The marvel of setting out on foot in these mountains is that you’re unlikely to encounter vehicles, settlements, or even other people, and the scenery is sublime. Nelson Mandela Capture Site and KwaZulu-Natal Guided Day Tour from Durban. It is both a response to the fact of cultural pluralism and a way of compensating cultural groups for … Shaka was the third born son of Senzangakhona. This provided the cue for a much-celebrated piece of Victorian melodrama when teenager Dick King heroically rode the 1000km from Durban to Grahamstown in ten days to alert the garrison there, which promptly dispatched a rescue detachment to relieve Durban. His visionary first novel, Cry, the Beloved Country, focused international attention on the plight of black South Africans and sold millions of copies worldwide. The vegetation, with subtropical forest in places, adds to the sense of adventure. Some thirty thousand members of the Shembe Church return here every year to meet their leader and celebrate their religion with prayer dances and displays of drumming. The interior north of the Tugela River was the heartland of the Zulu kingdom and witnessed gruesome battles between Boers and Zulus, British and Zulus, and finally Boers and British. The benchmark examples here allow you to form an idea of the quality of basketry and crafts you’ll see for sale as you work your way around Zululand. The IFP and ANC were originally allies in the fight against apartheid, but the IFP’s ardent nationalism soon proved to be a major hassle for the ANC, who responded with attacks on opposing IFP members. A memorial to them was erected in 2003, the Spirit of eMakhosini, on a hill 3km up the R34, beyond the junction with the R66 for Ulundi. Sometimes the elands are painted in layers to increase their spiritual potency. It’s the fortuitous convergence of the bay (which makes it easy to launch boats), with the world’s southernmost coral reefs that makes Sodwana the most popular base in the country for scuba diving and the most popular KZN Wildlife resort. Dots along the spine often relate to the sensation of energy boiling upwards, while lines on faces or coming out of the nose usually depict nosebleeds – a common side effect of the trance state. The myopic turtle, whose eyes are adapted to underwater vision, pulls herself along the beach in the dark until she encounters an obstruction such as a bank or a log, where she begins digging a pit using her front flippers until she has scooped out a nest big enough to hold her own volume. When it comes to birds, there are over a dozen species of eagle, as well as other raptors including hawks, goshawks and honey buzzards. Full-Day Isandlwana and Rorke's Drift Battlefield Tour … The area offers lots of good hiking as well, and several local operators organize pony trekking in the mountains just across the border. Herbivores include blue wildebeest, buffalo, giraffe, hippo, impala, kudu, nyala and zebra. In the last two thousand years, the southward migration of Bantu-speaking farmers forced change on the San, but there is evidence that the two groups were able to live side by side. However, the theme park just about manages to remain on the acceptable side of exploiting ethnic culture, and offers the chance to sample Zulu food. The highlight, however, is probably one of the best choreographed Zulu dancing shows in the country, with the dramatic landscape as the backdrop; it’s worthwhile putting up with all the other stuff just to see it. On the run from the police, Mandela had been continuing his political activities, often travelling in disguise – a practice that earned him the nickname of the “Black Pimpernel”. SANI PASS is the only place in the KwaZulu-Natal Ukhahlamba Drakensberg range where you can actually drive up the mountains using the only road from KwaZulu-Natal into Lesotho, connecting to the tiny highland outpost of Mokhotlong. Both mountaineers’ huts and caves must be booked with the KZN Wildlife office you start out from, and you’ll also need to write down your route details in the mountain register. Cultural Sites (4 of 648 Things To Do in KwaZulu Natal) Showing 1 to 4 of 4 results in the category: Cultural Sites - clear filters The quickest way of reaching this area is from Hluhluwe village, where a tarred road, the R22, strikes north for some 150km, passing Sodwana Bay and terminating near Kosi Bay and the Mozambique border. In a letter from Isaacs to Fynn, uncovered in the 1940s, Isaacs encourages his friend to depict the Zulu kings as “bloodthirsty as you can, and describe frivolous crimes people lose their lives for. Copyright © 2020 Apa Digital AG, all rights reserved. Though visitors generally give the town a miss on the way to the more obvious drama of Ondini and the Battlefields, the place offers a gentle introduction to the Zulu heartland and deserves more than just a passing glance. Accounts of the Zulu kingdom in the 1820s rely heavily on the diaries of the two adventurers, Henry Fynn and Nathaniel Isaacs, who portrayed King Shaka as a mercurial and bloodthirsty tyrant who killed his subjects willy-nilly for a bit of fun. In startling contrast to the intensively developed 250km ribbon of coastline which runs north and south of Durban, the seaboard to the north of the Dolphin Coast drifts off into some of the wildest and most breathtaking sea frontage in South Africa – an area known as the Elephant Coast. However, most people come to Durban because it provides a logical springboard for visiting the region. Though the chances of sighting a cetacean are fairly high, you’d be unwise to base a visit solely around this possibility. Any one of these would justify conservation, but their confluence around the lake makes this a world-class wilderness. Zulu African beadwork - The Zulu nation is a proud one. Planning to travel here? The event is both a rite of passage to womanhood for the young maidens of the Zulu nation, and a chance for them to show off their singing and dancing talents. However, it’s easy and rewarding to pick out some of the most significant elements in San paintings. Extinct in Imfolozi until 1958, lions have been reintroduced, and today they number around seventy, although they’re not easy to see and their future hangs in the balance. S S imunye Zulu Lodge, KwaZulu-Natal, is a riverside village, where you can interact with the Biyela Clan, who are directly related to the royal Zulu household.Find out about Zulu social and political structures, watch daily chores being performed, and be entertained … The Inkatha Freedom Party (IFP), formed in 1975 by former ANC Youth League member Mangosuthu Buthelezi and currently the country’s fourth-largest political party, has long been associated with Zulu nationalism and draws most of its support from Zulu-speaking people. No elements found. Once the group has formed, choose leaders and methods of functioning that build consensus among the members. The Big Five are all here, and it’s no exaggeration to say that this is the best place in the world to see rhinos, both black and white. This heralded the rebirth of South Africa’s trade unions and reawakened anti-apartheid activity, sparking the final phase of the country’s road to democracy. What Are Some Examples of Cultural Groups. There are also carvings, beadwork, tapestries and some outstanding ceramics, including works by Nesta Nala, one of the leading proponents of the form. With extensive grasslands, the Southern Berg is the terrain of the highly recommended Giant’s Cup Hiking Trail, an exhilarating introduction to the mountains. There’s excellent snorkelling at Jesser Point, a tiny promontory at the southern end of the bay. As for the weather, summers are warm but wet; expect both dramatic thunderstorms and misty days that block out the views. Only one in five hundred will survive to return. Prominent civil society organisations based in the province of KwaZulu-Natal include: Abahlali baseMjondolo (shackdwellers') movement, the Diakonia Council of Churches, the Right2Know campaign, and the Unemployed People's Movement. Also known as Maputaland, the extreme northeast section of the Elephant Coast is the remotest tract of South Africa, mostly accessible only along dirt roads that work their tortuous way to the coast. Read more. What Are the Steps of Presidential Impeachment? You will find beautiful Zulu crafts in this part of the country, the best examples being in museums such as the little-known but outstanding Vukani Zulu Cultural Museum in Eshowe. KZN boomtown Ballito Junction, on the burgeoning KwaZulu-Natal North Coast, is set to get a R1.4 billion regional mall Zulus are the largest black group inside South Africa. The San hunted and gathered on the subcontinent for a considerable period – paintings in Namibia date back 25,000 years. Several historians and anthropologists have plumped for "San", but as the term refers to a language group and not a culture, this isn’t strictly accurate either. For most travellers, the verdant farmland that makes up the Midlands is picture-postcard terrain, to be whizzed through on the two-hour journey from Durban or Pietermaritzburg to the Ukhahlamba Drakensberg. How Does the 25th Amendment Work — and When Should It Be Enacted? Luxuriant riverine vegetation gives way in drier areas to a variety of woodland, savannah, thickets and grassy plains. It is no wonder then that curio shops from airports to cultural villages and tourist attractions around the country are all stocked with Zulu beadwork curios. Here, along the Elephant Coast, a patchwork of wetlands, freshwater lakes, wilderness and Zulu villages meets the sea at a virtually seamless stretch of sand that begins at the St Lucia Estuary and slips across the Mozambique border at Kosi Bay. Only 80km inland from Durban along the fast N3 freeway, Pietermaritzburg is an easy day’s outing from the coastal city; it can be combined with visits to the Valley of a Thousand Hills along the Old Main Road (R103), or used as an overnight stop en route to the Ukhahlamba Drakensberg or the Battlefields in the vicinity of Ladysmith. The range is actually an escarpment separating a high interior plateau from the coastal lowlands of KwaZulu-Natal. Many people from different cultural groups should be involved from the very beginning in order to promote equal partnership and ownership in the process. Also on the R102 is the grave of one of the ANC’s best-loved leaders, Albert Luthuli, at Groutville. Paintings weather and fade, and many have been vandalized. Access can be difficult; St Lucia, Sodwana Bay and Kwa-Ngwanase are both reachable via tarred roads from the N2, but you’ll still need a 4WD vehicle to visit any of the other idyllic spots along the Elephant Coast’s 200km of virtually uninterrupted beachfront. Over weekends and during school holidays, however, fashion-conscious Jo’burgers tear down in their 4WDs, while thick-set anglers from Gauteng, Free State and Mpumalanga come here and drink themselves into a stupor. The two cultures conception of knowledge, the sciences and humanities, with the social sciences poised precariously in between, was at its apogee during the Attractive tin boxes made from flattened oil cans, chickens constructed from sheet plastic, and aircraft and little 4WD vehicles carved from wood are just some of the results. Swanky northern suburbs such as the Berea, a desirable residential district perched on a cooler ridge, are replete with luxuriant gardens and packed with fashionable cafés, restaurants and bars. The abundance of game fish also makes for some of the best surf fly-fishing in the country. HEITA! In the High Berg, you’re in the land of spires and great rock buttresses, where the only places to sleep are in caves or, in some areas, huts. The republic’s independence was short-lived – Britain annexed it only four years later, and by the closing decade of the nineteenth century Maritzburg was the most important centre in the colony of Natal, with a population of nearly 10,000 (more than Durban at that time). The combination of a narrow continental shelf and warm, shallow waters creates ideal conditions for attracting bottlenose dolphins, which come here to feed all year round. Don’t expect to see “tribal” people who conform to the Zulu myth outside theme parks like Shakaland, near Eshowe. Although the fighting is now restricted to isolated – and increasingly rare – incidents, the political rivalry continues. The isigodlo, or royal enclosure, has been partially reconstructed with traditional Zulu beehive huts that you can wander round, while the site museum has a model showing the full original arrangement. Zulu men at King Shaka Day celebrations with the KwaZulu-Natal mountains in the background. Tours for day visitors include an audiovisual presentation about the origin of the Zulus, a guided walk around the huts, an explanation of traditional social organization, spear-making, a beer-drinking ceremony and a buffet lunch with traditional food. Once in the ocean, the hatchlings swim out to sea where they are carried away by the Agulhas current into the Atlantic or along the Indian Ocean coast. The name ESHOWE has an onomatopoeic Zulu derivation, evoking the sound of the wind blowing through the trees. Motseng Cultural Village, North West Province. Aside from the lake and dune ecosystems, the reserve protects a marine zone of warm tropical seas, coral reefs and endless sandy beaches; the papyrus and reed wetland of the Mkhuze swamps, on the north of the lake; and, on the western shore, dry savannah and thornveld. In this area hemmed in by Swaziland and Mozambique, traditional life continues: for example, there is one nyanga (traditional healer) for every 550 people, compared with one Western-style doctor to 18,000 people. 2 Reviews. The Ukhahlamba Drakensberg is divided into the High Berg and Little Berg, according to altitude. Young women carry the reed sticks, which symbolize the power of nature, to the king. Away from the sea, the land is very hilly and green, dotted with sugar-cane fields, banana plantations and palm and pecan nut trees. If you’re hankering for something much slicker in the heart of town, head to Ulundi Tapas at The Royal Hotel, where you’ll be served light thali curry dishes (R22–35 each; order a minimum of three) for lunch and dinner in a stylish and contemporary black-and-white dining room. Still puzzled by Britain’s actions, Cetshwayo wrote to the British governor in 1881 from his exile at the Castle in Cape Town: "I have done you no wrong, therefore you must have some other object in view in invading my land." Sea turtles from as far afield as Malindi in Kenya (3500km to the north) and Cape Agulhas (2000km west along the South African coastline) come ashore on the beaches of the northern Elephant Coast every year between October and February to lay their eggs. Otherwise, the Oriental takeaway at the Workshop Mall does a hotchpotch of fare – delicious Indian-style shawarmas, bunny chows and curries. Denosa KZN provincial secretary Mandla Shabangu told the Daily News that three weeks ago when he was at Wentworth Hospital, he saw that there was a crisis and called HOD Dr Sandile Tshabalala and told him about an imminent crisis. Both Ndwandwe and Nala died a few years ago of AIDS. Cultural norms appear across all cultures and have both similarities and differences. Among their number was a young, little-known lawyer called Mohandas Gandhi, who went on to change the history of India. Updates about Important dates and Where you can pose questions that you need to get answers on. Most famous and largest of the reserves is the Hluhluwe-Imfolozi Park, trampled by a respectable cross section of wildlife that includes all of the Big Five. You’ll need to be totally self-sufficient and obey wilderness rules, taking a trowel and toilet paper with you and not fouling natural water with anything – which means carrying water away from the streams to wash in. We like to relax and would rather use our energy in more constructive ways. The tufts of a cow’s tail (amashoba) are worn on the upper arms and below the knee to make the person appear broader than he is. The 60km, five-day Giant’s Cup Hiking Trail (R75 per person per night, includes entrance fee to the reserve), part of which traverses a depression that explains the trail’s name, is the only laid-out trail in the Ukhahlamba Drakensberg. Then, in the 1980s, the collapse of apartheid saw a growing stream of Africans flood in from rural KwaZulu-Natal, and shantytowns and cardboard hovels revealed the reality of one of the most unmistakably African conurbations in the country. 10. Over the centuries, Stone Age and Iron Age people, San ‘Bushmen’, Bantu speaking Nguni pastoralists, Boer trekkers, British traders and many other European settlers, as well as Indians, many of whose ancestors arrived as indentured labourers, have made their h… They leave their feeding ground off the Southern Cape coast and move up the coast towards Mozambique, followed by about 23,000 dolphins, 100,000 Cape gannets and thousands of sharks and game fish, attracting fishermen from all over the province to join in the jamboree. San artists were also shamans, and their paintings of hunting, dancing and animals mostly depict their religious beliefs rather than realistic narratives of everyday life in the Ukhahlamba Drakensberg. It was Shaka who brought together smaller tribes and formed them into the greatest warrior nation in Southern Africa. Traditional dress and the traditional lifestyle are largely a nineteenth-century phenomenon, deliberately smashed by the British a century ago when they imposed a poll tax that had to be paid in cash – thus ending Zulu self-sufficiency, generating urbanization and forcing the Africans into the modern industrial economy, where they were needed as workers. Zulu Men. Its infamous adjudication sentenced Mandela to 27 years in prison, until his release on February 11, 1990. ZWAKALA! By far the most interesting sight around here is the Ondini Historical Reserve, which houses the reconstruction of the royal residence of King Cetshwayo, a site museum and a cultural museum. 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