South Africa was always a long cherished dream of Margs and mine to visit. Originally scheduled for 2001 the trip was interrupted by the tragedy of the World Trade Towers in New York, and the subsequent uncertainty over what was going to happen next. So, we confined ourselves to India and had a great trip to Kerala, Mysore and Bangalore. So finally I managed to get across to South Africa where I had arranged to meet a good friend, Meghan and we would take the trip together. I flew in from Mumbai while Meghan landed a day later out of Canada, so quite a long trip for her! I also needed to meet Gordon, Margs second cousin, who was the last member of her family that I had not met and even during our 28 years together had not managed to touch base with. The whole trip seemed to be jinxed though and right up to the moment of landing, ill luck dogged me all the way. While the trip was later than planned, all the internal arrangements fell apart the day before leaving. I could only wait and once arrived in the country, rebook accommodation around the place along with internal flights to the game parks and so on. However, it all turned out fantastically in the end with the only down side being a canceled balloon flight from Sun City. Meghan came with me and together we had a fanastic trip for three weeks or so around this southern area of the continent!

The first stop was in Johannesburg where I met up with Gordon, Margs cousin, and had a couple of nights at his house on the outskirts of the city. Even though at the start of the trip and then at the end we were in Jo’burg, I never did manage to see the center of the city, as we always seemed to go around it on the freeway system. From Johannesburg we went to Cape Town for five days, then onto Kruger National Park and into Zimbabwe. Next wasa quick day trip to Mozambique, Zambia and Botswana for the animals and of course- Victoria Falls – one of the highlights! So at the end of the trip, it was quite a good look a round the place, but like always, never enough time to see everything!

South Africa is on the southern tip of Africa with the Atlantic Ocean and Indian Oceans surrounding it on the south and east. These oceans meet off the Cape of Good Hope and you can see the turmoil kicked up by the clash of currents there. It shares its borders with Namibia, Zimbabwe, Botswana, Mozambique and Swaziland, and it is quite easy to go from one country to the next. The kingdom of Lesotho also forms an enclave within the southeast part of South Africa. Originally the settlers came from the Dutch East India Company who landed them on the Cape of Good Hope in 1652 and whom later became known as Boers or Afrikaners. It was their independence movement centuries later that caused Britain fight the Boer war of 1899 to 1902, and it is also where Australia and New Zealanders troops fought for the first time outside their own countries. Apartheid was also a big part of the history of South Africa and this basically officially started in 1936 with removal of blacks from the poll lists and carried on until 1993 when it was dismantled with a new constitution. There was discrimination happening though a long time before that as even Gandhi was caught up in 1893 when he lived in South Africa for a while as a young lawyer and was kicked off a train even though he had a first class ticket – but it was not useable as a non-white! This was part of the motivation to return to India and led their struggle for independence and justice. From the 1960’s the ground swell of public opinion turned against South Africa and there was the pressure of international boycotts including the rugby, as the South African team were always so strong in this sport. But without this pressure, and the rising voices of the black population, apartheid may have never ended and Mandela not celebrated as much as he is these days, and deserves to be!