South Africa travel guide

At first the sole concern of the British was to maintain peace along the new boundaries, but that changed when administration was handed over from direct British rule to rule by the Cape Colony. The Cape Colony began to intervene in a more direct way in the government of the country. Chiefs found their powers reduced and everybody found themselves subject to a new hut tax. Not surprisingly, many Basotho were unhappy about these new arrangements. There were also tensions between the new Paramount Chief Letsie and his two brothers and also between the main Koena lineage and other clans who had been integrated into the Basotho state. One of these clans, the Phuti in southern Lesotho, refused to recognize the authority of the local Cape magistrate. When the magistrate tried to arrest the son of the Phuti’s chief, Moorosi, open conflict broke out. To the disgust of many Basotho, Letsie sided with the Cape Colony and assisted in putting down the rebellion. In November 1879 after months of fighting the Cape forces finally stormed Moorosi’s stronghold, slaughtering him and many of his people.
The following year there was another, more serious, outbreak of fighting. The immediate cause was the attempts by the Cape Colony to enforce a general policy of disarming all Basotho. For most Basotho, already unhappy about the way they were being administered and worried about rumours that the south of the country would be opened to white settlement, this was too much. The so-called Gun War of 1880-1881 saw the Cape forces verging on the brink of outright defeat and there were numerous bloody battles. Not all chiefs agreed with the war, however, and Letsie himself never publicly supported the attacks on the Cape authorities. Fighting broke out, especially in the north, between elements in favour of the war and those against it. Peace only returned when the British agreed to suspend the policy of enforced disarmament and agree that administration should be taken away from the Cape Colony and returned to rule from London.

The return to British rule also saw a return to the much less interventionist policy, and the country was basically administered through the chiefs, not white magistrates. The British continued with the policy right through until the 1930s and there were few significant political developments. Economically and socially, however, the country changed drastically. The early years of British rule saw the agricultural economy continue to thrive, especially as the new diamond mines at Kimberley gave the Basotho a new and profitable market to serve. Over time, however, these markets became less and less lucrative. The arrival of railways meant that Basotho farmers had to compete with cheap imported grain from places like the USA and Canada. And as time went on, white farmers were also providing more and more competition, especially after they began to receive vast quantities of state subsidies and other assistance. The agricultural economy began to falter and during the first decades of the 20th century the country no longer managed to produce enough food for export and indeed became a major importer. Part of the problem was also the migrant labour system that the Basotho found themselves tied into. Basotho men began to travel to the mines to earn wages to buy European goods and to pay taxes, but as the agricultural economy faltered it became more important for simple survival. This created a vicious cycle, as more Basotho men went to the mines there were fewer of them to help their wives with agriculture which, as a consequence, became less productive.

The early decades of the 20th century also saw the growth of a small but important educated class within Lesotho. They resented the continued political power of the chiefs and, through their Progressive Association, lobbied the British to introduce a more democratic system of administration. Another more radical political organization also began to make a mark. Known as Lekhotla la Bafo (Council of Commoners) this group was highly critical of both the British and of the chiefs, who they claimed were corrupt, and conniving with the British to impoverish the Basotho nation. While criticizing the chiefs for their individual actions they strongly supported the institution of chieftainship and advocated a return to pre-colonial systems of government.

One of the key reasons the British never bothered to intervene (and certainly not invest any money) in Lesotho was their belief that the country would at some stage be incorporated into the rest of South Africa. Over time, however, this eventuality became less and less likely, especially with the enactment of increasingly racist segregation legislation in South Africa. The British colonial authorities realized that transferring the country’s administration to South Africa would not only encounter stiff opposition in Lesotho but also from the increasing number of people in Britain criticizing the South African government. From the mid-1930s and especially after 1945 the British colonial authorities, therefore, began to take a more active interest in the internal affairs of Lesotho, and even began to invest some capital into development schemes for the country.

The Progressive Association lobbied the British hard for the introduction of a more democratic government, believing that they, the educated elite, should be the country’s natural leaders not the chiefs. Starting in the late 1930s, the British started to reform the system of government. These reforms at first had the effect of increasing the power of a few of the most important chiefs, to the detriment of some of the less important ones. This was one of the major causes of an outbreak of ‘medicine murders’ in which people were killed in order to use parts of their bodies in ‘medicines’ believed to bring power or protection. A number of the most important chiefs were implicated in these murders, which were seen by many as further proof that the chiefs were incapable of running the country. From the mid-1950s onwards new reforms led to a decrease in all chiefs’ political powers and the gradual handing over of the national administration to the developing political parties.

The first of these new political parties was the Basutoland Congress Party (BCP). The BCP had many of its roots in the Lekhotla la Bafo organization and strong links with the ANC in South Africa, especially with the ‘Africanist’ wing of the ANC who later split to form the PAC . Not unlike Lekhotla la Bafo, which withered away as the BCP grew, the BCP did not call for a return to ‘traditional’ Basotho political systems but for a new democratic and independent nation. One of the key elements of its platform was strong criticism of the racist South African regime. This stance was opposed by some more conservative elements within the organization and they split to form a rival Basutoland National Party (BNP). The BNP was more traditional in outlook and received substantial support from the Catholic Church. The first elections in the country were held in 1960 to elect members to District Councils who then sent representatives to the National Council. These elections returned BCP candidates around the country, but the turnout was extremely low and women had still not been granted suffrage.
The British colonial authorities entered into wide-ranging discussions with the members of the National Council about writing a new national constitution under which the country would be granted its independence. After numerous wranglings a new constitution, based on the Westminster model, was produced. There would be a directly elected lower house from which the prime minister and cabinet would be chosen and an appointed upper house (Senate) consisting of the most important chiefs. The Senate’s powers were limited to delaying legislation. Much to the dismay of the new and young incumbent, Moshoeshoe II, the monarch was to be no more than a ceremonial Head of State. Under this new constitutional framework elections were held in 1965 to form the government to take Lesotho to independence. To the surprise of many these were won by a tiny majority by the BNP. Their leader, Leabua Jonathan, therefore became the country’s first Prime Minister and on 4 October 1966 Lesotho became an independent country.

Most Basotho had high expectations for this new system of government; expectation which the BNP proved incapable of fulfilling. The civil service was dominated by BCP members and the BNP was unwilling to work with them and instead relied on many expatriate workers, including a number from South Africa. The BNP’s inability to deliver once in power helped the BCP regroup and in the 1970 elections they won a clear majority, maintaining their urban powerbase and managing to gain widespread support in the mountains as well. To the surprise of just about everyone Leabua Jonathan refused to hand over power, declared a state of emergency and arrested hundreds of BCP supporters. At first it looked as if he would have to come to an agreement with the BCP especially when Britain suspended all aid to Lesotho but as the crisis dragged on and Britain and other countries resumed their aid programmes the BNP’s position became stronger.

Under pressure from Britain the BCP split, with some moderates entering into a new national assembly appointed by Jonathan to write a new constitution and others turning to more radical methods. An attempted counter-coup by elements of the BCP in January 1974 was a fiasco and the BNP tightened their grip on power. BCP civil servants were purged and activists arrested or sent into exile. Jonathan concentrated more and more power into his hands and developed many of the state security policies of other dictators. His attitude towards South Africa, however, shifted somewhat unexpectedly. From having been an advocate of close and cordial relations with the Apartheid regime he began to be more and more outspoken in his opposition. He developed close links with the ANC, who were offered support within Lesotho. This stance in turn brought him into confrontation with South Africa and led to attempts by South Africa to destabilize his regime. On the other hand the changed stance gave him increased legitimacy in the eyes of the international community and the government benefited from a generous influx of development aid.

The BCP, meanwhile, tried to build on its links with the PAC and some of their members received guerrilla training at camps in Libya. Elements within the South African security apparatus actively courted members of the BCP and offered them assistance in their attempts to wage a guerrilla war against Jonathan’s regime. Some BCP members seemed willing to drink from this poison chalice and during much of the 1980s the country suffered a very low-level guerrilla war. Some members of the military were very unhappy with the situation and in 1986 the South Africans managed to toppled Jonathan’s government.

At first the new government was a coalition between the military and Moshoeshoe II. Though they promised to hold new elections, things moved very slowly and if anything the new regime was more corrupt than the previous one. Relations soon broke down between the military and Moshoeshoe II, who went into exile. In the early 1990s the military government began to make arrangements for new elections, with the process being spurred on by outbreaks of rioting and by the negotiation process across the border in South Africa. These long-awaited elections finally took place in March 1993 and the BCP won a huge majority and every single seat in the national Parliament. Twenty- three years after being denied his position the leader of the BCP, Ntsu Mokhehle, at last became Prime Minister.

The roots of modern-day Lesotho were in an era of intense political upheaval known to the Basotho as the difaqane (and the Zulu and Xhosa as the mfecane). The exact causes of the difaqane are a subject of considerable debate but what is clear is that out of this intense upheaval a new and powerful Basotho state was forged under the influential ruler Moshoeshoe. Before this time there had not been such a thing as a Basotho state, but simply a set of clans speaking similar dialects and with similar cultural practices. These clans formed constantly shifting sets of loose alliances and rivalries and their fortunes tended to wax and wane over time.

During the early 19th century these clans came under attack from highly organized and militarily ruthless Zulu and Ndebele armies (impis). Instead of uniting against these new enemies most clans ended up attacking their neighbours in an attempt to raid back cattle and grain lost to the impis. Moshoeshoe, chief of the insignificant Koena clan, however, had a more sophisticated approach. He carefully sued for peace with all the more powerful clans or marauding impis with whom he came into contact and would send them tribute gifts of cattle. At the same time he attacked and stole the cattle of weaker clans and then invited them to join with him in a new alliance. Using this strategy, Moshoeshoe was able to build up the power and influence of the Koena clan, especially after moving his headquarters to the strong defensive position at Thaba Boisiu. Soon his influence spread over the whole of the southern Highveld with his chiefdom centred on the fertile Clarendon Valley. Unlike Shaka and Dingane, kings of the Zulu, Moshoeshoe did not insist that all his followers give up their previous clan identity and indeed his new Basotho state was more an alliance of a number of different clans than a united and centralized kingdom.

During the 1830s, two new forces entered into the Basotho sphere from the south and west: Voortrekkers leaving the Cape Colony in search of new territory ; and missionaries looking for converts. These groups offered both threats and opportunities for the new Basotho state. The first missionaries to arrive in Lesotho were French Protestants. Moshoeshoe was keen to have them in Lesotho, partially because he wanted to learn more about the powerful Europeans impinging more and more on his state and partially to help him gain access to European guns. Their presence also presented a threat, however, as the converts’ loyalty could sometimes be divided.

A more obvious threat came from the Voortrekkers. They wanted land and, unlike other new African arrivals, were unwilling to show allegiance to a Basotho state. With their guns and wagons they were a powerful military force and over the next 30 years slowly gained more and more control over areas formerly belonging to the Basotho. By the end of the 1860s the Basotho had lost half of their best arable land in the Clarendon Valley to the new Voortrekker Free State republic. But despite this major setback the Voortrekkers also provided the Basotho with an opportunity. Most were unable or unwilling to survive by farming, instead relying on hunting, trading and land speculating as their economic mainstay. They, therefore, had to buy food, especially grain, and the Basotho were able to provide them with it. Using new techniques, often learnt from the missionaries, and the new grain crop maize, brought by Europeans from the Americas, the Basotho developed a thriving agricultural economy. They soon began to trade not just with the Voortrekkers but also further afield, especially with the eastern districts of the Cape Colony. In exchange for grain the Basotho bought new European goods, especially guns.

Moshoeshoe realized, however, that their booming economy did not make them immune to attack from the Free State and he decided to turn to the British for help. At first the British refused to become involved but over time they began to realize that it was in their interests to have peace between the Boers and Basotho. In 1868, with Voortrekker commandos laying siege to Thaba Bosiu and burning acres of the Basotho’s maize, the British declared Lesotho a British Protectorate. At a peace convention the following year the boundaries of Lesotho, or ‘Basutoland’ as the British named the area, were firmly established. The Basotho had lost huge swathes of their territory to the Free State but British protection did allow them to maintain a degree of political independence. This was more or less the last big political manoeuvre by Moshoeshoe, who died just two years later.

South Africa’s population is a true melting pot, with numerous races, religions, ethnicities and cultures which can be somewhat bewildering for visitors. While many people today resent being classified in terms or race and ethnicity – it was, after all, racial classifications which denied the majority of the population many of its basic human rights for many years – it is impossible to discuss modern South Africa without touching on these terms.

The Apartheid system recognized four major population groups (races) in the country: African, Asian, coloured and white (the terminology has changed over time). Despite the avowed non-racial nature of the present South African state, this fourfold classification remains profoundly important to South African life. This does not mean, however, that everyone fits neatly into these four categories: during the Apartheid era, huge numbers of people had their race altered by official decree. This could have profound impacts and often resulted in people being evicted from their homes and their children thrown out of schools. Within each of the four racial categories it is possible to make further sub-divisions on the basis of home language, tribe and geography – these sub-divisions (especially tribe) are even more fluid and open to debate than the fourfold racial classification.

Most visitors will be familiar with the most famous of South African sounds, the rousing vocal harmony of Ladysmith Black Mambazo, made internationally famous by Paul Simon’s Graceland album. It doesn’t end there, though: the country has produced an incredible variety of music – little surprise given its immense range of cultures and influences. In fact, the key to understanding South African music is in realizing where it comes from. Be it the adaptation of Dutch instruments in the 17th century by Indonesian slaves, or the mutation of 1990s house music into township Kwaito, home-grown and foreign sounds mingle to produce a singularly South African sound. And like so much of South African culture, music is inextricably linked with the political upheavals of the last century.

Vocal harmony is the oldest music tradition in South Africa, with its roots in communal dances accompanied by elaborate call-and-response patterns. This movement, defined as gospel acapella (and known as Isicathamiya in Zulu), has long been popular in South Africa, but it was the band Ladysmith Black Mambazo who first propelled it into the international arena. The beginnings for the group were not easy; at their first concert in Soweto in the 1980s, they received the princely sum of R5.28 each. The band, however, became an instant hit and, when Paul Simon invited them to sing on his Graceland album, they were thrust into the international limelight, and they remain the most popular South African band of all time. Made up of 10 male singers, including the charismatic front-man, lead singer and original founder Joseph Shabalala, the band continue to tour, and have been going strong for 45 years.

However, few musical styles have been as influential as jazz, something of a harmonious hotbed since emerging from the Johannesburg slums in the 1920s. Today, the jazz scene is once again flourishing following a turbulent few decades when many of the biggest jazz stars left South Africa under Apartheid, and is now best experienced at the Cape Town International Jazz Festival, held every March in Cape Town. Many of the godfathers of Cape Jazz, including Abdullah Ibrahim (previously known as Dollar Brand) and Hugh Masekela can be seen performing during the three-day festival, while newcomers, using a range of influences from the harmonica of migrant west African miners, to the clubbing beats of drum ‘n’ bass, are also making a bit impact. Every year the South African acts are complemented by the latest international recruits.

If music is the very heartbeat of this country, then dance also features as an integral part of life for many South Africans. In KwaZula Natal tourists can be treated to a traditional Zulu ceremony, while the talented Gumboots dance company have toured the world with their unforgettable mix of music, dance and showmanship.

Western music is hugely popular with young South Africans, and both Durban and Cape Town have significant live rock scenes. A number of home-grown talents such as rock band Just Jinger and Freshly Ground (who won South Africa’s first ever MTV award in 2006) have recently made it onto the international arena, but the most popular white musician remains Johnny Clegg. In the 1970s, Clegg began performing traditional Zulu material with Sipho Mchunu, and later added a mix of Western rock to form the band Juluka. Clegg remains something of a South African legend, and still draws thousands of fans when he performs. Known affectionately as the ‘White Zulu’, Clegg challenged the racial boundaries manifest in music under Apartheid, and blazed a cross-over trail which survives to this day. Although popular mainly amongst (liberal) white people, his tours are sell-outs and he remains a big influence on the music scene. In 2008 Clegg’s son, Jesse Clegg, displaying a style markedly different from that of his father, released his debut album called When I Wake Up. As a rock musician the younger Clegg has quickly built up a following, with the album being nominated for two South African Music Awards.

In 2009 the population was estimated to be about 49,052,000. With about 10 million, the most populous province is KwaZulu Natal, which contains a major urban area, Durban, but higher rainfall figures also means that the KwaZulu Natal countryside is able to support a greater population density than other rural areas of the country.

Gauteng, the country’s smallest province in area (1.4% of the total), contains 20% of the total population, about 9.6 million, the vast majority of whom are urban residents living in the towns and cities around Johannesburg.

The Eastern Cape’s 6.9 million people are less urbanized. Though the province contains a major city, Nelson Mandela Bay (Port Elizabeth), many of its people live in the area that used to comprise the homelands of Transkei and Ciskei.

The Western Cape, by contrast, never contained any homeland areas. Its 4.8 million people mainly live in and around Cape Town though there is also a significant population of farmworkers and residents of small rural towns and villages.

The next four provinces in terms of population size, Northern Province, North West, Mpumalanga and the Free State, all have their population divided between smaller industrial centres, sparsely populated white rural areas and densely populated fragments of former homelands.

Finally, the Northern Cape, the largest province in area (361,830 sq km), has a tiny population of just 1.1 million people widely dispersed across this semi-arid region.

The area the Voortrekkers were entering into was the home of numerous Bantu-speaking African chiefdoms, but at the very time they made their appearance on the scene these political groupings were undergoing unprecedented political upheaval. The causes and indeed the very nature of this upheaval is a matter of considerable debate amongst historians and for once this is not a debate between Apartheid historians and their opponents. Rather, the debate is between those who believe that the turmoil was caused by wholly internal African political manoeuvrers and those who believe that external parties, especially slave raiders from Mozambique and the Cape, were to blame. Inevitably, the truth is probably somewhere between the two. External factors, such as the presence of European traders interested in products such as ivory, may have lead to increased competition amongst African chiefdoms for lucrative resources, but the dynamics of the upheaval probably had more to do with internal African state formation. On balance, the evidence used by those who argue for a basically internal dynamic to the process seems to be stronger than those arguing the opposite.

Prior to the early 19th century, African political units tended to be small and loyalty fluid. If there was disagreement within a chiefdom one section would simply set off and establish a new village in a new area. In the early 19th century, however, new larger and more strictly organized African political groupings (something closer to European nations), were formed. The epicentre of this new process of state formation was between the Tugela and Pongola rivers in present-day northern KwaZulu Natal and involved one of the best-known pre-colonial African personalities: Shaka Zulu.

Before the rise of Shaka, the Zulu clan had been just one of a large number of small political groups amongst the northern Nguni people in the coastal strip below the Drakensberg escarpment. At the time of Shaka’s birth there were two powerful chiefdoms in the area, the Ndwandwe and the Mthethwa, who clashed repeatedly and with unprecedented ferocity. Shaka, an illegitimate son of the head of the Zulu clan, joined the army of the Mthethwa and proved to be a highly successful warrior and quickly rose through the ranks. When his father died and with the support of the chief of the Mthethwa, he managed to overcome all his half-brothers’ claims to lead the Zulu clan. With Shaka as their chief, the Zulus were transformed into a very powerful political and military force. When the chief of the Mthethwa was killed by the Ndwandwe, Shaka was able to reunite the larger chieftainship under his Zulu clan. Unlike previous chiefs who had been willing to make loose alliances with other groups, Shaka ensured that everyone who came under his leadership expressed loyalty to the Zulu alone. He vigorously enforced a rule that his followers had to follow only Zulu cultural and religious practices and speak only the Zulu dialect.

By the process of incorporating surrounding smaller groups Shaka quickly forged a very powerful Zulu state. He took on and decisively beat the Ndwandwe and then set about raiding all surrounding chiefdoms for cattle and grain. His impis, organized regiments of full- time soldiers, were a new innovation amongst the Bantu speakers, as was their method of attack, which involved using short spears that were thrown or thrust from close quarters.

During the 1820s the Zulu impis became increasingly predatory, whilst at home Shaka’s reign became even more autocratic and his punishment of any sign of opposition truly terrible. This lead to an era of unprecedented disruption, fighting and suffering known in the Nguni areas as the mfecane and on the Highveld as the difaqane.

Shaka’s reign of terror eventually came to an end in 1828 when he was assassinated by Dingane, one of his half brothers. Dingane continued many of the same domestic and external policies as Shaka, though with less vigour and skill but the Zulu chiefdom maintained its position as the most powerful African state in southern Africa until its eventual defeat by the British Imperial forces in 1879.

The mfecane had caused havoc across southeastern Africa. People’s crops and cattle had been destroyed and starvation was widespread. The population of the southern Highveld was decimated and survivors existed mainly in small, frightened bands. A number of larger political groups had arisen out of the chaos, such as the Zulu, the Ndebele, the Sotho, the Swazi and the Pedi, all of whom to some extent regarded large portions of Highveld as either belonging to them or falling within their sphere of influence but none of them really occupied the area. This was the arena into which the Voortrekkers made their unexpected arrival in the late 1830s.

Despite the deliberate fostering of Afrikaner nationalism the Afrikaner leadership was constantly fighting amongst itself and political parties frequently split and reformed. One of the key issues of disagreement was over the relationship between the new Union and the British Empire. After Union the British asked an ex-Boer General, Louis Botha to form the first government. He, and his close ally and successor General Jan Smuts, both strongly believed that the Afrikaners should strive to have good relations with the Imperial government and unite English and Dutch/Afrikaans-speaking white South Africans. Their South Africa Party, built on a coalition between the Transvaal and Cape ruling parties easily won the first election, but another important ex-Boer General, Hertzog, felt that they were too keen on maintaining good relations with the British government and formed a rival National Party. At first the National Party only had support in Hertzog’s home province, the Orange Free State, but later he was joined by DF Malan, an ardent anti-British Afrikaner from the Cape province.

The First World War caused a further and more vicious split in Afrikaner ranks. A number of important generals resisted Botha’s strong support for Britain in the war and his commitment to send South African troops to Europe. Their attempted coup failed and Botha quickly put the rebellion down, but the issue resurfaced again and again over the next few decades. A strike by white miners in 1922, which grew into a mini revolt as workers seized power in Johannesburg, was dealt with in a similar fashion by Botha’s successor, Smuts. This time, however, white workers were able to gain a measure of revenge: in 1924 their support was crucial in electing a coalition Labour/Nationalist government.

Under Hertzog, Afrikaner nationalist sentiment was given an important boost by the replacement of Dutch by Afrikaans as one of the two official languages. In 1934 there even seemed a chance of forging a united Afrikaner leadership when Hertzog and Smuts joined together under a new United Party banner during the crisis caused by the great depression. This, however, was not to be, as Malan led a breakaway group to form a new ‘Purified’ National Party. The decision whether or not to join the Second World War caused a further split and Hertzog resigned as Prime Minister to join Malan in opposition, in so doing creating yet another version of the National Party – this time the Herenigde (Reunited) National Party. Smuts, the ardent supporter of close ties with Britain, became the new Prime Minister and took South Africa into the war. He won an election in 1943 on the back of a wave of pro-British feeling and his international reputation grew and grew. After the war, however, he found his popularity at home waning. The economic boom caused by the war had lead to massive African urban migration and the National Party was able to use this to stir up fear amongst white, especially Afrikaner, voters. In 1948 they voted in Malan’s Nationalists on an election platform promising a new ideology of Apartheid.

When diamonds were discovered at Kimberley it was not quite clear who had sovereignty over the area, with a Tswana chiefdom, the Orange Free State, the Transvaal Republic and the Griquas all claiming the area. Britain pressurized the rival claimants to undergo a process of arbitration under their direction. At the arbitration it was decided that the Griqua’s claim was strongest, but the British immediately offered the Griqua leader substantial compensation if he agreed that the territory should be administered by the British. Not surprisingly, the Orange Free State, which had the strongest claim out of the two republics, was annoyed by this sleight of hand, especially as the British soon incorporated the area into the Cape Colony, but there was little they could do about it.

The Rand, on the other hand, was clearly within the Transvaal Republic. The British had annexed the Transvaal in 1877 but after a brief Boer uprising they handed control back. They must have regretted the decision when gold was discovered just five years later. The government of the Republic was primarily concerned with looking after the interests of its richer Boers, the vast majority of whom were farmers. They were a little unsure about how to treat the new mining economy. On the one hand the extra revenue from taxing the operations was clearly to be welcomed, whilst on the other they were nervous about the implications of having a large number of new immigrants, known by them as uitlanders, or foreigners, in their midst. They therefore introduced legislation restricting the franchise to white adult male naturalized citizens who had lived in the Republic for at least 14 years.

While most uitlanders were too busy trying to make their fortune to worry about politics, they did complain about the inefficiency of the Transvaal government in meeting the conditions necessary for an efficient capitalist system. British Imperialist forces were keen to get their hands on the Republic and in 1895 tried to manipulate uitlander dissatisfaction in a plot to overthrow the Transvaal government. In 1895, with the backing of the Colonial Office in London, Cecil Rhodes, then Prime Minister of the Cape Colony, tried to organize a committee of leading uitlanders to seize control of Johannesburg and declare a new government. Rhodes also arranged for a column of British police, under the control of his old friend Leander Starr Jameson, based in the Bechuanaland Protectorate, to come to their assistance. The plot, later known as the Jameson Raid, was a fiasco. The uitlander committee in Johannesburg bickered amongst themselves and did not command any mass following. Realizing this, Rhodes called off the proposed intervention by Jameson’s force, but Jameson ignored his command and entered the Transvaal. When the committee learnt of this, they did belatedly declare that they had taken over Johannesburg but even in the process of doing so they entered into negotiations with the Transvaal Republic and came to an agreement. Jameson’s column, therefore, had no crisis in which to intervene and were simply met and arrested by a Transvaal commando. This embarrassing incident marked the end of Rhodes’ political career and helped to alienate British and Afrikaners across South Africa.

Despite the failures of the Jameson Raid the British were still keen to gain control of the Transvaal. Just four years after, Britain mounted a far better equipped, more sustained and ultimately successful bid to gain control of the whole of South Africa; the Anglo-Boer (or South African) War of 1899 to 1902. There is some disagreement among historians about the underlying cause of the war. Afrikaner Nationalist historians tend to view it simply as an example of British Imperial expressionism. Some historians of the British Empire, on the other hand, argue that it was more to do with British strategic concerns; they were worried that the Transvaal Republic could inspire Afrikaners in the Cape to rebel against the British who would, therefore, lose control of ports such as Simon’s Town which were vital for protecting her sea routes. Most historians, however. The British were, not surprisingly, keen to control the world’s largest supply of gold and make sure their investment in the mines was profitable.

During the late 1890s the Colonial Office in London and the British High Commissioner in the Cape both lobbied for direct British military intervention to overthrow the Transvaal and the Orange Free State Republics. The situation grew more and more tense and in September 1899 Britain sent a large party of British soldiers to reinforce their troops. Sensing that Britain was about to invade the Transvaal, the Orange Free State decided to strike before the reinforcements arrived and on 11 October 1899 declared war on Britain in an attempt to preserve their independence. Deciding that attack was the best form of defence, they invaded both the Cape and Natal colonies.

At first the Boer Republics had great success and achieved victories in both northern Natal and the northeastern Cape. They drove back British forces and laid siege to Ladysmith, Kimberley and Mafikeng. They were, however, unable to advance much further in either colony and the general uprising of Afrikaners in the Cape that they had hoped for never materialized. Initially they held off British attempts to relieve the three towns, but with the arrival of huge numbers of British troops the fortunes changed. During 1900 the British set off on a triumphant and unstoppable advance on Pretoria and Paul Kruger, the president of the Transvaal Republic, escaped into exile via the Portuguese colony of Mozambique.

British victory seemed secure, but a number of die-hard Boers had other ideas. For the next two years they indulged in a continuous and, for the British, exceptionally frustrating, guerrilla war. The British were unable to capture the small bands of highly skilled Boer commandos so set about instituting a scorched earth policy to deny the guerrillas any help from local populations. Large numbers of Boers from areas with a guerrilla presence were placed in concentration camps to prevent them from supplying the commandos in the field with provisions. Though it was by no means a deliberate policy of the British, poor administration meant that food and medical supplies in the camps often ran out and many Boers, including many women and children, died of disease or starvation. Memories of the British scorched earth policy were often revived by Afrikaner politicians throughout the 20th century, though they conveniently forgot that the Boers tended to use very similar techniques in their battles against African chiefdoms. Also forgotten is the British policy of rounding up any African workers on Boer farms and placing them in similar concentration camps during the war.

South Africa is actually home to some of the oldest fossil human remains in the world. Three million-year-old fossil remains of an early human-like species Australopithecus africanus, have been discovered at a number of sites on the Highveld. The exact way in which the evolution of the early human-like species into modern human took place is a matter of considerable debate amongst archaeologists. Whatever the exact timing and process of this evolution, by one million years ago a species that looked and behaved very much like modern humans, called Homo erectus, ranged far and wide across Asia, Africa and Europe. Within the last 100,000 years some of these groups seem to have developed still further into Homo sapiens, or modern humans. According to some archaeologists the earliest fossil remains anywhere in the world of modern man come from Klasies River mouth in Eastern Cape and Border Cave on the KwaZulu Natal border. They are dated as being more than 50,000 years old.

As elsewhere in the world, early humans in southern Africa were hunter-gatherers. They had stone tools to help with basic tasks. At first these tended to be large and multi-purpose but over time they became increasingly specialized and usually smaller. Early humans tended to live in small nomadic groups and their activities were largely dependent upon the particular environment they occupied. It is often assumed that the life of hunter-gatherers is necessarily harsh with very little leisure time, but anthropological studies of present-day hunter-gatherers indicates that this is probably not the case.

The Voortrekkers were by no means a unified movement. In fact there were numerous splits and some of the leaders were not on speaking terms. In the early years there were a number of small autonomous communities established by the Voortrekkers, but these often failed because of a poor location or challenges from nearby African states. Over time, however, two separate republics were established, the Orange Free State and the Transvaal. In the 1850s the British recognized these two states’ sovereignty over most of the South African Highveld to the east of the Orange River. However, this was not exactly the location to establish their republics that the Voortrekkers had hoped for.

After leaving the Cape Colony one of the groups of Voortrekkers turned south and crossed the Drakensberg in search of a site for the new republic with access to the sea. In so doing they entered into the Zulu kingdom’s domain. The Zulu king did not trust these new arrivals, especially as he had heard they had inflicted a defeat on the Ndebele and the Zulu killed the Voortrekkers leader when he came to negotiate a deal to be given land. A few months later, in the Battle of Blood River, the Voortrekkers extracted a terrible revenge and carved out a space for themselves south of the Tugela River. Their plans for a new republic with access to the sea were scuppered, however, when the British set up a new colony based at a site that became Durban and created the colony of Natal.

The Natal colony was not willing to challenge the might of the Zulu kingdom to the north of the Tugela until 1879, so for many years the two separate entities existed side-by-side. During this time the Zulu kingdom was an inward-looking entity and the Natal colonists were unable to attract many Zulu labourers to work on the sugar plantations they established in the area. They therefore turned to India as a source of labour following the lead of West Indian plantation owners who had imported indentured Indian servants as a replacement labour force for the newly emancipated slaves. These indentured Indian labourers were followed by free Indian merchants and together the two groups make up the ancestry of the present-day Indian population based in Natal.

On the Highveld the Boer Republics also appropriated land from African polities. The Sotho lost much of their territory in a long series of wars with the Orange Free State and eventually turned to the British for protection. A similar chain of events led to the declaration of the Bechuanaland Protectorate (present-day Botswana). Through the 19th century the Boer Republics on the Highveld gradually defeated all the independent African states, the last one, the Venda, fell in 1898. The defeated African populations usually managed to maintain access to at least some land. These areas were later exclusively reserved for African occupation after it was realized that if all the land was appropriated the colonies and republics would have to find space for large numbers of African people.

Whilst Voortrekkers may have lodged claims to certain farms they invariably contained resident African populations. More often than not the Boers were happy to leave the African population in place and simply collect rent, either in the form of produce or labour. Later on in the century this created tensions when some landowners wanted to set up proper productive farms and had trouble getting enough labour. They often looked across at the neighbours’ farms and saw a potential labour force simply getting on with its own peasant farming activities. They therefore lobbied for legislation outlawing what they described as kaffir farming. This was to become a more important issue after the 1870s when an unexpected event was to transform the South African economy and produce a new market for agricultural goods.

Despite the machinations on and beyond their frontiers the two colonies remained very much a backwater of the British empire. Wool exports from the Karoo and wine from the Western Cape created some commercial interest but other colonial possession held greater promise. This was all to change in 1867 when alluvial diamonds were discovered near the confluence of the Harts and Vaal rivers. The flurry of interest and activity that this discovery created were just petering out when a larger outcrop of diamonds were found at a dry digging nearby. By 1872, 20,000 Europeans and a larger number of Africans and coloureds had converged on the site that soon revealed itself as the world’s richest diamond pipe and grew to become the world’s diamond capital, Kimberley. At first there were numerous small individual plots at the mines but these soon became concentrated into the hands of one or two companies who bought up the claims from small entities. Eventually total control of the mines rested in the hands of Cecil Rhodes’ DeBeers Consolidated Mines.

In 1886 there was a further mineral discovery in South Africa; this time it was gold on the Witwatersrand in the Transvaal Republic. Miners from across the world rushed to the new reef and capitalists were quick to make sure they got a slice of the pie. The deep level and relatively poor grade of the ore meant that it was only large capitalist organizations that could secure the investment necessary to succeed and, just as at Kimberley, mine ownership was quickly consolidated into a few hands. The main town on the Rand, Johannesburg, grew rapidly from nothing to about 75,000 white residents and many more Africans by the turn of the 20th century.

These mineral discoveries fundamentally altered South African society. It was at the mines that many of the features that dominated life in 20th-century South Africa first came into existence, in particular the pass laws, the migrant labour system, the compounds and the colour bar. The deep-level diggings and the complicated process of extraction from poor gold ores meant that production expenses were high and, as the gold price was fixed internationally, the one way mining companies could ensure high profits was to hold down or reduce labour costs. The diamond mines at Kimberley provided the model of how this was to be done.

At first all labour at Kimberley was able to demand a high wage, but as the number of companies were rationalized there were fewer and fewer opportunities. White labourers began to realize that they were losing out to cheaper African labourers and pressurized the government to reduce this competition. Whilst government was unwilling to institute too overtly racist legislation, they did introduce a pass law that required all Africans present in the town to carry a pass signed either by a magistrate or a mine owner showing that they had legitimate employment. This legislation was aimed at preventing large numbers of Africans arriving at Kimberley in hope of jobs and hence pushing down wage rates.

The mines’ owners, however, wanted to keep wages as low as possible and therefore to substitute more expensive white labour with cheaper African labour. The solution to this problem lay in the migrant labour system, where only male Africans came to the mines leaving their families at home on the reserves. The DeBeers mining company had quickly introduced a system whereby all African labour had to live in a single compound above the mine from which they were prohibited to leave for the duration of their contract. The official reason was that this was to prevent diamond thefts, but there were also many other advantages for the employers. As the compounds were only to house single male African labourers the company did not have to pay adequate wages to support the miner’s family, who usually remained in the reserves and farmed to meet their own subsistence needs. Furthermore the mine owners could be assured of economies of scales in buying in provisions and therefore were able to feed African labourers on the site. If Africans had to buy their own food they would have needed higher wages. At first DeBeers wanted to introduce a compound system for white labourers, but because they had a political voice they were able to resist these plans.

For white labour the migrant labour system meant that they were being squeezed out of the job market by cheaper African labour. The mining companies were always nervous that white and African labour would unite, especially as many of the white labourers were experienced trade union activists. Over time there developed a sort of tacit agreement between white labour and capitalists that in exchange for the political support of labour, the capitalists would introduce a colour bar that reserved the more skilled and better paid jobs for whites only. At times this arrangement broke down, especially in the years after the First World War, but on the whole white labour never rocked the boat.

While capitalists on the Rand were able to develop a labour system that ensured wages were kept low, they were not always able to secure African labour in the quantities they required. They were, therefore, always pressurizing the respective governments to introduce policies to push more African men out of the reserves. They also went to great lengths to get labour from wherever it was available, including beyond the borders of South Africa as far away as Malawi. The mine owners decided to co-operate with one another to keep wages low and formed a Witwatersrand Native Labour Association that was to look after all recruitment of African labour. When mine owners experienced a particular shortage of labour early in the 20th century, they recruited 63,000 Chinese labourers on fixed contracts who undermined the wage levels demanded by Africans. Once the wage rate had been forced down, the Chinese labourers were simply repatriated.

One reason the capitalists felt that Africans were not entering the labour market in the numbers they required was the success that African peasant farmers were having at this time. African farmers were the first to react to the new markets created by the mines at Kimberley and on the Rand and, using new farming techniques learnt from missionaries, they increased their grain output tremendously. Many of the successful African peasant farmers lived in the reserves, but others had managed to buy or rent land outside these areas. White farmers were not usually able to cope with the competition these new African peasants presented and lobbied government for support. This was forthcoming in the form of subsidies, soft loans and technical advice and after the turn of the last century these African peasant farmers began to lose out against their white competitors. In 1913 legislation was introduced that made it impossible for Africans to buy or rent land in many ‘white’ areas. The depression of the 1930s was the final nail in the coffin for many peasant farmers and after that date very few struggled on. Today it seems hard to believe that there was once a highly successful African peasant class, outperforming their white neighbours, and that it was deliberately ruined by government action. The success of African farmers at this time was ignored by all school history textbooks during the Apartheid era and even today few South Africans, black or white, know that African farmers were at one time much more successful than their white competitors.

In the mid-1980s South Africa’s townships, simmering since the Soweto Uprising, exploded into violence. The primary target of the violence were Africans who had taken jobs as administrators in the ‘homelands’ or townships and African policemen. Many had their families killed and their houses burnt down and a new and horrendous form of execution was invented, called ‘necklacing’. This involved placing a car tyre full of petrol over the victim’s torso and then setting fire to it. The police reacted violently to unrest in the townships and shot, arrested and beat many protesters. Bus boycotts, strikes and ‘stay aways’, were frequent and often met with violence by the police.

Violence became endemic to the townships and there was a fine line between political violence and general crime. Many of the young ANC supporting comrades decided that they should take the law into their own hands and kangaroo courts were frequent occurrences. Older Africans sometimes found it hard to take orders from the youngsters and inter-generational battles broke out on a number of occasions, most violently at Crossroads squatter camp on the outskirts of Cape Town. The violence was fanned by massive new flows of illegal migrants into the towns. The government was unable to cope with the new influx of people and eventually was forced into the withdrawal of the hated pass laws. The growth of squatter camps was spectacular and no sooner had the government removed squatters from one site than they appeared somewhere else. During the 1970s wage increases in established industry had been generous, partly reflecting the move towards a more capital intensive economy and partly a result of the strikes. The downside of this was massive and endemic unemployment, especially among the young. A whole generation of young people missed all their formal education because of their involvement in ‘the struggle’ and their chances of employment were extremely remote. Inevitably this fuelled the violence and crime.

The worst violence took place in the townships surrounding Pietermaritzburg and Durban. These areas were within the KwaZulu ‘homeland’ run by Gatsha Buthelezi. Originally Buthelezi had been an ANC supporter and had even received the organization’s (reserved) blessing in the establishment of a Zulu cultural organization called Inkatha. The organization, however, began to act much more like a political party and ran the KwaZulu ‘homeland’ administration. When ANC supporters began to challenge the ‘homelands’ authority this lead to violent clashes as the two organizations vied for control of the townships. This conflict has continued until the present and has involved numerous atrocities committed by both sides.

By the late 1980s the South African state had more or less lost control of large portions of the townships. The unrest and international sanctions were hitting the economy hard and South African businesses were feeling the pinch. While the state security apparatus was strengthened and numerous crackdowns were attempted, the government, fearing revolution, also undertook a programme of reform.

To some extent this programme had begun in the 1970s but it was accelerated in the early 1980s under the presidency of PW Botha. One strand of the reform process was to pull coloureds and Indians into the political process under a new tri-cameral parliament. Under a new constitution there were to be three houses in the parliament, one for white voters, one for coloureds and one for Indians. Most coloureds and Indians saw this move as an attempt to drive a wedge between them and the African population and refused to vote for the new parliament. The National Party’s reform policy also lead to a new split in Afrikaner ranks and the creation of a new, more right-wing, Conservative Party. Over the 1980s the new Party was to attract more and more Afrikaner support and the National Party became increasingly reliant upon English-speaking supporters.

Botha also set about dismantling some of the segregationist policies, in particular the ‘petty Apartheid’ legislation that divided up facilities such as beaches. These did very little to assuage the unrest in the townships and were probably more to do with creating an international impression of reform to hold off further sanctions. Under these circumstances the National Party began to do the unthinkable and sat down to negotiate with the ANC. Business leaders were the first South African establishment figures to talk with the ANC in exile, in September 1985. With sanctions and unrest big business was being squeezed hard and Apartheid was no longer making them good profits as it had in the 1960s. The business leaders were therefore keen for a political settlement, but were obviously nervous about the intentions of an ANC strongly influenced by communist ideology. South African ministers and eventually Botha himself met with Mandela, offering him his freedom if he repudiated the use of violence as a weapon in the fight against Apartheid. Mandela refused the offer and for a time it seemed further reform was impossible.

The late 1980s, however, saw a crucial shift in the global political scene that opened up an important window to allow a negotiated settlement. The unexpected collapse of the Soviet block suddenly made Botha’s image of a ‘total onslaught’ seem meaningless and the ANC was no longer seen by whites as a front for Soviet-backed communist expansion into South Africa. These changes coincided with a change in leadership of the National Party and the replacement of Botha with FW de Klerk. Even though de Klerk had been regarded as a conservative he soon made it clear he was embarking on a bold new policy. The ANC was unbanned, Mandela and other political leaders were released and the process of negotiating a settlement got underway.

What exactly was meant by Apartheid was not clear in 1948; and the full programme of legislation was only really finalized in the mid-1950s. In fact, the real beauty of the concept in 1948 was that it meant different things to different sections of the white voting population. The word simply means ‘apart’, and as such can be seen as simply a refinement of segregationist ideas that had dominated in the first half of the century. Despite the image of Apartheid created by many popularist historians and journalists, it was by no means or exclusively Afrikaner ideology. Indeed the roots of the idea can be traced back to English-speaking liberals in the early years of the century.

There was a distinct group of white South Africans who were very concerned about the plight of Africans and saw the solution as being total separation of the two races. They believed that rapid urbanization was destroying the basis of African culture and that they needed to be protected from the evils of white urban civilization. This ideology was tied up with ideas of both paternalism – that whites should be like parents to child-like Africans – and ideas of Social Darwinism, that different races were at different points along an evolutionary scale. In the middle decades of the century these ideas began to be considered by a group of Afrikaner intellectuals who saw the total separation of the races as being the only way in which whites could maintain political power over South Africa. They began to argue that if Africans were allowed to take part in the white capitalist economy they could rightly expect to be given political rights, so the solution was to keep them in a totally separate political and economic sphere where they could exercise their own rights.

This political philosophy was obviously not at all popular amongst white factory owners and farmers who relied upon cheap African labour to run their business. To these people Apartheid should be simply a way of maintaining a cheap supply of African labour with few employment or political rights that would allow the demand of higher wages. There was, therefore, a clear conflict between the ideology of Apartheid as expressed by Afrikaner intellectuals and the wishes of the average Afrikaner voter. During the early 1950s this conflict was solved by the nationalists stating that their long-term aim was the total separation of races, but in the meantime they had to be practical and recognize the economic reality that white industry relied upon African labour.

Apartheid became in essence a way of ensuring a continual supply of cheap African labour whilst denying Africans any political rights. Legislation such as the Group Areas Act tightened previous segregation regulations and the government set about a massive national campaign to remove Africans from urban areas or squatter camps close to urban centres. Africans living in vibrant urban communities such as Sophiatown in Johannesburg found their homes bulldozed as they were ordered out. Those without passes were returned to the reserves, now restyled as homelands, whilst those with rights to reside in urban areas were removed to distant townships such as Soweto. Segregation of all amenities was also tightened and there became no areas of African life where the state did not intervene. In the countryside, Africans who had retained access to land either as freeholders or tenant farmers, in areas that were labelled ‘black spots’, were also forcibly removed to the homelands.

Lesotho is a small country of 30,350 sq km totally surrounded by South Africa. The country is made up of a thin lowland strip along the Clarendon River valley in the west and a high mountain plateau cut into by numerous deep valleys. The lowland strip is in reality part of the great central plateau of southern Africa and hence the lowest altitude in Lesotho is over 300 m above sea level – the highest ‘low point’ in the world.

The vast majority of the country’s rivers drain south and east. The headwaters of the famous Orange River (known as the Senqu in Lesotho) are in the far northwest of the country and its deeply incised valley runs diagonally across the mountain area, eventually flowing into South Africa across the southeastern border. Water is one of the few resources Lesotho has in abundance and, given the growing constraints of water shortages on South Africa’s economy, it is a resource that is becoming increasingly valuable. The headwaters of a number of tributaries of the Senqu River are currently being developed in the massive Lesotho Highlands Water Project to allow water to be transferred to economically important South African river systems. Phase one of the scheme was successfully completed in 1996 when the massive Katse Dam was opened. The huge weight generated by filling up the dam triggered a number of minor local earth tremors, but these problems now seem to have been overcome. The Mohole dam was operational by 2004. The transfer of water from these dams to South Africa by way of tunnels now earns a substantial foreign income for the country. Lesotho has few other natural resources. Some diamonds have been discovered but not in profitable quantities and there is little hope of any lucrative mineral deposits.

With the exception of a few willows and fruit trees in sheltered kloofs and government sponsored woodlots, Lesotho is treeless. The lowlands and mountain valleys are planted with maize and, in the higher areas, wheat. The vast majority of the country is given over to communal grazing: the mountain grasses are considered to be some of the best sheep pasture in southern Africa.

Lesotho’s large mammalian fauna has been decimated by hunting and displaced by agriculture. If you are very lucky you may see an eland in Sehlabathebe National Park or perhaps the occasional baboon or jackal, but there is none of the large game generally associated with southern Africa. There are, however, a number of interesting and unusual bird species, such as the bald ibis, found particularly in Mokhotlong district. The natural flora is dominated by grasses.

Over most of South Africa rain falls during the southern hemisphere summer months (November to March). Rainfall tends to be in the form of intense cloud bursts, often accompanied by thunderstorms, though there can also be periods of longer rainfall. During the summer months warm and wet easterly winds sweep in from over the Indian Ocean. As these winds flow over the southeastern coast and the Drakensberg they drop much of their moisture, making these areas the wettest parts of the country with annual totals over 1000 mm. Over the Highveld the moisture-bearing winds trigger rain showers and thunderstorms. In the east of the Highveld these tend to be more regular but towards the west, especially in the Northern Cape, they are infrequent. Here average annual rainfall figures are usually below 200 mm per annum. The summer rains never reach the western coast of the Northern Cape province and rainfall levels here can be as low as 20 mm per annum. South Africa is, on the whole, a very dry country, with something like 30% of the land area receiving below 250 mm a year on average. Rain may be unpopular with visitors but it is almost always welcomed by South Africans.

The only part of the country where the major rainfall does not come from summer easterlies is the Western Cape and the extreme west of Northern Cape province. Here most rain falls during the winter months as depressions over the southern Atlantic sweep north and east bringing with them frontal systems and cool rains. Late in the winter and early spring an occasional winter storm will travel further north than usual and bring with it much needed rain to the arid northwestern coastal belt. Apart from these occasional storms this area receives its moisture from mists that roll in from the cold Atlantic during the summer months.

The winter weather systems can also sometimes skirt up along the southern coast bringing rain and even snow to the Eastern Cape, Lesotho and KwaZulu Natal. Snowfalls tend to be minor and confined to light dustings of the highest peaks, though there are occasionally significant falls of a few inches or more.

This seasonal pattern is also highly variable from year to year. This variability tends to be most pronounced in the lowest rainfall areas: here there can be some years where the rains fail entirely. The exact reasons for this variability are a matter of considerable academic debate. There does appear to be a cycle of wet and dry years in South Africa over a period of about four to eight years. This cycle is related to a frequent, but irregular, event known as the El Niño, in which ocean and air currents in the South Pacific are reversed. This, in turn, triggers changes in the circulation of air around the southern hemisphere and results in weaker easterlies and drought in South Africa. The weather system is, however, extremely complex and involves the interaction of global and local variables, so predicting exactly how something like El Niño will affect South African rainfall is impossible with any degree of accuracy. Global warming may also be further complicating the already complex weather systems. Beyond short-range forecasting all that meteorologists can predict with any degree of accuracy is that the climate is very unpredictable.

Temperatures vary according to season, altitude and distance from the moderating influence of the oceans. During the summer months the inland plateau tends to heat up considerably, especially if the rains fail. The highest daytime temperatures are to be found in the lower-lying semi-desert areas of the Northern Cape and the Lowveld regions of Mpumulanga. On the Highveld temperatures can also soar in summer, though they tend to be moderated by the higher altitudes. Fortunately in these inland regions the evenings tend to be significantly cooler, especially under clear skies. Travelling at night or in the early morning is a sensible and popular option in these regions during summer. The coastal fringes of Natal are also hot and sticky in summer and don’t expect too much relief at night. The most pleasant area of the country during the summer months is the Western Cape, with hot but often breezy days and comfortable evenings.

During the winter the Western Cape can get very chilly, with frequent blustery storms and heavy rain. On the Highveld and in the Karoo stable high pressure systems result in clear skies, warm days and cold nights. It is a combination many visitors find very comfortable especially for travelling long distances. In the highest areas of the Drakensberg winter temperatures can plummet to way below freezing at night: the best time to visit these areas is during the autumn or spring. The Natal coast remains warm throughout the year, especially in the northern subtropical areas near the Mozambique border. Winter is a good time to visit the Lowveld game parks: the drier conditions make it easier to spot wildlife, especially around water holes.

South Africa’s physical geography is dominated by one feature: a massive escarpment that runs right around the subcontinent dividing a thin coastal strip from a huge inland plateau. This escarpment is clearest in the east, where it is marked by the spectacular Drakensberg Mountains, running in an arc from the Eastern Cape round to northern Mpumalanga. To the west the escarpment is confused by a jumble of beautiful mountain chains (the Cape Folded Mountains), such as the Cederberg, the Tsitsikamma, the Swartberg and the Hottentot-Hollands. The inland plateau, usually known as the Highveld, is a relatively flat plain sloping gently down towards the west and north. This plain is, however, broken up by numerous geological features, resulting in isolated steep-sided hills or longer chains of higher ground.

This interior plateau forms the southernmost tip of the massive Africa continental plateau which stretches as far north as Ethiopia. This plateau was part of the ancient landmass of Pangaea (c200 million years ago), which split in two to form Gondwanaland in the southern hemisphere and Laurasia in the north. Gondwanaland later broke up to form the continents of South America, Australasia and Africa, around 135 million years ago. As it is made up of an old continental plate many of South Africa’s rocks are very old and some rocks found in the Limpopo valley, Northern Province, rank with the oldest yet discovered anywhere in the world.

Other areas, such as the Witwatersrand and Barberton complexes, are also made up of ancient Precambrian rocks, about 3000 million years old. This contrasts with rock formations in places such as the Western Cape coast which were only formed in the past 250,000 years, during the Quaternary era. Most of the country is, however, made up of sandstone and slates laid down in the Carboniferous to Jurassic periods (when Pangaea began to break up). These are commonly referred to as the Karoo sequence of rocks. The eastern portions of the Karoo sequence have been covered by an intrusion of basalt. This harder layer of rock has protected the softer Karoo sandstones from erosion and stands out as a highland area, especially in Lesotho.

The Karoo sequence is particularly rich in fossil remains. Contained in the sandstones and shales are the remains of many reptilian creatures who lived in the low-lying areas of swamps and shallow lakes. Some of these fossils have been crucial to scientists’ attempts to reconstruct the way in which reptiles evolved into mammals. The best places to look for fossils is along the sides of the many steep-sided hills or koppies that dominate the Karoo landscape. The best fossils are usually found in the dull red shales, which erode easily to reveal the fossil remains.

Any description of the South African landscape that leaves out the impact of humans would not give a visitor any real idea about what the place actually looks like. Though Apartheid has now come to an end its legacy is often apparent in the South African landscape and the pattern of South African cities and towns. For many years some of the most striking features of Apartheid social engineering, such as the huge rural slums that sprang up around the country, were never shown on official maps. Visitors were often shocked to suddenly encounter a massive area of slum housing way out in the countryside which they could not find on their road maps and which did not appear on any road signs. Official maps and guides are now slowly catching up with reality but the landscape itself will take much longer to transform.

There are a number of different ways of categorizing South Africa’s vegetational zones, which are sometimes called biomes or ecozones. All these categorizations are simplifi- cations of complex and dynamic patterns of vegetation and rarely are there clear boundaries between the different zones. Even without the influence of humans this pattern has constantly shifted with long-term trends in climate: when you add in millenniums of human impacts, mapping a set pattern of different biomes becomes an extremely difficult task.

One vegetational zone that is not difficult to classify as distinctive is the fynbos of the Western Cape. Although fynbos covers only a relatively small area it comprises one of the earth’s six separate floral kingdoms. The other five floral kingdoms cover huge areas such as most of the northern hemisphere or the whole of Australia. The Cape floral kingdom is both the smallest and the richest floral kingdom in the world, with the highest known concentration of plant species per unit area. There are over 7700 different plant species within the fynbos biome and of these over 5000 are endemic to the Western Cape (ie they do not occur naturally anywhere else). The 470 sq km of the Cape Peninsula is home to 2256 different plant species – more than the whole of the UK, an area 5000 times bigger! The 60 sq km of Table Mountain alone supports 1470 species. The richness of the fynbos is well demonstrated by its ericas or heaths, of which there are over 600 different species. There are just 26 in the rest of the world. Not surprisingly the Western Cape is a magnet for plant enthusiasts.

The word fynbos comes from the Dutch for fine-leaved plants. Almost all of the woody plants have small leaves (microphyllous) which are hard, tough and leathery (sclerophyllous). True grasses are also relatively rare and as much as 5% of the biome is covered by Cape reeds (of the Restionaceae family). Most of the plants that fill the niches usually taken up by grasses have small, thin (ericoid) leaves. Additionally, the fynbos biome contains proteas, ericas and members of seven plant families found nowhere else in the world. These include the king protea, South Africa’s national flower, the beautiful red disa, symbol of the Cape Province and the popular garden plants, pelargoniums, commonly known as geraniums. The largest family in number of species is Asteraceae (daisy family), with just under 1000 species, of which more than 600 are endemic. Fynbos is very rich in bulbous plants (geophytes) and many species from the family Iridaceae have become household names such as babiana, freesia, gladiolus, iris, moraea, sporaxis and watsonia.

As many of the endemic fynbos species have amazingly small ranges (sometimes as small as a football field), they are extremely vulnerable to extinction. One small housing project, for example, could wipe out a whole species. Given this and the fact that the Western Cape has fairly dense human population, it is not surprising that many of South Africa’s threatened and rare plants are found in the fynbos. Almost 500 species are classified as rare, threatened or endangered. Fynbos species tend to grow fairly slowly. This is because they are in a winter rainfall region so during the summer months there is not enough water available and during the winter low temperatures restrict plant growth.

The hot dry summer months also make fire a common occurrence in the biome. The fynbos plants are well adapted to fire and the biome is adapted to quickly re-establishing itself after naturally occurring burns. If fire is totally restricted fynbos often loses out to plant species from surrounding biomes. If fires are too frequent, however, the fynbos plants do not have time to re-establish themselves and this can lead to local extermination of species.

Soils under fynbos tend to be extremely infertile, due partially to the chemical make-up of the underlying rocks and partially to heavy leaching that has occurred over long periods. The nutrient-poor soils produce plants that are also low in nutrients and therefore of low feeding potential for grazing animals. This means that there is a relatively low density and diversity of mammals and birds in the fynbos biome.

The western coast of South Africa also has a large number of endemic plant species. This area, stretching north into Namibia, has extremely low and erratic rainfall and the plant life reflects this. Many of the plants in this region are succulents and about 200 of these are classified as rare or endangered. When rains do come to the area there is a dramatic transformation of the vegetation. Hundreds of flowering plants lying dormant during the long dry periods burst into bloom covering the whole of the landscape in a carpet of brightly coloured flowers. This is a spectacular annual event and attracts many visitors to the region every spring, but as the flowers are reliant upon unpredictable rainfall it is impossible to say exactly when and where they will appear. The rains are expected in the spring, and once the first blooms start to appear a ‘Flower Hotline’ can be called for the latest information. After a brief period of flowering the plants drop their seeds which then lie dormant until the next rainfall event.

The inland plateau of the Cape is dominated by Karoo types of vegetation. This is made up mainly from low-lying shrubs and succulents, though in good rainfall years grasses can also make an appearance. There tends to be a lot of open soil between the shrubs so much of the region takes on the red tinge of the underlying soils and this can lead to some wonderful sunsets and sunrises. The low density of vegetation also makes fires a less common occurrence than in better-watered regions. There are occasional areas of green alongside streams and rivers and these are the only places you will see trees in the biome.

The northern Highveld areas (along the Botswana border) and the Lowveld areas of Northern Province, Mpumalanga and Swaziland, by contrast, have a fair number of trees. This is the classic savanna formation: areas of grassland interspersed with occasional trees. In the Highveld areas the vegetation is dominated by thorny acacia woodland, often referred to as bushveld. In valley bottoms and in Lowveld areas the vegetation is often dominated by mopane, which can tolerate the extremes of waterlogging and drying encountered on heavy soils. This region tends to have fertile soils and grasses have a high nutrition content. They are, therefore, heavily populated by grazing animals (both wild and domestic). The major wildlife viewing areas fall within this biome.

The remaining Highveld, the KwaZulu Natal midlands, Lesotho and the inland areas of Eastern Cape are taken up by grasslands with few naturally occurring trees. The grasses grow vigorously during the hot and wet summer months and then remain dormant during the dry, cold winter. The grasslands are often divided into two different categories: sweet and sour veld. Sweetveld occurs in the areas with lower rainfall figures (400-600 mm per annum), especially on heavier clay soils. It tends to be more nutritious than the sour velds and is therefore popular for grazing, especially during the summer months. Sourveld tends to occur in the areas with rainfall above 600 mm per annum. Greater availability of water means that sourveld grasses grow rapidly, though they tend to have a lower nutritional content. Both these veld types intermingle and it is hard to draw a clear distinction between the two. The division between the Karoo and grassland areas is also hazy. During dry spells and in areas which have been overgrazed, Karoo-type shrubs expand into the grasslands while in wetter years or if grazing pressure is reduced they will retreat. On the Highveld much of this grassland has been converted to agriculture or covered with factories, roads and cities.

The densely populated narrow coast strip of the Eastern Cape and KwaZulu Natal was once heavily wooded. The closed canopy subtropical forests of KwaZulu Natal can still be found in a few isolated patches but most of the area has been converted to agriculture. In the Eastern Cape the evergreen temperate forest has also been largely cut down, though some small patches are left around Knysna. The forests here give some idea of what the environment would have been like before the arrival of Europeans with commercial logging: there are some beautiful trees such as the stinkwood, Cape chestnut, yellowwood and the white and red alder. In total, indigenous closed canopy woodland accounts for only 1% of South Africa’s land area, with a similar amount under commercial plantations (many of these on the Drakensberg escarpment in Mpumalanga).

The game reserves in Swaziland are rather overwhelmed by Kruger which is only a short drive away. However, the private game reserve at Mkhaya is one of the best places in Africa to see black rhino and Malolotja offers some challenging opportunities for hikers. Malolotja is a wilderness area developed for hikers with only the most basic facilities. The amazing mountain scenery is a relatively undiscovered, top hiking area, where a good network of trails has been developed. The Mbuluzi Gorge in Mlawula Nature Reserve is a little- visited region with over 300 recorded species of birds and a new network of hiking trails.

South Africa’s physical geography is dominated by one feature: a massive escarpment that runs right around the subcontinent dividing a thin coastal strip from a huge inland plateau. This escarpment is clearest in the east, where it is marked by the spectacular Drakensberg Mountains, running in an arc from the Eastern Cape round to northern Mpumalanga. To the west the escarpment is confused by a jumble of beautiful mountain chains (the Cape Folded Mountains), such as the Cederberg, the Tsitsikamma, the Swartberg and the Hottentot-Hollands. The inland plateau, usually known as the Highveld, is a relatively flat plain sloping gently down towards the west and north. This plain is, however, broken up by numerous geological features, resulting in isolated steep-sided hills or longer chains of higher ground.

This interior plateau forms the southernmost tip of the massive Africa continental plateau which stretches as far north as Ethiopia. This plateau was part of the ancient landmass of Pangaea (c200 million years ago), which split in two to form Gondwanaland in the southern hemisphere and Laurasia in the north. Gondwanaland later broke up to form the continents of South America, Australasia and Africa, around 135 million years ago. As it is made up of an old continental plate many of South Africa’s rocks are very old and some rocks found in the Limpopo valley, Northern Province, rank with the oldest yet discovered anywhere in the world.

Other areas, such as the Witwatersrand and Barberton complexes, are also made up of ancient Precambrian rocks, about 3000 million years old. This contrasts with rock formations in places such as the Western Cape coast which were only formed in the past 250,000 years, during the Quaternary era. Most of the country is, however, made up of sandstone and slates laid down in the Carboniferous to Jurassic periods (when Pangaea began to break up). These are commonly referred to as the Karoo sequence of rocks. The eastern portions of the Karoo sequence have been covered by an intrusion of basalt. This harder layer of rock has protected the softer Karoo sandstones from erosion and stands out as a highland area, especially in Lesotho.

The Karoo sequence is particularly rich in fossil remains. Contained in the sandstones and shales are the remains of many reptilian creatures who lived in the low-lying areas of swamps and shallow lakes. Some of these fossils have been crucial to scientists’ attempts to reconstruct the way in which reptiles evolved into mammals. The best places to look for fossils is along the sides of the many steep-sided hills or koppies that dominate the Karoo landscape. The best fossils are usually found in the dull red shales, which erode easily to reveal the fossil remains.

With the March 1993 election Lesotho returned to a system of parliamentary democracy, suspended in 1970 after Chief Jonathan refused to hand over power to the Basotho Congress Party. The current Prime Minister is Pakalitha Mosisili, who chairs a Cabinet made up of members of Parliament. In addition to the main elected legislative lower house there is an upper house, with the power to delay and comment upon legislation, made up of the most senior chiefs and a number of appointed members. The monarch again fulfils the largely ceremonial role of Head-of-State, with a limited political role.

Despite sweeping the board in the 1993 election the Basotho Congress Party (BCP) failed to build on its strong political position. Many people in the country felt that after so many years in the wilderness the BCP came to power with surprisingly few new policies in the pipeline. Periodic political unrest has continued despite the advent of democratic elections. The first of these turmoils was in August 1994 when King Letsie III (who had succeeded his father, Moshoeshoe II, when he was exiled in November 1990) dismissed the BCP government. Though the exact links between this royal coup and the military and the opposition BNP are a little hazy it is clear that Letsie III was not acting on his own. His excuse for declaring the suspension of the government was the allegation that the leader of the BCP, Ntsu Mokhehle, had entered into talks with neighbouring heads of government to deploy a peace-keeping force because of his fears about political interference from the military. In the ensuing political unrest a number of people were shot dead and many more injured when the police and the military broke up demonstrations against Letsie’s actions. Mokhehle and the BCP refused to acknowledge that the head-of- state had dismissed their government and, after direct involvement from regional heads- of-government, Letsie III eventually backed down and reinstated the elected government.

Another element in this confused political situation was that Letsie III wanted to abdicate in favour of his father, Moshoeshoe II. Moshoeshoe II had returned to Lesotho shortly before the return to democracy, but had not taken over the throne. Moshoeshoe had fairly wide domestic support and was respected by many individuals in the inter- national development community because of his pronouncements on human rights while in exile in the early 1990s (although some of his actions while in coalition with the first military government painted a slightly different picture). This popularity explained the reason why the BCP were not altogether keen on seeing him reinstated as King, despite Letsie’s actions in August 1994. Nevertheless, in February 1995, after another bout of intense political activity, Letsie did abdicate in favour of his father. Moshoeshoe II’s reign on the throne proved to be short-lived, on the 16 January 1996 he was killed in a car accident.

The BCP itself has been plagued by internal political wranglings, which came to a surprising climax in June 1997. Soon after the BCP came to power two tendencies emerged within the party: one became known as the Pressure Group and the other as Majelathoko. The Pressure Group, who saw themselves as more progressive, were led by Molapo Qhobela, whilst the more conservative faction organized itself around Prime Minister Mokhehle. The division became wider when Mokhehle sidelined Qhobela in both government and the party.

In retaliation, the Pressure Group attempted to remove Mokhehle from his position as leader of the BCP, a move that under the ‘Westminster system’ of government would have also forced him to stand down as Prime Minister. In mid-1997 the Pressure Group seemed to be on the verge of winning this political battle when Mokhehle totally out- flanked them with a cunning political move. While Mokhehle knew there was a good chance that the party as a whole would vote against him he also calculated that he had the support of the majority of BCP members of Parliament. He therefore resigned from the BCP, registered a new political party (the Lesotho Congress of Democrats) – with him as leader, and managed to persuade 40 of the 63 elected BCP parliamentarians to join him in the new party. After a vote of confidence, his position as Prime Minister and a Lesotho Congress of Democrats (LDC) government were both confirmed, and the BCP became the official opposition party. While this move was unprecedented, it did not appear unconstitutional.

The opposition parties tried to restructure and reposition themselves to contend the 1998 general elections, which were won by the LDC under new leader Pakalitha Mosisili. Although the elections were deemed free and fair by international observers, opposition parties rejected the results, and protests intensified. This culminated in a violent demon- stration outside the royal palace in August 1998. In September, junior members of the armed services mutinied, and, to prevent a full military coup, Prime Minister Mosisili appealed to the Southern African Development Community (SADC) to intervene and restore stability . A military of South African and Botswana troops entered the country in September and encountered stiff resistance from the Lesotho Defence Force. Confusion spread and there followed a period of intense unrest, with looting and destruction of property. The South African shops in Maseru were looted and a large number of commercial buildings burnt down. Eventually South African and Botswana forces restored order and quelled the mutiny, and a long process of mediation began.

An interim council was established to prepare a new electoral system, under which elections are now processed. SADC troops left Lesotho in May 2000. Given Apartheid-era tensions, South Africa was uneasy about deploying troops in Lesotho, but the SADC intervention was ultimately successful in helping to maintain political stability. South Africa has set about improving relations with its neighbour, and is keen to emphasize Lesotho’s sovereign equality. Elections in Lesotho in 2002 passed peacefully. The ruling LDC swept to victory and there were no signs of the instability that had followed the elections four years earlier. The LDC again comfortably won elections again in February 2007.

The African National Congress (ANC), together with its alliance partners, the South African Communist Party (SACP) and the Congress of South African Trade Unions (Cosatu) won the national vote in South Africa’s first democratic elections in April 1994 by a huge majority. They gained 63% of the total vote giving them 252 seats in the National Assembly. The only other parties to win significant numbers of votes were the National Party (NP) (20.5%) and Inkharta Freedom Party (IFP) (10.8%). The ANC’s victory was based upon widespread support from the majority African population throughout the country. The only area in which its support amongst Africans was threatened was in KwaZulu Natal where the IFP received significant support from rural Zulu speakers. The IFP were unable to convert their popularity in their political heartland to any other parts of the country. The NP received widespread support from the white population and, more surprisingly, from a majority of coloured voters in the Western Cape.

Four other parties managed to secure seats, though with tiny proportions of the total vote. The Freedom Front (FF), an alliance of right-wing Afrikaner Nationalists, won nine seats with a 2.3% share of the vote, coming mainly from working-class Afrikaners fearful of the new political dispensation. The Democratic Party (DP), traditionally the party of liberal English-speaking white South Africans, were unable to expand their attraction and won a paltry 1.7% of the vote. The Pan African Congress (PAC) fared particularly badly; an organization which in the 1950s had seriously challenged the ANC’s position as the most popular political organization amongst the African population received only 1.2% of the national vote, giving them just five seats. The remaining two seats were won by a newly formed political organization called the African Christian Democratic Party (ACDP) which called for the enactment of policies in line with the gospels.

In line with the interim Constitution, the leader of the ANC, Nelson Mandela, was duly elected President and set about choosing his cabinet. The constitution stated that any party who gained more than 20% of the vote was eligible to have its leader instated as a Deputy President. Mandela, therefore had two deputy presidents, Thabo Mbeki from the ANC and FW de Klerk, the leader of the NP. The selection of Thabo Mbeki as Deputy President effectively marked him as Mandela’s likely successor. All other parties were invited to join the ANC in a Government of National Unity (GNU). Despite the continued antagonism between the ANC and IFP, Mongosuthu Buthelezi was given the important post of Minister of Home Affairs. A number of cabinet posts were also filled by delegates from the NP. The only party to stay out of the GNU were the DP who felt they could have more of an impact as the official opposition.

The elections for provincial assemblies resulted in the ANC winning control of seven out of the nine provinces. In a number of provinces they won huge majorities: 80% of the vote in the Free State, 83% in Mpumalanga, 85% in the Eastern Cape, 87% in North West Province, and a staggering 95% in Northern Province. Though many of these areas are associated with hardline Afrikaner nationalism it has to be born in mind that the vast majority of the population in these areas are poor, rural Africans who solidly support the ANC.

In the more populous provinces of Gauteng and KwaZulu Natal, the ANC fared less well. In KwaZulu Natal the ANC were beaten into second place by the IFP who won just over half of the votes. In Gauteng the ANC still won an impressive overall majority of 58%, but they lost seats to the NP (24%) who gained the support of the urban middle-class whites and to smaller parties such as the FF and DP. Three seats in Gauteng also went to the IFP: their only seats outside KwaZulu Natal.

In the Western and Northern Cape the NP did better than many people had expected. Their 40% in the Northern Cape was still substantially behind the ANC’s 50% but in the Western Cape they managed to gain 55% to the ANC’s 33%. In both these provinces the NP vote was based upon widespread support amongst coloured voters who feared an ANC government would put the interests of Africans ahead of their own. The irony of the only NP election victory being built on the back of coloured voters is quintessentially South African.

South Africa is often referred to as being a First and Third World economy within one country. While it is true that parts of South African society are extremely rich and the majority are extremely poor this situation is not actually that different from many other countries classified as Third World (or developing countries). The well-off sections of society are bigger than in other African countries but they are not dissimilar in size and wealth to countries such as Brazil or Argentina. The overall per capita levels of wealth in South Africa are also pretty much similar to these Latin American economies (referred to as the Higher Middle Income nations in World Bank league tables).

The GNU’s first task was to set about ratifying the interim constitution. Debate on some issues was intense. Labour rights proved to be a bone of contention between the NP and ANC while the ANC and IFP frequently clashed over the division of power between central government and the provinces. Despite their official position as part of the GNU and Buthelezi’s cabinet seat the IFP boycotted much of the debate on the constitution on the grounds that the ANC had gone back on a pre-election promise to allow international mediation on the issue of KwaZulu Natal ceding from the rest of the country. Nevertheless by May 1996 all the clauses of the new constitution had been agreed and the Constitutional Assembly voted to ratify the new constitution. With the new constitution in place, De Klerk announced his retirement from politics and the NP ministers selected in 1994 left the cabinet in June 1996 and were replaced by members of the ANC. No new Deputy President was selected; effectively increasing the power of Thabo Mbeki. The IFP remained within the GNU.

In the aftermath of the election the most pressing political problem was the continuation of violence in KwaZulu Natal between supporters of the ANC and supporters of the IFP. Unprovoked attacks, revenge killings and political intrigue all continued to haunt the townships and villages of the province. Peace talks between the leaderships of the provincial parties and high-level discussions between Mandela and Buthelezi were frequently called off and when they did take place made no impact on the rate of violence. Local elections for new unitary local government structures took place throughout the country in mid-1995 but were frequently delayed in KwaZulu Natal because of the violence and allegations over fraudulent electoral rolls. The elections did eventually take place, about one year after the rest of the country and marked the beginnings of the end violence in the province.

Mandela commanded huge popular support amongst the African population and won the backing of many of South Africa’s white population as well. Mbeki lacked the same mass popularity, but was seen as having aa good grasp of the major issues and was credited with being a key player in bringing peace to KwaZulu Natal. Mandela’s punishing international schedule meant that Mbeki was left with many of the domestic political chores, especially dealing with the ANC’s internal problems. His position as Mandela’s successor left him vulnerable to accusations of manipulating internal ANC politics to strengthen his position over some of his colleagues. This was particularly the case with the easing out of Cyril Ramaphosa, who had led the ANC negotiating team during initial negotiations with the NP. Prior to the election he was seen by many as Mandela’s likely successor and his decision to leave politics and join a commercial company was seen as evidence that his leadership ambitions had been frustrated.

The ANC had its fair share of internal wranglings. In 1995 the most serious of these was over the role of Winnie Mandela (or since her divorce, Winnie Madikizela-Mandela). In mid-1995, she experienced a spectacular fall from grace. She was sacked from her cabinet position in 1995, and was divorced by Nelson Mandela the following year. She faced a series of charges and convictions, including for her role in the kidnapping and murder of a 14-year-old anti-Apartheid activist; she received a six-year prison sentence, which was reduced to a fine. Later, in 2003 she was found guilty of 43 counts of fraud and 25 of theft. Although she again managed to walk away from a prison sentence, she resigned from her positions as a Member of Parliament and President of the ANC Women’s League.

The NP had very little success in repositioning itself as a non-racial centrist party. In the late 1990s, its efforts to change its image were not helped by the continual unearthing of more and more horror stories from the Apartheid years. Particularly damaging to the NP were the stories about covert actions taking place right up to the evening of the 1994 elections, a time when the party had supposedly thrown off its old ways and embraced democracy. The Steyn Report into the actions of the Third Force included many disturbing allegations, including reports that SADF operatives initiated the spate of train massacres that took place on the Witwatersrand in the run up to the 1994 election. Other allegations in the report included reports that the SADF used chemical bombs against Frelimo troops in Mozambique in the late 1980s and that they stockpiled weapons in game reserves in countries as far away as Kenya. In 1997, the NP renamed itself the New National Party; a move perhaps to distance itself from the past, and merged with the Democratic Party (DP). However, by 2000 members of the former National Party had broken away from the alliance and the remaining members of the alliance became the Democratic Alliance (DA) and were the official opposition in parliament. The NP had effectively disintegrated; officially-so in 2005 when its federal council dissolved the party.

Other reports of atrocities during Apartheid came out of the hearings of the Truth and Reconciliation Commission (TRC) chaired by Desmond Tutu. This was a court-like body which invited anyone who felt that they were a victim of Apartheid’s violence to come forward and be heard. Perpetrators of violence could also give testimony and request amnesty from prosecution. The TRC was set up in terms of the Promotion of National Unity and Reconciliation Act, passed in 1995, and brought forth many witnesses giving testimony about the secret and immoral acts committed by both the Apartheid government, and the liberation groups including the armed wing of the ANC. In late 1998, the commission presented its final report, which condemned both sides for committing human rights abuses.

In June 1999 Nelson Mandela passed the mantle of power as president of the ANC over to his long time deputy Thabo Mbeki. In the national elections the ANC won a large victory despite a widespread feeling that they had still to deliver on promises they made when they first came to power in 1994; particularly on service delivery – housing and basic amenities – which remains a contentious issue to this day. Nevertheless, the elections were seen as a great triumph for the country on a continent which has so rarely witnessed fair and peaceful democratic elections, and Mbeki became the second democratically elected (black) president.

However, Mbeki was always going to find Mandela a hard act to follow. Although he surrounded himself with a cabinet of loyal supporters, he was generally regarded as an efficient if not dynamic party leader.

Perhaps his greatest success was pushing South Africa to expand its scope of activity in regional and international affairs. Infused with a vision for an African Renaissance, during his term, South Africa was a driving force behind restructuring the Southern African Development Community (SADC), the establishment of the new African Union, and developed the New Partnership for Africa’s Development (Nepad). In the last decade, South Africa has also been involved in efforts to solve a number of conflicts and political crises on the continent, such as the long-running war in the DRC and instability in Burundi. However, South Africa also courted controversy by declaring the contentious 2002 Zimbabwean elections free and fair, but Mbeki ultimately decided, along with the leaders of Australia and Nigeria, to recommend Zimbabwe’s suspension from the Commonwealth. Nevertheless, the government’s continued refusal to openly criticize Robert Mugabe’s regime – preferring instead to stick to ‘quiet diplomacy’ – has attracted condemnation.

Mbeki’s views on AIDS cast a shadow over the first four years of his presidency. Going against the weight of medical opinion, he questioned the link between HIV and AIDS, and the effectiveness of anti-retroviral drugs. The Department of Health’s refusal to provide anti-AIDS drugs to pregnant women and rape survivors angered AIDS activists and drew widespread criticism of the government. However, the Treatment Action Campaign won a High Court case against the Department of Health in 2001, forcing it to provide the anti-retroviral drug Nevirapine to all HIV-positive pregnant women. In November 2003, the cabinet voted to provide anti-retroviral drug across the board.

The 1999 election was again won by the ANC who received 66.3% of the vote. It did not dramatically alter South Africa’s political landscape, except for some growth in support for the Democratic Party (DP); later to become the Democratic Alliance (DA) in 2000, which got 9.6% of the vote. The DP’s line on crime and tough talk from its leader, Tony Leon, won it a substantial proportion of the white vote.

In April 2004 the ANC, won again with 69.7% of votes. However, the turn out for this election was remarkably low; just 54% of eligible voters, which was in part due to the national campaign of ‘No Land! No House! No Vote!’, which again was a protest to the government about lack of promised service providing since 1994. The DA again won 9.6% of the vote and retained its position in parliament as the opposition. The DA’s strength has always been in the Western Cape, and in 2006, the outspoken and much-admired Helen Zille took over from Tony Leon as head of the party and was Mayor of Cape Town from 2006 to 2009; the accolade won her the title of World Mayor of the Year in 2008 for her aggressive policies against crime, drug abuse, unemployment and homelessness in Cape Town. Zille is a former journalist who famously exposed the truth about Steve Biko’s death in police detention in the 1970s.

A member of the ANC since 1959, and part of its armed struggle in the early years of resistance to Apartheid, (which earned him a 10-year spell in prison on Robben Island), Jacob Zuma was elected deputy president to Mbeki in 1999 and again in 2004, so for two terms was groomed as Mbeki’s successor. However, his political career stumbled on a glitch in 2005, when Mbeki sacked him because of corruption allegations over a US$5 billion arms deal in 1999. Later in 2005, he was formerly charged with corruption by the National Prosecuting Authority (in 2005 he was also charged with rape, which was later dismissed in court in 2006). After a lengthy and controversial legal battle, all charges of corruption were officially dropped in 2008, and the National Prosecuting Authority cited unlawful procedural grounds for their decision. The DA (namely Helen Zille) reacted very strongly but the decision was upheld. Despite these political and legal wranglings, Zuma was elected president of the ANC in 2007.

Just days after Zuma’s trial, in September 2008, Mbeki announced his resignation after being recalled by the ANC’s National Executive Committee. This followed a conclusion by a judge of his improper interference in the National Prosecuting Authority and allusions were made in the ruling to possible political interference by Mbeki and others in Zuma’s prosecution. He was replaced by ‘caretaker’ president Kgalema Motlanthe, who headed the state until the 2009 elections. Mbeki immediately dissociated himself from politics after his abrupt and forced resignation, though he reacted strongly when Zuma publically announced that he required Mbeki to campaign for the ANC in the 2009 elections, which he refused to do. Whether Mbeki voted for the ANC or not in 2009, remains his secret.

On 6 May 2009, South Africans went to the polls. For the first time South Africans living abroad were permitted to vote, as well as those in the country that were outside their official constituency. The turnout at 76% was much higher than 2004, and about 2.5 million more people voted. The election was contested by the ANC, DA, The Congress of the People (COPE), a new party formed by breakaway members of the ANC in 2008 after Mbeki’s dismissal, and a number of smaller parties. The ANC, headed by Zuma, won with a 69.69% majority (just 0.01% shy of a 70% win, which would have allowed the ANC to change anything they wanted to in the constitution – rumours were to dissolve the DA dominant Western Cape Provincial Parliament). After a vigorous campaign headed by Zille, the DA increased its position with 20 more seats in parliament and took 13.6% of the overall vote, reconsolidating its position as the opposition. In the Western Cape, however, the DA beat the ANC and took 51.2% of the vote, which instated Zille as Premier of the Western Cape, and has put her in a powerful position as leader of the opposition.

It’s early days for the Zuma-led government, but like the previous post-1994 governments the main focus, and an issue that has been promised in every political campaign for the ANC, is service providing. Since the demise of Apartheid, South Africans have wanted to see their votes turned into houses, jobs, amenities, education and health care.

Tap water in South African towns is chemically treated and safe to drink. Bottled mineral water and a good range of fruit juices are available at most outlets including petrol stations – the Ceres and Liquifruit brands are the best. Another popular drink is Rooibos tea, literally red bush tea. This is a caffeine-free tea with a smoky flavour, usually served with sugar or honey. The main area producing Rooibos is around Clanwilliam by the Cederberg in the Western Cape.

Acute mountain sickness can strike from about 3000 m upwards and takes a few hours or days to come on and presents with heachache, lassitude, dizziness, loss of appetite, nausea and vomiting. Insomnia is common and often associated with a suffocating feeling when lying down in bed. You may notice that your breathing tends to wax and wane at night and your face is puffy in the mornings – this is all part of the syndrome. If the symptoms are mild, the treatment is rest and painkillers (preferably not aspirin-based) for the headaches. Should the symptoms be severe and prolonged it is best to descend to a lower altitude immediately and reascend, if necessary, slowly and in stages. The symptoms disappear quickly – even after a few hundred metres of descent. The best way of preventing acute mountain sickness is a relatively slow ascent. When trekking to high altitude, some time spent walking at medium altitude, getting fit and acclimatizing is beneficial.

This is a very rare event indeed for travellers, but if you are unlucky (or careless) enough to be bitten by a venomous snake, spider, scorpion or sea creature, try to identify the culprit, without putting yourself in further danger. Snake bites in particular are very frightening, but in fact rarely poisonous – even venomous snakes bite without injecting venom. Victims should be taken to a hospital or a doctor without delay. Reassure and comfort the victim frequently, immobilize the limb with a bandage or a splint and get the patient to lie still. Do not slash the bite area and try to suck out the poison. This does more harm than good. You should apply a tourniquet in these circumstances, but only if you know how to. Do not attempt this if you are not experienced. Certain tropical fish inject venom into bathers’ feet when trodden on, which can be exceptionally painful. Wear plastic shoes if such creatures are reported. The pain can be relieved by immersing the foot in hot water (as hot as you can bear) for as long as the pain persists.

There have been occasional outbreaks of cholera in the northeast of the country, the most recent being in early 2009, which was possibly linked to the far more serious endemic in neighbouring Zimbabwe. The main symptoms of cholera are profuse watery diarrhoea and vomiting, which in severe places may lead to dehydration and death. However, most travellers are at extremely low risk of infection and the disease rarely shows symptoms in healthy well-nourished people. The new cholera vaccine, Dukoral, is only recommended for certain high-risk individuals such as health professionals or volunteers.

This viral disease is spread by mosquitoes that tend to bite during the day. The symptoms are fever and often intense joint pains, also some people develop a rash. Symptoms last about a week but it can take a few weeks to recover fully. Dengue can be difficult to distinguish from malaria as both diseases tend to occur in the same countries. There are no effective vaccines or antiviral drugs though, fortunately, travellers rarely develop the more severe forms of the disease (these can prove fatal). Rest, plenty of fluids and paracetamol (not aspirin) is the recommended treatment.

Diarrhoea can refer either to loose stools or an increased frequency of bowel movement, both of which can be a nuisance. Symptoms should be relatively short-lived but if they persist beyond 2 weeks specialist medical attention should be sought. Also seek medical help if there is blood in the stools and/or fever. Adults can use an antidiarrhoeal medication such as loperamide to control the symptoms but only for up to 24 hrs. In addition keep well hydrated by drinking plenty of fluids and eat bland foods. Oral rehydration sachets taken after each loose stool are a useful way to keep well hydrated. These should always be used when treating children and the elderly. Bacterial traveller’s diarrhoea is the most common form. Ciproxin (Ciprofloxacin) is a useful antibiotic and can be obtained by private prescription in the UK. You need to take one 500 mg tablet when the diarrhoea starts. If there are no signs of improvement after 24 hrs the diarrhoea is likely to be viral and not bacterial. If it is due to other organisms such as those causing giardia or amoebic dysentery, different antibiotics will be required. The standard advice to prevent problems is to be careful with water and ice for drinking. If you have any doubts then boil the water or filter and treat it. Food can also transmit disease. Be wary of salads (what were they washed in, who handled them), re-heated foods or food that has been left out in the sun having been cooked earlier in the day. There is a simple adage that says wash it, peel it, boil it or forget it. Also be wary of unpasteurized dairy products as these can transmit a range of diseases. On the positive side, very few people experience stomach problems in South Africa and standards of hygiene are very high, although less so in the rural areas and Lesotho.

Hepatitis means inflammation of the liver. Viral causes of the disease can be acquired anywhere in the world. The most obvious symptom is a yellowing of your skin or the whites of your eyes. However, prior to this all that you may notice is itching and tiredness. Pre-travel hepatitis A vaccine is the best bet. Hepatitis B (for which there is a vaccine) is spread through blood and unprotected sexual intercourse, both of which can be avoided.

Southern Africa has the highest rates of HIV and AIDS in the world; Swaziland is currently 1st, Lesotho 3rd and South African 5th. Efforts to stem the rate of infection have had limited success, as many of the factors that need addressing such as social change, poverty and gender inequalities are long-term processes. Visitors should be aware of the dangers of infection from unprotected sex and always use a condom. Do not inject non-prescribed drugs or share needles; avoid having a tattoo or piercing, electrolysis or acupuncture unless you’re sure the equipment is sterile. If you have to have medical treatment, ensure any equipment used is taken from a sealed pack or is freshly sterilized. It may even be worth taking your own sterlized needles as part of a first-aid kit. If you have to have a blood transfusion, ask for screened blood.

In South Africa, there is a seasonal (Oct-May) risk of malaria in the east of the country, particularly in Ndumu and Tembe game reserves. Swaziland has malaria risk in all lowland areas. For a map of malaria regions in South Africa, visit http://www.malaria.org.za. Lesotho’s high altitude makes it a healthier place than many African countries; malaria is non-existent and other tropical diseases are rare. Malaria can cause death within 24 hrs and can start as something just resembling an attack of flu. You may feel tired, lethargic, headachy, feverish; or more seriously, develop fits, followed by coma and then death. Have a low index of suspicion because it is very easy to write off vague symptoms, which may actually be malaria. If you have a temperature, visit a doctor as soon as you can and ask for a malaria test. On your return home, if you suffer any of these symptoms, have a test as soon as possible. Even if a previous test proved negative, this could save your life. Treatment is with drugs and may be oral or into a vein depending on the seriousness of the infection. Remember ABCD: Awareness (of whether the disease is present in the area you are travelling in), Bite avoidance, Chemo-prohylaxis, Diagnosis. To prevent mosquito bites wear clothes that cover arms and legs, use effective insect repellents in areas with known risks of insect-spread disease and use a mosquito net treated with an insecticide. Repellents containing 30-50% DEET (Di-ethyltoluamide) are recommended when visiting malaria endemic areas; lemon eucalyptus (Mosiguard) is a reasonable alternative. The key advice is to take the correct anti-malarials and finish the recommended course. If you are popular target for insect bites or develop lumps quite soon after being bitten use antihistamine tablets and apply a cream such as hydrocortisone. Remember that it is risky to buy medicine, and in particular anti-malarials, in some developing countries. These may be sub-standard or part of a trade in counterfeit drugs.

There are a range of other insect-borne diseases that are quite rare in travellers, but worth finding out about if going to particular destinations. Examples are sleeping sickness, river blindness and leishmaniasis. Fresh water can also be a source of diseases such as bilharzia and leptospirosis and it is worth investigating if these are a danger before bathing in lakes and streams.

Rabies is endemic throughout certain parts of the world so be aware of the dangers of the bite from any animal. Rabies vaccination before travel can be considered but if bitten always seek urgent medical attention – whether or not you have been previously vaccinated – after first cleaning the wound and treating with an iodine-base disinfectant or alcohol.

Take good heed of advice regarding protecting yourself against the sun. Overexposure can lead to sunburn and, in the longer term, skin cancer and premature skin aging. The best advice is simply to avoid exposure to the sun by covering up, wearing a hat and staying out of the sun if possible, particularly between late morning and early afternoon. Apply a high-factor sunscreen (greater than SPF15) and also make sure it screens against UVB. Be aware of sunburn at high altitudes too; it might feel cool, but the sun can be strong in the rarefied air of the mountains. A further danger in tropical climates is heat exhaustion, or more seriously heat stroke. This can be avoided by good hydration, which means drinking water past the point of simply quenching thirst. Also when first exposed to tropical heat take time to acclimatize by avoiding strenuous activity in the middle of the day. If you cannot avoid heavy exercise it is also a good idea to increase salt intake.

Tuberculosis is most commonly transmitted via droplet infection. Ensure that you have been immunized, especially those mixing closely with the local population and those at occupational risk, eg health care workers. Check with your doctor or nurse.

If you plan to dive make sure that you are fit do so. The British Sub-Aqua Club (BSAC), T01513-506200, http://www.bsac.com, can put you in touch with doctors who will carry out medical examinations. Check that any dive company you use is reputable and has appropriate certification from BSAC, Professional Association of Diving Instructors (PADI), http://www.padi.com, or the National Association of Underwater Instructors (NAUI), http://www.nauisa.org.

Lankester T, Travellers’ Good Health Guide,2e, 978-0859699914, Sheldon Press, 2006.

British Travel Health Association (UK), http://www.btha.org. This is the official website of an organization of travel health professionals.
Fit for Travel (UK), http://www.fitfortravel.nhs. uk. This site provides a quick A-Z of vaccine and travel health advice requirements for each country.
Foreign and Commonwealth Office (FCO) (UK), http://www.fco.gov.uk. This is a key travel advice site, with useful information on the country, people and climate, and lists of the UK embassies/consulates. The site also promotes the concept of ‘Know Before You Go’ and encourages travel insurance and appropriate travel health advice.
Medical Advisory Service for Travellers Abroad (MASTA) (UK), http://www.masta.org. Provides a quick A-Z of vaccine and travel health advice requirements for each country.
Medic Alert (UK), http://www.medicalert.co.uk. This is the website of the foundation that produces bracelets and necklaces for those with existing medical problems.
Travel Screening Services (UK), http://www.travelscreening.co.uk. A private clinic dedicated to integrated travel health that gives vaccine and travel health advice.
World Health Organization, http://www.who.int.

There are 3 main banks in Lesotho: the First National Bank, Nedbank and Standard Bank. All change money, although it usually involves filling out paperwork and long queues (especially on Fri). There are now several ATM machines in Maseru, which offer a hassle-free way of getting hold of local currency. Outside Maseru, most banks do not have a separate foreign-exchange counter.

There are 4 main banks in Swaziland: the First National Bank, Nedbank, SwaziBank and Standard Bank. It is not worth changing your rand into emalangeni for just a short visit, but you can change money at the banks in Mbabane and Manzini have foreign exchange facilities and ATMs.

Credit cards are accepted at the large international Sun hotels and can be used at ATM machines in Maseru and at the few banks in the regional towns. Some of the main branches of the banks in Maseru can advance local currency off a credit card, but this is a lengthy process.

You can get all the way around South Africa with a credit or debit card. Not only do they offer a convenient method of covering major expenses but they offer some of the most competitive exchange rates when withdrawing cash from ATMs. They are particularly useful when hiring a car – indeed, many companies will only hire a car to foreign visitors if they have a credit card. The chip and pin system is beginning to feature for holders of foreign cards. Note that credit cards are not accepted as payment for petrol, which can only be purchased with cash or local debit cards. ATMs are every- where; Plus, Cirrus Visa, Mastercard, American Express and Diners’ Club are all accepted. The amount you can withdraw varies between systems and cards, but you should be able to take out at least R1000 a day. Note that theft during or immediately after a withdrawal can be a problem, so never accept a stranger’s help at an ATM, be aware of your surroundings and avoid using street-side ATMs. Instead, go into a bank or shopping mall, where guards are often on duty.

Major credit cards such as Visa, MasterCard and American Express are accepted in hotels, large town chainstores, some restaurants, and the national parks and game reserves for accommodation, though you are advised to use cash for smaller items and services. ATMs are available in Mbabane and Manzini; credit cards can be used to withdraw cash, either through the machine or from a teller.

The standard unit of currency is the maloti, divided into 100 lisente. It is exactly equivalent to the rand, and the 2 are inter- changeable, so you can pay in either currency. Bring sufficient rand with you from South Africa, as this will considerably reduce money-changing hassles. While the rand is interchangeable with the maloti in Lesotho this is not the case in South Africa. If you are due to leave Lesotho in a few days, try to get change in rand and when you change money ask for the cash in rand.

The South African currency is the rand (R) which is divided into 100 cents (c). Notes are in 200, 100, 50, 20 and 10 R, and coins are in 5, 2, 1 R and 50, 20, 10 and 5 c. You can carry your funds in traveller’s cheques (TCs), credit cards, rands, US dollars, euros or pounds sterling.
There is no restriction on the amount of rand cash brought into the country and any surplus on departure can be changed at banks and bureaux de changes at the airport. If you plan on visiting neighbouring countries, note that most of their currencies can only be purchased within South Africa and not before you leave home. However, rand can easily be exchanged in all South Africa’s neighbouring countries and in some cases, such as Lesotho, Swaziland, Namibia and Mozambique, is used interchangeably alongside the local currency. Since the collapse of the Zimbabwean dollar in 2009, rand can now be used in Zimbabwe.

The standard unit of currency is the lilangeni (plural emalangeni, E) and is equivalent to the South African rand. TCs can be changed in Mbabane but the process is slow. You are better off bringing in cash in the form of South African rand. Both the rand and the emalangeni are accepted currencies everywhere in Swaziland but again emalangeni is not a convertible currency so make sure you change any back into rand before leaving the country.

This remains a problem in South Africa, although the number of incidents is constantly declining thanks to collaboration with neighbouring countries to crack down on stolen cars crossing borders. The favoured location for this crime is at red traffic lights on a junction. It is a good idea to travel with the windows closed and the doors locked. When faced with a suspicious situation at a junction, it is general practice to jump the lights and get away as fast as possible. Incidents can also happen on quiet rural roads, so be vigilant at all times. Again, it is important to remember that carjackers are almost always armed and will use their weapons when faced with resistance. Note that the insurance on hire cars in South Africa is correspondingly high.

Horror stories abound among travellers passing through Johannesburg. The city centre, Hillbrow, and Yoeville have the worst reputation and the crime rate remains high. There are few facilities or accommo-dation options in these areas, so it is feasible to avoid them altogether and visit the sights only on an organized tour. Travellers arriving at the Park City Transit Centre in Johannesburg should not walk into town. Instead, take a taxi directly to your hotel. The crime rate in Johannesburg’s suburbs, where most of the hotels, hostels, nightlife and shops are located, has improved greatly in recent years, due mainly to an increase in security measures, and you should experience few problems in these areas. Apart from Johannesburg, city centres are generally safe during daylight hours, although listen to advice from locals about which areas to avoid. Closed-circuit cameras (CCTV) and private security guards have made Cape Town and Durban city centres as safe as European cities, but the likelihood of being mugged increases sharply after dark. The safest way to travel around cities at night is to take a taxi directly to and from your destination.

While by no means out of bounds to tourists, it would not be wise to wander into a township by yourself. On the other hand, if you know a local or have friends living and working in South Africa who know their way around, a trip to a township market or nightclub can be an interesting and rewarding experience. Alternatively, go on a township tour which will undoubtedly give you a different picture of the way a very large number of urban South Africans live.

Reception is improving steadily even in the most remote places. This is largely due to the fact that a number of mobile phone towers have been put in place in outlying areas during the Lesotho Highlands Water Project.

South Africa uses the GSM system for mobile phones and overseas visitors should be able to use their mobiles on roaming. Alternatively, you can buy a local SIM card and start-up pack from any of the phone shops in the supermarkets and at the 3 international airports, which also offer phone and SIM hire. For anyone travelling alone by car, especially women, it is essential to hire 1 for emergencies.

If your mobile phone has international roaming it will work throughout Swaziland, otherwise local SIM and top-up cards are available for the only cell phone provider, Swazi MTN.

Tourist Information Centre, Basotho Shield building opposite the Basotho Hat building on Kingsway in Maseru, T2231 2427, Mon-Fri 0800-1700, Sat 0800-1300, is extremely helpful and stocks a range of brochures and maps.
If you are crossing into the country through Maseru Bridge be sure to drop in at the Maloti Tourist Office in Ladybrand, which also covers Lesotho in its jurisdiction (see page ).

Kulula.com, T0861-585852 (in South Africa), T011-921 0111 (from overseas), www.kulula. com, also owned by British Airways, is a hugely successful no-frills airline and fun to travel with (when you get off the plane the crew in their jeans and T-shirts tell you not to forget to take your husband and children with you). Daily services between Cape Town, Durban, Johannesburg, Port Elizabeth and George. Also now flies to Mauritius, Windhoek and Harare on a code-share agreement with BA. British Airways Comair, T011-441 8600, http://www.britishairways.com, has daily flights between Johannesburg and Cape Town, Durban and Port Elizabeth, as well as flights between Johannesburg and Mauritius, Wind-hoek, Livingstone, Victoria Falls and Harare. By booking early online, good deals can be found with all the airlines. You can either book directly, or through Computicket (http://www.computicket.com) which represents all the domestic airlines. 1Time, T0861-345345 (in South Africa), T011-928 8000 (from overseas), http://www.1time.aero, is another budget carrier that flies between Johannesburg, Cape Town, Durban, George, Port Elizabeth and East London. They have rather stylish planes with spacious leather seats, bought from a bankrupt airline. They now have a weekly flight between Johannesburg and Zanzibar. Mango, T0861-162646 (in South Africa), T011-359 1222 (from overseas), ww5.flymango.com, is the newest of the no-frills operators with daily flights between Johannesburg, Cape Town, Durban and Bloemfontein. South African Airways (SAA), central reservations T0861-359722 (in South Africa), T011-978 5313 (from overseas), http://www.flysaa.com, cover most of the country as well as other southern African cities in conjunction with both SA Airlink, http://www.flyairlink.com, and SA Express, http://www.saexpress.co.za.

If driving yourself through Lesotho, take local advice regarding the time a journey may take, and the possible need for 4WD and chains. The tourist office in Maseru can assist with this and can give detailed instructions of the exact route to be taken. Remember that while there have been major improvements to Lesotho’s roads in recent years, all road conditions deteriorate rapidly after heavy rains, they get icy in the cooler months, and some may be blocked by snow in the winter. It is worth considering carefully what time of the year to go if you are driving. It’s recommended that you carry two spare wheels and a couple of spare inner tubes if possible, though many of the villages offer cheap tyre-mending services.
Road safety in Lesotho usually leaves a lot to be desired, as the death of the King in an accident in 1996 on the Main South Road indicates. Taxi drivers are often in direct competition for passengers so rush to get to stops ahead of other drivers – which often means they take huge risks. Be especially careful when driving behind taxis as they often brake sharply to pick up passengers. Drink-driving is also a problem, especially at weekends, bank holidays and at the end of the month when people have just been paid. It is probably best to avoid driving at these times. Wear your seat belt at all times, and always be wary of pedestrians, cyclists and livestock at the sides of the road.

As taxis are cheap and frequent and most drivers will charge the same fare as a taxi anyway, hitchhiking in the lowlands is not usually worth the trouble. In more remote areas more or less every passing vehicle acts as a de facto taxi service – somewhat blurring the distinction between hitching and taking a taxi. There are certain routes, however, where hitchhiking is the only alternative to walking, for example over Sani Pass into KwaZulu Natal or from Qacha’s Nek into the Eastern Cape. If you are hitchhiking in the mountains make sure you have a jacket or blanket (or both) to hand – most lifts will be on the back of a pickup or a truck and it can get very cold, especially on winter evenings. Although it’s usually safe to hitchhike in Lesotho, remember to avoid hitchhiking alone.

Horses and ponies are the main form of transport other than foot for most Basotho in the mountains. You can hire ponies from a number of centres.

The lowland towns and villages are linked together by a regular and cheap (if hair-raising) taxi service. These consist of minibuses with about 16 seats or sometimes, in remote districts, of converted 4WDs. There is no set timetable for taxis; they simply set off when they are full. It is important to remember, however, that taxis stop running very early in the evening and it is more or less impossible to get one after sunset. There is also very little space for baggage. The first passengers to arrive get the most comfortable seats next to the driver, though the downside is that you’ll have a full view of Lesotho driving habits. Unlike most of South Africa, people talk to each other in taxis. Larger buses cover the longer routes, especially over the gravel mountain roads. To most towns there is at least one bus a day to and from Maseru or another larger lowland centre. They usually leave between 0600 and 1000 depending on the distance but timetables vary with the number of passengers.

The Baz Bus, T021-439 2323, http://www.bazbus.com, is a hop-on, hop-off bus that offers a convenient and sociable alternative to the main bus services. It is specifically designed for backpackers visiting South Africa and remains one of the most popular ways of seeing the country on a budget. One of the best aspects of the service is that the bus collects and drops off passengers at their chosen backpacker hostel. There are a few exceptions such as Hermanus, Coffee Bay and Sani Pass, where the bus will drop you off at the closest point on the main road, and the hostels will then meet you for an extra charge, though you must arrange this in advance. The Baz Bus route is Cape Town–Durban along the coast, and Durban–Tshwane (Pretoria) on two routes via either Swaziland or the Drakensberg. Visit the website for the full timetable. Tickets are priced per segment, for example from Cape Town to Durban. You are allowed to hop off and on the bus as many times as you like in the given segment, but must not backtrack. This is where the savings are made, since other commercial buses, such as Translux and Greyhound, charge high prices for short journeys. However, note that for long distances without stops, the mainline buses are better value. YHA and ISIC card holders are entitled to a 5% discount on Baz Bus tickets. The Baz Bus drivers are a great source of information, both about the places of interest along the route and what to expect at each hostel. The buses are fairly cramped Mercedes vehicles, although a trailer at the back has space for rucksacks, surf boards and other luggage.

If you want to stay in the country for a while, or plan a grand tour of southern Africa, buying your own car may be a sensible option. Johannesburg, Cape Town or Durban are the best places to buy or sell. Check the local press for private sales, or visit a second-hand car dealership. Be sure to discuss the possibility of selling back to you dealer. For car insurance contact Outsurance, T0860-006000 (in South Africa), T012-673 3000, who can organize insurance instantly if you have a credit or debit card. Alternatively consider buying a car on a buy-back scheme. There are companies that will sell you a car with a buy-back guarantee once you have finished with it. Work out the costs, though, and compare them to long-term car hire. Sometimes the price difference is minimal and with the buy-back scheme you don’t get the back up of a car hire company in the case of an emergency. The following websites are useful: http://www.drivesouthafrica.co.za, www.drive southernafrica.com, http://www.resqrentacar.co.za.

Hiring a car for part, or all, of your journey is undoubtedly the best way to see the country. The roads are generally in good condition and, away from the major urban centres, there is little traffic. South Africans are, however, notoriously bad drivers – speeding and drink-driving are common. Do not drive at night for safety reasons. The advantage of hiring a car is that you get to explore more isolated areas, as well as seeing the national parks and nature reserves at a more leisurely pace without being tied to a tour. For budget travellers, hiring a car is ideal for carrying camping equipment and costs come down considerably if you share with three or four people. Petrol, not a major expense, is available 24 hours a day along the national highways. Driving is on the left side of the road and speed limits range from 60 kph in built-up areas to 120 kph on the main highways. The police are cracking down on drink-driving and while many locals still disregard the laws, speed traps with on-the-spot fines are employed. Also remember that if you are caught by a speed camera, the fine will go to the hire car company who have every right to deduct the amount from your credit card, even if it is some time after you have left South Africa. It is worth asking at hostels or hotels for recommended local car hire companies, and be sure to shop around. Car hire companies have a range of vehicles, from basic hatchbacks and saloon cars, to camper vans and fully equipped 4WD vehicles. In general there are two types of deal on offer: a short weekend package including free mileage; or longer- term deals for a week or more. In the first case you can get very good rates for a Group A car, although you might want a larger vehicle for long journeys – bear in mind that during a two- to three-week holiday you’re likely to clock up over 3000 km. The extra engine power and space of a Group B car will make for more comfortable and safe driving. In summer, air conditioning is also well worth the extra but make sure it works before you sign. Tourist offices usually recommend large international organizations such as Avis or Budget, but there are a number of reliable local companies, usually with a good fleet of cars and follow-up service. Backpacker hostels are often a useful source of information and can offer competitive rates. If you are intending to visit more remote areas, such as Maputaland, the Kalahari and the Richtersveld, consider hiring a 4WD vehicle. There are specialist companies in Cape Town and Johannesburg that hire out fully equipped safari Land Rovers or pickups with all necessary camping equipment. Fully equipped camper vans or motorhomes represent excellent value for a group or a family as money is saved on accommodation, and if self-catering, food too. For emergency breakdown and traffic update information contact the Automobile Association of South Africa, T083-84322, http://www.aa.co.za. Make sure you have the correct documents from the rental company if you wish to take the car into one of the neighbouring countries.

All of the large firms now have toll free phone numbers which can be dialled from anywhere within South Africa, and most of them have kiosks at the airports. Be sure to book in advance through the websites for the high season. Some of the larger companies partner with the airlines, so it’s also possible to book a car online with your flight. Aroundabout Cars, T021-422 4022, http://www.aroundaboutcars.com, is a good national agent for local car hire and they know where to find the best deal. They also have their own fleets in Cape Town and Namibia and can now organize 4WDs with camping equipment, and allow vehicles over the borders. Avis, T0861-113748 (in South Africa), T011-923 3660 (from overseas), http://www.avis.co.za. Budget, T0861-016622 (in South Africa), T011-398 0123 (from overseas), http://www.budget.co.za. Britz Africa, T011-396 1445, http://www.britz.co.za. Contact for camper vans and motorhomes for travel in and beyond South Africa. Good all-inclusive deals. Europcar, T0801-131000 (in South Africa), T011-574 1000 (from overseas), www. europcar.co.za. Hertz, T0861-600136 (in South Africa), T021-935 4800 (from overseas), http://www.hertz.co.za. Leisuremobiles, T011-475 2902, http://www.africanleisure.co.za. Camper vans and fully equipped safari 4WDs.

Hitchhiking is not common in South Africa and is not recommended as it can be very dangerous. Women should never hitch, under any circumstances, even in a group. If you have to hitch, say if your vehicle has broken down, be very wary of who you are accepting a lift from; a car with a family or couple in may be fine, but avoid getting into a vehicle with a group of men. In rural areas, especially in Lesotho, you may be expected to pay if a lorry or a pickup gives you a lift.

Greyhound, T083-915 9000 (in South Africa), T011-276 8550 (from overseas), http://www.greyhound.co.za; Intercape, T0861-287287 (in South Africa), T012-380 4400 (from overseas), http://www.intercape.co.za; and Translux, T0861-589282 (in South Africa), T011-774 3333 (from overseas), http://www.translux.co.za, are the three major long-distance bus companies that run between towns and popular destinations, with a large number of buses on each route. All have online booking and seats can be reserved several months in advance. You can also book through Computicket, http://www.computicket.com, online or at any of their kiosks in the shopping malls or any branch of Checkers supermarket. The coaches are air-conditioned and have a toilet; some sell refreshments and show videos. They will stop at least every three to four hours to change drivers and give the passengers a chance to stretch their legs. For long journeys the prices are reasonable (though always compare fares with the no-frills airlines), but short routes are expensive for budget travellers. However, they are an efficient and a safe way of travelling and, on night routes, bear in mind that you will be saving the cost of a hotel room. Note that the long distance buses take 10 hours to do the same route as opposed to around 24 hours on the train.

The majority of South Africa’s population travel by minibus taxis and, in many areas, including inner cities, they are the only way of getting around. However, the accident rate of such vehicles is notoriously high, with speeding, overcrowding and lack of maintenance being the main causes. There is also the problem of possible robbery, especially at the taxi ranks, so many visitors and locals remain wary of using them.
Nevertheless, minibus taxis remain the cheapest and most extensive form of transport in the country. Many routes have experienced little or no crime, but you should exercise extreme caution and always ask people in the know before using them. In central Cape Town minibus taxis provide an efficient (and relatively safe) means of transport into the city centre from places such as Observatory, Camps Bay, Sea Point, Rondebosch and Claremont.

Except in the major cities there are few taxi ranks in South African towns so it’s generally a better idea to order a taxi in advance. Any hotel, hostel or restaurant will make a booking for you. Taxis are metered and charge around R9.50 per kilometre. Larger groups should request a Toyota Venture if available as these carry nine people. They can also accommodate wheelchairs. Travelling by taxi, especially at night, is one of the safest ways to cross city centres when visiting a restaurant or nightclub; don’t walk just to save a few cents.

The most common way of entering and leaving Lesotho is by road. There is a R5 entry and departure tax on all vehicles.

There are 12 border posts in total, 11 with South Africa and one with Mozambique. Visas for Mozambique are now issued at the border. The border posts are open every day of the year, including public holidays, and immigration and customs formalities take about 30 minutes. There is an E50 road tax on all vehicles entering Swaziland and cars hired in South Africa are usually permitted into Swaziland.

The three main coach companies cover routes across South Africa’s borders and some services go as far as Malawi. All bus tickets can be booked online at http://www.computicket.com. Translux, T0861-589282 (in South Africa), T011-774 3333 (from overseas), www.translux. co.za, runs services from Johannesburg and Tshwane (Pretoria) to Blantyre, Bulawayo, Harare, Lusaka, and Maputo. Intercape, T0861-287287 (in South Africa), T012-380 4400 (from overseas), http://www.intercape.co.za, runs coaches from Johannesburg/Tshwane (Pretoria) to Gaborone, Windhoek and Maputo, and from Cape Town to Livingstone in Zambia (via Namibia). Greyhound, T083-915 9000 (in South Africa), T011-276 8550 (from overseas), www. greyhound.co.za, runs coaches from Tshwane (Pretoria) to Maputo, Harare and Bulawayo.

If crossing any international borders in a private car, you must have a registration document, insurance and a driving licence printed in English with a photograph. With the exception of Zimbabwe, you should be able to take a hire car into all the bordering countries, though check with the rental company first. You will need a letter of permission to take a car across a border if it is not registered in your name, and a ZA sticker (available from any AA shop). Botswana, Namibia, Lesotho, Swaziland, Mozambique and South Africa are all part of SADC’s (Southern Africa Development Community) joint customs agreement, so if you are in your own car travelling on a carnet, you only have to produce this when crossing your first or last border to the SADC countries.