South Africa - Land of the Opposites, Klaus Metzger, Jutta Hartmann-Metzger [if you give a mouse a cookie read aloud txt] 📗

climate a much-visited holiday center of the country KwaZulu-Natal.

 

 

 

Now back to our tourist interests in Durban: around 9 am the city tour started with our coach - after our luggage was safely loaded, because we flew in the afternoon over Johannesburg to Cape Town. Along Durban's "Golden Mile" we went to the famous harbor and from there to the historic City Hall (B).

 

 

 

Entrance to City Hall

 

The town hall of Durban was completed in 1910 and shows a beautiful example of neo-baroque architecture. The actual town hall is actually the second building in Durban for this purpose, as the first town hall was taken over by the post office, which is not far away. In the late 1880s Durban grew very strongly and it was decided that the city needed a larger town hall. In 1903, the city council announced to accept new draft proposals for the town hall. The chosen design was designed by architect Stanley G. Hudson, who was inspired by Belfast City Hall (Northern Ireland). The building was completed in 1910 and was considered exemplary in its time because of its "very bold and progressive design". 

 

The exterior has a dome and a series of statues representing the arts, music, literature, commerce and industry. Inside the hall, polished wooden floors, intricate glass paintings, wrought-iron balustrades, marble columns and decorated arches are displayed. There are three large spaces behind the facade, which are used as sites for the municipal chambers, the art gallery and library, as well as the auditorium.

 

 

Tower of the City Hall

 

On the second floor of the building is the Durban Art Gallery, which houses an impressive collection of international and South African art. The Natural Science Museum is also housed in the building, showing a unique variety of animal products, birds, reptiles and insects, as well as a dodo skeleton and South Africa's only ancient Egyptian mummy.

 

Opposite the main entrance of City Hall is a large square with several monuments. Among them was the impressive monument for Jan Christiaan Smuts. One year later, I read the book ("Death at the Cape" by Martin Bossenbroek) and this South African personality came back to me.

 

 

 

Monument to Jan Christiaan Smuts

 

Jan Christiaan Smuts (born May 24, 1870 in Bovenplatz near Riebeek West in the Cape Colony and died September 11, 1950 in Irene near Pretoria) was a South African statesman, philosopher, general and British field marshal. From 1919 to 1924 and from 1939 to 1948, he was the prime minister of the South African Union.

 

 

Cable car to the roof of the Moses Mabhida Stadium

 

The next stop of our city tour was the Moses Mabhida Stadium (C). If you wish, you can take the cable car to the roof of the stadium and enjoy the magnificent view over the city (but this is not free). At this point, it certainly makes sense to deal with the name of the stadium because, during apartheid, it stood as a colored one on the other, more dangerous side.

 

 

Monument Moses Mbheki Mnacane Mabhida in front of the stadium

 

Moses Mbheki Mnacane Mabhida (born October 14, 1923 in Thornville near Pietermaritzburg, died March 8, 1986 in Maputo) was a South African trade union leader and opposition politician. Mabhida was the son of poor parents who were expelled from their country. Due to the financial situation of the family, he attended the school until the 9th grade and began to work as a waiter and a factory in 1942.

 

Through his father, he had early contact with socialist ideals, so he joined the Communist Party of South Africa in 1942. Because of the prohibition of many trade unions between 1952 and 1953, Mabhiba went underground and devoted himself entirely to work for the trade union. In the following years, he organized the working group in Natal and built the South African Congress of Trade Unions (SACTU), for which he was elected vice-president in 1955.

 

Since the middle of the 1950s he also worked as secretary of the ANC in Pietermaritzburg, where he was in close contact with Albert John Luthuli. After the exclamation of the state of emergency after the Sharpeville massacre in 1960, Mabhida was sent abroad. Until 1963 he represented the ANC in Prague and organized international protests with the World Trade Union Federation. As a result of his election to the Executive Committee of the ANC in October 1962, Oliver Tambo convinced him to return to South Africa and participate in the construction of the Umkhonto we Sizwe (Spear of the Nation).

 

After a military training, Mabhida became a political officer for new recruits, later commander of the Umkhonto. In 1969, Mabhida was re-elected to the Executive Board, as well as to the Revolutionary Council and the Political-Military Council of the ANC. He set up the security and intelligence service of the ANC and became a member of the Political-Military Strategy Commission and Secretary-General of the Communist Party in 1979.

 

 

 

Memorial at the Moses Mabhida Stadium

 

At that time Mabhiba was a follower of Marxism-Leninism and the Soviet Union. In the following years, during his travels through Africa, he met Samora Machel, the leader of Frelimo, with whom he had a close friendship until his life. During a stay in Havana in 1985, he suffered a heart attack; After an illness, Mabhida died in Maputo in 1986, where he was also buried. The mourning speech was held by Samora Machel. In 2006, the corpse was transferred to South Africa by a delegation from KwaZulu-Natal, and was buried in Slangspruit near Pietermaritzburg on 2 December 2006 in the presence of President Thabo Mbeki.

 

 

Women's group at the Moses Mabhida stadium

 

That the colored ones were freed from the shackles of apartheid more than 20 years ago, they also owe the ANC hero Moses Mabhida and Nelson Mandela. That is why it was a special pleasure for us to discover colored women's groups who enjoyed their new-found freedom.

 

 

 

 

It was noon and we went to King Shaka International Airport in La Mercy (outside Durban) to fly to Johannesburg. We had to say good-bye to our beloved, colorful bus driver and our efficient tour guide, Margot (in Cape Town, our colleague, Brigitte, of African Eagle), who took her back to Johannesburg by coach.

 

The flight to Johannesburg was unproblematic. It was more difficult to find the right flight for the machine to Cape Town. A young man offered help as a guide, but he wanted to be rewarded for his services (10 Rand). Around 8pm we arrived in Cape Town and were looking forward to our Capetonian hotel in the city center

 

 

 

Notice board

 

But there was confusion first, because the elevator did not work properly and the luggage distribution difficulties. Finally our room was very disappointing. This changed very significantly in our second stay in Cape Town.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

7. Through the "Little Karoo" to the east of South Africa

Again we had to load all our luggage into our coach, because we should be traveling several days towards the eastern part of South Africa. On the other hand, we were glad to be able to leave our very uncomfortable room and hoped to catch a more comfortable room after returning to Cape Town (A). That worked well then also excellent.

 

 

The attached map of our route to the east is titled "Little Karoo". The Karoo is a semi-desert landscape in the highlands of South Africa. There will be a difference between Small Karoo, Big Karoo and Upper Karoo as well as Succulent Karoo and Nama-Karoo. With an expansion of 500,000 km², the Karoo covers almost a third of the territory of the Republic of South Africa.

 

But once we drove east along the N1 national road, our first stop was in Worcester. Once again, I was able to observe weaver birds at Nestbau - as in the Protea Hotel in Hluhluwe (KwaZulu-Natal), which lay 1.800 km northeast. We also drove past the Golden Valley Casino (near Worcester), which is very well-known in South Africa. Here we passed through one of the famous wine-growing areas with the best wines of South Africa - around Robertson and Swellendam.

 

The wine cultivation in South Africa began in 1652 with the arrival of Jan van Riebeek near Cape Town. His mission on behalf of the Oostindische Compagnie (VOC) consisted of establishing a food supply station on the route from Europe to India. On his arrival he noticed the Mediterranean climate and decided to import grape varieties from Europe.

 

He knew that wine on long sea voyages is more durable than fresh water in barrels and also has a positive effect on the course of the seafaring disease scurvy. In 1655 he planted first vines, and on February 2, 1659 the first wine was produced in South Africa. Van Riebeeck asked the farmers of the region around Cape Town to plant vines. Because of the inexperience of the local settlers this often failed initially.

 

The arrival of 150 French Huguenots (with their expertise) between 1680 and 1690 revitalized the wine cultivation considerably. Today, from this time, the winery Boschendal and Annandale Wines also exist with representative houses in the Cape Dutch style. In 1679 van Riebeeck was replaced by Simon van der Stel. This was not only a wine lover, but had profound knowledge in wine growing. He set up the 750 hectare Constantia estate on his farm and founded the settlement of Stellenbosch.

 

 Nowadays there are more than a dozen wine-growing areas in Cape Town. Central areas are Constantia, Stellenbosch and Franschhoek, in the east Robertson, the Breedekloof near Worcester, and the north-west and near-Swartland. Coming from Worcester we drove through Robertson and continued to Swellendam. Swellendam was founded as a district in 1743 and as a city and outpost of the Dutch East India Company in 1746, making it the third-oldest city in South Africa after Cape Town and Stellenbosch.

 

 

Road through the Langeberg Mountains

 

On the way to the colorful "pumpkin village" Barrydale (B), which also belonged to Swellendam, we had to cross a rugged rocky landscape in the valley of the river Tradourivier to get into the "Little Karoo". We passed the Tradouw Pass (pass 219 m) and enjoyed the magnificent mountain landscape at the crossing of the Langeberg Mountains. The word Tradouw is a word of the Khoisan, meaning "path of the women" and suggests that this pass was used long before the arrival of the Europeans. In 2011 Barrydale had 4156 inhabitants. The city is 240 kilometers east of Cape Town on Route 62 between Montagu and Ladismith.

 

 

"Pumpkin advertising" in Barrydale

 

The city was founded in 1882. It is named after the dealer John Joseph Barry, who never lived in Barrydale, but whose trading company Swellendam dominated the region in the 19th century. Why did I call Barrydale "pumpkin village"? During our second stop (after Worchester) on the famous