Vrystaat Adventures

If you are anything like me, and I know you’re not, you may have wondered why there was a place in South Africa called the Orange Free State. What had citrus ever done to this place? Was this the home of the “I Love My Scurvy” Club?

Now, in the new South Africa, this province is known only as the Free State (Vrystaat in Afrikaans), as the name of the House of Orange which once ruled the Netherlands is considered too much of a vestige of Apartheid. It was the Free State because for a time, it was a sovereign state from the Union of South Africa, controlled by the Afrikaaners as the British pushed forward in the Anglo-Boer Wars. Also, the borders of the Free State are partially defined by the Orange and the Vaal Rivers (hence, the area north of the Vaal is called the Transvaal).

The Free State has been referred to as the “Iowa of South Africa” by one anonymous ZA’n who would know. There is a lot of agriculture there, as we discovered, but also much natural beauty and other features that (apologies to IA), Iowa lacks.

We were invited to visit the eastern Free State, near the Drakensberg Mountains by Frans, Aldia, and Daniel, who we know through the Architecture School here and with whom Jossie and the girls trekked to the Vaal River.

Frans is retiring from teaching at Tuks, and will be moving to start a farm near his sister, Hanna in Bethlehem, Free State.

We drove up on Friday night, and managed to find Bethlehem with only modest periods of being lost on back roads in the dark. The girls slept and were tucked in snuggly as we stayed up chatting and sipping wine.

On Saturday we explored the farm, getting acquainted with the lambs drinking their morning milk, pigs eating whatever we threw to them, cattle, horses, ducks, dogs, cats and people.

After a hearty Free State Farmer’s breakfast, the caravan us Frans et al and the Zanzotmobile took off for an adventure. The girls napped as we headed toward the Drakensberg Mountains, and the Basuto Cultural Village. We could see the high Drakensberg and Lesotho to the south of us as we drove past the former Qwa Qwa Homeland (part of the 13% of land in ZA allotted to Blacks during apartheid).

At the Basuto Cultural Village we got to see how the Basuto People lived traditionally. We saw homes in the style of the pre-16^th century and forward, as different influences crept in.

The houses became a little more ornate in each cluster,

until the 20^th century houses, which were beautifully decorated inside and out with bright, colorful paint.

After the BCV, we drove on through Golden Gate National Park (not to be confused with the Golden Gate National Recreation Area or Golden Gate Park), which featured lots of beautiful landforms. And on to the small town of Clarens, to have some coffee and pancakes and catch the end of the Rugby Super-14 Final. The Free State is right between Gauteng and KZN, so the crowd was pretty divided between Blue Bulls fans and Sharks fans. It came down the wire, with the Blue Bulls winning on a kick after a try in the final seconds. I’ve been told that the Sharks outplayed the Bulls for the entire game except for that last try, which may just have been sour grapes, I don’t know. Folks here in PTA are pretty jazzed about it though.

We made it home in time to warm up some bobotie for dinner, and I personally called it an early night.

Sunday was a day for riding things. After chasing the lambs around and feeding them milk again, the girls got the chance to ride on one of the horses.

And V and I got to ride on the four-wheeler.

In the afternoon we went to see Frans, Aldia, and Daniel’s farm, a short way down the road from his sister’s. They plan on raising cattle their, and will need to build a house and really get the place set up. But they do have some lovely views.

After a “light” lunch of boereworsrolle (ZA hot dogs), it was time to head back to Gauteng.

It's really cold!

This week has been particularly cold in ZA, with many temperature records being broken. Most homes here have no central heating because it's usually not necessary, but most homes also have space heaters, ours included. We're thankful that we packed some nice toasty things since we left the 'States in the winter!

Rugby Super 14 Final

I must tell you about the Rugby Super 14, which is a tournament of professional rugby with teams from Australia, New Zealand, and ZA. Well, actually, I should note that as of last week it was only NZ and ZA (Sorry Ozzies, you may have the top cricket team but you didn’t quite make the grade in rugby this time around). And as of last week, the two semi-final games were played, and the two teams headed to the finals are both from ZA! Loftus Versveld, the local ball worship castle (rugby and soccer) is just down the street from our flat, so we got to see the tailgaters getting their braai on and heading to the match with the Blou Bulle (Blue Bulls) which are our local team and the Crusaders, a Kiwi side playing in one of the semi-final matches. The Sharks, from KZN (KwaZulu Natal) played the other semi-final match. Both of our teams won! Hurrah Blue Bulls, Hurrah Sharks! Whom to root for in the final? As you may have gleaned from the conspicuous absence of rugby news on this blog, I don’t really care! But folks at work will be having it out. Most of the locals are Blue Bulls fans, but there are a good number of Sharks fans around too. It will be a proud ZA final, and that’s all I care about. Okay, I favor the Blue Bulls, because they're more local, but the Sharks have a cooler brand IMHO

Maropeng Mother’s Day

After a lovely birthday party at the Italian Café around the corner from us on Friday evening, we settled into another weekend of relaxation and adventure. Last weekend was fairly quiet, nothing to blog home about, to turn a phrase. But this weekend featured MOTHER’S DAY! As elements of the Pizza Party on Friday were a surprise to me, so too did I try to make our Sunday adventure a bit of a surprise for Mma Jossie.

So, Mother’s Day. I thought I’d surprise Mma Jossie and take her to the Cradle of Humankind, a World Heritage Site which is only an hour or so west of PTA. They have a restaurant there, as do all the major attractions around here, so I thought we’d take part in the Mother’s Day buffet as well as a crash course in paleoanthropology. The main attraction in the Cradle is the Maropeng Visitor’s Centre, which is a pretty neat museum built into the earth in the form of a tumulus, or earthen hill.

The museum has a lot of information about the history of humankind and neat exhibits, which Jossie put on par with the Exploratorium in San Francisco. The Cradle of Humanity is the site of some of the oldest hominid fossils in the world. Mrs Ples and Little Foot are two of the most famous ones.

On the outside of the tumulus are several lovely vistas

And we had loads of fun...

Happy Birthday to Sue!

In case the other method of dissemination fails, here is our birthday best wishes to Sue. Hopefully, this will work.

Funky President?

Hi, and guess who’s running for President.

ME! HA! Because guess what, peeps, TODAY I AM ELIGIBLE!!!

Please, it is safe to emerge from under your chair/bed/nuclear shelter, I’m only kidding…

About running for President, not about me turning 35. I am of course joking about being President of the United States. I do not know what I would have to do to run here in ZA, besides the obvious renunciation of US citizenship (not considering it really). If I find out, I'll get back to you. For now, VOTE BIRTHDAY PARTY!

Cape Town Day 4. the last day

We awoke to “pizza” and packing, and a quick visit to the nearby shee-shee Italian market/café for some R40 granola. That’s pretty spendy for a bag of roots and twigs, mind you! Anyway, after breakfast and packing up, it was time to drop off the keys and head out for our last adventure in CT, at Kirstenbosch Botanical Garden. They claim to be the most Beautiful Garden in Africa, and I don’t think they’re woofin’!

The garden was once the property of Cecil Rhodes (former big man of ZA, and for whom Rhodesia was named before it was reborn as Zimbabwe), which he bequeathed to the nation upon his death. Now it is a repository for much of the native flora of ZA, especially the Western Cape and it’s “fynbos”, a global hotspot of endemism with many species of Erica (heather), Restios (cape reeds) and Proteas (cricket teams, pictured below).

Here again, words pale to give evidence over photos, which again pale to truly relate the experience of walking this beautiful garden in the shadow of Table Mountain. Also on the grounds is a sculpture garden featuring some large Shona works, and a conservatory/glasshouse with the southernmost baobab in Africa.

We left Kirstenbosch revivified, and a bit wan to leave CT, but the airport waits for no one, even if every third flight is heading to Jo’burg. We dropped off our steadfast Corolla, checked into our OneTime flight (OneTime is a ZA expression for “cool”, and a local airline), and relaxed in the waiting area for our flight home.

You must be tired of reading if you’ve gotten this far, so I won’t go into how much trouble it was to find our car at the Jo’burg Airport. Suffice to say, we’re back in PTA, and near our computers.

Cape Town Day 3. Penguins gone wild!

Sunday. The weather still only marginally agreeable, we were determined to go and visit with the penguins. Sarah volunteered to be our guide down the peninsula, so after a yummy breakfast at a bistro called YUM!, we set off. Through a mountain pass over to Camp’s Bay, southward through Table Mountain National Park, on a highway reminiscent of Hwy 1 in California, we trekked (Jossie, Sarah, me) and snoozed (Veronica, Violet). About halfway down the peninsula we cut west for Simon’s Town, home of the world’s most urbane penguin colony. The girls woke up to journey into the park, where boardwalks kept the spectators from upsetting the abundant tuxedo-wearers. These penguins are called African penguins, or jackass penguins due to their braying call. Here, pictures speak louder than words…

After the lovely penguin interlude, we headed back north toward CT, via Fish Hoek (a Hoek is a corner, in the broad sense) and Kalk’s Bay, where we paused to refresh at the LPG and Sarah recommended Olympia. After some sweeties and caffeinated drinks, we went to see the fishing boats and docks. Violet was particularly pleased to discover seals frolicking in the water by the docks, waiting for chum from the fish-cleaning tables.

Back to CT and dinner with Zinaid, an adventure which turned into a small tour of CT as we performed an impromptu survey of restaurants closed on Sunday. We ended up back in Z and S’s neighbourhood, Vredehoek, to dine at Carlyle’s. For the third night in a row, the girls passed out at the dinner table, although this time they could hardly be blamed as a pizza oven malfunction led to a much prolonged session of pre-dinner banter. The good restaurateur didn’t charge us for the pizzas, which was very kind of him, although Violet did wake up next morning with the word “Pizza!” on her lips. We bid adieu to Z and S, who had to work on Monday, and sincere wishes that we will see them again very soon.

Cricket World Cup, the final chapter

Well, we rushed back from the wine and cheese to find that the CWC final match, between Australia and Sri Lanka, was delayed due to rain in Barbados. In cricket, this eventuality is planned for, so whenever the rain lets up and play can continue, the number of overs (sets of six balls bowled) is reduced using the Duckworth-Lewis Method. So instead of 50 overs per side, standard in one-day international cricket, the decision was to give each side 38 overs to bat when the rain stopped. Australia had already won the coin toss and opted to bat first. So they did, and boy did they bat with a vengeance. The Aussie wicketkeeper, Adam Gilchrist, hit 149 runs, and the team went 172 for no wicket, which is impressive. They finished their innings at 281/4, which is an amazing total considering they were shorted 12 overs. They showed no fear of the SL bowler Lasith Malinga, whose delivery is reminiscent of the Tasmanian Devil. Come to think of it, no wonder the Aussies showed no fear; I'm sure they've seen hundreds of Tasmanian devils!
Anyway, the Sri Lankans did put on a show in the run chase, although they did lose some early wickets. The rain came back, and according to Duckworth-Lewis, they had to reduce the number of overs to 36, and adjust the run total that SL had to achieve to win. This took some precious time. Play continued with the Sri Lankans falling behind in their scoring rate, and day turned to night. There were no lights at the Kensington Oval, so with 2 overs left, the Sri Lankans "took the light". The Aussies started celebrating as though they had won, although the rules state that they should have played the final two overs the next day. The Victory dais was being brought out and the umpires waved it off. Finally, the Sri Lankans agreed to play the last two overs in the dark, and get the thing over with.
Comically, the commentators whined about this whole turn of events quite a bit, and noted that this type of lunacy would turn off potential cricket-loving markets in say, China and the US. (LOL!, if soccer can't make it in the 'States, is there any hope for cricket? I hope so but I'm not holding my breath). Frankly, there's something about this kind of happenstance that makes cricket seem more alive to me, that it hasn't been polished to the point of dimming the luster. The rules were made to govern, but the actions of the players still unfold with novelty.

So the Aussies skated through, not losing a match, and taking their third consecutive Cricket World Cup. I must admit that I had a "1984" moment. I'd been cursing the amazing skill and fortune of the Oz team throughout, as they beat up on ZA twice, and basically just creamed everybody. But I woke up after the final and had a moments feeling of love and admiration for the Ozzie squad. I loved Big Brother! But it passed.
We'll see how they do next time with half their team retiring now!

Okay, really, this is the last cricket related posting. probably.

Cape Town Day 2. Franschhoek

Thanks to Zinaid’s in depth knowledge of the area, we were privy to the South African Cheese Festival in Franschhoek, near Stellenbosch. This is one of the oldest and best established wine regions of ZA, and both the wineries and the cheeseries were well represented at the event, as well as many local eateries like the Pancake Man, who fed us breakfast. We explored the grounds for a bit, listening to the smooth jazz band (appropriate for the Cheese fest) before diving into the sturm und drang of the CHEESE EMPORIUM. The Cheese Emporium was a large tent stuffed to the gills with cheese (duh), wine, and people with little plastic forks and normal-sized glasses to eat and drink the cheese and wine. Pacing was crucial. One false move and one could have ended up drunk, or bloated, or impaled on a tiny plastic fork.

After a hearty round of poking and sipping, we adjourned to the bouncy castles to induce vomiting. No no no. Veronica and Violet really bounced in the bouncy castles while we contemplated a more (ful)filling lunch. We sequestered a table and regrouped, comparing notes of the morning, and preparing for our early escape to catch the FINAL OF THE CRICKET WORLD CUP!!!!!

We hovered around the table, with some of Zinaid’s CT homies joining us and breaking off into hunting and gathering parties of two or three at a time, in search of sausage rolls, kudu droewors, fruit, more cheese, more wine, and nougat.

After this, it was time to check out the other cheese tent, which also featured ice cream. The girls were pretty sick of watching us drink wine and poke cheese, so we spent some quality time with the producers themselves; sheep, goats, and cows.

At the duly appointed hour, it was time to rush back to CT to catch the FINAL OF THE CRICKET WORLD CUP!!!!!

I really can’t talk about what happened now…. It’s all kind of a dull painful blur. Will blog later…

Cape Town!

Part I
So, this past weekend was another long weekend. Vrydag was Vryheidsdag, or Friday was Freedom Day, the anniversary of the first fully-democratic elections in ZA back in 1994. Tuesday was Worker’s Day, another day off, so most of the schools just gave up the ghost and gave everyone Monday off as well for a FIVE DAY WEEKEND (holy cow what a country!). In honor of this festive idleness, we decided to take the occasion to visit Cape Town. While some opt to drive the 1464 km from PTA to CT, we decided to spend the dough on the two-hour flight. We were put in touch with a guest house by friend Zinaid, called Oakdene, in the Oranjezicht neighbourhood. We arrived to a drizzle and chill, hired a car, and off we went. After finding Oakdene in the dark and chatting amiably with the owners, it was off to bed.

Friday morning, we met up with Zinaid and Sarah (our maid of honor) for breakfast. They picked us up in Zinaid’s twin brother’s pimp-mobile and took us to their local swank breakfast joint for hipsters. After a delicious and large breakfast to fill the void left by air travel dinner, it was time to take Sarah to work over in Lion’s Head, which was over the mountains.

We should note, if you’ve never been to Cape Town, one of the most salient features of the city, besides being on a cape (the Cape of Good Hope) and thus on the ocean, is there’s a flipping mountain right in the middle of it (Table mountain, appropriately flat-topped). Many draw comparisons between CT and San Francisco, for the colorful 19^th century homes, the hills, the bays, the chaparral-like vegetation (fynbos) and coincidentally, gay culture. But CT was also reminiscent of other west coast cities like Seattle or Portland (especially the weather).

Zinaid was off to work also, but armed with a hot tip for a good time (Hatfield Street) we were left to our own devises. So we trundled into the rental Corolla, and off in search of Hatfield Street. We didn’t find it at first, but being on holiday time; we didn’t care, and drove off merrily in search of other names for adventure.

The first new name for adventure was “getting lost in the industrial district”, soon followed by “hey, it’s the beach”. As the girls had dozed off, we parked at the beach and let them nap as we visited the Atlantic Ocean for the first time in many months, and never at this end.

Lulu woke up first and did a little beach combing with Jossie, and I checked in with Veronica, who continued to nap. After a good round of beach exploration, including iridescent shells and bounteous kelp, it was off to the aquarium. The weather had broken for a bit while we got our feet sandy, but when it started raining again we figured if we had to see that much water better to have it contained and full of fish than dumping on our heads with abandon.

The Two Oceans Aquarium, named for the imaginary confluence of the Indian and Atlantic that South Africa shares with Antarctica only, was fabled in the Lonely Planet as a place of greatness. We got to see lots of bizarre creatures of the briny deep, including giant crabs almost a meter tall, delicate purple sea-horses, and a water snake (yes, a real snake!) Other highlights included: the prehistoric-looking moray eels, the throbbing translucent moon jellyfish, seal and penguin feeding demonstrations, and an indoor amphitheater from which to sit back and enjoy a hujungous swaying kelp forest through which traverse gi-normous fish.

In typical Zanzot fashion, we left ready to find lunch. Following the advice of the LPG, we headed back towards Kloof Street and settled on Melissa’s café, a gourmet picnic market with tasty sandwiches and salads and deluxe warm drinks. After appeasing the rumbling fire gods that inhabits our tummies, we set off to explore the groovy mixed-use neighborhood of book shops, art galleries, shee-shee restaurants, cool Cape Dutch houses and a lovely rainbow. What to do next? Explore!

We headed back down Kloof Street and managed to find Hatfield Street, much later in the day than originally planned. We drove past the parliamentary buildings (CT is the parliamentary capital of ZA) and parked near the national library to find a park. We came upon the Company’s Gardens. The Company (not the CIA) is the VOC, or Dutch East Indies Company, which played a large role in the early settlement of ZA. They imported a lot of plants that were used in the Company’s Gardens, including oaks and other non-native beautiful plants (see above and below). These gardens are only a small fraction of their former area, but are quite glorious nonetheless. Again, our adventure was abridged by the sudden arrival of Modjadji, the rain queen, ushering us back to the Corolla.

After drying off a bit back at Oakdene, SMS’s back and forth with Sarah secured our dinner company. We enjoyed some Portuguese fare at the Dias Tavern, named for Bartolomeo Dias, the first European to round the Cape of Good Hope in 1487. The tavern had a rollicking atmosphere of a giant party, and featured a dish of meat impaled on a sword dangling over chips. We didn’t get this dish, but saw these swords of Damocles oscillating over the fried potato bits as they came rushing out of the kitchen. We did try the calamari, and trinchados, which is a rare-steak-in-sauce dish. The girls passed out at the dinner table from all the excitement.