South Africa

Where to begin? Imagine this: Four excited people, a Toyota Corolla and the open road! Our destination? Calitzdorp, a five hour drive from Cape Town in the Klein Karoo. Under the shelter of Table Mountain, the so familiar guardian which kept watch over me for so many years of my young life, (my boarding school on its slopes), we four pack away our back packs (could be the first line of a new song) into the spacious boot/trunk (bilingual now!) and fasten our seat belts for the long ride. George takes the wheel and keeps it for the next five days.

We speed out of Cape Town, past the townships, looking a little more ordered than last year, minimally more prosperous....still a HUGE discrepancy in this country between rich and poor...and out into open country, farm lands and vineyards. We climb over the mountain ranges which separate this lush scenery for the scrub and brilliant wild flowers which carpet the Karoo in the spring....if the rain has come which it had finally after 3 years of drought. Dense splashes of colour: reds, mauves, purples, all shades of yellow to orange..bringing to vivid life the usually arid scrub. I had never seen the Karoo in the spring and this year it put on an incredible show for us!

We had had our Calitzdorp booking cancelled at the last moment and I had to make a pretty quick decision as to where we would lodge. I liked to look of a place called The Soeterus Guest House: it had luxurious looking bedrooms and provided breakfast and other meals should you want them. We arrived in the typical little Afrikaans Karoo town shortly after 5 pm and drove down a dusty unpaved road to find the Soeterus. Here it was, a high gate and a sudden sharp turn to a steep driveway and down into the car park. A young sweet faced man came to meet us 'Retief?' I asked and it was. Dark hair, gentle brown eyes and a welcoming smile....we had corresponded hurriedly and briefly. He immediately offered us tea or coffee and took us to the dining/lounge which was high and roomy, a converted shed most beautifully done with a bamboo ceiling and rough rafters, old locally made 'Dutch' furniture, a door into Retief's kitchen.
'Come with and I'll show you your rooms' he said in typical abbreviated South African fashion. We had almost identical twin bedded rooms, again high ceilings and stone walls, warm wooden furniture, sophisticated curtains and padded head boards and a small vase of garden cut flowers....perfect!

We showered and changed and rushed to meet Trevor and Joan Teeton (Joan and I were childhood friends) who had arranged dinner for us in the Zamani restaurant in Calitzdorp. It was lovely to see them again after nearly 10 years (yes we had all aged!) and we had a nice home cooked dinner in a cosy combination of store and dining room. Good conversation with Joan but so sad to hear of the loss of a mutual school friend to cancer. Phillida, who had, with Jean and Sally, arranged such a fantastic buffet lunch for my Shongololo group (remember Frances?) at Jean's lovely home on the sea front in Boulders. We had coffeed together, the four of us, two years ago at the V&A Waterfront in Cape Town...as Sally said to me on the phone this morning 'Well Maggie it's our age, we seem to be dropping like flies!' Nice thought!!

We all dropped into bed and asleep within seconds that night...we had planned an exciting day on Saturday, South African Heritage day.