Travel to South Africa: Circle Trip

Call it the last days of apartheid: these pictures come from a time that already seems far away. 

Make default image size larger

As in the American South, the dominant society called itself religious. In this case the religion was that of the Dutch Reformed Church, here at Wellington, northeast of Cape Town.

The country was irresistable to Europeans, once they had the power to take it. This is the Klip River, a branch of the Vaal that forms the border between the Orange Free State and the Transvaal.

The pioneer white farmers of the Transvaal hired Africans. Now, with round bales and other kinds of mechanized production, workers are hardly needed at all.

Montana? No: near Chrissiesmeer, east of Ermelo.

Africans were thrown back into reserves where the land was despoiled, notwithstanding soil-erosion measures that came too little, too late.

Meanwhile, the British needed a way-station to India. Here: the highway south to Cape Agulhas, the true "southpoint of Africa," around which ships sailed in the days before Suez.

Here's that "south point," Cape Agulhas.

Port Elizabeth is just east of Agulhas. The choice of a woman's name is explained by this somber plaque. It's history now: late in 2000, the city council voted to change the town's name to Nelson Mandela.

A cloudfall at Table Mountain, in Cape Town.