Cradock – 27 September

Last night we slept in Cradock a town in the middle of the Karoo about 420 km from  Dysselsdorp. The hotel here, Annie Cottage, is beautiful with a nice hostess who has cooked deliciously for us and poured wine. We exchanged many stories and she indicated that she is now very much looking forward to tourists. It is not South Africa that is obstructing this, by the way. Everyone is allowed to travel here as long as there is a negative COVID test and they adhere to the rules that apply here that are reasonable. Meanwhile, the number of infections here is at the same level as in the Netherlands while there are 3 times as many people living there.

For tourists, the homeland is the obstructive party because of quarantine requirements even for vaccinated individuals. The Netherlands has, very recently, relaxed this, but Great Britain, which supplies to most tourists, has not done this, to the bewilderment of the people here. In short, general malaise!

We drove via Willowmore (apple pie with coffee) to Graaff Reinet where we visited Lisa’s former boss, Maureen. Lisa hadn’t heard from her in a long time and couldn’t reach her by phone either, but luckily she was still with us (she’s well into her seventies). However, she had lost her brother to a heart attack.

Driving to Graaff Reinet we came through the Sarah Baartmans District. Read about this on the internet with shame…. What did people do weird things in the past.

Cradock is a typical Karoo place located in a barren plain but with plenty of water (Fish River). It is also the place where in the seventies a large irrigation project took place by bringing water from the Orange River to the Karoo.  In the eighties, a number of anti-apartheid fishermen were murdered here.

Saying goodbye yesterday to Lisa’s mother wasn’t easy.

In a while we will have a nice breakfast and then leave northeast.