By Chris Marais & Julienne du Toit  In the big desert spaces of the world, an overland driver often encounters interesting objects along the road. Sometimes it’s a novelty object, a ‘world’s largest’ something or other. Other times, it’s a road sign full of bullet hotels. And you park next to it and wonder: what […]

As you stroll past Frans Boekkooi’s studio in the Karoo village of Nieu-Bethesda, you will see the likeness of playwright Athol Fugard looking down from the doorway. Apart from the amazing image of Athol – creative patron of Nieu Bethesda – the next work of art to catch your eye inside will be Visman Steier […]

For many decades, the little village of Nieu-Bethesda in the Sneeuberg Mountains of the Eastern Cape Karoo was a dead-quiet place where very little happened. The spring-fed water furrows (leiwater) gurgled through Nieu-Bethesda, there were lots of donkey carts and survival was hard for most of the villagers. Then playwright Athol Fugard wrote The Road […]

As a travel journalist, you can wander the world, see all its peoples, taste 105 different kinds of ice cream and stomp through a thousand museums – but you know you’re always skating on the surface of experience. You’ve only had one layer of Life’s Onion. What a privilege it was then, for my wife […]

Around about the time that we we’d just moved to Cradock from Joburg, I was debriefed on the art of shopping in a small Karoo town by our friend Elaine Hurford. She lives in Prince Albert, which has scores of restaurants and guesthouses but limited retail. The first thing I learnt was not to underestimate […]

The next best thing to actually being in the Karoo, South Africa’s semi-desert Heartland, is to have access to the just-launched Karoo Space eBookstore. Download the Karoo Collection Sampler on your tablet or smartphone, find a shady spot somewhere and settle in for a tour of the most phenomenal people-friendly desert in the world. Travel […]

If you’re South African and of a certain age, chances are you’ll be familiar with the Silver Creek Mountain Band. Text & Pictures by Chris Marais The Creek is South Africa’s longest-surviving bluegrass band. Forty years ago, they were a live music force to be reckoned with. Two fiddlers, banjo, lead guitar and a big old […]

A friend who lives in London tells me one of her finest memories of South Africa is of going to sleep between bed sheets dried by sun and wind. She has this whimsical theory that while you sleep, the day’s energy gently seeps back into you through the sheets. I sometimes think of that when […]

The Franschhoek Literary Festival is one of the Groot Menere of all South African litfests. As authors of the Karoo Keepsakes series, my wife Jules and I normally hang out at smaller gatherings, like the Richmond Boekbedonnerd affair, the Schreiner Karoo Writers Festival at home here in Cradock and WordFest in Grahamstown. In fact, we’ll […]

Right now, the little town of Bedford in the Eastern Cape is frantically a-bustle under its normal serene exterior. The Old Gaol is being festooned. Various kitchens around town are being tarted up. Wine is being ordered in. Guest house duvets are being fluffed. The newly-renovated Duke of Bedford Hotel is looking too grand for […]

There’s something deeply adventurous about rootling around an old Karoo farm junkyard, clutching a camera and a very big stick. The camera is for when the morning light falls softly on the red rump of an ancient, pensioned-off Massey Ferguson tractor. The very big stick is for the Cape Cobra – the dreaded geelslang – […]

coming soon…

So here we are on the eve of what is probably the greatest sporting event in the world and more to the point almost the eve of my return to South Africa after an absence of 8 years. I wouldn’t have chosen this precise time to revisit, (Summer has finally arrived in Europe) but my […]

My son Max recently had his 1st Communion so I’ve been going to church, something I don’t usually do other than when someone gets married or dies and maybe at Christmas. Two things happened that reminded me why I don’t actually go.  On the Saturday before the Communion we were asked to go for a […]

Apparently, more and more Italians are making use of Itanglese, a linguistic phenomenon which sees English words being used as a part of the Italian language. This anomaly has increased by more than 773% in the last 8 years and has been adopted mostly by professionals. All this was revealed by the association Federlingue, who […]

When it comes to coffee, the older generation of Italians are purists. None of those Starbucks flavoured coffees for them. The traditional Italian coffee culture flourishes in quaint, sometimes pokey little bars the size of postage stamps. The younger generation instead like to frequent the modern, trendier coffee bars where they can be found propping […]

We were celebrating a birthday with friends over the weekend when the conversation turned to our impending old age and retirement home choices. Yes I know, not exactly a thrilling topic but at some point one has to vaguely start thinking about it. An animated discussion followed with everyone putting in their two cents worth […]

It’s already February and I haven’t done half the things I wanted to get started on in the new year, including blogging for sapeople on a weekly basis. Firstly there has been the weather. I could go on about it, but suffice to say it has been one of the cruelest Winters since the Ice […]

They call it the silly season and it don’t get much sillier than here in Italy. It all starts on 6 December with San Nicolo and doesn’t end till the 6 January with the Epiphany or Festa della Befana, one of Italy’s oldest and most celebrated holidays. Christian legend has it that the three Wise […]

“Every man should be born again on the first day of January. Start with a fresh page.  Take up one hole more in the buckle if necessary, or let down one, according to circumstances; but on the first of January let every man gird himself once more, with his face to the front, and take […]

I know that its the week before Christmas and that I should be blogging about shopping, panettone and peace and goodwill on earth but something is happening in my back yard that has shifted my attention momentarily. Not since I lived in South Africa have I been reminded that racism and apartheid never really die, […]

The very day Jen extended the invite for me to become one of the sapeople bloggers, I started scribbling notes and thinking about the many things that I wanted to write about.  But as luck would have it, within 24 hours of accepting , I got tackled and taken down by the flu.  Haven’t established […]