Cleared immigration and customs in a few minutes. The flight from Sao Paulo was quite smooth, which was just as well as the 747 we had looked fairly ancient. Service was about average, reminded me a lot of British Airways. Coming in over South-West Africa looks a lot like Colorado.
I've got to start practising my British English again. Sidewalk has no meaning here. Waiting for the Cape Town flight now...
Got here about noon. I guess the Sudafed I took wore off, because my middle ears filled with crap - ouch! Hopefully they will clear up by tomorrow. Staying at the Cullinan Waterfront, quite a nice hotel. A bit more basic than the Marriott, but at least equal to a brand new Hilton.
The weather here is excellent, high 70F's/low 80F's, better yet, low humidity. Spent most of time on the plane chatting to a guy who lives here. He is white, in his early 30's, said that, by and large, younger people despite growing up under Apartheid were integrating well.
I also didn't realize how popular Afrikans (the language of the Boers) is here. Lots of people use it as their first language. I had thought that English was pretty universal, but it turns out the new South Africa has eleven official languages.
I went down to the Waterfront this evening. Huge shopping complex and entertainment Mall. Really nice place, nice friendly people.
I tried to change some money and was a bit shocked by the tight exchange controls here. If you Change dollars into Rand here as a foreigner, you had better keep the receipt if you want those dollars back. If you are South African trying to get foreign currency is a total pain in the ass it seems. No wonder some traders will take one dollar for 10 rand (the offical rate is about seven). Speaking of finances interest rates on homes here are about 17% - major ouch!
There is actually some really nice art/souvenirs here as well as some good animal print sheet sets. Who knows I might yet be tempted? Found an Internet Cafe and an interntational phone line. Not particularly cheap, but OK. Got messages back to all the right people.
Just had my pickup time for the township tour moved back 30 minutes. Oh well, it will give a chance for the sun cream and insect repellant to dry. Ears feel a lot better this morning. I hope the trip up Table mountain doesn't set them off again.
This morning we, that is me the guide Dinka (his name means Think in English) and three female tourists went to check out some of the townships where the blacks and coloureds were housed having been originally forceably removed from their old homes under apartheid. First though we visited District Six, which is an area from which the people were removed by the sharp end of a bulldozer and is now a big empty space, only the churches were left standing.
The townships we visited were Langa, Nyanga and Khayelitsha. We were taken inside a couple of dwellings. The first was the top floor of a two storey end-of-terrace. This was originally part of a hostel for men only who came to the city to work, leaving their wives and children behind in the countryside. The accomodation was thus a day room and one shared 'bedroom' with three single beds with all the persons possessions hung around and a curtain for privacy. Also a toilet, cold water (baths are taken outside) and enough electricity to power a couple of light bulbs only were provided.
A kerosene stove is used for heating. Unfortunately since internal movement controls have been abandoned each bed is now occupied by a family. The average size of a family is seven! So things are pretty grim.
That said we also visited a woman called Gwen who was living with her two children in a much more modern home that her family had bought. Similar homes cost around $10000. It compared quite well with 19th century miners cottages in England and had the benefit of pre-paid electricity (for which you get a code to key into the meter) no TV, but an old radio and vinyl record player again only cold water with an outside toilet (Gwen would really like to move this inside as it is cold in winter). Both of these homes were better than a lot of those we didn't visit, being built by the government out of real brick.
There were also many buildings, that were really just shacks made from wood and zinc sheets with open holes for windows, these were similar to the favelas in Brazil, but it gets much colder here in the winter. Unfortunately these shacks frequently burn down because they are fairly combustible.
Finally we visited a school/nourishment centre. In order to help pay for this, the mothers also come here. They are taught how to better care for their children and also a craft such as pottery or weaving, the products they make are sold through local stores, so that they can raise some money.
I didn't see any especially malnourished kids, but maybe they were kept from us.
The regular children who I guess were between 5 and 8 years old, were enthusiastic lively and apparently keen to see us and shake hands. Their classroom was fairly basic, but seemed to have a good selection of simple learning toys and a few books.
All the local schools had large Coca-Cola logos on them. Us stupid westerners thought that the huge multi-national had at least built a few classrooms if not the entire school. But no, all Coke had done was to provide the schools with proper signs, that's it! How miserably sad is that :-(?
So in summary, yes most blacks in Cape Town are very poor. Many in the townships have VERY basic housing, many more recent migrants are in shacks. Water is at least readily available, if only from a shared tap at the end of the street and is apparently safe to drink, most of the time. Electricity, heat, very basic health clinics, churches and schooling also exist, there is also transport to the city about 30 mins ride for work (50c each way). The people have complete freedom of religion and are not being attacked by the state or by an invading army. Though of course crime is high. There are many who are worse off, especially in Africa and like all semi-developed countries, an elite including blacks that are much better off and in case of South Africa, live almost like they were in the first world.
I am a little surprised at my lack of emotional reaction to seeing these levels of poverty close up. Like all westerners I guess compassion fatigue, having seen much worse on TV, has set in.
Also the realization that only sixty five years ago, people in rural England (and the USA), had no electricity, water that had to be manually drawn from a well, almost no health care and a fairly simple village school, gives me hope that things could one day improve here. Sooner rather than later would be nice.
I just got back from touring the city of Cape Town proper. We went up Table Mountain, which is about twice the height of the former World Trade Center. Great views from the top, hopefully I got some decent pictures.
Then we drove around the city for a while, before doing a walk through of the South African Natural History museum, which has a pretty nice rock gallery and also fascinating cave paintings and exhibits of fast disappearing rural tribal life. Revisionist history looms large here. There is an exhibit of items showing early intelligence among indiginous people, which was locked away during the Apartheid years. More recently the museum was forced to remove an exhibit, showing bush tribesmen in the same light as bush animals. Had they continued to exhibit this, they would have been denied funding - shades of the fight at the Brooklyn Art Museum with the New York mayor's office ;-). The curator has cooperated apparently somewhat unwillingly by covering the exhibit up, but not removing it.
Apparently after dark, street crime is pretty bad here. With unemployment nationally around 35%, this shouldn't really surprise anyone. A final note for my British viewers I found out tonight that South Africa has TV licenses. As an incentive to actually get one, they will enter you in a lottery with great prizes such as a new kitchen. Maybe the UK post office should try this one.
Took a coach trip today south from Cape Town to the actual point where the Indian Ocean and South Atlantic meet. The Cape of Good Hope has reefs, sand bars and good old rocks. Combine that with frequent storms in the winter and bad fog in the summer and you can see why they need two lighthouses.
On the way there we passed through a number of pretty villages one of which has a bronze leopard sitting on a rock. Very similar to the little mermaid in Copenhagen. We also visited an Ostrich farm so later I had Ostrich for lunch, a dark meat, bit stringy but quite pleasant. Who says I don't try new things?
Had a long conversation with Daniel the guide over lunch. He provided a few interesting insights into aparteid. I didn't realize how much white opposition there was here. The whites were also controlled by a police state, making organized resistance very difficult and misinformation very easy. It is also interesting that once aparteid was abolished the whites have moved to embrace the new order. There is less white on black racism here now than in some US cities.
After visting the Cape we visited a penguin colony and finally ended up at the huge botantical gardens. The size of central park with thousands of plant species. It is a world class garden and also contains lots of beautiful sculpture.
Another tour today, to the vineyards surrounding Cape Town and the university town of Stellenbosch. Wine was OK (cheap), lunch was fish and chips also OK. One interesting thing I discovered, in South Africa you pay directly to the school for each child's schooling. Education is effectively private, though subsidised. Also all the kids still wear uniform, imagine that ;-)
Picked up at the hotel at 9am this morning by Dinga for a flight at noon (what was Luann thinking?). Hung out at the airport for two hours then hopped on Nationwide Airways. Interesting flight, again almost everyone was white, chatted to a businessman who further reinforced everything I had heard to date. Interesting fact: Under aparteid airlines were not segregated. Anyone black and wealthy enough to be flying, was assumed to be foreign anyway. Pilot was a total chatterbox (british) gave us a running commentary most of the way. I think he thought he was still flying missions over Suez. He certainly looked old enough.
LuAnn (the tour agent) picked me up at Durban airport. Much hotter and sticky here. The Hilton is very beautiful. It's only a year old and has every possible amenity. Having dinner with LuAnn at 7:30pm this evening. We are going to a local steakhouse. Then tomorrow 9am going out to check out some sultan's horses. One is worth about $45M!
Had a nice dinner with Luann who at 24 finally got engaged last week to her boyfriend of seven years. Afterwards we took a drive around Durban. I can see why they don't bother with a city tour here. Think of Southampton (in England) or Newark (in New Jersey) without the charm ;-)
It felt more like we were on one of those undercover cop drug bust shows. That said we did pass a couple of nice areas including where the president of South Africa has one of his many official houses (think whitehouse in terms of size). Considering the state of his country this seems a little excessive, but apparently he can't use hotels for security reasons ;-)
Today, Michael (the compassline guide) and I took a ride out west of Durban to the Drakensburg mountains. The trip had two purposes. First to visit Summerhill Stud, possibly South Africa's top horse racing farm and secondly to find out something about the Zulu Nation who inhabit this area as native people.
The horse stud is built around Hartford House , a beautiful colonial home. Among other items they have a 500 year old copper statue by one of Michaelangelo's assistants just sitting in the garden (don't worry it's alarmed and has armed guards just waiting to rescue it - cheap labour is a wonderful thing).
Nick Goss (the son of the owner) the only Irish descended guy I know who can speak fluent Zulu (a language full of clicks) gave us an excellent tour. The house used to be the home of the colonial Prime Minister of Natal and the peace treaty that ended the Boer War was signed on the veranda. The interior decoration and gardens especially the roses are awesome.
Once we had finished with the house we went to check out the horses who are also fantastic. My favorite is Russian Revival (see pic), who is not only rated in the top 1/2% of all horses worldwide, but is the grandson of Northern Dancer a world famous racehorse. Most of the horses here are owned by the Sultan of Dubai nice work if you can get it.
We then headed up into the Drakensburg mountains which border Lesotho. This area is extremely beautiful and so incredibly empty and vast. At times it seemed like we were the only vehicle for miles around. On the way we passed through several rural villages. I have to say that despite life being even more backward here, for instance hand powered water pumps and no electricity, I think that the people are better off here than in the townships with the overcrowding and crime.
I'm delighted to say that I also spotted the only four legged wildlife a large Oryx (actually three of them) before Michael did (well he was driving) so that was pretty cool.
Michael is a wildlife nut and has just been in Botswana for three weeks trying to setup new tourism there. He was telling me how keen animal's senses are and also about the various animals. The most interesting for me was the lion. He explained that when a pride of lions are hunting they obviously approach downwind of their prey, so that the smell of the lion doesn't carry. What's clever is that then a couple of the lions detach themselves from the pride and circle around the prey so that they are upwind. When the prey catch the scent of the lions they run downwind from them straight into the rest of the pride. Pretty clever - huh ;-)
Zulu wealth is measured in cows held, when a man seeks a wife he pays as dowry cows to the womans father.
March 16th Durban to Jo'Burg - 10am...
Before I leave Zulu land I just wanted to add that the reason the Zulus beat the British in one battle was because they outnumbered them about six to one and secondly because the Zulu front line was high on a combination of mescaline (natural LSD) and speed. While it might have been clever, I'm not sure it made them great warriors.
I also found someone (young, white, south african) who even after education and opportunity had been factored out thought that the average black was not as intelligent (and probably not as inventive) as the average white. This person actively supported the end of Aparteid and was quick to point out that blacks have many other features that were superior to whites. Make of this what you will.
I also discovered this morning that the 'Corsi' (tribe around Cape Town) destroyed two of my polo shirts last week by punching holes in the back of them in the laundry so that kind of spoiled my day.
Finally I see that a pneumonia epidemic is starting to sweep around the world and there will probably be a war in the middle east next week. It really gives me a warm feeling, especially since I can't shake this cough I picked up in Brazil :-(
Flew to Jo'burg today. Nationwide again, same chat, chat, chat from the pilot. Nice flight. Sat next to a couple of blacks, thought it was a bit strange that they were on the plane, but then found out that though one of them was from South Africa and the other from Botswana they had both been educated in PA. Not exactly typical. That said they expressed all the same hopes for South Africa I have heard so many times. Then they warned me how unsafe Jo'burg was and finally the girl layed into me about the upcoming war with Iraq. This was the worst grief I have had on the subject since leaving the USA.
I am staying in Sandton, here security is paramount. Walls are high. Topped with barbed wire, electric fencing or both. People mostly live in gated communities with armed guards on hand, rather than at the end of a phone line. Even the ATM's have security guards here ;-(
This evening I went out for dinner to "the butchers shop" had a Springbok for dinner, very tasty. Pretty much like venison which I really enjoy. The restaurant was in this huge shopping mall. 98% of everyone I saw was white, the only blacks were the waiters and the garbage collectors. Clearly the whites had it great before aparteid ended and aside from a sharp decline in security their life is still pretty comfy here.
She was about half her weight as I remember her. Wearing a strapless, shiny, long, floor length dress, white satin with silver sparkles. She must have been in four inch heels as I had to reach up slightly to kiss her when we met. She said "How do I look now?", she still looked a bit rough and pale, so I said "Your lucky to be alive", she said "I'm not", I said "I Know", she said "I'm sorry..." and then I woke up.
I hadn't thought much about Michele since I left and certainly haven't dreamt about her. Maybe it was the Sringbok last night. I guess I'll never know.
Did the Jo'burg tour today. Didn't take long. Visited Hillbrow a really bad area populated mainly by criminally inclined Nigerians. The guides theory is that they are more inclined to crime, because of the Arab influence in their backgrounds, apparently South African natives don't do much crime, requires too much thought and organisation. Hillbrow was once a nice area (bit like parts of Brooklyn) it has proper housing, but is very run down.
Then we hit the actual downtown. It's terrible, many businesses including a large hotel are just lying empty with fecning around them. Apparently almost everyone who stayed there got mugged. Eventually no one would stay there. Jo'burg has around 2000 murders per year. It is supposed to be the most dangerous major city to police on earth. More policemen are killed here every year than all the homicides in New York. All the remaining businesses have fled to the suburbs.
Then we went on to Soweto, which is actually quite a nice township. Visited the Regina Mundi church (Queen of the world), Winnie Madela's house, Desmond Tutu's house, Nelson Mandela's original house and his current home which is not in Soweto. Nelson and Winnie have the best security in Jo'burg ;-). Finally I went to Alexander (Alex for short) that is the worst township here. I think I have seen enough slums for one trip.
One interesting thing the guide pointed out. He said that building high rise buildings for African tribesmen was a waste of time. Because, unlike the west, they live life almost completely outdoors. The hut is a bedroom NOT a house. He felt that if this had been for carefully thought through, more relevant homes would have been provided.
Visited the Cullinan - Debeer's diamond mine today. Tour was a bit dull, we didn't actually go down the mine or see the sorting room. That said I saw the basic process. The most amazing thing is that for each rail box car sized load of Kimberlite rock they haul up (about 12 tons) they get 8 Carats of diamonds. Of those only 20% are gem grade. Which roughly equals a single engagement ring. It's incredible the lengths man will go to for this stuff.
Appartently they retrieve about 8000 Carats per day total yield = 1000 box cars of ore. That's an awful lot of rings ;-) Prices here were not that great. My experience to date says the best prices are Antwerp in Belgium where a lot of cutting occurs.
Once the rough diamonds are split out, they are flown weekly to Kimberly in a private helicopter. The time and date of the trip are always changing and they make decoy trips to keep any crooks guessing. Each chopper is moving about 40000cts worth of diamonds. 8000cts gem quality is at least 4000cts after cutting, even assuming a value of $3000 per carat, which is pretty low, that's still $12M per trip and that's just the gem quality stuff. This is a robbery waiting to happen now that surface to air missiles are so readily available.
Went to the movies this evening. Interestingly seats didn't tip up or recline. Also you get allocated a specific seat, which is kind of funny. Cost about $5 which ain't bad (it's $10 in NYC).
I saw "Gangs of New York", as those of you who have seen the movie know, watching this with a mixed crowd of South African's was kind of amusing. I mentioned Hillbrow earlier and this movie sums up the present day situation in Jo'burg perfectly. Except it's real black tribes fighting, instead of Irish factions.
Outside as I write, a substantial storm is raging as only a tropical storm can. I can't help but think that this will be the scene in Iraq in rather less than the six hours the president's deadline has left to run.
Tonight for the first time on this trip I'm feeling rather lonely. There is no one around to chat to and tonight is one of those times when that would be a wonderful thing. It's too expensive to start calling overseas and in any case only my British friends are really available. As I may have written, the hotel has no useful internet and the streets aren't really safe outside anyway.
The day started well enough, the scheduled activity was a trip to see Pretoria. This is the countries administrative capital and old Boer capital when they ruled there. We saw the city hall, the Transvaal Museum of Natural History (good gem collection, downstairs is empty) then we went to Church Square and saw the statue of Paul Kruger staring north away from the British. We also saw the court where Nelson Mandela was sent to jail. My guide doesn't like Mandela, interesting considering the guide was a black guy from Soweto. He said once Mandela dies all sorts of secrets will surface.
The guide also really dislikes the Swiss, who, according to him, are responsible for most of Africa's problems. His reasoning was that no secret bank accounts would mean no corrupt African leaders. In a roundabout way I guess he has a good point. Of course the guide is also a Zulu, who as you may know don't get along with the ANC. In Africa almost nothing is Black and White ;-) To wrap up Pretoria we saw the main parliament building, the American Embassy compound (who told me to buzz off when they saw the camera) and Melrose House where the second Boer war peace treaty was signed.
This afternoon I finally managed to get two things done. The first easy one was getting all the pictures I have shot so far made digital. I put about forty of them on the web - cool!
The other job I got done was less pleasant, but equally necessary. A visit to the doctor. I have to say the actual visit was great. It cost about $60 including the four prescriptions. In the USA my co-payments would be higher than that. No waiting, no stupid paperwork. It took five minutes to look in both my ears and confirm an infection (in both).
Another five minutes and Dr Weinstein had prescribed and dispensed an antibiotic for my ears, some ear drops, anti-histamine for sleeping and decongestion and finally Doxycycline (an anti-malarial) which I should have in Malaysia. Simple, cheap and hopefully effective. I'll know next week.
Just heard the first 17 Iraqis have surrendered before we even attacked let's hope the others feel the same way ;-)
Went to see the wildlife today. It was the first damp and overcast day which is actually much better than hot weather for seeing animals. The guide, Martin, was excellent and this was definitely the highlight of the trip to Jo'burg. We saw various 'boks, Zebra, wild dogs, hyenas, jackals, giraffe, warthogs, lions, leopards, tigers, cheetahs, cervals, rhino, hippo, crocs, ostrich, eagles, vultures and a bunch of other birds.
I also had the chance to cuddle a lion cub. Apparently up to six months old, you can play with them, after that, they play with you! The one I held was about ten weeks old it's teeth and claws were already pretty long. I also saw the plant where the poison ricin comes from.
This is one of those cases where the pictures will hopefully tell a better story than I can in words. Martin is actually an Afrikaner/boer, the British imprisioned his grandparents in a concentration camp, but he seemed pretty much OK with it. Told me a whole bunch of bush stories which were very educational.
First day of fall here in the southern hemisphere. Overcast, long shirt sleeve weather. Visited Gold Reef city, an amusement park built on top of an old gold mine. Went down the shaft, one of 16 in this mine. It's 650ft down and that's just the first of three drops each about the same depth. Then we saw gold being poured into an ingot and finally some traditional dancing. The gold yield here is 4 grammes per ton of ore mined. To complete the trip we saw some traditional African dancing.
In the afternoon I hung out at the Mall. It is human rights day here, a holiday, so a few stores were closed. Most were open, so human rights doesn't apply to shop staff ;-). Got the rest of my films developed. I now have around 150 decent pictures in five albums, should give me something interesting to talk about on the trains.
Had an interesting conversation with a guy born in Sweden living near Zurich, married to an Equadorian. He had a conversation with an old German physicist who had finally been released by the Russians about 1990. Apparently this German had been captured at the end of world war II and was forced to work on the Russian's atomic weapons program. He had finished working in about 1970, but had been kept imprisoned until the Glasnost had started.
Noisy last night due to elevator maintenance. Got a 600 Rand refund today (about $90) in exchange for a two page memo on the failings of the Hilton here. I also got a $70 refund from the hotel in Cape Town for laundry mutilation. So we are doing OK. I left the hotel at 2:30pm today. Things are crazy here as the cricket world cup final is tonight. I'm writing this from the departure lounge, should arrive in Bangkok midday tomorrow, very early in the morning South African time.
Well that wraps it up for South Africa, it's been great fun and I am glad I came. I would recommend it as a tourist destination, especially Cape Town which is by far the nicest city. Anyway I'm off now, see you in Asia tomorrow.
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