Morgan. Everything you say is true. This is not wild and exotic ‘Malaysia, Truly Asia’. It is not Delhi-belly-bearing ‘Incredible India’. It is good old, just-like-home-only-much-much-better, friendly South Africa in the sunshine.
You can plan a hike, or a game drive any day. You can go camping, head out for a picnic, light a braai (a barbecue) and KNOW that the weather will be perfect. You can even plan a wedding and be sure that it won’t rain. In the daytime, it will maybe reach 25 degrees or more, then perhaps drop to 12 or 15 degrees in the middle of the night.
Winter is also the best time for wildlife-watching – probably July and August, when the bush is dry and the grass is low, forcing the game to gather at the rivers and waterholes.
And yes, in July, there is even skiing, in the Eastern Cape and Lesotho. Alpine chalets and carefully manicured pistes. Even mulled wine and après-ski. South Africa really does have everything. Picture postcard scenery and proper picture postcards to send to those foolish enough to stay at home, and show them what they are missing.
So put away the sou’westers, the umbrellas, the Barbours and the Benylin. Dig out the hiking boots, the sunglasses and the binoculars and head for winter in Mpumalanga, KwaZulu-Natal and Limpopo Province …
OK. So there is one fly in the ointment, even if there are no wasps at the picnic because we don’t have insects in the winter. In all honesty, the sunshine story does not apply to the Western Cape, which calls winter the Green Season for good reason. It rains there – but not every day, and when the sun comes out, which it frequently does even in winter, Cape Town is probably still the most beautifully-situated city in the world. Ask Liam. Or Morgan. They are both regulars.
So come on. Pull on some shorts and a T-shirt and let’s braai! It is wintertime in South Africa.

Whatever the Weather

May 2017

Capetonians know that one man’s mild is another man’s warm. Capetonians also know to escape northwards in winter. And what Capetonians know is worth knowing.
The whole world watches Sky News nowadays – Capetonians included – because the whole world is transfixed by the ups and downs of the British political system, by the seemingly endless numbers of royal events and by Britain’s fractious relationship with Europe. But of course we are all really only watching for the weather …
There is a downturn to the presenter’s face. He or she has just reeled off another tiresome report on an Underground strike or fracking in Yorkshire or football hooliganism or some other disaster, but then … the worst is yet to come:
“And now for the weather…”
It is without doubt the worst news of the day, despite its understatements and gently therapeutic reassurances:
“Starting with some drizzle but becoming heavier during the day. So far no flood warnings have been issued though …”
And even in the summer. “Starting off somewhat cool but cheering up a little later.”
And then, joy of joys. “The mercury will climb to a whopping 25 degrees Celsius in parts of the south-east today. Anyone venturing outside is advised to wear protective clothing and a wide-brimmed hat and to carry extra water as there is a severe risk of dehydration and of allergy-causing seeds. Those working in offices should keep the air-conditioning on and drink lots of tea. Please keep an eye on elderly and infirm neighbours. Schools are advised to keep children inside during break…”
In the northern parts of South Africa, we also become quite excited at the prospect of 25 degrees, because it means it is not going to be 35 degrees. In the current climate, we have been through week upon week of temperatures in the mid-30s with regular forays, in Skukuza, into the 40s.
Mercifully, the upside of the lack of rain is that the heat has been a dry heat, and not humid. But – as the Aussies say – we have had to Slip Slap Slop Seek Slide. Slip on a shirt, slap on the suncream, slap on a hat, seek shade and slide on the ‘sunnies’.
For the visitor, though, the South African sub-tropical winter in the northern part of the country offers some of the best weather anywhere in the world. Cool nights, going down to about 15 degrees, even sometimes as low as 10 degrees, and beautiful warm days in the mid 20s, where slipping, slapping and slopping are barely necessary. Twelve hours of sunshine, from 6am dawn to 6pm dusk. The perfectly balanced day.
So the South African weather forecast says, by contrast: “It will be a cool, sunny day in the Lowveld but becoming cold at night. Minimum 15 degrees. Maximum 27 degrees.”
One man’s blisteringly hot, is another man’s cool, as every Capetonian knows. So follow the Capetonians to Limpopo and Mpumalanga this winter!

The Mother of all Celebrations

April 2017

Of course, Mother’s Day is very important. I mean, where would we be without our mothers? Nowhere. Obviously. Scientifically. Literally. After all, everybody has a mother – and in these enlightened days, some people have two. Ask Bruce (sorry Caitlyn) Jenner’s kids, if you can get hold them. I think they are something to do with the Kardashians, so they are on TV all the time, but I forget the details. They have loads of mothers, including Bruce (sorry, Caitlyn) among them.
So, for all the mothers (and former-fathers) out there, it is very important that we mark the day properly and that we take the time to do something that mothers love. Like fishing. Or 4×4-ing. Or braai-ing and drinking brandy and Coke by the pool. Oh, no, sorry. That’s Father’s Day. Father’s Day is FUN. In the case of Caitlyn (when she was Bruce) his kids could have done a Decathlon with him. That, a few years back when he was an Olympian, would have been his idea of good bonding.
On Mother’s Day we tend, perversely, to torture our mothers by pretending to be them for a whole day and doing it really badly. We give them breakfast in bed, but the fruit juice is warm and the eggs and the tea are cold. The toast is not only similarly cold, but also hard and slightly burnt and when they try to apply the butter, it breaks into seven pieces and the crumbs go all over the bed and their night-dresses (Oopsy-daisy, Bruce).
We shower our mothers with Clicks Chocolate Selection Boxes and those Body Shop frilly baskets full of soap and smelly powders and cocoa-flavoured body butter. I mean, what on earth is body butter? (Not you Bruce …)
We then wash the dishes for Mom, but we do it so badly that she has to do them again …. and so the day goes on until the evening, when her best bet is to take back control and to cook supper herself, so that we don’t ruin that too. And to stop us from ordering in pizza. Mothers hate pizza – it represents everything that they think is evil about the modern world, along with socks on the floor and leaving the loo seat up.
So Mother’s Day is about being nice to Moms until they squeal to us to stop. Father’s Day is about doing cool things with Dad and buying him boy’s toys from Cape Union Mart, like knives and everlasting torches and those little screwdriver sets with all the tiny bits that go missing.
Children’s Day is not quite such a laugh, being all about the abolition of child labour – harder labour, that is, than making breakfast in bed or washing the dishes once a year. And there is even a Pet’s Day, when we can show our pets how much we adore them (proof of the old adage that every dog has his day) with a bone, or some catnip or a new chunk of cuttlefish.
Pet’s Day is 11th April. Every year and around the same time of Mother’s Day.
So don’t get confused, or the next thing you will be giving your Dad dry toast smeared, along with the duvet, with cocoa butter, while the dog plays with his new Leatherman and slurps Brandy and Coke at the poolside. Mom will meanwhile be sitting alone on the kitchen floor, sharpening her nails on the cupboard doors and chewing on a cow’s hoof by torchlight.
It really doesn’t pay to get confused about the importance of mothers, does it Bruce – sorry, Caitlin – unless you can get millions for appearing in a TV reality show? Then it pays.
Happy Mother’s Day.

Valentinophobia

14 February 2017

For an event that is all about ‘love’, it is extraordinary that the words ‘Valentine’s Day’ should create so little enthusiasm in the hearts of so many. In a large number of cases, in fact, the fourteenth of February doesn’t celebrate love, it strikes terror.
What am I going to do to show my ‘significant other’ how much I love him or her? Breakfast in bed? Flowers? Lingerie? If so, how lewd should it be? A card? Signed or unsigned? What if mine is not the only card that he or she receives? Should I send two, just to test the reaction? And just plain old Ferrero Rocher? Or heart-shaped Beacon chocolates? Oh dear. The stress.
And should the card be humorous, or more traditional, with blobby little fresh-faced cherubs flying around firing tiny arrows into aortas and ventricles?
Few are more wary of The Feast of St Valentine, though, than restaurateurs and hoteliers, on whom the pressure falls to make the day ‘extra special’ not just for one guest celebrating a birthday, or for one couple on honeymoon or marking an anniversary, but for every person in the restaurant or hotel. All at the same time. Private romantic moments in a thronging public place. Tricky.
So it is red roses all around, on the tables. One presented to each lady. But then what about the men? Some men love flowers, but how do you know? Give a flower to the wrong bloke and he might thump you.
It is mushy music. But what? Love is in the Air (too corny) or The Greatest Love of All (too loud) or Air on a G-String (too much double-entendre)? Anything by Michael Bublé will have the ladies swooning, but then the men might feel a little nauseous.
So we draw little cream hearts in the soup, but what if it spreads and looks more like a tadpole? And worse still, when we try to cut cherry tomatoes into heart shapes, why do they always end up looking like little bottoms?
Then there is that horrific hotel room concept of the romantic turn-down. Petals, poetry and scented candles, all of which have to be cleared up the next morning.
So while you are worrying about what you are going to do with your partner for Valentine’s Day, spare a thought for the hospitality people, who have to come up with the right vibe for everyone, aged from 17 to 97, all out on a date and almost all, at best, a little nervous and beset with over-inflated expectations.
After all, who was this Saint with all this hype attached to him? Evidently the original Saint Valentine of Rome was a priest who performed hundreds of marriages in his lifetime, many of them secretly, for persecuted Christians and for Roman legionnaires who were forbidden from marrying.
And what are we left with now? Relics of Valentine himself, scattered across the world as seems to be the way with saints – a few bones in Rome, a few more in Dublin – and one day of the year which results, in the UK alone, in the exchanging of more than 25 million cards and the spending of £1.3 billion on flowers and chocolates. In the US, 190 million cards are sent and the average spend per person is over $150.
In South Africa, with our disastrous postal system, 25 million cards are probably sent but none of them will arrive before Christmas. “Darling, I sent you a card, I promise! It will be in the Randfontein sorting office.” Ugly scenes might ensue.
And don’t forget the 1929 Saint Valentine’s Day Massacre. What was that again? The husband who bought Ferrero Rocher, when he should have known that his wife didn’t like hazelnuts …

Christmas in Africa

December 2016

It’s a common question – and a bit of a strange one: “Do you have Christmas in Africa?”
Well, yes, we do and it is huge. Like God. Really very, very popular. Which is why it is a strange question. After all, just over 80% of South Africans are apparently church-going Christians, compared, for example, with 11.4% of British people! God bless Africa.
Christmas is therefore clearly not a purely European or American celebration, for many reasons, not least of them being the fact that the major events to which it relates occurred two thousand years ago in a sophisticated Levantine culture, 800 years before Alfred burnt the cakes, a thousand years before the Norman Invasion and 1500 years before Christopher Columbus stumbled across America and ‘discovered’ it.
Yes. We do have Christmas trees, but they are decorated with Ndebele-patterned money-oranges. And we have wrapped presents and lots of food. We also have the Queen’s Speech on television – we are in the Commonwealth after all.
Somewhat more illogically, we also have Christmas cards with snowmen on them. And robins – but European robins sitting on snowy holly bushes, and not, as you might expect, our own white-browed scrub robins sitting in dry acacia thorn trees.
But that is where the similarity ends. The rest we have adapted to our own conditions. For example, I have always persuaded my children that Santa’s sleigh is pulled by Keith, a leaf-browsing kudu, not Rudolph, a sugar-lump-chomping, red-nosed reindeer, because who the heck in Africa knows what a reindeer is?
The main key difference is that it doesn’t snow. Ever. So we spend the day outside by the swimming pool and we braai – or barbecue – anything we can get our hands on, including the turkey.
The African tradition of giving presents is a little simpler than the European version too, in that South Africans celebrate by buying things that they wouldn’t always buy in great quantities throughout the year. Most of us mark Christmas as a renewal and in African culture everyone wears new clothes on Christmas Day. We also dispose of whatever is left of our Christmas bonuses by buying a lot of beer to go with the meat, or, in the case of the ruling classes, a lot of Johnnie Walker Blue to go with the KFC.
Of course, Christmas falls in the middle of our summer holidays so the most marked indication that we are about to celebrate the birth of Christ is the moment when most of inland South Africa heads for the toll roads at a rate of over a thousand cars per road per hour and decants, a long drive later, onto the beach in Durban or Cape Town where it spreads its ill-gotten gains and expanding physiques.
Perversely, this also makes it the perfect time to visit the province of Gauteng (where Johannesburg and Pretoria are situated) for Christmas in the non-snow, Christmas pantomimes, Christmas carol services, Christmas with the Lipizzaners, Christmas shows like Annie and Joseph, and all manner of festivities in celebration of empty roads and malls.
In fact, from early December, the entire country closes down, just like France and Italy in August. Nobody, but nobody, achieves anything at all for about four weeks, with the honourable exception, of course, of the hospitality industry. (So be kind to us – and bear in mind that we are toiling away, alone, in a world full of holidaymakers. Our suppliers are all either on leave or drunk. The shops are empty of food. Our out-sourced laundry is on a half-staffed go-slow. Our electrician is on the beach. Our plumber is on safari in Namibia…)
This period of limbo persists until about 6th January, when the collective hangover (known locally as a babalas or babalazi) starts to clear and everyone drifts home to reconnect with their old clothes, their old jobs, their old lives – renewed, refreshed and a good few kilograms heavier – and all the restaurateurs and hoteliers can take down the tree and get some well-earned shut-eye.
In the meantime, we are ready and we look forward to seeing you soon. Bring your swimming gear, sun tan lotion and a large hat. We will do the rest. Merry African Christmas. It is just like Christmas at home, only better.

Driving us mad?
Portolio Blog Oct 2016

Our regular blogger, Chris Harvie, takes a tongue-firmly-in-cheek look at South African drivers, in order to prepare visitors for their onslaught. We strongly recommend the fastening of safety belts for this one…

Often people have said to me – although admittedly not so often recently – that South African drivers are both polite and disciplined and that our roads are fantastic. However, they can occasionally be fraught with danger for the uninitiated, so here, in a service to our readers, is a string of tips for drivers unfamiliar with South Africa driving conditions:

• You will initially be baffled by our ‘Stop Streets’, although it is essential to understand them very quickly as you will encounter them immediately, even in the Parkades and on the precincts of the airports (where you will almost certainly be harassed by a traffic officer hell-bent on annoying you before you even get out onto the public roads). At a Stop Street, you are obliged to come to a complete and utter stop. The order of departure from the ‘Stop’ position is dictated by the order of arrival – first come, first leave – although in reality, it is simply a game of Chicken with potentially expensive consequences for any player who makes a wrong judgement. Note that drivers from Gauteng Province (with GP at the end of their number plates) are of the belief that Stop Streets do not apply to them.
• When you see the word ROBOT painted on the road, do not slow down in the belief that R2D2 is about to cross. Robots are traffic lights, so yes, do slow down and prepare to stop if the light is red, unless you are driving a GP-registered car (see above) in which case, as above, you might get away with believing that stopping at red robots is optional – and maybe die. A flashing red robot is out of synch and must, perversely, be treated as a Stop Street.
• Similarly, the solid white line in the centre of the road which, in the whole of the rest of the world, indicates that there should be ‘No Overtaking’, is generally (and often lethally) taken, in South Africa, to indicate that overtaking is perfectly OK even (maybe especially) if you can’t see around the blind corner. Another frequent cause of accidents, this doesn’t seem to put anyone off. In fact, the U-turn just over a blind rise is also now becoming increasingly popular.
• The area to the left of the yellow line – the hard shoulder – is also strictly out-of-bounds to all vehicles unless they have broken down, but it is nevertheless always used to allow overtaking and, especially by vehicles bearing a sticker with the words THIS VEHICLE DOES NOT DRIVE IN THE YELLOW LINE, to allow triple overtaking, which is tantamount to treating a single-lane road as a three-lane highway.
• Undertaking, as everywhere in the sane world, is strictly illegal and therefore extremely popular here, so check ALL your mirrors regularly. It is absolutely not sufficient to assume that no-one is coming past you on the left. They probably are (see GP-plates above).
• Circles are roundabouts. Be aware that South Africans are relatively new to the concept of roundabouts and are really not very good at them. Roundabouts are indicated by a hollow black broken ring on a triangular road sign and, often but not always, rumble strips with the intention of slowing down those who have ignored the hollow ring. The said ring should not be confused with a large (sometimes very large) rectangular signboard with a huge solid red spot and the words HIGH ACCIDENT ZONE. These signs mean what they say, but it would be a foolish person who assumed that the lack of a red spot sign meant, in any way, that you were entering a LOW ACCIDENT ZONE. We do not have any such zones.
• Dicing and speedsters are high among the reasons for the road accident rate, although, mercifully visitors are rarely involved as they tend to be a little bit more grown-up than South Africans when it comes to racing off traffic lights, stop streets and circles and zig-zagging in and out of fast moving lines of vehicles. It is fun though.
• Contrary to what you might think you are seeing, driverless cars have not yet hit South African roads. The car you are looking at – and which appears to be driverless – does actually have a driver, but he is lying down while he drives. He may be asleep. He may not. Either way, he can’t see very much, any more than you can see him.
• Similarly, you will often see an apparently empty Traffic Police vehicle parked on a verge or along the side of the road. In fact, sometimes they are actually in the road. The car is, however, not empty. There is at least one traffic officer in the car – sometimes two, three or even four of them – horizontally digesting a large portion of fried chicken and chips and a full-fat fizzy drink. The prevalent belief that all traffic officers are a) corrupt and, b) are living in very large houses, is untrue. It does not apply to all of them. But it does apply to some of them and you should (seriously) NEVER pay them cash, even when they are awake.
• Car guards, on the other hand, never sleep. They are always there. Sometimes uniformed and sober, sometimes in a borrowed, torn high-vis vest and looking a little the worse for wear. “I look after your car for you, Boss/Ma’am” signifies a contract to pay on your return for leaving your vehicle in his or her care. “Everything still fine, Boss/Ma’am” signifies that the contract has been completed and it is time to pay up. The going rate is about R5 – and it is worth keeping them on your side.
• Another sleepless group consists of the interesting people at the robots, who are out to sell you licence disc holders, wiper blades, mobile phone chargers, ‘genuine’ Police sunglasses, selfie sticks, car-branded keyrings and coat hangers. All the things you can’t get anywhere else or, in the case of the selfie-sticks, live without. Be nice to them. They have probably come all the way from the Ivory Coast to sell you a pack of dustbin bags.
• And of course, in case you are not scared yet, night-time, when the traffic cops are asleep in their beds (as opposed to in their cars) is the time when all the unroadworthy cars come out, held together with duct tape, chewing gum and bailer twine and with limited numbers of functioning lights. In fact, frequently they have no real lights at all and drive with just their hazards on for a suicidal game of “Now You See Me, Now You Don’t”.
• Finally – and talking of “Now You Don’t See Me” – no piece of South African road would be complete without a sprinkling of SLAGGATE signs. A SLAGGATE sign does not, however, indicate the Exit for a Person of Easy Virtue. Slaggate is the Afrikaans for ‘Potholes’ and such a warning should be taken seriously. For anyone struggling to ascertain whether we drive on the left or the right side of the road, we have a sophisticated system, especially when faced with a rash of potholes, of driving on the best side of the road. If you see a pair of ears sticking out of a looming pothole, it might not be a rabbit but a giraffe.

Of course, what I really mean to say is that South Africa is a fantastic destination for a self-drive holiday and the drivers are both polite and disciplined – with one or two exceptions, by no means all of them with GP number plates – and our roads are, for the most part, in fantastic condition, dead straight and blissfully low on traffic. Just mind you don’t fall asleep!

Hazy History
Portolio Blog July 2016

Chris Harvie fills us in on a bit of occasionally-questionable Lowveld history, focusing on Hazyview – as much as Chris is actually capable of focusing on anything …

One way or another, the chances are that visitors to most of the Lowveld’s finest safari destinations will pass, en route, through Hazyview. Equally the chances are that the uninitiated will wonder what it is like to live there. After all, don’t we wonder that about everywhere we visit?

Isn’t that what travel is all about? Opening up possibilities? Dreaming of alternative lifestyles? Haven’t we all woken up one morning and thought, dammit, I have had enough of commuting, banking, interior-decorating, bringing up children … or whatever it is that we do. I am going to move to Vladivostok and grow oyster mushrooms. Or to Snowdonia and farm Jack Russells …

Behind every possible destination is a good fact or story. Vladivostok in the 1860s, for example, was a hotbed for the smuggling of ginseng and giant sea cucumbers. Rather more prosaically, 62% of the inhabitants of Snowdonia speak Welsh, which might be a bit limiting for some of us if we were thinking of relocating. If you are not put off by this, it might be helpful to know that the Welsh for dog is ci (which gives us corgi, meaning ‘dwarf dog’).

I don’t know the Welsh for Jack Russell, but if popty ping has gained credence as the Welsh for a microwave, I’d like to propose Y-apity-barc for the terrier in question.

I digress. This happens to me. Back to some interesting facts about Hazyview:

• The town was founded by a drunk named Perry in the early 1900s. He ran away to the Lowveld because he thought he’d killed a woman in Bloemfontein by dropping a brick on her head whilst building her a house. He hadn’t killed her, as it happened, but he had given her a headache and he was wise to leave.
• He was a friend and Hazyview neighbour of another local legend, the hunter Harry Wolhuter, who killed a lion with his bare hands and two stabs to the heart with a penknife in 1903. Wolhuter is reported to have said that the stench of the lion’s breath was foul and the thought of being eaten by it infuriated him. (Don’t try this at home.)
• Arguably, the town’s first trading store was João Albasini’s store founded long before, in 1846 on the Phabeni stream, right by the Phabeni Gate (Kruger’s newest access, opened in 2002, only 12km from Hazyview). There is a small museum at the site, including such details as the fact that Albasini bought the land from Chief Magashula for 22 oxen (which seems a lot).
• It had apparently been Albasini’s plan to colonise the entire Lowveld region for Portugal – it was to be known as ‘Colonoa Da Santa Luiz’, a punchy name and only slightly more ludicrous than the name ‘Hazyview’ – but the rinderpest and tsetse fly put paid to João’s dreams (and, presumably, to Magashula’s oxen).
• These pestilences were eradicated in the early 1900s but livestock never really returned to the area. Instead by the 1950s, everyone had gone, literally, bananas – and mangoes – as fruit-growing took over Kiepersol, up the hill from Hazyview.
• The town of Hazyview was itself only officially promulgated in 1957 and it has grown from 14 shops in 1982 to over 300 now. Most of them are owned by Oscar Pistorius’s uncle.
• There was a manual telephone exchange until 1993.
• The valley’s first hotel, Sabi River Bungalows, opened in 1932 and boasted 13 rondavels with private bathrooms and six single rondavels for chauffeurs. Access to The Kruger National Park was through the M’timba Gate (now Numbi). Hazyview these days has more than 80 accommodation establishments and Sabi River Sun (formerly Bungalows) has sixty rooms and a large timeshare resort.
• The Selati Railway Line constructed in 1893, was rerouted to Hazyview in 1973. Prior to that it had passed through the Kruger National Park (or Sabi Game Reserve as it then was) with stops at Sabie Bridge (now Skukuza) and Newington.
• In the winter of 1923, in a stroke of genius, South African Railways offered what was called the “Round-in-Nine Day Tour” from Pretoria via Tzaneen to the entertainment hotspots of Lourenco Marques (now Maputo), taking in the sights of the Lowveld and the Escarpment and passing through the Game Reserve on the way. It stopped at a couple of places within the Reserve, where rangers would accompany the visitors on bush walks. It was a massive success.

Can you imagine how popular that tour would be today? And it was the only easy way to visit the Reserve as the first private vehicles weren’t allowed in until 1927, when there were still no rest camps. Instead visitors put up their own tents, sharpened their penknives and hoped not to have to use them.

So when you are passing through Hazyview on the way to your safari, stop over and have a look around. And should you think of moving there? Certainly. There is ginger instead of ginseng; there are avocados instead of sea cucumbers. English, Afrikaans, siSwati and xiTsonga are spoken in place of Welsh.

There are plenty of places to stay and the lions are still nearby. No need to bring the chauffeur.

Walking it Off

April 2016

Walking it off …
“If I could not walk far and fast, I think I should just explode and perish.” So said Charles Dickens, long before fast food began to cause people truly to explode and perish.
The Escarpment towns of Sabie and Graskop may be wholesome junk-food-free little places but they have pancakes for sale in every doorway and these must be walked off, just as much as dogmeat-burgers and fried rat, to avert self-detonation.
The most effective way to lose weight nowadays is to sign up for a ‘Survivor’-style reality show and to be nourished only with grubs, berries and the hatred of one’s fellow participants. The Australian version of ‘I am a Celebrity …’ was filmed right here although, far from being without manna in the wilderness, the participants were truly never more than 500 metres from a Harrie’s Chicken Liver Pancake.
So let’s take a walk …
1) Jock of the Bushveld Walk, Graskop
This gentle grassland route passes through Paradise Camp, which features strongly in Jock’s eponymous book. Of course, everything around here is a Jock-Something and the dog has many graves. Unsubstantiated rumour has it that one of his toenails is buried along this trail, but if you can’t find it, ogle the proteas instead.
2) Belvedere Trail, Bourke’s Luck
In rugged country, from Bourke’s Luck Potholes down to the Blyde River, the name is ironic. Tom Bourke predicted gold but found none himself, settling instead for rare samango monkeys. This is a great workout, terminating at the ancient and defunct Belvedere hydro-electric plant, one of three which powered the Pilgrim’s Rest Gold Rush and provided the town with electric street lights before even London had them.
3) Loerie Trail
The red wing-feather of a loerie (now Turaco) is the sign of a Swazi Chieftain. You too will feel like a king, as you set off past the caravan site, the memory of your plush Portfolio-accredited accommodation still fresh in your mind. Cool plantations are spattered with chunks of wildlife-rich indigenous forest, watered by the cooling Bridal Veil Falls. Feel as light as feather …
4) Forest Falls Walk and 5) Graskop Day Trail
The Mac-Mac River is best-known for the falls of the same name, its twin chute resulting from a real-life explosion caused by two careless Irishmen experimenting with dynamite. The Forest Falls are known for being the only falls in Mpumalanga to be wider than they are high. Like someone in need of a good hike, maybe? Waterfalls can be famous for just about anything, it seems, but this is great for a dip and to break out the jelly babies. The Graskop Day Trail is similar but goes twice the distance.
6) Matumi Trail
A shady meander along the Mac Mac River, from the Sabie Valley restaurant opposite Induna Adventures. Cool off in the forest, chase butterflies, find a rare Narina Trogon and then undo it all by getting stuck into a quiche. Nobody will know and surely you have hiked enough by now …
7) Lone Creek Falls, Sabie
A lone creak of the knees – this one’s for everyone. It is all of about 200 metres long but at least you got out of the car.
OK. Anyone for a pancake?!

Driving us Mad

October 2015

Often people have said to me – although admittedly not so often recently – that South African drivers are both polite and disciplined and that our roads are fantastic. However, they can occasionally be fraught with danger for the uninitiated, so here, in a service to our readers, is a string of tips for drivers unfamiliar with South Africa driving conditions:
• You will initially be baffled by our ‘Stop Streets’, although it is essential to understand them very quickly as you will encounter them immediately, even in the Parkades and on the precincts of the airports (where you will almost certainly be harassed by a traffic officer hell-bent on annoying you before you even get out onto the public roads). At a Stop Street, you are obliged to come to a complete and utter stop. The order of departure from the ‘Stop’ position is dictated by the order of arrival – first come, first leave – although in reality, it is simply a game of Chicken with potentially expensive consequences for any player who makes a wrong judgement. Note that drivers from Gauteng Province (with GP at the end of their number plates) are of the belief that Stop Streets do not apply to them.
• When you see the word ROBOT painted on the road, do not slow down in the belief that R2D2 is about to cross. Robots are traffic lights, so yes, do slow down and prepare to stop if the light is red, unless you are driving a GP-registered car (see above) in which case, as above, you might get away with believing that stopping at red robots is optional – and maybe die. A flashing red robot is out of synch and must, perversely, be treated as a Stop Street.
• Similarly, the solid white line in the centre of the road which, in the whole of the rest of the world, indicates that there should be ‘No Overtaking’, is generally (and often lethally) taken, in South Africa, to indicate that overtaking is perfectly OK even (maybe especially) if you can’t see around the blind corner. Another frequent cause of accidents, this doesn’t seem to put anyone off. In fact, the U-turn just over a blind rise is also now becoming increasingly popular.
• The area to the left of the yellow line – the hard shoulder – is also strictly out-of-bounds to all vehicles unless they have broken down, but it is nevertheless always used to allow overtaking and, especially by vehicles bearing a sticker with the words THIS VEHICLE DOES NOT DRIVE IN THE YELLOW LINE, to allow triple overtaking, which is tantamount to treating a single-lane road as a three-lane highway.
• Undertaking, as everywhere in the sane world, is strictly illegal and therefore extremely popular here, so check ALL your mirrors regularly. It is absolutely not sufficient to assume that no-one is coming past you on the left. They probably are (see GP-plates above).
• Circles are roundabouts. Be aware that South Africans are relatively new to the concept of roundabouts and are really not very good at them. Roundabouts are indicated by a hollow black broken ring on a triangular road sign and, often but not always, rumble strips with the intention of slowing down those who have ignored the hollow ring. The said ring should not be confused with a large (sometimes very large) rectangular signboard with a huge solid red spot and the words HIGH ACCIDENT ZONE. These signs mean what they say, but it would be a foolish person who assumed that the lack of a red spot sign meant, in any way, that you were entering a LOW ACCIDENT ZONE. We do not have any such zones.
• Dicing and speedsters are high among the reasons for the road accident rate, although, mercifully visitors are rarely involved as they tend to be a little bit more grown-up than South Africans when it comes to racing off traffic lights, stop streets and circles and zig-zagging in and out of fast moving lines of vehicles. It is fun though.
• Contrary to what you might think you are seeing, driverless cars have not yet hit South African roads. The car you are looking at – and which appears to be driverless – does actually have a driver, but he is lying down while he drives. He may be asleep. He may not. Either way, he can’t see very much, any more than you can see him.
• Similarly, you will often see an apparently empty Traffic Police vehicle parked on a verge or along the side of the road. In fact, sometimes they are actually in the road. The car is, however, not empty. There is at least one traffic officer in the car – sometimes two, three or even four of them – horizontally digesting a large portion of fried chicken and chips and a full-fat fizzy drink. The prevalent belief that all traffic officers are a) corrupt and, b) are living in very large houses, is untrue. It does not apply to all of them. But it does apply to some of them and you should (seriously) NEVER pay them cash, even when they are awake.
• Car guards, on the other hand, never sleep. They are always there. Sometimes uniformed and sober, sometimes in a borrowed, torn high-vis vest and looking a little the worse for wear. “I look after your car for you, Boss/Ma’am” signifies a contract to pay on your return for leaving your vehicle in his or her care. “Everything still fine, Boss/Ma’am” signifies that the contract has been completed and it is time to pay up. The going rate is about R5 – and it is worth keeping them on your side.
• Another sleepless group consists of the interesting people at the robots, who are out to sell you licence disc holders, wiper blades, mobile phone chargers, ‘genuine’ Police sunglasses, selfie sticks, car-branded keyrings and coat hangers. All the things you can’t get anywhere else or, in the case of the selfie-sticks, live without. Be nice to them. They have probably come all the way from the Ivory Coast to sell you a pack of dustbin bags.
• And of course, in case you are not scared yet, night-time, when the traffic cops are asleep in their beds (as opposed to in their cars) is the time when all the unroadworthy cars come out, held together with duct tape, chewing gum and bailer twine and with limited numbers of functioning lights. In fact, frequently they have no real lights at all and drive with just their hazards on for a suicidal game of “Now You See Me, Now You Don’t”.
• Finally – and talking of “Now You Don’t See Me” – no piece of South African road would be complete without a sprinkling of SLAGGATE signs. A SLAGGATE sign does not, however, indicate the Exit for a Person of Easy Virtue. Slaggate is the Afrikaans for ‘Potholes’ and such a warning should be taken seriously. For anyone struggling to ascertain whether we drive on the left or the right side of the road, we have a sophisticated system, especially when faced with a rash of potholes, of driving on the best side of the road. If you see a pair of ears sticking out of a looming pothole, it might not be a rabbit but a giraffe.
Of course, what I really mean to say is that South Africa is a fantastic destination for a self-drive holiday and the drivers are both polite and disciplined – with one or two exceptions, by no means all of them with GP number plates – and our roads are, for the most part, in fantastic condition, dead straight and blissfully low on traffic. Just mind you don’t fall asleep!

Graaff-Reinet, The Karoo – February 2010

2 May 2010

Nieu Bethesda, my bugbear and potential nemesis, is growing on me slowly. Perhaps it looks better after rain. André’s Brewery still offers the only acceptable lunch, even if there is only one choice on the menu (which, as I keep trying to tell him, means there isn’t a choice).

An Invitation to Grahamstown

13 April 2010

I have been invited to speak at the Grahamstown Festival as part of the Think!Fest 2010 initiative. My talk will be at 2pm on 2 July at The Monument restaurant and there will be a “Conversations with Authors” evening later in the afternoon. I hope there’s an audience …

Nairobi, Mombasa and Lamu – January 2010

12 March 2010

In January, I took a ten day trip to Kenya on Air Miles, sparing the pick-up/bakkie for a change. With so many lengthier African journeys under my belt, it was potentially confusing to be away for such a short time. It felt like taking a quick dunk instead of a proper swim.

I got around this by reading Sihle Khumalo’s ‘Heart of Africa’ on the plane. By the time I reached Mombasa I felt as if I had been in and out of as many minibus taxis as he had and was well into travelling mode. I was interested to see that Sihle was born in Nqutu, in KwaZulu-Natal and just down the road from Fugitives’ Drift Lodge, my alma mater. I must now read his first book to complete the picture.

This short stay in Kenya included a couple of days in sultry Mombasa, 4 nights on Lamu and the spectacular train from Mombasa to Nairobi. The best experience of all was a visit to an orphanage outside Nairobi and the infectious enthusiasm of its occupants. I think I was hard on Kenya in my book and I look forward to exploring it in more detail soon.

Along the Coast from Cape Town to Port Elizabeth – December 2009

11 February 2010

A quick spin to Cape Town (for a meeting to discuss converting a forward control Land Rover into a safari vehicle) led to some auspicious discoveries and the launch of my EAT RIGHT EN ROUTE campaign for fresh fruit and healthy food in petrol station shops:

1) The Vineyard Hotel in Newlands offers some of the best vegetarian food I have ever eaten (no, I am not a vegetarian).

2) Whale-watching is not as boring as it sounds and The Marine Hotel, on a Hermanus cliff-top, is proof, if it were needed, that a South African 5* hotel is up there with the finest in the world.

3) Mossel Bay’s scruffy under-reconstruction “waterfront” hides one of the best seafood options in the land – Gypsey Cove. Plump oysters and lekker chokka.

4) Knysna’s traffic problem is no closer to being solved, even now that the causeway over the lagoon is finished.

5) Port Elizabeth’s Courtyard Hotel is further evidence that this chain has it spot-on. The only complaint in the visitor’s book (predictably from a government employee) was that the TV wasn’t plasma screen. Strange priorities, indeed.

Final Conclusion: The Garden Route will (probably) be wonderful when it is finished.

Namibia – October and November 2009

24 November 2009

Recently my travels took me, with some friends, to two of South Africa’s dry National Parks, Augrabies NP and the Kgalagadi TP on the way to and from Namibia. A South African traveller’s life is a journey incomplete without visiting and absorbing these two Kalahari national parks, while Namibia offers the ultimate unique camping destination.

We stayed in The Fish River Canyon, The Richtersveld National Park, Luderitz, Helmeringhausen, Sossusvlei, The Namib Naukluft National Park, Swakopmund and Windhoek. With bicycles and climbing boots aboard the Jeep, our journey was an endless feast of exploration and discovery. You can see photographs of the expedition on the website of Anton du Toit, my photographer colleague. See www.antondutoit.com

Over the next few months I shall post itineraries on this page and discuss plans for future trips