Mossel Bay

Mossel Bay is a small farming and fishing town (100,000 pop) at the Southern Cape of South Africa (200 miles from Cape of Good Hope). There are 11 languages in Africa, but most people here speak Afrikaans, Dutch, German, and Indonesian and Flemish. First discovered by Diaz in 1488 and later when trading began it was established by Vasco da Gama reached here in 1497, it is considered the first place that Europeans landed on South African soil. The Khoi-san is the term used for the indigenous peoples of Southern Africa who don’t speak the Bantu language but speak click language. Mossel Bay was named in 1601 by the Dutch when they found a large collection of mussel shells.

Many anthropologists believe that Africa is the Cradle of Humankind, the origin of human life as we know it. We know of the ice age between 200,000 and 170,000 years ago, which meant that Africa then was a desert and totally uninhabitable. Because of the thickness of the ice in Europe and Poles, the sea level was much lower. It is well known that Mossel Bay has the second mildest climate in the world, only a 15-degree difference between high/low, has the greatest number of plant species (10 - 30 times more than anywhere else in the world), and is situated at the Southern most tip of Africa. Excavations of a series of caves at Pinnacle Point since the year 2000 have revealed occupation by middle Stone Age people between 170,000 and 70,000 years ago, where the earliest evidence of the heat treatment of rock to make stone tools and the use of ochre to beautify.

We tendered into this port where we could see some Portuguese influence on stores and street signs. The Garden Route Pilgrimage of Hope takes you across mountains and the Karoo, via the coastal corridor to St Blaise lighthouse in Mossel Bay. We took a tour on this Route that went through the beautiful Outeniqua Mountains, through forests, beaches and around mountain peaks. The Outeniqua ("they who bear honey"), is a mountain range that runs a parallel to the southern coast of South Africa, and forms a continuous range with the Langeberg to the west and the Tsitsikamma Mountains to the east. We saw Chacma baboons, one of the largest of all monkeys. usually living in social groups, called troops, which are composed of multiple adult males, adult females, and their offspring. There are many game reserves with cheetahs, lions and antelopes.

We crossed the Outeniqua Pass (created by blasting through bedrock) and saw great views as we went to Oudtshoom (“Antelopes in The Bush”) which is 1,007’ above sea level and a deep history in the Ostrich-feather boom of 1860-1914 where feathers were provided to many European cities for women’s hats and clothing (see the Cape Town post from the Jewish Museum talking about those in the Ostrich business). The architecture was very elaborate, and we went to a quaint Queens Hotel for tea (and scones for those NOT observing Passover). This little town even has traffic lights (or as they call them, Robots). We returned thru Robinson pass and then to the Town of George (largest city in the South Cape), more inland and desert-like terrain called Karoo (narrow plain between the mountains), an 1800 timbering outpost, now with beautiful homes.

We had a discussion with the tour guide about apartheid in this region and how there is much more tolerance here since apartheid ended as the government does not interfere with their melding cultures. There is a distinction in their minds between the Black from the North, the Colored (from mixed background) in the South, and the White people. In spite of their differences, there is a lot more sharing and working and living together in this region.

An additional and incredible highlight was at the overlook we stopped at to see the view. Here, Christian groups stop and “converse with nature” in the vast openness of the mountains. On this Good Friday, there was a church group (Eagles Nest Ministries International. https://enmi.co.za/) singing Hallelujah and other beautiful hymns in the open air as they connected with God. At the end of their praying, meditating, and singing, one of the leaders took out a “horn” to blow and echoed beautiful notes into nature. Did this look and sound like a shofar? It sure did, even the notes were the same that Jews use. After, his blowing of the shofar, I had to ask and sure enough they call it a shofar too. Coincidence? I don’t think so. We contemplated this interesting event and convergence of customs during the entire way back to the town.Read more