PHAKAMISA MAYABA / An acquaintance of mine often recounts, rather wretchedly, an offending utterance he was once slapped with when he mentioned to somebody that he came from Colesberg. ‘Ah,’ his listener shrugged, ‘you mean that place with a Shell?’ Eina!
So much for ‘picturesque,’ ‘historic,’ ‘home to the magic mountain’, ‘the busiest town over holiday season’, and other swooning compliments the town has garnered among travel writers, never mind the gushing four star reviews on TripAdvisor.
But we won’t hold it against our city slicker detractor. He couldn’t have known, wheezing – as he surely must’ve been – along on the N1, not bothering to look around, sense the serenity, inhale the clean air and scent of pepper trees, and take a sho’t left into town. If he’d done that, he’d have slid into the revered and genial character of Church Street, with the NG Kerk a towering beauty poised way up ahead.
Without a single street light, the traffic cop is simple decency. An Ubuntu K53, whose devout adherents are often seen gesturing to one another to ‘you, please, go first’ at the fourway stop. Rubbing shoulders with the odd bovine is more than a fair price to pay for the sight of taxis that actually play by the rules. No sudden moves or disobedient cutting-in. It’s a dorpie after all, so residents tend to be nice solely for the sake of it.
Call the bluff of anyone who says this is your everyday ‘one-street town’. For shopping, maybe. But for cultural tourists who want something worthwhile to wrap their head around, we’re thumbing through a coffee table book of sheer countryside splendour. Stroll up the agterstrate and marvel at the Karoo architectural style, an unpretentious masala of Cape-Dutch and Victorian architecture. Don’t take my biased native word for it, though. The folks at the SA Heritage Resource Agency have conferred ‘legacy status’ onto no less than 80 sites in town.
Bell Street with its distinctive flat-roofed Karoo town houses. Image: eParkeni.
This is exactly the sort of place that bohemians and hippies – driven mad by distant cities, and disgusted by the ruin brought by capitalism on love and humanity – might come running to. To break down, weep or die – or maybe to have their faith restored so as to be made believers once more. Amid the quaint streets, clean air and a town in no apparent rush to get to the next appointment, or catch up with an ever changing world, this is precisely the redemption that many may find.
The hotels and guest houses – probably more than you’ll find in any other town of similar size – replicate this laid-back, undisturbed attitude in the accommodation sector. Visitors used to dozing off to blaring hooters and headlights falling across the curtain will be forgiven for waking up thinking this is the closest they’ve ever gotten to a ghost town.
Tourism accommodation is a prominent Colesberg feature. Image: eParkeni.
But they are soon woken from their reverie when it’s time to grab a bite to eat and the Karoo culinary flair jolts everything back to life. This is home to the country’s (arguably the world’s) finest lamb, and the carnivorous palate particularly is amply catered for. You could play it safe, and order a rump with chips and veggies. Or you could do what we encourage of curious foodies; try the succulent skaapstertjies – sheep’s tails – at Bordeaux. Bite into these juicy delicacies and see the sticky in-house basting dripping down the sides of your mouth.
How about the pumpkin fritters at the ‘beautifully rustic’ Plattelander? Sure, this is meat country, but you’ll also find delectable meals for vegans and those obsessed with their figure and abs. Or you could pull up alongside the huddle of cars outside MDK Car Wash in Kuyasa Township, ‘pop the hood,’ and blast whatever’s on your playlist to your heart’s content as you await your order of a ‘smiley’ – an entire sheep’s head heartily prepared overnight and later charred on the braai. The infectious smile of the proprietor, Nozuko Mdaka, may remind you of a dear sister-in-law.
In an apron outside her car wash, Nozuko Mdaka is always ready to serve. Image: eParkeni.
This is the side of town that could send shivers down a square travel writer’s neck – the kasi, derived from the Afrikaans ‘lokasie’ or location. It often comes with a bad rep it hasn’t really earned. Visitors with preconceived notions often expect knife-wielding thugs, or carjackers who will stab you without provocation. Instead, they find impromptu car guards who direct them into vacant parking bays, offer to watch over their car (even though it’s been forgotten years since anyone last heard of a stolen vehicle here) and find themselves greeted like old friends. Because if there’s one thing small-town folk do well, it is to make the traveller feel that he’s not even stepped out of his front door.
The adventurous at heart might whip out the mountain bike and paddle up the trail leading to Coleskop, ‘the magic mountain’ visible from some 40 kilometres out of town. It’s mystique lies in the fact that it never seems to move closer, not even as the signboards count down the kilometres. In the Anglo-Boer years, this was highly contested real estate among Britons and Boers.
The ‘magic mountain’ of Coleskop, which never seems to get closer. Image: Johanna (Hanlie) Rodrigues.
According to Belinda Gordon, former curator of the Colesberg-Kemper Museum, ‘on 14 November 1899 a Boer force of 700 men under the joint command of Chief Comdt ER Grobler and General HJ Schoeman entered Colesberg unopposed’. In response, the British under Major-General John French shewdly mounted a 15-pounder Armstrong gun on the mountain and began shelling the town. As a result, this is sacred ground for history buffs as well as military men, who often come to pay their respects to the fallen heroes.
While long gone, the soldiers left behind a treasure trove for anyone with a metal detector. While scanning with this device, you may happen upon some rock art, left behind by the original inhabitants of these parts, the //Xam bushmen, who were around before anyone else.
Nature is a serious, if not inadequately explored commodity, as the Karoo is blessed with a wide array of fauna and flora, with the ‘largest variety of succulents to be found in the world’. In the surrounding veld one will happen on highly prized aloe and other priceless fauna among horticulturists. Although these make for breathtaking eye candy in the garden, it’s unwise to harvest them in the wild, as some are protected species. They are also rumoured to fetch high prices in foreign markets, and are often used for cultural practices by members of various African tribes. So to be on the safe side, it’s best to harvest the seeds and cultivate these at home.
Having barely scratched the surface of Colesberg, its wonders and people, there is yet so much more to see. Of course, there are the historic buildings, people, and so forth, but there is yet so much more you’ve never heard about. Like the church which, this past weekend, held a spiritual get-together, leaving the town’s accommodation facilities fully booked and some 50 sheep put to slaughter. There’s a woman who makes incredible cultural ensembles, an agterstraat shrouded in urban legend (something to do with Freemasonry), and escape tunnels dating back to the Anglo-Boer War days. For all that and more – catch you in Part 2.
FEATURED IMAGE: Even on busy days, Colesberg’s Church Street maintains its calm. Image: eParkeni.
This is an edited version of an article that first appeared on Phakamisa Mayaba’s website, eParkeni. Used with permission.