The farm was owned by a couple of South Africans, but they were on vacation so their daughter and son in law ran the place for the day. We got a nice 50 ZAR discount. The owners were white and spoke Afrikaans as it was their native language. Almost all can speak English near flawlessly, but their accents are so heavy, plus they throw in the occasional Afrikaans word, that it is rather difficult to understand 100% of what is being said. He also said he only uses English “defend himself” what ever that meant.
After introducing themselves, we became acquainted with the various animals on the farm: dozens of sheep, about a dozen cows (without milk), two donkeys, two black pigs, and two dogs, one of which only had three legs. Apparently it lost one of his hind legs in a truck or tractor accident as a pup. We were told the sheep and cows were for consumption purposes. Again, we couldn’t fully comprehend much of what was being said. The nearby town was called Swellendam and surrounding area seemed to have a hillbilly-ish feel to it.
The farm itself was probably 30-40 acres, with multiple stables and pens for the livestock. There were two houses in the front near the front gate, and a row of ten attached cabins with a wraparound porch a quarter of a mile down the road in the back of the property. Behind the cabins was a creek separating farm from nature. Five of the cabins were filled with black Africans who had been there for three months working a half year construction job on the silos one property over. During our braai dinner, various members of their party would mozy over to us and take a gander at their new white neighbors, one of whom asked Ben for beer and/or whiskey, to which we had none. The most confident of them, who presumably was the foreman, introduced himself as Salomon, a deeply religious colored man who was evidently 10-15 older than the rest of the team. Singing hymns and praising the Lord, he explained to us the political situation since the end of the Apartheid, the crumbling of the economy, and the rampant violent crimes and rapes occurring in South Africa. He did not shy away from referring to the blacks and his own colored in derogatory terms, which will be omitted from this blog.
The housing situation naturally evoked feelings of slavery, whites living the good life in the big house, while the working blacks cramped in stuffy cabins down the road. This wasn’t the case on this farm, but it felt uncomfortable nonetheless.
Sunday -Oudtshorn
We woke up the following morning to the sound of dogs making odd barking sounds. Upon further inspection, the were actually the two black pigs, and the barking was some sort of dispute over coveted food under the porch.
Although they allowed us to touch their rough hairs, they were not particularly friendly. When Nadine tried to take a close up picture of the female, Little Miss Piggy tried to bite Nadine’s right off!
The four hour drive from Swellendam to Mossel Bay was the longest we have made so far, although we have greater distances to cover this upcoming week.
Halfway through the drive we made a pit stop at a pub/diner called Ronnie’s Sex Shop. In every blog we had read about the Garden Route, included as a must-see was this bar, so we had to find out why. Inside was a creepy old man with a braided ponytail named Ronnie seared behind the bar. The walls were lined with hundreds of various currencies and business cards from tourists who had visited over the years. From the ceiling hung bras and women’s underwear, for inexplicable reasons. Collecting dust, we suspect they have been dangling there since the 1960’s, at the latest. Nadine asked Ronnie if he wanted Ben’s underwear, to which Ronnie replied that no, it was not a gay bar. The whole experience was creepy and made us feel uncomfortable. Ben wasn’t wearing any underwear, so the joke was on Ronnie.
Two hours later we arrived at an ostrich farm. Now we had seen quite a few on the side of the road in days past, but we did not know any personally. On the Internet this farm advertises that humans can ride and race ostriches. However, sadly, this option is no longer available. Apparently European animals rights activists believe it to be animal cruelty and threatened to boycott the farm unless they discontinued the ostrich riding. South Africans do not feel the same way, but acquiesced nonetheless to keep their business afloat.
Instead we purchased a bag of corn kernels for two rand and made some new friends. As gracefully as they run, their eating habits are uncoordinated and childlike. They stab and poke at their meal, not unlike other birds. We were instructed to put the kernels in our palms and open our hands wide, but these birds would open their mouths wide and seemingly try to bite out whole hand. One of them broke skin on Nadine’s thumb. Last time we ever do that.
We then arrive to Mossel Bay, where we sat on the side of the road and booked an Airbnb. As usual we look for 2 things, a kitchen and WIFI. We found a nice one over looking the bay. Etienne was the host to the Sunny apartment with balcony. We very much enjoyed our afternoons there.
It is time for dinner.
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