South Africa After

This year Mr. Charlotte and I have had the great good fortune to do some serious ’round-the-world traveling. We have been on the road since the first week of January and will be back stateside just in time for Independence Day. Our destinations so far: Ecuador, Egypt, Fiji, New Zealand, South Korea, South Africa, Lesotho, and eSwatini (Swaziland). We just wrapped up the South Africa leg of the trip and I thought the Rico-verse might be interested in some impressions. If you just want to see some fun photos of animals, dramatic landscapes, etc., please feel free to skip to the end!

We spent nearly five weeks in South Africa, starting with a week in Cape Town, then driving east along the Garden Route (basically following along the southern coast of Africa) for several days, a few days in Addo Elephant Park, a few days in Lesotho and the Drakensberg Mountains, a couple of days in the Blyde River Canyon area (about two hours west of the central part of Kruger National Park), a week in and near Kruger, and then ended with three days in Cullinan/Pretoria/Johannesburg.

The Good

South Africa has a ton going for it. For example, spectacular scenery up the wazoo! Cape Town has a famously beautiful and dramatic setting at the base of Table Mountain. The rest of the Cape is blessed with amazing beaches, dramatic cliffs, and rocky coastlines. The Garden Route along the southern coast was similarly beautiful – we kept thinking we had seen the best beach ever and then we found another one which was even better. The Drakensberg and Blyde River mountain areas really took our breath away. Of course the wildlife is properly legendary too – in addition to the hundreds of amazing animals in the national parks (where you sort of expect to see them), we would often just happen upon various exotic critters in "regular" areas. The roads and related infrastructure (gas stations, signs, etc.) have been superb throughout (the local drivers, perhaps, not so much, but whatever). Food and accommodation, and tourist infrastructure generally, is of good quality and good value for the money. All of our interactions with South Africans, black and white, have been friendly and cordial, and we have been mightily impressed with how multilingual the population is – everyone speaks at least three or four languages (English, Afrikaans, and two or three native/local African languages) and they can switch among them with lightning speed.

The Bad

South Africa seems to be teetering on the brink of a serious national crisis. There have been rolling blackouts for hours a day (locally referred to as "load shedding" – it's a huge topic of conversation and frustration) nationwide for more than the past two years, causing constant disruptions in people's lives, businesses to close or scale down, crime to go up (it's a lot easier to commit crimes at night when there aren't any lights on), and general uncertainly and mistrust to increase. It's so sad – everyone is apologetic and embarrassed and feeling helpless about it, trying to find ways to cope (generators, batteries, solar power, etc.). Poverty is widespread and, to our untrained foreign tourist eyes, it seems to be almost entirely concentrated among the black population. We knew the basics of South Africa's racial history, but it was a jolt to see how wide the divide still is: the whites seem to live in the nice areas and own the businesses and drive the cars, and the blacks seem to live in much poorer areas, work for the whites, and walk or take the bus. Of course we have our own version of this dynamic in the United States, but it's much more stark in SA; we rarely saw black people and white people interacting with each other at all. Mixed-race social groups and integrated public spaces just don't seem to exist in the way that they can and do in the US.

The Ugly

South Africa's largest metro area, Johannesburg, has a reputation as a dangerous city. We were heartbroken to discover that most of the towns and cities have a serious crime problem, not just JNB. I’ve never seen so much razor wire and electric fencing in my life – every house behind a wall with security warnings and barbed wire, every business with bars in the windows, every parking lot with gates and checkpoints and security guards. Although we didn't experience anything personally, everyone we talked to mentioned worsening crime. We saw tons of local news stories about rising rates, desperate mitigation efforts, protests, etc. For example, we spent the day in a lovely beachy tourist town right at the bottom of Africa called Mossel Bay. While Mr. Charlotte went cage diving with the great white sharks (!), I spent several hours sightseeing and walking around. High walls and barbed wire were basically everywhere – it's claustrophobic and unsettling and I didn't feel safe exploring by myself. We encountered this sad state of affairs throughout the country.

This is getting rather long (readers who have made it this far: "YES, WE KNOW") so I’ll leave it here. I hope there are some Ricos who either live in SA or have recent SA experience/knowledge to share. Also, Mr. Charlotte is the social media point-man for our trip – he has been posting photos a couple of times per week. If you’d like to see more pix, please PM me and I’ll give you his FB and IG handles.