The Riel Thing

In July the Bushmans Kloof Nuwe Graskoe Trappers will be flying across the Atlantic to represent South Africa at the World Championships of Performing Arts in Los Angeles. (Coincidentally I will be in L.A. in late July too.)

A dozen pairs of feet, all clad in red veldskoene and white socks tap dancing and twirling. The young dancers who hail from the tiny town of Wupperthal in the Western Cape perform in farm clothes, headscarves and bonnets for the girls and feathered cowboy hats for the boys. 

Their dance is called the Nama Riel and it is being revived in festivals from the Kalahari to the Karoo. It’s a dance-descendant of the old Khoi and San fireside rituals and it became the Saturday Night Fever of sheep shearers and farm workers across the Kalahari and Great Karoo over many generations.

We first saw this unique form of dancing last March in the parade at the Cape Town Carnival. The crowd went wild as they made their way down the street stomping and spinning and kicking up dust -  or in this case, confetti. I was impressed and curious. I had never seen anything like it in South Africa. It reminded me of a cross between Creole Zydeco danced in New Orleans and Appalachian barn-dancing.

But it is a unique form of traditional South African dance. Ya know I love traditional dance! In Mpumalanga the traditional dances are the Gumboots and traditional Shangaan dancing; in Natal it's traditional Zulu and Gumboot. In Cape Town, it is Minstrel dancing, but in Bushmans Kloof in the Cederberg, it is the Nama Riel. The Riel is traditionally a courtship dance. The men imitate farm work and the movement of the animals, while the women imitate domestic tasks. A man might fling his hat up in the air and let it land on the ground; if a woman picks it up and places it on his head, she accepts his advance.

Best of luck in LA, Trappers! Hope to see you again when we're both back in South Africa.

The Karoo is Quirky

It must be the endless infinite skies and the boundless empty landscapes but the Karoo does something to your mind. Remember the Owl House in Nieu-Bethesda? The Karoo is quirky!

We drove through Tankwa National Park on the way back to Cape Town from Sutherland. From the Northern Cape to the Western Cape. We only saw one other vehicle for the entire three hours it took before we turned onto the road 355. And we only saw one lone impala, a few raptors, and a mongoose too.

Even once we reached the highway the people and cars were few and far between. It wasn't until we hit highway 46 and the start of the Cape Winelands that we began to see what can safely be called "civilization."

It is understandable then why this is the site of Africa Burn on a farm somewhere along the deserted road 354 between Sutherland and Middlepos. One of the hottest gatherings in South Africa, Africa Burn is a Burning Man regional event that takes place annually in the Tankwa Karoo. It was just held a couple of weeks ago from April 27th until May 3rd. But don't worry, we didn't miss it. We avoided it. Our Woodstock camping days are over.

Some 9000-odd 'Burners' arrive with their Bedouin tents, contraptions that swing gigantic balls of fire through the air, plus everything they need to survive, including their best creative impulses. The result is a kind of massive, immersive, living art installation, fueled by the desire to reimagine the world and then burn or disassemble everything without leaving a trace.

the Tankwa Padstal

It has a quirky bar

elevenses with an emu

But while we missed Africa Burn this year, we saw this poster hanging inside the Tankwa Padstal. Looks like we can still make Bike Burn next weekend!

Driving along the Blue train Route

Hex River valley vineyard patchwork

As we drove along the N1 on our way from Cape Town to the Karoo for our weekend of birthday stargazing, we realized we were paralleling the same route we had taken on the Blue Train just two months ago for an early birthday present. And here we were on our real birthday weekend passing by the same vineyards and mountains of the Hex River valley that we had spied from the Blue Train's plush observation lounge in March!

train tracks and overhead wires of the Blue Train

the Blue Train in front of some solar panels!

In fact, we even saw the Blue Train itself traveling along its tracks in the opposite direction towards Cape Town.

Can we get a little Happy Birthday toot, Blue Train?

Welcome to Sutherland

The Northern Cape town of Sutherland is about a four hour drive northeast from Cape Town into the Karoo. We spent the weekend there in order to visit the South African Astrological Observatory (SAAO) nearby and to do some stargazing.

no stoplights needed in Sutherland!

The town was built in 1855 around this Dutch Reformed Church. Way before the SAAO! (P.S. And in case you were wondering, there isn't a Roman Catholic Church anywhere even remotely near Sutherland.)














We chose to stay at the Rooikloof Gast Farm outside of Sutherland rather than a typical hotel in town. It is a cluster of individual cottages surrounded the central farmhouse on the property.

We chose a roomy self-catering one bedroom cottage.

It had a private boma and braai facilities.

It was lovely. Very quaint and nicely appointed a la farmhouse chic. No electricity, but after a season of load-shedding, this was not a problem for us. A fireplace in the kitchen, a wood burning stove in the living room, a gas heater in the bedroom, hot water bottles, lots of candles and gas lamps, and a gas-powered stove and refrigerator in the kitchen in case we wanted to cook ourselves. We didn't.

After we dropped off our stuff at the guest house we headed into "town." At the end of the main street, we found the Ou Meule Restauarnt and Pub.

Vince came away with an invitation to go hunting

Recently reopened by a local couple, the dining room served fresh locally sourced fare. Along with running the pub, the husband is also the local police man. His wife is the chef.

Vince had a double burger and eggs for lunch. It was a meat lovers dream! And if that wasn't enough meat for you, we came back to the Ou Meule after the SAAO day tour in order to have a beer (Vince) and do some reading (me) before dinner and the owner offered Vince a taste of the fresh springbok boeries he had left over from the Saturday braai lunch. They had clearly bonded over their love of meat. He even invited Vince to come back to the Karoo and do some hunting.

I ate the fries!

Our proprietor at the Rooikloof recommended the restaurant Cluster d'Hôte for dinner. Specialty of the house, Karoo lamb shanks. More meat! Vince was covered.

I started with a perfectly seasoned tomato bean soup and had the chicken pot pie as my main with lots of veggies. We shared a delicious lemon meringue pie for dessert.

I think he liked it!

There was evidence of electricity being installed in the very near future in the cottages of the Rooikloof. But I think it will be less charming once that happens. I am glad we knew it when.

inside the boma

The next morning, a beautiful sunrise on the farm.

Sutherland is dreamy.

Shine bright like a diamond

The brilliant SunStar atop Signal Hill in Cape Town

This birthday was all about diamonds. The baseball diamond at Yankee Stadium for Vince, a black diamond necklace for me, and the diamonds in the sky over Cape Town and the Karoo for the both of us.

Yankee stadium

Vince was in New York for his birthday (May 12) celebrating with his BFF Ric (May 8) and my brother, Bob (May 14) at Yankee Stadium. He was back in time for my birthday though in Cape Town on May 15.

I spent my birthday cashing in on my Mother's Day present in Cape Town before joining Vince in the evening for a delicious birthday dinner at La Mouette in Seapoint.













 

birthday bouillabaisse

HBD Darlene and Vince!

And we both celebrated our birthdays with a stellar weekend in the Karoo in order to visit the South African Astronomical Observatory (SAAO) and do some serious star-gazing.

Since the early 1970s, the major telescopes of the SAAO have operated on a hilltop 1800 meters above sea level, near the Karoo village of Sutherland. The site was chosen for its good weather, semi-desert setting, absence of light and other pollution. The sky is visible 80% of the time!

wire sculpture of SALT

We signed up for two tours of the SAAO. First, a daytime guided walk through the Visitor Center and guided tour of selected research telescopes including the Southern African Large Telescope (SALT), the largest single optical telescope in the southern hemisphere and among the largest in the world.

The Visitors Center was fascinating. We saw an excellent short film written by Charles and Ray Eames and produced by IBM called Powers of Ten to help us get our heads around light years and distance and the relationship with time. The documentary presents an excellent depiction of the scale of the universe using the exponential factor of 10, first expanding out from the Earth until the entire universe is surveyed, then reducing inward until a single atom and its quarks are observed. It's on Youtube and you should check it out.

And then we were guided through some illuminating exhibits to help us understand the lifespan of stars and the inner working of telescopes.

a "touch" exhibit of the yellow, red and white stars of the Southern Cross

Vince ponders SALT

Finally we drove up another 1000 meters to the top of the mountain to visit the research center itself. It was like a large telescope "campus."

Vince ponders the reflecting mirrors

We were able to go inside SALT and another large manned telescope and allowed to walk freely around the other 20 or so remote controlled telescopes at the center. Several countries were responsible for the construction as well as the ongoing maintenance of SALT including the USA. And in return those countries have access to the data it retrieves.

The other remote telescopes are all owned by different (mostly, if not all) Northern Hemisphere countries around the world - including Japan, Russia, Sweden and Poland - who manipulate them remotely and collect data from the comfort of their own labs in their native country.

Vince inside another telescope

the USA telescopes

The United States solely maintains three dedicated research telescopes on the campus.

We had also pre-booked for a night tour to go back to the SAAO after dark in order to view some interesting objects in the sky through two dedicated visitor telescopes, a 16" Meade and a 14" Celestron set up near the Visitors Center. We were not going to be allowed to actually observe the sky from the research center itself because SAAO is a continuously on-going project and therefore strictly "lights out" once the sun sets. Even our little car headlights climbing the mountain would interfere with its highly sensitive instruments.

Even though the location of the SAAO provides clear skies 80% of the time, that still means 20% of the time the skies are cloudy. And indeed, on both the previous two nights before we arrived the skies over Sutherland had clouded over enough after sundown that the nightly star-gazing had been cancelled. What a bummer! Our tour guide was concerned that the same thing might happen that evening and she warned us to check the visibility ourselves before we headed back up the mountain for the night tour.

But as it turned out, we ended up not going back up to the Visitors Center anyway after dark. We stopped back in at the Ou Meule Resturant in Sutherland for a beer after the day tour and were convinced by the pub owner that we would be better off doing our stargazing from the farm of a local entrepreneur named Jurg rather than go back up to the SAAO. He had done both several times and highly recommended Jurg's set-up. As a matter of fact, we had passed Jurg's farm on our way into Sutherland from the guest farm where we were staying and had wondered about it.

Jurg's stargazing farm

He told us that Jurg has five of the exact same telescopes that we would be using at SAAO. And if we chose the farm instead, we wouldn't have to drive the extra 15 km up the hill in the dark to the Visitors Center, saving us a total of 30 minutes of driving up and back.

We saw his point. And it seemed like less of an investment in case the stargazing was indeed cancelled that evening. We would be disappointed of course, but even more so if we rushed up the hill in the dark to be told the stargazing was off.

there's a telescope inside that protective cover

In any event, since the farm was on our way back to our guest cottage from town, we reasoned we would be able to make it back to Rooikloof in time for a final birthday nightcap in our boma. Win win.

And were we were glad we did! For one thing we needed that extra 15 minutes for dinner which, although excellent, took a full two hours. We had made a six o'clock dinner reservation at Cluster d'Hôte thinking we'd have plenty of time, but the dinner moved at a "leisurely pace" -  meaning we didn't leave the restaurant until literally 7:58. Yet we were still able to make it to the farm on time by 8. We would have definitely been late if we had to drive that extra 15 minutes up the mountain.

Secondly, it was cold! Popular myth has it that Sutherland is the coldest place in SA. It's not. That dubious distinction goes to Buffelsfontein in the Eastern Cape. But on an open plateau in the winter in the Karoo, I would have believed it too. And it would have been even colder another 1000 meters up that hill at the Visitors Center. And windier! We were in well-protected boma and at least we felt no wind chill whatsoever.

photo taken bu one of the SAAO telescopes

The night sky was unbelievable! Vince and I both agreed it was the most stars we have ever seen in any sky anywhere. Northern or Southern Hemisphere. Ever. We could hardly even locate the usually easy to spot Southern Cross because it was completely surrounded by billions and billions of competing stars in the Milky Way.

We gazed for over two hours and saw the most incredible objects. All five of the Big 5 of the African Sky. The Milky Way - I have never seen it so dense! The Southern Pleiades. the Coalsack Nebula, Omega Sentauri, and Eta Carina.

The Jewel Box

We clearly saw the two Clouds of Magellan with the naked eye and we observed the Tarantula Nebula in the Large Magellanic Cloud through the telescope. And the Jewel Box star cluster in the Southern Cross.

Scorpio is Alex's sun sign

There were two planets in the sky that night. We were able to observe two windstorms on Jupiter and six of its moons through the telescope! We also could distinctly see the rings of Saturn and three of her moons.

Leo is Nick's sun sign

Along with Gemini and Sagittarius, Jurg also pointed out the constellations of Scorpio and Leo. Cool! Our son Alex was born under the sign of Scorpio and our son Nick under Leo.









The End.

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