The morning I was set to cross the border, I was in high spirits. I would be leaving Namibia – the land of extreme temperatures, and the place where I was so sick for so many weeks – and heading into a new country, a fresh start.
South Africa.
Although I wasn’t going to be able to add this country to my list of “Countries Visited”, as it has already been on that list for a year now, I would hardly call a few weeks in Cape Town and a few days in Pretoria fully visiting a country. And certainly not a country so massive, so diverse, and as noteworthy as South Africa. I wanted to see its wide open spaces, experience its various cultures, learn about its tragic history, and I knew that crossing this border would allow me to do that.
So, yes, I was pumped.
Upon entering South Africa, tourists from most countries are given a free 90-day visa, no questions asked. I had no such luck that day. The immigration officer, scanning the myriad visa stamps on my passport, scrutinized me and then launched into a series of suspicious questions. How long would I be in South Africa? When was the last time I’d been here? How many times had I been here? Where had I been in between? When had I last returned to my home country? How was I planning on departing the country?I must not have given the correct answers, for I was informed I would get a 7-day visa, which I could extend at an immigration office in a major city.
Try telling an immigration official that you will not be in a major city over the next 7 days, as you will be driving slowly – “a-la-Bruno” – through the Northern Cape, and that you might reach a large city in 20-30 days.
It didn’t go over well. I was ushered into an office to see the big boss, who tried to explain some mumbo-jumbo about needing to return to my home country in between visa stamps, and that traveling in any southern African country uses up my visa days. It’s difficult to argue when you have no idea what the officer is rambling on about, and when most of the rules and regulations he’s citing make absolutely no rational sense at all.
I managed to point out some magical stamp in my passport showing that I transited Jo’burg on my way to meet Bruno in Windhoek on December 21st. Somehow, that qualified me for a 90-day visa from that date…. I don’t get it either. But I didn’t dare question or complain, for my new stamp stated I could stay in South Africa until March 20th – just over 2 months from my entry that day. It wasn’t 90 days, but it was better than 7.As Bruno and I drove over the final checkpoints and finally stepped foot on South African soil, my high spirits were palpably lower. I felt like an unwanted tourist. What had Canadians done to South Africa? Was my money less good than that of others? Bruno got his 90-days, no questions asked, even though he has just as many confusing stamps as I do. These thoughts brewed in my mind as we drove through South Africa that day. I looked out the window and saw the same colorless landscape, the same small shrubs, the same rugged mountains, and the same kokerboom trees. Wasn’t the kokerboom the official tree of Namibia? What was it doing here, across the border, in South Africa? Had I actually crossed the border, or was I still, in fact, in Namibia?
Thankfully, my mood has since lifted, and I have had a lovely 9 days in South Africa so far. From the border at Vioolsdrif, we have driven almost 1000km, passing through Springbok, Vanrhynsdorp, Nieuwoudtville, Calvinia, Williston, and Fraserburg, before setting up camp in Karoo National Park near Beaufort West. South Africa is divided into 9 provinces, and our journey from the Namibian border took us through the Northern Cape, South Africa’s largest, yet least populated and least touristy, province. The reason for this? The weather is just as harsh and the landscape just as rugged and barren as it is in Namibia.
No wonder we passed through it in 5 days!
Nonetheless, there was something appealing about the Northern Cape, and had the call of the coastal beaches not been so loud (and the length of my visa not been so short), we might have stayed a while. For in this province, I felt I had stepped back into an era passed, a time long gone-by, a sort of time capsule or museum revealing to only Bruno and me – for surely we were the only tourists in the region – what South Africa was like, and no longer is anywhere else but here.
The original inhabitants of the Northern Cape were the San bushmen, but little is known of the early history of the area. Indeed nothing has shaped the culture of the area so much as the arrival of the colonialists in the mid 18th century. Some, dissatisfied with British rule in the Cape Colony came in search of freedom, while others – troublemakers – were sent here by the government to keep them isolated and therefore not causing trouble. And some came in search of better grazing land for their sheep and goats. Inevitably, over time, law and order reached the Northern Cape too, and small municipalities were created here, with churches and other Cape Colonial architecture clustering small segments of this otherwise barren land. Walking through any Northern Cape town, you can still see many examples of this architectural style along the single main street, and you will almost always see the church, its steeple announcing the upcoming village long before the rest of the buildings are seen.
The main language spoken in this region is invariably Afrikaans. Most people can speak English (to varying degrees), but it is evident that the reach of the British didn’t extend quite this far into the bush. This is a proud region, proud of its autonomy, of its history, of its way of life. You get the impression that the people who live here were born and raised here and that each of them can trace their ancestry back to its original white inhabitants, those fiercely brave Voortkrekkers (Fore-trekkers, pioneers) who first set out into the wild.
That’s certainly the impression I got of Elsa, an Afrikaaner in her 70s, in charge of tourism in her hometown of Williston. She barraged me with binders full of newspaper articles, and brochures (mostly in Afrikaans) about Williston and the surrounding areas. Evidently, I couldn’t read most of the info, though I could feel the interest and pride she held for her region. And I did stumble across an academic article about “Corbelled Houses” around Williston. These soapstone brick buildings, with rounded roofs, were temporary homes for the sheep and goat farmers who came north from the Cape a few months a year. The earliest homes date back as far as 1811 and are simple and small; as farmers chose to make the Northern Cape their permanent home, they brought their families and added-on to their single-roomed corbelled homes. This style of architecture dates back 4000 years to the Mediterranean, whereby the bricks are corbelled (laid further and further into the center of the building) creating a rounded roof which somehow manages to keep the home cooler during the day and warmer at night. Interestingly, the single window near the door is carved out at an angle from the home so that the arrows of the bushmen still wandering these lands couldn’t penetrate the center of the home. These pioneer-farmers were evidently intelligent men!I’m not sure how much of a tourist-draw these corbelled homes are, or the semi-desert landscape, or the deserted feel of the towns. But I do know that there is one attraction, in Namaqualand (the westernmost section of the province), that draws tourists in droves. In August and September every year, this otherwise dull-colored land erupts with the bloom of millions of flowers. The entire earth, as far as the eye can see, is miraculously filled with bright-colored flowers. As I drive across Namaqualand, I picture these flowers in my mind’s eye. I imagine that I am the artist, filling the empty canvas before me with all the colors of the rainbow. I can really see them – these flowers – and they are beautiful, for they symbolize life in this otherwise dying environment. And this moment, this image, is perhaps the most beautiful of all the images of the Northern Cape that I have acquired – more beautiful than the starry nights or the steep mountain passes, more beautiful than the rugged canyons or the rivers flowing beside – and sometimes through- the roads we drove on, more beautiful than camping in the bush amidst ancient cedar trees or being the only tourists – or people – in so many of the places we visited, even more beautiful than the highly-anticipated increase of green dotting the scorched red earth. And I understand why, for these two months of the year, the Northern Cape is in full tourist-bloom. I want to see these flowers.But you can’t see everything, and I know I am lucky to see what I saw, and to experience a different kind of South Africa that most tourists never see. And so now, as I sit in the campsite of the Karoo National Park reflecting on my experiences, I feel a sense of gratitude at what I AM able to see because of my Canadian passport. Maybe I won’t get to see the Namaqualand flowers in bloom, and maybe I won’t get to spend 90 days in South Africa, but 64 days is a lot better than 7,right?
moveebuff - Hi Brittany….love reading your blog. So glad that you were able to get a 90 visa instead of 7. The first thing that goes through my mind when I go to read your blog is “is she safe?” and then I can relax and read further. Your writing is so vivid that I can almost see everything you write about….. 🙂