Spending almost a month in South Africa is well worth it. In fact it is the African country we would first return to when we run out of new places we want to visit. It has something for everyone! World class safari parks, high mountain ranges (11,319 feet at the highest) and lovely peaks rising next to urban centers like Table Mountain in Cape Town, beaches and ocean sports galore, wine regions, many live performances – music, comedy and plays and world-class touring performers. Plus there are penguins and monkeys! Criminal monkeys — one of them is a cookie thief — swooping down and stealing a bag of cookies I had left on the car roof for less than 30 seconds.
Running Free Again!
And for us, we finally found an African country where we could run in all the places we visited (except the safari park)! We ran in the cities of Johannesburg and Cape Town, along the ocean bluffs and on trails in other areas where we saw ostriches, bontebok antelopes and rock hyrax. We didn’t have to worry about the insane traffic, terrible running surfaces or animals chasing us. And there were beautiful trails that weren’t littered with trash.
Friends By Accident
We rented a car so we could get around easily to a variety of areas. Luckily we are stick shift pros which helped a lot. And we mostly remembered we were on the opposite side of the road, shifting with our left hand and using the signal indicator on the right side and the windshield wipers on the left of the steering column. In fact the only mishap was when we were stopped at a park entrance gate and the camping truck in front of us realized they were in the wrong lane and started backing up without noticing we were there. Crunch! They damaged our front bumper a bit. Turns out they were a couple from Bern, Switzerland, who were on a camping trip to South Africa with their German friends. They couldn’t have been nicer about the accident and we now call them our “new friends, by accident”. Due to very stormy weather in southern South Africa, phones were useless for calling the police station to get a police report that our rental agency said we needed to have. So the 4 of us drove to the small one street hamlet of Storms Rivier with an equally tiny police station. While we were there, people came in to do an official cow transaction. The police were extremely helpful and we now proudly possess an official police report from Storms Rivier, South Africa. When we returned the car to the rental agency, they didn’t seem too concerned about the accident and didn’t even make us pay anything on the spot. They just said look for an email from them and since we had insurance, we shouldn’t have to pay anything.
South Africa Historical Context
Before European Colonization
For thousands of years, southern Africa was inhabited by:
- San hunter-gatherers
- Khoikhoi pastoralists
- Bantu-speaking farming societies moving southward over many centuries
These groups traded, fought, intermarried, and occupied different regions long before Europeans arrived.
Dutch Settlement
In 1652, the Dutch East India Company established a station at Cape Town for ships traveling between Europe and Asia.
- Dutch settlers (“Boers,” later “Afrikaners”) expanded inland
- Indigenous groups lost grazing land and political control
- Enslaved people were brought from East Africa, Madagascar, and Asia
British Rule and Expansion
Britain took control of the Cape in the early 1800s.
- They abolished slavery which angered the Boers
- New Boer republics spread out and formed further inland
- Violent conflicts occurred among Europeans, African kingdoms, and Indigenous communities
- New powerful African states emerged, especially the Zulu kingdom
Mining and Segregation
The discovery of diamonds (1867) and gold (1886) transformed South Africa
- Massive wealth flowed to white-controlled mining interests
- Black labor was tightly controlled and underpaid
- Segregation flourished
- Competition between Britain and Boer republics intensified
In 1910, the Union of South Africa formed under white minority rule
- Black South Africans could rarely vote
- Natives Land Act of 1913 – This law reserved about 87% of South African land for whites and confined Black Africans to limited “native reserves,” despite Blacks making up most of the population. Millions of black land owners were removed from desirable land through forced removals and discriminatory laws.
Apartheid
In 1948, the Afrikaner-led National Party formally instituted Apartheid
- Segregated race in every aspect of life
- Restricted where Black people could live and work
- White South Africans, especially whites connected to farming, mining, and business, accumulated enormous economic advantages.
- Resistance movements grew, especially the African National Congress led by figures like Nelson Mandela.
Apartheid ended in 1994 and South Africa held its first multiracial elections
- The new government faced a huge challenge: to create justice and stability after centuries of land dispossession without destroying the economy
Modern South Africa
- White South Africans are a small minority (~7%) but still own a disproportionately immense share of commercial farmland and wealth
- Many Black South Africans remain poor and landless
- Inequality in South Africa is among the highest in the world
- The country is economically advanced relative to much of Africa
- It is still shaped by race and geography created under colonialism and apartheid
AirBnBs Here We Come
Another welcome aspect of South Africa for us, was the abundant number of AirBnBs that were up to the standards we have in the United States. But continuing the theme from above, we noticed that none of the rentals we stayed in were owned and operated by Black South Africans – all were white-owned.
How We Spent Our Time
On our trip we had 3 main parts to it.
Safari
The first was at a safari lodge that Mike booked with points. It is all inclusive (food, drink and alcohol) and provides 2 game drives a day AND has an amazing watering hole with a “hide” that lets visitors see the animals very close-up at the waterhole at ground level. I have never had such an experience as I did from the hide – having a staring contest with an elephant wondering if it was going to spray water or dirt into the hide, watching a momma warthog nuzzling her children and showing them how to dig for food. We loved our time there. The density of animals near the lodge was excellent and we saw more rhinos up close than one would ever expect to see. We ended up seeing the Big 5 (elephant, lion, leopard, cape buffalo and rhino) on our second game drive. By the way the Big 5 are the 5 animals that big game hunters used to hunt and kill because they were “worthy opponents” – disgusting I know, but just wanted to explain this key piece of information.
Getting back to the rhinos, on one game drive we were trying to go quickly to see where some cheetahs were spotted by another guide, and encountered 5 rhinos on the road. One was a lone male trying to get some action with the dominant female from the group of 4 rhinos. He continued to make advances on her and the 4 rhinos get into defensive position and tell him to F&*^ Off! According to our guide, this goes on for days and this stress makes all of the rhinos involved, very testy and angry. So we were driving along and our guide should have stopped until the rhinos got off the road but he really wanted us to see the cheetahs, so he started to skirt by them and the male aggressor got angry at us and started running towards us, horn pointed at our jeep! The guide swerved off the road to get further away from the rhinos (which we did) but he didn’t see the depth of a warthog burrow we were headed for. He tried to drive through and our jeep got stuck in the hole. Two other tourist vehicles came to the rescue and we were eventually towed out of the hole and our jeep was fine to drive. Alas, it was too late to go look for the cheetahs.
Cape Town, Cape Peninsula, Cape Point
After the safari, we went to Cape Town. This city has a beautiful setting on the coast with peaks circling much of the city. It is lush and green and has a lot of open spaces throughout. It is also very cosmopolitan with so much to do and see. Eleven years ago Rick, my son, studied for a semester at Cape Town University. We visited him then, so the next part of the trip – Cape Town, the Cape Peninsula and the wine region were all familiar to me from before. But these areas had become much more modern, clean and exciting.
I loved climbing Table Mountain again via the Kirstenbosch Botanical Gardens. Those gardens are the prettiest botanical gardens I have been in and I’ve been to many. The trail up the mountain is steep, rocky and so fun! For part of it you’re climbing up rocks where the stream trickles down and then you get to an opening in the vegetation and the views are spectacular! Then once you get to the flat top of the mountain you still have over a mile through an interesting landscape on top of the mountain before reaching the gondola. As you start getting closer to the side where the gondola is, you start seeing the people who took the gondola up and are mostly walking on top of the flat part of the mountain. Before then, you don’t see many people hiking up (for good reason – it isn’t easy). We had gorgeous weather for our hike – sunny and warm.
We went to a comedy show one night with 5 or 6 comedians. It was interesting but we had a hard time understanding the accents and references. The major theme I remember was how hard it is for black people to get land because the white people own it all. And I learned that the Durban area of the country (we didn’t go there) is predominately settled by Indians.
One other activity of note was getting our teeth cleaned!!! It had been more than 6 months since we had our last cleaning and our teeth were looking worse for the wear. Mike researched a couple of dentists and we enjoyed experiencing dentistry in another country. We were in an upscale area of Cape Town, and the dental office was in a very modern office building. The hygienist was very good, and the tools they used to clean the teeth and polish them were somewhat different than what I have had in the States – the cleaning system was some kind of combo of water and air. I give the edge to South Africa (at least this particular practice).
After South Africa we traveled down the peninsula to see the Cape of Good Hope National Park, think adorable African penguins and fishing towns/life.
Wine Country, Garden Route and Inland Tourist Towns
From there we went to the wine town of Franschhoek. We visited a lovely antique/classic car museum, a few wineries and the local gym to work-out and sauna. The weather started turning bad, so after the one run we did there, it was super rainy and we did inside activities – including going to a movie theater and seeing the movie “Michael” (which we loved, by the way). The hotel we stayed in was so charming – it was part of the chain that owned the safari lodge. The drinks were included so each night, I had two shots of Amurula Cream liqueur – very tasty!
After there, we started on the Garden Route which is a string of lovely towns along the coast. I hadn’t been to that area before. We arrived in Hermanus which has the best whale watching views, but alas it wasn’t the right season so we had to settle for some dolphin sightings and a few whale blows quite offshore. The day we arrived there, a big triathlon was in progress. It was a fun sports atmosphere with lots of super athletes. We ran along the coast there and it couldn’t have been lovelier!
After that, the weather turned stormy – pounding and incessant rain and very high winds. The locals were quite surprised by the turn of the weather, especially since the rain wasn’t due for another month. This changed our Garden Route activities from kayaking and biking and running to hunkering down in a cafe where there was electricity and WiFi because it had a good emergency generator. Playing cards, reading, writing and researching for our next trip (to Central and South America) kept us busy. At our last stop on the Garden Route, it didn’t rain for most of the time, and we did a sightseeing run across a swinging bridge.
From there we made our way back to Johannesburg via a couple of inland tourist areas near National Parks. They were both neat areas because of the peaks around them and the vistas from the top of the peaks.
Summary
That covers our South Africa adventures. We didn’t end up doing a lot of museums or seeing historical places. We had done that in Johannesburg the first time we were there and this time we wanted to focus on being outside and getting physical activity.
South Africa reminded us of many of places in California that we love to explore. The food was good, although we didn’t sample the braii culture (grilled meat, especially sausages) that is so prevalent in the country.
While I was very impressed with our South African safari – the lodge was great and the animals were plentiful, I wouldn’t go to South Africa just for a safari. I would instead go to Tanzania, Botswana, Kenya or Zambia if you want a great safari country. If you want a great country to enjoy that is beautiful, easy to self-drive in and has excellent safaris, then go to South Africa and plan a multi-week trip.