Kamburg

Our second excursion in the Drakenbergs was at Kamburg. "Kam" comes from the Dutch name for cocks comb, i.e., a mountain that looks like a cockscomb. To get to the park we had another teeth-chattering drive on dirt roads. The highpoint of Kamburg is a San art center. They have a video explaining the bushmen, their art and their spiritual concepts and their extinction at the hands of white settlers. One scene showed the bushmen (on foot) rustling cattle, being tracked by the settlers and being shot down. In their view, the idea of ownership (animals or land) doesn't exist. Sound exactly like the story of Native Americans.

We started the 1.5 hour hike up to the caves with a young English couple. He is a pilot for British Airways and she is cabin crew, both have traveled a lot in the US and both love Boston. The paintings are so clear and well preserved that it is mind-blowing to think that they could be a thousand years old or more. They can't date them for sure but the San culture goes back 4000 years. Like the Giant's Castle caves the main figures are Eland (large antelope), San hunters and shaman (elongated human body with Eland head and hooves with smaller markings representing bees (a symbol of both auditory and somatic hallucination or contact with the "spirits". I can't say enough how powerful and stunning the experience was.

The "English pilot" had pictures of Newspaper Rock (Native American petroglyphs) on his iPhone that he showed to Raymond (our guide). Raymond makes one or two trips a day up the mountain, points out and explains the paintings and brings the visitors back down. Needless to say he was quite fit.

We had grilled tuna sandwiches and drove back out the dirt roads on the way to Umtata. Driving, especially at night, is scary. No matter how many signs they put up warning about potholes, you can't help but hit some. Then there are all the people walking beside or even in the roads that you don't see until your headlights pick them up. We were told that over half the highway fatalities in SA are pedestrians.

Our overnight in Umtata was uneventful. Since the road construction slows us down so much we decided to get on the road and skipped the Nelson Mandela museum (he is originally from that area).