An interesting... SA travel recommendation.

Something quite astonishing about South Africa is the reams and bucket-loads of places to visit, which are remarkably different.

For example, one can explore the dry Karoo, or go further south and connect up with the Garden Route.

A dusty and cold Johannesburg winter can be offset by the always humid, always moist Durban “winter” season where, kicking and screaming, those poor sods have to miserably bear temperatures which drop below 20 degrees for the week during which the winter hits its tumultuous peak (You can easily tell; the ice in your Jack & Coke doesn’t melt as fast as it usually does).

The wailing humidity and constant Vaalie-infested December heat in KZN can be dodged with a simple trip back the other way, towards the Highveld shopping district, where less humid but glorious thunderstormy weather can be located in Jozi or Pretoria – which are desolate every year between 16 December and the week before school starts as the locals flood toward the coast and piss off all the KZNers by driving at the actual speed limit.


And then there’s glorious Cape Town. Beautiful Cape Town. The Mother City. Wonderful Cape Town. Nowadays, I hear, one requires a passport to enter as the foreigners who own it all want to keep the South Africans out (exclusivity is key for celebrities). Lucky Michael Jackson died, so it is improbable that anyone is going to purchase Table Mountain anytime soon. The weather there is nice if you are English, or don’t actually know what happens the other side of the clouds. Oops! My bad. I forget there is a summer in CPT which is when all the foreigners come to stay in their swanky Camps Bay mansions and the rest of us are priced out. God forbid we get to buy things at normal value in rands. At least there’s always tik at a decent price.

You could always just go to and stay in Johannesburg, where the traffic ensures a brilliant chance to chill and do nothing for two hours as you attempt to navigate the four kilometres between you and 34789 shopping centres, where all you need is moisturising cream to sooth the perpetually dry skin you are bound to have.

If the big cities aren’t your thing, try Pietermaritzburg. You may have seen it on the way to Durban. You most definitely have a record of it in your mail box if you’ve driven through because of the confounding average speed cameras which ping you for going over 100kph. I have made a bigger contribution to the national GNP navigating that portion of the N3 than to SARS.

Why not PE? Maybe because of the thundering wind that never goddam stops. I can’t believe it is even safe to land a plane there. The runway, surely, must be wider than the entire set of six runways in Amsterdam. You would have to drive there to be safe. In a heavy car. Like a truck. Carrying concrete. And lead anvils.

Then there’s always the picturesque happy town of Knysna, so stunning you actually feel better just looking at it. And then you prance over the hot beach sand toward the Indian Ocean, and dip your toe into the sea as you gaze upon the scenic cliffs names The Heads. Then you realise the temperature of the water there and immediately phone 10111 before you eventually die of hypothermia.

Rather avoid that by going to nearby Plettenberg Bay, where you will be able to discuss, in depth, the crime in Johannesburg with all the eGoli expats.