more information on South Africa Cape Town
Based on the US Burning Man Festival, AfrikaBurn is a creative extravaganza of alternative thought and expression.
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From Cape Town to the Wild Coast, the Cape Coast is punctuated by idyllic towns and villages, each offering a variation on Cape hospitality, and each with a peculiar angle on marine sports or venture activity. None, however, can stake a claim to adrenalin fame quite like Gansbaai, a tiny fishing hamlet situated about 2 hours drive southeast of Cape Town, famous for its shark alley, and its dense population of Great White Sharks.
Gansbaai is one of the world’ top commercial cage diving destinations. The activity is focused on …
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One of the most picturesque quarters of a beautiful city is Cape Town’s Bo-Kaap. Once known as the Malay Quarter, the area was in fact the home of a predominately Muslim population drawn from many quarters of the eastern world, and imported to The Cape predominately as slaves or bonded workers during the 16th and 17th centuries.
Cape Malay
Most of the original inhabitants of the Bo-Kaap derived from areas of Dutch overseas influence, with the majority being Indian, but with influences also from Malaysia, Indonesia, Madagascar – itself populated largely by migrant and bonded groups from the Indian Ocean trading axis – Ceylon, Indo-China and Japan. These, in combination with the original Dutch settlers, merged and melded and in due course laid the foundations of the unique Cape/Dutch, or Cape/Malay culture that has over the years tended to be most obviously manifest in architecture and cuisine.
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Black On Black
In an action rich in irony this week a certain Mr Black successfully brought legal action against the notorious ‘whites only’ South African holiday resort, Broederstroom Vakansie-Oord, situated near the Hartebeespoorte Dam in Gauteng Province. In common with a handful of other facilities, notably the Orange Freestate, an element of white society in South Africa has, and continues to attempt to retain what racial exclusivity the liberal constitution of South Africa will allow. On 5 March this year Mr Black and his wife, who are white but who have two adopted black children, were evicted from the resort thanks to the mixed race status of their family. This enraged Mr. Black, causing him, with some justification, to lodge a complaint against Broederstroom with the South African Human Rights Commission, which in turn initiated proceedings in the Equality Court in terms of the Promotion of Equality and Prevention of Unfair Discrimination Act of 2000.
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Although the name spells doom, beautiful Shark Bay in Langebaan got its name from it’s numerous and harmless sand-sharks, not the greater and whiter variety.
Shark Bay is part of Langebaan lagoon, next to the West Coast National Park and is a quiet haven of shallow blue water, good fishing and fantastic kite surfing conditions.
If you like many visitors are planning on learning to kitesurf while you are here, there is no better place in South Africa to learn, with flat water, consistent wind and relatively warm water compared to the …
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Doctors, nurses and other professional medical staff from South Africa have for years been migrating north to hospitals in the west, but lately the migration has experienced a bizarre reverse with many prospective patients, particularly those looking for elective surgery, coming to South Africa to take advantage of much cheaper rates offered for complex surgical procedures.
The ‘Surgery and Safari’ phenomenon has been ongoing now for quite some time, and certainly in a nation that produced the legendary Doctor Christiaan Barnard, pioneering cardiac surgeon who performed the first successful heart transplant …
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Continuing the theme of debunking the bad press that has plagued South Africa in recent years, and highlighting in fact how safe it is to travel in SA, let’s have a look at the Boomer market, and why South Africa and surrounding region is the perfect destination for comfort loving oldies with a hankering to touch the wild.
Ease of Travel
African travel in general can be a multi-layered experience with the roughest of rough travel rubbing shoulders with displays of ridiculous opulence and splendor. Tour packages are usually insulated from the seething poverty of the outside, and tourists rarely touch the quintessence of Africa. In South Africa this is also true, but the contrast does not seem so striking here.
On the surface South Africa is one of the most sophisticated societies in the world, with an industrial and communications infrastructure that is comparable with anywhere in the developed world. In keeping with this the tourist industry is highly developed, efficient and sophisticated. Not only are the most obvious sights and sounds of Africa showcased and made easily available to the visitor, but the entire spectrum of a nation that enjoys incredible cultural, social and ecological diversity is in some way or another packaged in a manner that is both accessible and affordable.
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Cederberg Astronomical Observatory
In a country with more angles on tourism than on a cut diamond, I was interested to discover the existence in the South African Cederberg of a private observatory that offers the opportunity for stargazer and astro-enthusiasts to indulge in some southern hemisphere observations. The Cederberg Astronomical Observatory was established in 1980 by British astronomer Peter Mack who was at that time employed by the Astronomical Society Of South Africa. Mack visited the Cederberg and recognised immediately the potential in the region for a local observatory.
Since then the site has been developed and is now run by a consortium of partners with headquarters based in Cape Town. Any of these good people can be contacted via the web page, and are available for consultation on matters of astronomy, or for advice on any phenomenon or particular events being held at the observatory.
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In the modern world, ‘wild’ as far as nature is concerned is a relative concept. It is enough, perhaps, that an area of natural beauty is not utterly trampled by urban development, or destroyed by irresponsible land use, for it to deserve the term ‘wild’. Certainly this is the case in the developing world, and most particularly along the earth’s tropical coastlines. The Wild Coast of South Africa’s KwaZulu/Natal, although hardly wild, is by comparison to the KNZ South Coast in a different world altogether. It is a gorgeous natural environment, comprising the signature open grasslands and hill country of the south coast, with deep cut ravines peppered with groves of aloe, and deep tidal estuaries cloaked on either bank with rich and unsullied riparian forest. There is no sign anywhere of mock Tuscan gated developments, of strip malls or the blanket sugar estates so ubiquitous throughout the region. It is moreover an environment fiercely protected by both a large cohort of outside environmentalists and significant numbers of local community members. The latter, almost uniquely, have successfully resisted the temptation to climb into bed with property developers and sell the long term integrity of their landscape for short term profit.
The Environmental Frontline
Currently, however, the issue is less property development and more highway construction and strip mining. The controversy in the first instances involves the extension of the ubiquitous toll road system, that is the pride of the South African transport infrastructure, through the Transkei, and secondly whether to grant Australian mining conglomerate, Minerals Commodities Limited, and Local Black Economic Empowerment group Xolobeni Empowerment Company, license to dune mine substantial base metal reserves along the coast. While the intricacies of this contest are beyond the scope of this narrative, they do broadly pit local concerns against central and international financial interests. At the core is the question of land ownership, which, in the case of the wild coast, is land owned by the state and held in trust for the people.
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Yesterday, two girls from Chicago found the waters in False bay not as friendly as those of Lake Michigan.
The two set off from Muizenberg beach apparently to take photo’s in a store bought dinghy, barely big enough for the both of them. With only a dustpan tied to a broom as a paddle, the girls quickly found themselves in trouble. A friend on shore tried to rescue them, but with the rip current and offshore breeze he was unable to reach them on a surfboard.
The pair drifted as far as two miles out before being rescued by the NSRI. At …
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