World Cup 2010: South Africa is world class

By Graham Boynton Published: 3:50PM GMT 02 March 2010

Previous of Images Next All the vital cities have the same range of restaurants, pubs and bars you will find in any American or European city South Africa is a abounding and sundry nation

South Africa is physically sanctified some-more than any alternative nation I know. As Alan Paton wrote in his distinguished novel, Cry The Beloved Country, this land is "lovely over any singing of it".

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He was describing the rolling mountainous nation of KwaZulu-Natal, but he competence usually as well have been referring to the thespian towering landscape that dominates the Cape, the imperishable bushveld of the Kruger or the angled coastline, dotted with silt beaches that run all the approach around the coast.

It is additionally sanctified (and cursed) with the infancy diverse, disputatious, stubborn people on the continent - from hardcore Boers to nationalistic Zulus, mixed-race poets, black beatniks, African National Congress hardliners, Shangaan Zionists, Xhosa communists. The nation is presided over by a Zulu, but the Cape is ruled by a white woman.

No alternative African nation can exaggerate such diversity. Nor can the others exaggerate such a resources of enlightenment - from the novel of JM Coetzee, Alan Paton and Andr Brink to the song of Miriam Makeba, Hugh Masekela, Taliep Pietersen and David Kramer; from Athol Fugards plays to Mbongeni Ngemas musicals and sounds such as Mannenburg, Abdullah Ibrahims indolent magnum opus that is evermore the soundtrack of the Cape.

This is in truth a abounding and sundry country. Quite either such contentment will be entirely appreciated by the expected half a million on vacation football fans is conjunction here nor there.

The point is: it is there, and any chairman arriving with a jot of oddity who finds him or herself in South Africa around the time of the World Cup 2010 would be lingering not to take value of these riches. Not that the incurious football supporters will be really bad let down; they will be some-more than confident with the food, splash and party South Africa will have on offer.

All the vital cities have the same range of restaurants, pubs and bars you will find in any American or European city and, of course, South Africa has the value of being a vital booze producer. Compared with Europe, the cost of food and splash is really reasonable, even for the British who lift with them the falling pound.

The some-more perceptive of the visitors the gastronomes and oenophiles will be even some-more delighted, since the infancy of Michelin-starred restaurants, quite in Johannesburg and the Cape. I was not prolonged ago in the Cape and ate out for 7 nights in a row, recording usually one below-average meal, 4 superb ones and dual that were merely really good.

That new revisit additionally reliable usually how ready the nation will be for the football. The new stadiums are all but finished and they are pretentious facilities; the roadworks that have blighted the vital cities for a little years right away crop up to be impending completion, and the cities highways are in a excellent state for the tournament.

Even the dire issue of crime is, according to Danny Jordaan, the man in assign of the countrys World Cup organising committee, underneath control, with South Africa spending some-more than a billion rand (�100 million) on eventuality security.

Though first-time visitors might at initial be taken by surpise by the yawning opening that exists in between the absolved lifestyles of the black and white elites and the hardscrabble existences eked out by the immeasurable infancy in the sprawling shanties of the Cape Flats and the easy townships of Gauteng, they shortly turn used to the actuality that, in Africa, impassioned misery coexists to one side magnificent wealth.

This is a seismic socio-political make a difference to be dealt with by entrance generations of South African politicians, prolonged after Nelson Mandela, the good conciliator, the father of the Rainbow Nation, has gone. For the moment, though, this is Mandelas Rainbow Nation and this World Cup is an event for the nation to show off the assets.

Here, Ultratravel highlights a little of the surprising resources and practice that await the five-star traveller. An surprising golf course, perfect lenience in the Capes gastronomic collateral of Franschhoek, a remote safari camp, verbal story on the side of a Zululand towering … these are a couple of of the options to suffer in Africas infancy fantastic country.

A last thought. As I was withdrawal South Africa on my infancy new visit, the pass central at Cape Town airfield looked up at me, paused, afterwards forked at the entry/exit stamps in my passport. In the old days, that would have meant a scowl, an exploration job in to subject ones bearing as a visitor, a ubiquitous feeling of unease.

This time the functionary smiled beatifically and said: "You appear to similar to South Africa, Graham." "Yes I do," I said. "Very much." He smiled. "Good. We will see you behind shortly then."

Such is Mandelas Rainbow Nation.

Africa Travel (0845 450 1523, www.africatravel.co.uk ) can tailor an eight-night outing to South Africa from �3,245 per person. Guests stay dual nights at Pafuri, dual at Grootbos and dual at Fugitives Drift Lodge (all full-board, with activities included) and dual at La Residence on a b&b basis. The cost includes flights with British Airways and car hire.Share your oppulance transport practice at ultra.travel