Tipped to be winner

I thought I was journeying into Africa but now I'm not sure where I was.

For a first-time visitor like me, South Africa is a kaleidoscope of shifting scenes and world cultures.

Braking for baboons on the road was unmistakably African. Yet a few miles away, penguins strolled the shore. Antarctica?

The rolling Winelands region of the Western Cape was a dead ringer for California's Napa Valley.

Or was it the Netherlands, dotted with gabled, thatched-roof houses?

And slicing into steak at Gordon Ramsay's new restaurant in Cape Town? I could have been at the chef's haute outposts in New York or London or West Hollywood.

South Africa itself is a rich stew, or bredie, as they call it in Afrikaans, the local Dutch polyglot. Especially if you have only a week to spend, as my partner Wesla and I did on a tour package that took us to Cape Town and a game park near Johannesburg.

Our travel package cost less than $2,500 (Dh9,178) per person, including air fare, hotels, game drives and tours.

Eye-popping beauty

During our stay, we logged priceless moments in this dynamic nation of nearly 50 million.

Sporting the most advanced economy in sub-Saharan Africa, South Africa is sprucing up its airports, stadiums and tourist facilities to host the nearly half-million visitors it expects for the Fifa World Cup soccer tournament in 2010.

Our four nights in Cape Town, the country's legislative capital, confirmed its reputation as one of the world's most eye-popping cities. It blends the azure-bay setting of San Francisco with the casual chic of Los Angeles.

South Africa's diversity stems from its complex history. Its original residents included San hunter-gatherers, or Bushmen, and Khoikhoi farmers, followed by Bantu-speaking people from central Africa.

In the 17th century, the Dutch (later known as Boers or Afrikaners) arrived in what is now Cape Town, where the Dutch East India Company set up a supply station for trade ships.

They later imported slaves from around the world. The British, after landing in 1795, battled the Boers for control of the region. In 1910, the country came together as the Union of South Africa.

The country was infamous for apartheid, a system of white-minority rule and racial separation that crumbled in 1990 after decades of struggle.

Four years later, Nelson Mandela, who spent nearly 30 years in jail for his antiapartheid activities, was elected independent South Africa's first president.

Revelling in the past

In Cape Town, a city of more than three million people, we encountered living history in Noor Ebrahim, 65, an education officer at the District Six Museum, which commemorates a multiracial neighbourhood that was bulldozed in the 1960s and 1970s to make way for white residents.

“I was kicked out in 1975,'' Ebrahim said. Like many South Africans, he told us he had forgiven the former regime.

The museum was the highlight of a three-hour walking tour ($13 or Dh47) we had booked with Cape Town Tourism.

On an all-day van tour of the Cape Peninsula, our guide, Faisal, braved a stormy day to dash us down the rugged, breathtaking Atlantic Coast — reminiscent of California's Big Sur — and beyond.

We passed Bantry Bay's expensive homes, chiselled into granite slopes, and Camps Bay, which is renowned for sunbathing, fatally frigid waters and rip currents.

In Hout Bay, we rode a rollicking boat to watch Cape fur seals on Duiker Island.

Then it was south to the Cape of Good Hope at the Cape Peninsula's tip, where treacherous waters have scuttled ships for centuries.

At nearby Cape Point, a tram took us up to a lighthouse for a thrilling view of cliffs and clashing ocean currents hundreds of feet below.

The actual meeting point of the Atlantic Ocean and the Indian Ocean is considered to be Cape Agulhas in South Africa, about 100 miles away.

Another high point of our rambles was the Boulders area of Table Mountain National Park, where cute African penguins waddled nonchalantly past admirers who had gathered on a beach boardwalk above them.

We whiled away one afternoon in the lovely Winelands near Cape Town, a region of vineyards and farms colonised in the 17th century by the Boers, who devised their own architecture: Cape Dutch.

We dined at Ramsay's Maze restaurant at the new One&Only, Cape Town, a luxury hotel where nightly rates started around $600 (Dh2,202).

Our meal tab was far cheaper. With tip, two appetisers, fish and fillet of beef entrées, French beans and an exquisite dessert melange, it totalled $68 (Dh249) for two.

In the wild

We spent our final two nights at the casually elegant Bakubung Bush Lodge in the 136,000-acre Pilanesberg National Park, which occupies the crater of a long-extinct volcano.

During six hours of game drives led by sharp-eyed guides, we saw African elephants, white rhinos, zebras, giraffes and a host of other beasts but, alas, no lions, leopards or the park's rare and elusive cheetahs.

Hungry for evening adventure, we hopped a shuttle to prowl to Sun City, South Africa's spin on Sin City.

Opened 30 years ago by Sol Kerzner, the South African billionaire behind the refined One&Only Cape Town, Sun City's jewel, is the 338-room Palace of the Lost City, an over-the-top pastiche of cupolas, pillars and super-sized beast sculptures.

Our hectic itinerary, which left little room to explore everyday life in South Africa, omitted must-see sites such as Soweto, the historic black township outside Johannesburg and Robben Island off Cape Town, where Mandela and other antiapartheid leaders had been imprisoned.

And, oh, if only we had one more day to chase cheetahs.
Maybe next time.

Go there . . . Cape Town . . . From the UAE

From Dubai

South African Airways flies daily.
Fare from Dh3,945

Emirates flies daily.
Fare from Dh4,315

Qatar Airways flies four days a week via Doha.
Fare from Dh4,105

— Information courtesy: The Holiday Lounge by Dnata.
Ph: 04 4380454

Travel packages

South African Airways Vacations

• Our six-night South Africa on Sale package and nearly three days of overseas travel cost $2,429 (Dh8,917), including round-trip international air fares, hotels, tours, taxes, fuel surcharges and meals.
  Visit www.flysaavacations.com

SITA World Tours

• Simply South Africa, ten days total, with seven nights in the country, from $1,670 (Dh6,130), including international air fares, with stays in Cape Town and Kruger National Park, tours, taxes and meals.
  Visit www.sitatours.com

Abercrombie & Kent

• Signature South Africa, 13 days and 10 nights, from $5,770 (Dh21,181), including international air fares, with stays in Cape Town and the Western Cape, Johannesburg and Sabi Sabi or Manyeleti game reserve, tours, taxes and meals.
  Visit www.abercrombiekent.com