Safa an Introduction

Nissan Hardcab

Biltong and Bakkies - this is where it starts, the staple ingredients for action men in SA. dried meat and pick ups. The feeling of space and light, beaches and mountain alike. Some first impressions: On arrival I was told about the Pakistani bride that was shot in the shanty style towns of the Black and coloured on the Cape Plains. Living near Madrid the sight of these make shift homes is nothing new, only perhaps the vastness and that the electric companies have linked the shed like buildings to the grid.

Apartheid may have ended but the paranoia and mistrust exists, and rightly so, crime is up; so i'm told the streets aren't as well maintained a they used to be under the rule of the Afrikaners. There is no one type of South African the nation is vast and ever one has been here and left their mark, Dutch, English, Malaysian, Zulu, Xhosa, French. the huge language differences means there are neighbouring communities that see the same thing differently.

the change from tarmac to red dirt is very symbolic you can see the difference but not the join

Here in the South west and south you can put your feet in the cold Atlantic or warm Indian oceans. December brings strong winds like Tarrifa where the Med and Atlantic meet it a good place to Kite surf.
The new SA means that 'whities' are now having to be very creative to make jobs and job market, arts, sports, B&Bs, Eco travel, giving a slight ex-pat feel to their areas one grand example is the wine industry in Franschoek is quite young but it has beauty, style and flavour that challenges it's French forefathers.

Two comical discoveries showed to me by friends were an 1980s film called 'The Gods Must be Crazy' looking at the tribal man and the 'civilised' and a comical understanding of the changes in SA John van de Ruit's 'Spud' white school boy growing up at the end of apartheid at a boarding school where cricket and rugby rule along with plenty of hazing. This as just been made into a film staring John Cleese but the book is much better.

back of a bakkie

Beautiful landscapes

African Jackass

However a more serious look at the different shades of the new South Africa Steve Otter's book Khayelitsha, Steve a white south African, tells how he lived in the shanty township outside Cape Town.  He dips into the language, and the history of what life was like for the whites and blacks and how now some blacks may have more and some white may feel post apartheid guilt there is only one way to know what the other is thinking - ask. 

Sticking one's head in the lion's mouth I'll leave for mister Otter, being here for the first time travelling, through, town, city, along coast line and down mountain roads talking to Afrikaners, artists, entrepreneurs, pilots and body-builders has given me some energy to shrug off some of our European nanny state political correctness, we need to be different and to get a whiff of danger,  life is not about having things its about being and doing, reacting and interacting.

incy welcomed me

southern tip

cas-palace, with bed and table ;)