We spent the last weekend up north, just a hair north of the Tropic of Capricorn, in the LeSheba Wilderness in the Soutpansberg Mountains. It’s up in the Northern Province, aka Limpopo Province. We got a ride with Jossie’s colleague Piet, who is quite a naturalist and as it turns out, potgie-cooker. Up north past Polokwane (formerly Pietersburg) and Makhado (formerly Louis Trichardt) and then west to LeSheba Wilderness, with over 340 species of trees. We drove through the valley and then up the dirt road for a good stretch up into the mountains. LeSheba was formerly a hunting and safari estate before being a nature preserve and indigenous knowledge center.
We were there with Jossie’s 2nd year students, as well as colleagues Graham (and family) and Piet. The guesthouses were beautiful, with solar electric lights and solar hot water, and we got to see plenty of wildlife, including baboons, monkeys (what kind?), impalas, blue wildebeests, zebras, giraffes, and dung beetles. We had an ethnobotanic tour with Pieter, who lives on the site, and visited the Venda Village, where Thabo Mbeki (President of ZA) stayed.
Friday night we had a wonderful braai (BBQ), and Saturday night Oom Piet (Uncle Piet) made us potgie (pronounced POIK-ee, see photo below), which is made in a small pot, with lamb, potatoes, carrots, onions, pattypans, and who know what made it so delicious but it was.
All in all, it was an amazing adventure for all of us. Violet was (rightfully) a little scared of some of the wildlife, but it was fun for our first family trek outside of Pretoria.
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