Dispatch from Franschhoek: Sunday, May 22

It’s early Sunday morning, before dawn, Trinity Sunday. We’re in a cozy little cottage in the town of Franschhoek about 40 miles from Cape Town South Africa. Later this morning we’ll be driving about 15 miles to Stellenbosch to join Terry Plantinga and his wife for church. You probably recognize the name, and sure enough, Terry is Al’s brother, who’s been living here for a number of years. We got acquainted by email at Al’s suggestion when we were planning the South Africa portion of our trip, and Terry offered us some good advice.
That’s where we are, now I need to back up a bit. I should warn you that this is going to be a bit of a travelogue since we’ve been on the road from place to place these last few days. So if that’s not your taste in blogology, skip to the next dispatch.
Flying out of Durban we began the last stage of our African journey, from Port Elizabeth to Cape Town along the Eastern Cape coast. If you look at your map, you will see that traveling from Port Elizabeth to Cape Town involves moving from east to west, which surprised me a bit. I had in my mind that the Cape Town was at the southern tip of the Africa, but, in it’s not, and the whole southern tip of Africa (the Eastern Cape region) is quite wide with Cape Town is at the western end. And the distances are more than we bargained for, which meant that we spent more time yesterday behind the wheel than we like to, though the scenery was magnificent.
We arrived at Port Elizabeth from warm, sunny Durban on a relatively cold and rainy Wednesday afternoon. Port Elizabeth is at the eastern end of what’s called the “Garden Route,” a dramatically rugged section of coastline bordered by mountains on the north and a series of lovely bays and beaches on the coast. After picking up our rental car at the airport, we drove west along the coast an hour or so to Jeffrey’s Bay on a peninsula jutting into the Indian Ocean. It was still cloudy and chilly (I’m talking Mediterranean chilly here not South Bend-- 55 to 60 degrees) when we woke Thursday morning, so we decided to drive on while the skies gradually cleared, as we often do with no specific destination in mind. The “Garden Route” seems an apt name for the coastal road, offering dramatic views of the ocean, craggy mountain peaks, deep rocky gorges where the rivers cut across the land to the sea, with glorious blooming flowers in every town along the way. This particular section of the coast also has sections of virgin coastal forest, and we stopped at one spot that day to take a two-hour hike into the deep forest up a mountainside with tall trees above and huge ferns spread on the forest floor. It reminded us in some ways of the western coast of New Zealand.
Mid afternoon we rounded a corner of the road and saw below us the sandy beach and white-capped waves of Plettenberg Bay, a town called the St. Tropez of the Garden Route, and immediately decided that this was our destination for the day. We didn’t know if that meant St. Tropez expensive, or St. Tropez beautiful. As usual we found an excellent backpackers place in the middle of town, just a walk to the beach. After exploring the town a bit we returned to our great room with a soft duvet and thick white towels, not typical of the backpacker level of accommodations, to settle down for an evening of talking and reading. Not wanting to cook that night, and, believe it or not, getting tired of going out to restaurants, we ordered out for one of those fabulous pizzas we only seem to find outside the U. S., smothered in an unusual and delicious variety of toppings—this one with lots of fresh tuna, blue cheese, and red pepper.
Fortunately, the next morning was sunny and bright, and we had been thinking about hiking the Robberg Peninsula Park , a big rock extending a couple miles out into the Indian Ocean on the tip of the Plettenberg Bay. It turned out to be a great hike, from walking along narrow paths over ocean cliffs to traversing secluded beaches. At one point the waves were so enticing that I stepped behind a rock, stripped down to my BVDs (looks just like the kind of thing the Germans wear on the beach all the time) and jumped into the surf. Water that had seemed quite mild putting my hand in the surf turned out to be numbingly cold—but in a few minutes I was splashing and body surfing in the waves. We ended the hike with a picnic on a cliff overlooking the Indian Ocean with the surf pounding below. What a way to spend the morning.
But that was only the first of our adventures for the day. We had been talking about going into a section of the Eastern Cape over a mountain pass called the “Klein Karoo,” or Little Karoo, a much drier and mountainous landscape than the coast. So over lunch we consulted a map (you see how we carefully plan our routes) and, sure enough, there was a road right up through the Prince Albert Pass (the bonnie prince had once shot an now extinct elephant in the pass). It did appear to be partially unpaved, but it can’t be all that bad, considering the high quality of South African roads we’d seen so far. It wasn’t bad to start, but within a few kilometers it turned into more of a logging road with potholes, stones rather than gravel, and steep drop-offs—in other words, 4-wheel drive road. But through my skillful driving and Jeanne’s warning screams, we made it. And we were so glad we did it. We passed through the most magnificent mountain scenery, with green valleys, waterfalls, and even a couple of trucks whole drivers laughingly shook their heads at out Nissan sedan, which came through unscathed except for a cake of mud.
The Karoo is strikingly different than the coastal region, and certainly different than the Durban area. Geographically, it’s arid, watered by several rivers enriched by little rainfall. It’s mostly cattle and ostrich farms, while farther west, where there’s a lot more water, the valleys have orchards and the beginning of the vineyard region. Culturally it quite different as well—this is Afrikaner territory, and most of the signs are in English and Africans or just Africans. The original Dutch settlers from the 16th century gradually pushed up the Breed River valley and beyond to settle the Karoo.
We stopped for the night in a town called Oudtschoorn. It seemed immediately Dutch, with the white stucco and decorations typical of the cape Dutch, adapted from their homeland way back in the 17th century. As usual, we had no reservation but the info booth in the town pointed us to a wonderful B and B on the outskirts run by a Mr. Meyer (I can’t remember his first name), a liberal middle aged Africaner, who specialized in indigenous plants and did tours with great old Range Rover Discovery 4x4s. He had built a lovely brick guesthouse with a wrap-around veranda overlooking his flowering indigenous garden. We’ve stayed at so many places here that we wished we could just settle in for a few days and enjoy—but we had to push on to Cape Town.
The next day—Saturday we drove the little Karoo, passing through flat deserts surrounded by mountains, lovely passes, and finally down into the wine country for which the Eastern Cape is so famous. Mr. Meyer had directed us on a special route we wouldn’t have known to Franschhoek. It approaches the town over a gorgeous mountain pass, so that you see the town like a jewel in a valley filled with vineyards.
Franschhoek is known as the “gastronomical capital of South Africa.” With 10 of SA’s best restaurants and chefs, and all this for a town of a thousand people. You can only guess why Jeanne, after carefully studying our trusty “Lonely Planet” guidebook slipped this place in as a must-see on our trip. The whole main street is nearly one long line of great restaurants, mostly French, since, as you can guess by the name (Franschhhoek) it was originally settled by French Huguenots. We had a great dinner (and some great Cape wine) in a 17th century building seated near a huge blazing fireplace. From there we settled into our little cottage and couldn’t keep our eyes open after five pages.