South Africa, a dream I thought was out of reach

August 5th. Arrived in Cape Town, after a somewhat tight connection in Johannesburg, we quickly picked up our little car and on a rather gloomy day, we headed to Hermanus, a small coastal town about 120 km east of the airport. The road to reach this town is, surprisingly, very beautiful, with scenery that sometimes recalls Sardinia and other times New Zealand and that overall are magnificent. We take the coastal road which makes the trip about thirty km longer, since for today all that's left is to reach the lovely little hotel "The Baleens" and then wander a bit around the town. Along the way we also spot many very lovely little white houses in Dutch style, just to remind us that the first inhabitants of this area of South Africa were the Dutch, who settled here in 1652.

This stop was "mandatory" because during the winter you can see the whales: and indeed that's the case, you can see them from the shore with the naked eye too, but we only saw the tail and at a certain distance and, in short, they didn't give us that huge thrill. Still in the area you can have the SharkCageDiving experience, which I booked from Italy, but for which they give us confirmation the day before, based on the tides.

August 6th. Of course, they confirm and the morning after our arrival, at 6.30 we're already in Kleinbaai, about thirty km further east. Like idiots, we take advantage of the abundant breakfast, they give us a wetsuit and a truly waterproof bag to put inside everything we don't want to get wet and, after about forty minutes, when it starts to get light, we walk to the sea. They have us climb onto a big hull still on dry land and then they lower us into the water along with the whole kit and caboodle. The cage is long and, to look at it, more horizontal than vertical, and only when we're in the water, is it positioned and attached to one long side of the boat.

The sea is rough, but I don't pay attention, because I've always tolerated it very well, in fact I feel super excited! But when the boat stops and they simply tell us to put on the wetsuit, right where we are...maybe it's because we wanted to show off with the breakfast and putting ourselves on the second deck too, maybe because when stationary the gasping became terrible and that, moreover, putting on the wetsuit isn't exactly an easy thing...plus with that bouncing around...first my husband and then I started to feel bad and to vomit our very souls out, just barely making it to the only available little toilet! And with the disgusting wetsuit on. Our 16-year-old daughter held up slightly better than us, so she went down into the cage and saw the sharks "from the inside", while we only saw them from the boat...between one trip to the toilet and the next.

Even the life of those entering the cage, about ten people at a time, wasn't easy, because they also had to hold themselves up heavily! However, there were some other white faces, but we only saw one other person out of about 25 throwing up, apart from us 3. Hmm, are we really such wimps???? I don't want to go into the difficulty then of taking off the wetsuit and getting dressed again, I'll just say that the cold was the only NON problem. Back at the base, another breakfast and everyone happy watching the little film and the photos taken. The others. Us, wrecked and gasping in the car and when my daughter realised that we would never catch up to her in this big celebration, she got out and, slowly, we headed to Cape Town.

The other absurd thing is that I was out of action for many hours and also angry, because I even paid €75 each to be like that! Sure, the sharks could be seen very well even from outside and they're in their habitat, not in an aquarium, but in those conditions it wasn't worth it. We were foolish not to prepare with patches or pills, but if we didn't it's also because, in normal or average sea conditions, such a thing has never happened to us. So, the last impression is that they set off anyway, except, perhaps, in situations of real danger, and whoever's seen has seen! Along the way we stopped to visit the lovely and white town of Stellenbosch, whose centre, dating back to the early years of colonisation is still truly well preserved.

It's home to an old university and is the centre of the area of the famous South African wines, with vineyards extending to the first slopes of the mountains. Finally we continue to Cape Town, where we'll spend 4 nights at the small and very lovely Guesthouse "The Vagabond", run by the courteous and helpful Graziella, a Turin native transplanted here a few years ago. The location also proves perfect, in the Sea Point area. We meet up with our son, who's already been here for 10 days doing a volunteer experience at a primary school for black children and who's staying in a hostel 400 metres from our little hotel and..completely by chance! In the evening we find an excellent restaurant reachable on foot, the Buzbey Grill where we'll come every evening, without wasting time wandering around and spending at most, for 4, €42.

Only one evening did we try to eat in the centre at Mama Africa, but it was packed and we went back to our usual Buzbey. Some locals then tell us that this Mama Africa really isn't worth much and that it's only cut out for tourists..perhaps one of those successes gifted (or sold!!!) by the too overpraised-by-me Lonely Planet!

August 7th. Today the weather is beautiful, my daughter and I set off on foot towards the V & A Waterfront, a port area built during the era of Queen Victoria and now splendidly redeveloped, like a big, but nice commercial area, like a maritime Covent Garden..the only nice thing about the city, apart from its splendid position, straddling sea and mountains. And what mountains..here's finally Table Mountain, mighty and incredibly flat, without clouds covering it, that is, without the famous "tablecloth", then Lion's Head and Devil's Peak and then...the necklace of mountains that unfolds along a peninsula that will end at the Cape of Good Hope, after about seventy km.

Reaching the Waterfront is pleasant anyway, also because we cut through a beautiful garden and walk along the sea almost right away! At one o'clock, reached by Simone, we queue at the ticket office to reach Robben Island, a prison sadly known above all because Mandela spent 27 years there. Although I, like almost everyone, have already bought the tickets online (about €18 each), the business is slow and complicated and we only manage to leave after about forty minutes. Arrived on the island, one part of the excursion takes place inside the main body of the prison and one on a bus that takes us on a tour that will bring us to various equally important areas. We don't understand the English of the guide who falls to us in the first part, by his account an ex-prisoner, whereas the girl who accompanies us on the bus is completely comprehensible.

But, to tell the truth, on the one hand it would be absurd to come to this city and not visit the island, but the thing that's really worth it, are the views of Cape Town from here!

August 8th. Another splendid day! We have planned to reach the Cape, actually we'll manage to do even more. We set off towards one of the oldest Dutch wine estates, that of Groot Constantia, at 9...but, actually in vain, because it opens at 10. Anyway, the atmosphere is magical and so are the buildings dating to the second half of the 1600s, so we walk in the quiet before the places open to visitors, the main body of which is completely furnished.They can also taste wines there, but, once the visit is over, we run off towards the next stop along the route to the Cape, the little town of Simon'sTown south of which, Boulders Beach is one of the not many places in the world where you see penguins in nature.

Here we're talking about the small and sweet African penguins that at most weigh up to 3.5 kg and that if they continue to disappear at the rates of the last 15 years, risk going completely extinct within the next 15! To see them you take a pleasant walk among the coastal scrub and beaches dotted with gigantic granite rocks, the boulders, precisely. Here you pay for admission, but I had made the pass online (SAN Parks) to visit all the national parks, mainly for the Kruger and, so, I start using it already here.The list of parks that are included is shown on the website, but, on the contrary, at the entrance of every area that's on the list, the SanParks symbol is displayed.

On the website there are all the prices and the opportunity to take the family pass is interesting: do 2 calculations and see whether it's worth paying for every entry day or getting the...yearly pass! Having left the Boulders we finally head towards the Cape of Good Hope, at the end of this beautiful promontory..but not at the end of Africa. In fact, the real southernmost cape isn't this one, but Cape Agulhas, 150 km east from here. The landscape is increasingly harsh and wild, with incredible spaces and sky and, I don't know if it's because we're influenced by the thought of where we are, but it's a crescendo of emotion.

Once at the end we move to several points by car and on foot: bear in mind that this entrance is also part of the SANParks and that there's the possibility of trekking here for days! When we're quite satisfied, we return towards Cape Town by a different road, equally very "scenic" and we manage to reach the famous Kirstenbosch Botanical Garden an hour before closing. We catapult ourselves inside, it's too little time, because it's beautiful just to stroll through it, but it's better than nothing.

August 9. We're incredibly lucky, here's another gorgeous day, perfect for what we have to do, namely try to climb Table Mountain on foot! The cable car will reopen in 2 days, so we decide to start the climb, which is listed as taking 2h30, with the intention of turning back if we can't make it. With great effort and satisfaction, though, we make it, even taking 30 minutes less than expected, and from up there... what a spectacle... the view stretches all the way to the Cape of Good Hope!!! The descent is even worse, because the path is basically one long staircase, obviously NOT uniform, because it's made of stones and boulders that just happen to be there...! Fantastic experience and satisfaction... even though our legs will be destroyed for at least a week! We go back to freshen up at the hotel, then return to the Waterfront to do some shopping.

Today is Women's Day here, so there are performances and loads of spontaneous little groups of musicians or dancers: a pleasant and relaxing afternoon. Before heading back for the evening, we quickly pass through the city centre and the Muslim quarter of Bo Kaap, but honestly nothing sparks our curiosity, there's really no historic centre at all. I can't say anything about the museums, which do exist anyway.

August 10. At 8 we drop off the car to leave for Durban, where we land well ahead of schedule too. We'll lose the time we "gained" at Budget, where, for a whole series of THEIR reasons, we lose at least 2 hours. Once we finally get this blessed car, we set off for St. Lucia, getting there around 15:00. The little guesthouse, the African Ambience, is really lovely: the manager, John, is a helpful guy, even if a bit too euphoric! It's too late to do anything organised, so we go to a place he recommends, where you can see hippos and crocodiles, because it overlooks the St. Lucia estuary, an integral and special part of the iSimangaliso coastal private park that starts here and stretches for 280 km north, all the way to the border with Mozambique, and is a UNESCO World Heritage Site for the countless forms of biodiversity coexisting here.

August 11. In the morning we go into the park, where we see far fewer animals than I knew about and had read about, but only later will we understand that seeing animals really is just a stroke of luck... and skill! We're rewarded anyway by a family of rhinos that we see in total comfort from 2 metres away! We go to the beach from which you can see Cape Vidal, and I have to admit that all the "dimensions" here are truly grand! We eat what we brought from outside, because in the park there's no food or petrol to buy, and if you have to leave and come back in, you pay for the ticket again! In the afternoon at 15:00 we've booked a boat trip on Lake St.

Lucia for small groups through John, and even though we realise we paid much more than with other agencies, it's worth it, because there are really very few of us and above all because our guide, Anthony, has such contagious expertise and passion, so that's fine! In the lake habitat, we see mangroves, birds, crocodiles and above all loads of FANTASTIC hippos, up close too!

August 12 and 13. In the morning we set off for the next stop, Tembe Elephant Park, almost 200 km further north. This is the only time we'll be waited on hand and foot and carefree for 2 days and 2 nights! They pick us up at the gate in a jeep, since we're on terrain that is really sandy, because, to be precise, this is a sand forest! The day is obviously very well structured: from 5:30 in the morning a light breakfast is available, at 6 the first safari sets off, lasting at least 3 hours like the afternoon one, on return another really full breakfast, at 14:00 a rather meagre lunch, at 3 a new safari and at 19:00 dinner. Already here we'll discover that when evening falls, nature is respected as much as possible, that is, no lights or illuminations of every kind are switched on imposingly, so to get back to the tent, sometimes you need a torch, exactly like in the Kruger camps.

This is a tented camp, which means they're tents, fully furnished, but with real doors and with a brick-and-mortar bathroom, very far apart from each other and immersed in the bush populated by impala, nyala, birds and who knows what else! Then there are common areas all built in wood and thatch on sort of low stilts and a small pool. The verdict on these 2 days is fairly positive, even though we didn't see that many animals, the staff, especially the women, were not at all friendly, the quantity or quality of the food left a bit to be desired and we had to pay a tourist tax both at the entrance gate and here. On the plus side was the truly perfect organisation and the amazing habitats!

August 14. Today is a day meant more than anything for travelling towards Kruger with a compulsory stop in Swaziland because, between crossing the border which has opening hours, the roads that often don't allow you to speed, the speed limits, the actual distance and the fact that Kruger too at this time of year closes its gates at 18:00 and that at 18:00 the camps inside close too... it would have been risky not to sleep in this small state.

August 15, 16, 17, 18, 19, 20. Kruger is one of the oldest national parks on the continent, almost as big as Israel and around 60 x 350 km. The habitats aren't very varied, except a bit in the north where you glimpse a slightly more tropical environment and where the baobabs are; for the rest it's mostly shrubland, with few truly open spaces, like savannah, and here and there with large acacia trees and other species.

We enter Kruger with the SANParks pass already mentioned, through the Crocodile Bridge Gate, and we'll exit from Phalaborwa; we spend 6 nights in 3 different camps (Lower Sabie, Letaba and Shingwedzi), driving more than 700 km far and wide and reaching the complete North, but we'll see many other camps to have breakfast or lunch in, because, very wisely, once you're in the park, you have free access to each of them, even if you're not staying overnight, except in the private ones, where it's forbidden even to start the road leading to them, but everything is well signposted. In this season the camps open their gates at 6 and close them at 18:00, and if you arrive late, you pay heavy penalties.

There's a shop stocked to varying degrees, a restaurant, almost always the petrol station and a pool, and I found it difficult/impossible to withdraw cash from ATMs; for sleeping there are areas for tents and caravans and numerous Cottages and Huts, very very nice, fully equipped with everything, bedding, soap, kitchenette and the possibility of cooking over the coals. Not all have a bathroom, but there are many spotlessly clean communal bathrooms, and at the time of booking, which is MANDATORY before entering the park and which I did months in advance online despite all the advice to the contrary (in February there were few availabilities for August, even though for them it's not high season!!!), everything is clearly indicated.

When you book, you also have to pay everything, I believe with the possibility of being refunded up to a certain point, and the prices are really low, again if you compare with Italy. We did all the safaris on our own, driving few dirt roads, but there are organised safaris too, including at night; in the morning we always set off early and with clear ideas about what to do. From the SANParks website you can download all the distances, the expected times and a very rudimentary map, so at the first shop we bought a sort of book of few pages, which contains a better map and the list of the most common animals, a purchase that proved extremely smart. Because you really do see lots of strange and supposedly known animals, and believe me, it makes sense to know who they are.

Many people thought 6 nights in Kruger were too many, but in reality we weren't bored at all and, broadly speaking, the longer you stay, the more you see, also because, as I said before, what you mostly need is a lot of LUCK! We saw all the big 5 and the leopard too. Cats are hard to spot because they're capable of staying still for hours, but we managed to see a lioness with our own eyes! In fact, drivers help each other a lot with directions and moving their cars to let others see! Of rare animals we saw the African wild dog, an incredible bird called the ground hornbill and the cheetah, but I have to say that what made me fall in love were the elephants, which we saw in various situations, some of which were truly live documentaries.

On the whole, what struck me is that whatever shade or pattern the various animals' coats had, with the South African bush they were always perfectly camouflaged! Great emotions: the baobabs, true kings; the elephant that stares at you shaking its head in a threatening way until you move away, if the little ones need to pass; the stars, many, bright, infinite... with the Milky Way seeming to fall on your head. What a fantastic thing nature is!

August 21. Today, with a heavy heart, we leave Kruger and go to Bush River Lodge, to spend 3 nights there, about seventy km from the exit gate, near Hoedspruit and the Mpumalanga mountains. I chose this place, which turns out to be beautiful, because we're close enough to Kruger to think about going back if we get Africa sickness, and close enough to Mpumalanga, which is our new stop. But also to rest a bit, if needed. Actually we won't look back again and the mountains are further away than I had understood, but even so these lodges perched on the river repay the effort of reaching them! At Bushriver we also have a fantastic kitchen at our disposal, but we only use it to make colossal breakfasts; for the rest, especially in the evening, we always eat at a good little restaurant along the provincial road 7 km away, the Three Bridges.

The owners, one white and one black, celebrate us already just the second time they see us come back.

August 22. In the morning around 8:30 we head towards the famous mountains, whose first stop is 95 km away, and by the end of the day we'll have done more than 400! This is the final part of the mountains of the Drakensberg range and it's a massive high plateau with incredible escarpments that give rise to the Blyde River Canyon, which with its 26 km of length and 800 m of depth is the third largest in the world. We stop at the Forever Resort Swadini, where paying 50 Rand / €3.50 each, you can do some walks. After 3 hours of trudging with fantastic views, we consider ourselves satisfied. In this area, you pay for every entrance, and after this stop, it'll be 10 R / €0.70 for everything: waterfalls, particular rock formations and a small but real rainforest.

We skip the former mining town of Pilgrim's Rest, because we know it's a real disappointment, and we eat in Graskop, which is no less disappointing! Another stop worth mentioning is the Blyde River Reserve, whose entrance costs 160 R / €11 and where water over the millennia has carved out pools and small canyons with bizarre shapes, partly because of the colour of the minerals they're made of, and to which, in the end, we devoted far too little time!

August 23. In the morning we laze around Hoedspruit at our leisure. After lunch we intend to do a guided visit at an endangered species rehabilitation centre, cheetahs first and foremost, but we arrive late and, so as not to waste the day, we book an organised safari, because here we're in the Kapama area, one of the many private parks bordering the whole of Kruger. In the end and almost in the dark we see some lions feasting, but it seems a bit too staged: hmm? Anyway, the safari is always exciting!

August 24. Yesterday's skipped visit left a bitter taste in our mouths and so, before leaving for Johannesburg, which is 450 km away and where we have our last 2 nights, we try again. This time we make it and this is well worth more than the safari, because it's true that these animals aren't free, but the guide gives us so much information for more than 2 hours and we're always moving around in a jeep anyway, that it's a real pleasure. What's more, this guy, even if he'll repeat the same spiel twice a day every day, seems genuinely passionate! Sadly, we set off for Tambo airport, where we drop off the car and go to the Sun Southern Tambo hotel, connected to the terminal by a free shuttle that leaves every 15 minutes. You can choose whether to have dinner at the hotel or go to the airport, where the price is obviously lower...

not that the hotel is expensive: a self-service dinner costs about €16!

August 25. At 9 in the morning Agnes comes to pick us up, the guide from Felleng Tours, which I booked from Italy, and who will take us today to the Cullinan Diamond Mine and Pretoria, and tomorrow to Soweto, the Apartheid Museum and Johannesburg, of which we only drive along a few streets. All this costs more than €400 and was the only thing I considered expensive in the whole trip (apart from the sharks!), but it's absolutely worth it and I don't regret it one bit. We hit it off with Agnes right away, we chat and laugh all day and she explains lots of things about this country to us. By late afternoon our English is getting more and more stuck, mine as an Italian, hers as an Afrikaner who never spoke English at home and had to learn it when she and her husband invented this job, 14 years ago.

The Cullinan mine, which we visit in a couple of hours, only above ground, strikes me a lot, both for some gigantic machinery and, above all, for the famous Big Hole, a gigantic crater, or rather to be precise the fourth largest in the world. We have a good and very clear guide, even if in the end there's too much information to really absorb. Afterwards we go for lunch in Pretoria, in a beautiful park full of birds. I've always read that this city is ugly: to us it seems beautiful, full of greenery (there are about 75,000 Jacaranda trees!), of young people and healthy vitality! We visit Parliament from the outside and the grandiose and, to me, beautiful Voortrekker Monument, that is, the Boers'.

August 26. Tonight we leave and today we finish in style, going to Soweto. It seems they now encourage tourists to go there, which can't be said about Johannesburg, some neighbourhoods of which are really off-limits for many whites and... I think blacks too. This township of 2 million inhabitants is a mix of very different areas, from the poorest to sorts of "Beverly Hills": the common feature is that the structures are all low. We go to a nursery school that's part of a cultural circle created with nothing but volunteer effort, and the 3-year-old children welcome us warmly and with great celebration: wonderful. The children are wonderful. This part is really the typical shanty town, on a dirt road, with rubbish and a trickle of sewage running along the side of the road and houses of corrugated iron and leftovers of various materials...

but everyone smiles at us! Later we go to the street of Mandela's house, which can be visited, and of Archbishop Desmond Tutu, the only street in the world where 2 Nobel Prize winners have lived, both for peace. But it's too touristy. The last thing we see is the Apartheid Museum, which I'd say wraps up this trip in style, because it's BEAUTIFUL, made with great intelligence and originality. Europeans think this area of the country isn't worth it, but if you have the time and the opportunity, absolutely don't overlook it, because it adds so many pieces to the understanding of this incredibly multifaceted country.

With what feelings do I leave on the evening of August 26, when, after 21 days in this country I've read so much about for at least 30 years of my life, we take the plane that will bring us home? I leave with a rich baggage of beautiful experiences and strong feelings, but I can't say that serenity prevails in me, or the smile I had plastered on my face last year, when I left Asia, because the horizon of the sky that Mandela tried in just a few years to clear is murkier than ever and in a way that was unexpected for me and extremely complicated to describe, but which is certainly not "whites are still ghettoising blacks". We talked to so many people and had many perceptions, among which in the end, with great, great sorrow and disbelief, for me the thought prevailed that South Africa is NOT the rainbow nation.