South Africa

By John Rae

When I roomed with a South African colleague for a week and he said, “You should come and visit my family,” I considered it seriously. About two years later, I took Geoff Hilton-Barber up on his offer. In the interim, I had developed several pen friends in South Africa. I had the rare opportunity to experience the country through the insights of residents.

The Republic of South Africa occupies the southernmost part of the African continent, with a surface area of 1,219,090 square kilometres – slightly less than twice the size of Texas. The nation’s capital is Pretoria, though Cape Town is the legislative centre and Bloemfontein the judicial centre. South Africa is divided into nine provinces, each featuring its own distinctive landscape, vegetation and climate.

South Africa has a population of about 42 million. There are no fewer than 11 official languages, including Afrikaans and English.

Kimberley

Arriving in Johannesburg after a long, overnight flight, I changed planes and went on to Kimberley, an area known for diamonds.

The Big Hole Museum consists of original and carefully reconstructed buildings. The Eureka, the first recorded diamond discovered in South Africa, can be viewed at the museum. Visitors can have some fun sifting through diamond-bearing gravel, looking for diamonds, playing skittles in the old bowling alley or just strolling through the reconstructed buildings.

The Big Hole was mined to a depth of about 800 metres. It has a surface area of about 17 hectares and a perimeter of about 1.6 km. It is the largest hand-dug excavation in the world. By August 14, 1914, 22.5 million tons of earth had been excavated, yielding 2.7 tons of diamonds. Eventually, underground mining was also carried out at the Kimberley Mine, in addition to open-pit mining.

Rhodes’ Boardroom, a national monument, was the De Beers Mining Company head office from 1886 to 1889, when it moved to Stockdale Street. Many artifacts are on display, including the original boardroom table and chairs.

Surface tours of treatment and recovery plants take place each day at Bultfontein Mine. It also offers the world’s only underground tour of a diamond mine – but staff weren’t prepared to let two blind visitors go underground.

Cape Town

When Bartolomeu Dias rounded the Cape in 1487, the area that we now know as Cape Town and the Peninsula was occupied by the Khoikhoi (or Hottentots, as they were also known), a peaceful and semi-nomadic cattle-farming people.

In 1652, the Dutch East India Company sent a small fleet of ships under the command of Jan van Riebeeck to establish a permanent base where passing ships could stock up on fresh produce. Van Riebeeck landed at Table Bay on April 6, 1652, and immediately planted a market garden, built a fort and founded a small hospital. The Khoikhoi began trading fresh meat and milk with their European visitors in return for fruit and vegetables.

Soon, Table Bay became a well-visited stopover when en route around the Cape. As the settlement flourished and grew, the Khoikhoi slowly began to be pushed away. They resisted, but were finally overcome in a bloody battle in 1659. Today, Cape Town is a large metropolis with a varied population. Apartheid may officially have been abolished, but the day-to-day reality for many residents of Cape Town is that true integration is a long way away.

I joined what was described as an “educational visit” rather than a tour, run by local township residents, that took me to three townships: I visited a workers’ hostel in Langa, a traditional doctor in Guguletu and a shanty home in Crossroads. The half-day outing was sensitively done.

I also visited the District 6 Museum, which celebrates the racially mixed downtown neighbourhood where many township residents formerly lived. District 6 was deliberately left to rot after the ’50s, then demolished, and most residents were forcibly moved. This is a lovely and dignified museum, clearly well visited by Cape Towners and loved by former District 6 residents. This morning was a real education and excellent reality check.

Robben Island

For a human rights activist like me, going to Cape Town and not visiting Robben Island would be like going to Egypt and not seeing the pyramids. I went on a rainy day, and I think that added to my experience. Located about 11 kilometres north of Cape Town, Robben Island is where Nelson Mandela spent much of his 27 years of incarceration.

Upon disembarkation from the 30-minute ferry ride across the cold, shark-infested waters of Table Bay, visitors are taken on a bus ride around the island. You see some of the rock quarries where the prisoners worked day after torturous day, and you see lots of marine life, especially penguins.

Then it’s into the prison itself, where you can enter Mandela’s cell. Most guides on the trip are ex-prisoners of the jail, adding authenticity as well as being able to answer questions with real authority and interest.

Nelson Mandela once described Robben Island as “the harshest, most iron-fisted outpost in the South African penal system.” Today it is a national museum and cultural heritage site, symbolizing both the repressiveness of the apartheid state and the resolve of those who opposed it. It is a truly moving place to visit.

Cape Town is the gateway to an endless array of touring options, including
many renowned wineries, the Kirstenbosch National Botanical Garden,
beaches and nature reserves. Since I had some reservations about how much I would benefit from a large nature reserve, given my blindness, I went to smaller ones. I visited ostrich, seals and the world-famous jackass penguins, found nowhere on earth but here. People around the world knitted sweaters for these penguins when they were threatened by a huge oil spill. After they were relocated some 600 miles away, they returned to their old rookeries, about an hour’s drive from Cape Town. It was great seeing them in their old home area.

Durban

And then it was on to visit Geoff, who now lives on a 170-acre farm about an hour outside of Durban. By anyone’s standards, Geoff Hilton-Barber would be considered remarkable. He has run marathons in the Moroccan desert and climbed Mount Kilimanjaro, and he is the blind “solo sailor” who piloted his 33-foot yacht, the Abacus, alone across the treacherous 6,000-nautical-mile Indian Ocean from Durban, South Africa, to Fremantle, Australia, and lived to tell the tale. And what a tale it is!

After two weeks of touring, I was looking forward to a relaxing time with Geoff and his family. En route, we visited a Zulu village, and while in the city, we toured the waterfront, sampled some great food and spent time bargaining with craft vendors. And I did get to stand on the deck of the Abacus, now moored in Durban Harbour. It seemed like a tiny boat for such a long and dangerous voyage.

Victoria Falls

As I was in South Africa already, I couldn’t resist making a short side trip to the legendary Victoria Falls in Zimbabwe, a two-hour flight from Johannesburg.

On November 16, 1855, Scottish missionary David Livingstone was brought to the falls by the Makalolo in a dugout canoe, and promptly named the site in honour of Queen Victoria.

The Victoria Falls are approximately 5,600 feet wide – one-and-a-half times wider than Niagara Falls, and twice the height. The area around the falls has fortunately been left free of the town’s commercialization. Be prepared to get wet when you visit the falls – take precautions to cover your camera and other gear. While walking through the rainforest, you can enjoy a wide variety of local flora, including ebony, ferns, lianas and flowering plants. You might also encounter the chobe bushbuck, a small antelope that grazes right up to the lip of the gorge.

Along the rim of the falls, a network of surfaced paths – laid down to limit damage to the fragile rainforest ecosystem – leads to a series of unobstructed viewpoints. One of the most dramatic is Cataract View, the westernmost point of the park. Be sure to give all of your senses time to take in the glory of the falls.

Victoria Falls offers lots of other opportunities to the visitor. For instance, the Elephant Back Safarian is an unusual excursion offered twice daily in the early morning or late afternoon on a private reserve. The safari, which lasts three to four hours, begins with a debriefing and short training session during which you can witness the close bond between each elephant and its keeper. The elephants are saddled and follow trails led by an armed guide on foot. Game and bird life may be encountered while riding, and guests are encouraged to interact with the elephants and experience them close up. (If you aren’t used to riding, you may be a bit sore for the next day or two.)

For the more adventuresome, Victoria Falls offers white water rafting, bungee jumping, horseback safaris and lots of opportunities to visit game reserves. I opted for a sunset cruise on the Zambezi River, which forms the border between Zambia and Zimbabwe. The Zambezi, Africa’s fourth largest river, is over 1,650 miles long. The cruises are shaded and gently make their way upstream towards the National Park, usually accompanied by a brief talk about the river and its wildlife. The birdwatching is excellent while you cruise past hippos and the occasional crocodile. The cruise was a relaxing way to conclude a busy day of touring.

In the evening, I attended the Boma feast. Situated in the Gusu Forest and partly open to the night sky, the restaurant provides a unique cultural experience that involves all the senses. On arrival, you participate in a handwashing ceremony before sampling traditional beer and snacks. The four-course meal combines à la carte starters with a barbecue buffet that includes such local delicacies as mopani worms and game stews (although more standard fare and vegetarian dishes are also available). Entertainment is provided by Shangaan dancers and singers, as well as the restaurant’s traditional storyteller, who regales guests with country folklore.

Upon my return to Johannesburg I visited Soweto – an area I was told could be dangerous at times, though it was very peaceful on that lovely Saturday morning. I visited the former home of Nelson Mandela, now a museum, and the famous Vilakazi Street, the only street in the world to house two Nobel Peace Prize winners! The Hector Pieterson Museum gives a real feel of the drama of June 1976, when the students of Soweto took to the streets to protest against apartheid. Another truly moving and educational experience!

Before meeting Geoff, South Africa wasn’t high on my long travel agenda. Now I can’t wait to return to that vibrant part of the world.

(John Rae is the president of the National Federation of the Blind: Advocates for Equality (NFB:AE), and lives and works in Toronto, Ontario.)