Table of contents for November 2022 in Getaway

US consumers spent $1.7 trillion online during the Covid pandemic - $609 billion more than in the two preceding years GEN Zs are premium shopaholics, says McKinsey. And 70% of them learn about new brands via video-based media In the US, on Black Friday in 2016, a shooter killed one person in a Walmart parking lot in a dispute ever a parking spot "Black Friday” was supposedly first used in the US to describe the day after Thanksgiving when the uptick in sales saw retailers moving out of the "red” and into the “black” THE DIDEROT EFFECT is the state of spiralling into a pattern of consumption so we buy things we didn’t need previously In 2016, a woman was injured in a Black Friday stampede at the Pavillion Shopping Centre…

SWARTLAND STREET PARTY 5 November More than 20 Swartland wine producers descend on Riebeek-Kasteel, allowing you to peruse from stall to stall in the town’s side streets. Ticket prices include street food, live entertainment and a goodie bag. Tickets from R595 swartlandwinean-dolives.co.za/swartland-events/ THE CANNABIS EXPO 2022 18-20 November With the growing acceptance of cannabis globally, the uses of this humble plant have proliferated into health, lifestyle and industry. More than 100 exhibiters will congregate at the Sandton Convention Centre to present the full spectrum of the industry. Tickets from R100 thecannabisexpo.co.za MCGREGOR POETRY FESTIVAL 18-20 November Always a winner on South Africa’s literary calendar, the 10th instalment of this contemplative festival will be bringing prose that reconnects the listener with nature and the need to nurture inner wildness, with the…

The first hiccup came when we picked up the van from the car rental agency. Dad’s farm English had proved too difficult to decipher over the phone and we were presented with a windowless panel van instead of a passenger vehicle for game viewing. It was quite problematic, seeing as we were headed to Kruger National Park for a winter break. My brother offered to ride shotgun and narrate interesting viewings to those in the dark backseats - jokingly and received a smack to the head for it. It took some explaining, but 15 Lombards eventually crammed into a taxi one with windows - ecstatic for the holiday ahead. Ouma whipped out the skaftien (lunch box) before we had even exited the parking lot and started peeling oranges for everyone.…

Françoise Malby-Anthony, widow of the famed Elephant Whisperer, Lawrence Anthony, is a conservation crusader. And, amazingly, after 22 years here in the Zululand bush, she has retained her Parisian glamour. As we sat at the bar talking during breakfast service at Elephant Safari Lodge, one of two camps at Thula Thula, she was unable to really sit still she buzzes with energy, and is someone who can’t stop doing, who always has a lot to get done. Between dashes to the kitchen, she recounted her husband’s story. She met Anthony while waiting for a taxi outside a Paris hotel. Born in Montpellier, she’d sought jobs all over the world, always going where her adventurous spirit took her. She said she knew nothing about animals when her husband told her he…

TRAVEL Star Chasing When the cock crowed at 4:45 on that first Friday morning I was sure it was a mistake. But then I forced myself out of my warm bed and stuck my head into the cold Karoo air and realised that in fact the Moon had made an appearance, along with an attendant star. Together, perhaps, bright enough to fool a rooster into thinking the Sun was up. It might seem an arbitrary spot to pick for two days of devotion to the night sky, but Prince Albert is where, many years ago on a visit to what was then an up-and-coming Karoo town, I first heard about “astrotourism”. A couple of amateur astronomers named Tilanie and Hans Daehné had moved to town when the light pollution -…

MAPUNGUBWE’S “REDISCOVERY" ‘It all started 90 years age, when two hunters, ESJ van Graan and his son Jerry, came across a hut while walking this property,’ says Cedric Setlhako, guide at Mapungubwe National Park. 'The hunters woke an old African, Mowena, to ask him for water. ‘He offered it to them in a clay jug, which didn't match the local pottery. The Van Graans wanted to buy it, to know where Mowena had found it, but all he told them was that it had come from a hill, a place of his ancestors, which he could not show them because he was afraid of his ancestors. The Van Graans tried to pay him with silver coins, when a relative of the old man volunteered to show them, and began to…

It really is a big deal. Humankind has never seen the cosmos like this; even the scientists responsible are surprised by just how great the results have been. The pictures depict dazzling stars sprinkled across sections of space and time never previously encountered. Gas and dust being blasted about in the wake of furious cosmic collisions - majestic colours and swirling shapes representing galaxies unfurling, folding, merging and warping. They’re of light that’s so old and faraway, it’s now invisible, having been emitted as much as 13.1 billion years ago, not too long after the Big Bang. NASA’s James Webb Space Telescope, a partnership with the European Space Agency and Canadian Space Agency, began producing these images of deep space - the universe in its infancy - in July. The…

We asked: What's the best travel book you've aver read, and why? Cry of the Kalahari, the insights you get from the harsh life in the desert. Jo Vanpol Love Bill Bryson, travel and humour! Philippa Verschuur Paul Theroux's Dark Star Safari takes you deep beneath India's skin and makes you fall in love with the country. And it makes you want to hop on a train - to anywhere! Cynthia Gcingci Wrong Way Home by Peter Moore. An amusing and easyto-read tale of interesting places that makes you want to travel, too. Graham Bawden Europe on $5 a Day! And back then we could do that. Judy Mare PJ O’Rourke’s Holidays in Hell/s a masterpiece of travel journalism in that he goes to the most depraved places so you…

Saturday night, 1980s Pretoria. The cinema screen comes to life, triumphant music heralds realities way beyond my land-locked ken. Surfskis. Glittering Monte Carlo streets. Tight, sun-washed linen shorts and deck shoes, catamarans and golden skin. Golden tobacco too, sending elegant curls of vapour skywards as the sun rose, or set, or cocktails were served. For decades, dastardly Big Tobacco sold dreams as efficiently as any Apple or Nike. Their aspirational domain, wisely chosen, was international travel - still a way off the indignities of mass transit as we know it today. At a very impressionable age, Peter Stuyvesant was the Caribbean to me: that ‘beautiful, bright, light world’ where the language of life is pleasure and ‘ultra-luxury yachts [are] the toys of tycoons’. Open skies, canyons, cowboys? ‘Come to Marlboro…

There was rain in the middle of the night, yet what woke me was not the sound of drops spattering on the tent but a combination of the electric blanket being left on its hottest setting and something playing castanets in the surrounding bushes. Whatever creature it was, it had a huge back up orchestra of clicks and clacks, gwarras and chirrups. And something playing xylophone, too. It had my unwavering attention. Between the syncopated rhythm of rain drops were hippos guffawing, plus infinite more creatures noisily celebrating the rain. A gentle tugging of grass, unfamiliar chewing, the scuffles and shushing of god-knows-what, and the occasional sandpaper rustle of things moving in the blackness. I was at Thula Thula, a private reserve just two-or-so hours north of Durban and more…

Thula Thula Private Game Reserve Home to the legend of the Elephant Whisperer, Lawrence Anthony, and now owned and run by his widow, the formidable Françoise Malby-Anthony, this is an ever-evolving private reserve where guests can get a sense of what it means for conservationists to be directly hands-on and actively involved in ensuring that animals in their care are looked after and secure. You will hear the message of conservation consciousness on game drives from rangers committed to the cause. Those rangers will also ensure you spend time with the famous elephants, and they’ll take you across the reserve to see a variety of other creatures - many of them also roam near to the lodges, and you will hear their soundtrack at night, too. You have a choice…

TRAVEL Mother City After Cork CONQUERING DARKNESS ‘Want to snorkel in bioluminescence?’ It was a question I couldn’t get out of my head. When the weather in Cape Town turns warm and the wind dies down to a whisper, nature brings a most spectacular sight. Under these extremely rare circumstances, algal blooms thrive and if the weather stays clear and warm, the bloom is so vast it causes a red tide. By day these large concentrations of aquatic micro-organisms - dinoflagellates - can look like red muck floating on the surface. But by night, when the conditions are right, it transforms the ocean into a glowing blue lightshow. Because, thanks to a chemical reaction produced by a light-emitting molecule called luciferin that’s found in these organisms, they produce bioluminescence. Left…

Probably more familiar to fans of Star Trek than readers of Getaway, the term “parsec” was coined by the British astronomer Herbert Hall Turner in 1913. It’s a portmanteau of “parallax of one second”. Turner developed this unit of astronomical length to simplify measurements of large distances between astronomical objects outside the Solar System. A parsec is around 3.26 light-years or 206 000 astronomical units in other words, 30.9 trillion kilometres. Star Trek often gets it wrong, though.…

UPFONT First Person When I first touched a snake during my training, I could barely look at it. Any sudden movements and I’d jump. For most of my life, I was taught the opposite of what I know now. The message was never to conserve snakes, but to keep your distance and know that they are evil creatures, a sign of witchcraft, or a bad omen. We were told to never look them in the eyes, unless you wanted to die. I caught a green water snake recently at a neighbour’s house. It was the first time a wild snake didn’t bite me while I was handling it. It wasn’t scared; it was sticking its tongue out, smelling what was going on. Interactions like that help me on my quest…

UPFRONT Gear 1 | The Victoria Bay Beach Umbrella R2 200, thebeachbumscpt.com This surprisingly light umbrella (2.6kg) ticks a lot of boxes. It’s cleverly designed, clicks into place easily and has a great retro look. Inspired by global travels but created locally, this Cape Town company incorporates vintage fringing, wood and natural cotton into its range of four umbrellas. 2 | Picnic Basket R1 650, thebeachbumscpt.com it might sound silly but for the inflexible adults out there, the elegant table top of this picnic basket might be what excites them most. Cutting a piece of cheese just became a whole lot more manageable, and those with a disdain for the plumber’s crack can breathe a sigh of relief. The 33cm-high basket is insulated, waterproof and made from cane and beech…

It’s no easy task keeping wildlife reserves safe from poachers, said Khaya Mthethwa, a ranger at Thula Thula. Khaya grew up nearby, in a village between Empangeni and Melmoth, and said he started his career as a security guard here. ‘It was tough,’ he said. ‘I'd be chasing poachers and later I’d run into those same criminals on the streets of Empangeni. It was incredibly intimidating. I went on to become a tracker and since getting my guiding qualification, I’ve been a ranger - I love this job and I’m very happy to no longer be doing security.’ On game drives, Khaya shared information about the bush pharmacopoeia, telling us which trees were toxic, and how animals would, for example, use the toxic leaves of the tamboti tree to kill…

FIELD NOTES Wild Women SKILLS FROM THE BUSH ‘Something happens when you hold day you have dug from the earth or leather that you’ve tanned, something that your body recognises from thousands of years ago.’ Julie Bryden said this and then unpacked a bundle of sheep hide, thread, and some hand-carved hardwood needles and passed them around. ‘All I know is that I find bushcraft fascinating.’ I was celebrating my 40th birthday with a small group of friends on an unsupported, back-to-basics trail - no tents, no ablutions, no cellphones, and just what you can carry - through Greater Kruger. I was here for my friends, for myself, and for the wilderness. But I was also here for our guide, Julie, a woman of the wild who had earned my…

GETTING THERE Bali’s tourism tends to fluctuate around its two seasons. It's generally dry (and busy) from April through October; from November to March, expect rain. With no direct flights from South Africa to Indonesia, you need to fly either via the Middle East or a major Asian hub (such as Singapore, Kuala Lampur or Bangkok), to reach Denpasar in Bali (15-26 hours). We found return flights (via Doha with Qatar Airways) from R10 600 return, although flying with Singapore Airlines reduces flying time. Indonesia is open to fully vaccinated travellers; you'll get a 30-day Visa On Arrival (around R573). Find up-to-date entry requirements at welcomebacktobali.com. GETTING AROUND Grab and Gojek (similar to Uber - download the apps) offer a convenient way to get around locally. To transfer between areas…