South Africa

The amazing thing as you fly into Hoedspruit from Jo'burg is seeing the walls of the canyon from the air, and how the Ð''highveld' drops horizontally more than 1000 metres into a vast, flat expanse known as the Ð''lowveld.'

As we drove from the airport to the Blyde River Canyon Natural Reserve, we saw how the flatness of the Ð''bush' was framed by the huge red cliff walls of the canyon. The Reserve is at the bottom of the canyon, right by its mouth. The house was surrounded by a natural ampitheatre made of the beautiful rock faces of the canyon walls. It really is a majestic and amazing place. Wherever you look, you always have a choice of beautiful mountains to look at. Right in the reserve, stands a conical mountain called Modimule. It is a strangely pointed, stand-alone mountain at the mouth of the canyon, surrounded by all the enormous cliffs. The local people have always believed Modimule is the origin of the world and modern science has proved it has the oldest rocks anywhere in the planet other than Australia.

The Blyde River Canyon is the third biggest canyon in the world and it is truly imposing. The natural reserve has all types of animals and happily for us since we always walked to and from the lodge for lunches and dinners, no predators. So the animals seemed more curious about us and it was possible to have close encounters with them.

My first sight when we arrived was of beautiful zebras standing by the shade of the walls to avoid the hot sun. On the first morning, as we had breakfast outside, looking at the mountains, a plethora of birds came to say hello and entertained us with their melodies.

On the second day, as we had lunch in the lodge, we saw a bunch of baboons moroding and trying to break into a house and steal food. They were so funny, walking one after the other in a straight line - oblivious to us. We also learnt that they can be pretty destructive if they get into a house, as it happened to our neighbours. She described it as being the worse scenario you could ever imagine, as she entered her home and found that the baboons had paid a visit through an opened window and gone around destroying, playing and marking territory all around the house.

The monkeys on the other hand, were infinitely more gracious and funny. Playing and jumping around with their angelical faces. We also walked up to a herd of Wildebeasts that were huffing, we werent too sure if they were curious or were trying to warn us not to get too close (we were only 4 metres away). The baby zebra seemed to be the most curious and would, little by little, get closer and closer to one. What a joy! Right below our paddling pool, we saw quite a few impalas, kudus and bushbacks. The impalas are the most elegant of animals and we saw them also running joyfully in the fields. Even though it was supposedly the beginning of the dry season, the rains had come late and everything was incredibly green and luscious. The sunsets illuminated the rock of the cliffs every evening and highlighted their colour so that the rock seemed in flames.

The reserve is in many ways a closed neighbourhood, albeit it one with strict conservation regulations. It was interesting in that whilst all the workers were black, the owners were mostly all afrikaners and a few Americans. The Limpopo area, once the old independent ZAR (South African Republic) is where most of the hard-line Afrikaner farmers still live. We went to Acoernhook, the local Ð''township' which was a world apart. We went to see the women weavers of the Mapusha cooperative. 30 years ago, a german catholic priest in the local church got these women spinning and weaving machines and started a cooperative. He then left and the women continued their labor, albeit with little success. They were excellent weavers but did not have the means to sell their products nor the knowledge of which designs would attract customers and sell. In their words, they prayed for years for somebody to come and help them.

Judy is an American friend of Tom's who was with him in a trip they made to SA in 1998. She then developed cancer and after surviving it, decided that she wanted to do something different with her life and moved to help these women as she had a degree in textile design that she had never put to use.

Thus, the moribund cooperative was revitalised and soon the original weavers' daughters started to join and become apprentices too. Our visit there was wonderful. These women were so lovely and kind that you wanted to take them back with you, the room was full of laughter and their work incredibly beautiful. Full of spirit, joy and happiness, they taught us a lesson. We bought a rug and some bags but we felt that we were leaving with much more than what we were leaving behind in cash. We also met Cindeleh, hopefully the face of new South Africa. A 22 year old with enormous zest for life and seemingly unending optimism. She told us she had great plans for Mapusha and that she was joining business school by correspondence (Judy has great ideas for design and good contacts but she is not really plugged to the business side of things). I wonder how many other similar stories abound in South Africa (and the rest of the third world) where women have the skills or the capacity but always lack the means or the contacts or the capital to put these small enterprises into action and thus help themselves. And on top of that they are so happy with the little they have, what a lesson to our abundant societies where we always complain!

There is a big private game reserve near the Blyde River Canyon called Kapama and they are one of the few who do elephant-back safaris. They have a young elephant called Jabalani who is extremely sweet and friendly and who, in spite

of being the youngest in the group, apparently likes to lead the safaris and goes at the front.

The ride on the elephants was surprisingly smooth and comfortable. We did not sea any animals, except for an ostrich, but I did learn a bit about the elephants and how wonderful they are. They live to be quite old and they also have a special presence, like being in front of a wise, ancient species. Zoologists are discovering new things about them all the time and they always tend to point to fairly evolved intelligence and complex social systems within the herds.

For example, they have different systems of communicating and many are through very low sounds that are inaudible to humans yet travel through miles. They also know when the atmospheric conditions are given so that the sound travels best. They also have amazing memories and they will remember