Thursday, 2 October 1986: White South African Bars Suck

Gaborone, Botswana, 18 May 1987

The next morning, I left the campground at Rustenburg and drove east, skirting the north edge of Pretoria and turned north on the N1 Freeway.  About 90 km north, I reached the town of Warm Baths.  I took a couple photos of the modern facilities at a mineral water spa.  The town itself hardly rated a yawn, and I continued on toward Pietersburg, the largest town in the northern Transvaal.  Along the way I passed through such “garden spots” (excuse my cynicism) as Nylstroom, where I photographed a donkey cart; Nabroomspruit, where I shot a café which was flying flags of the old Boer republics and sported a large swastika-like AWB (Afrikaner Resistance Movement) insignia on a window facing the street; and Potgietersrus, where a banner across the main street in downtown proudly advertised the upcoming Biltong (meat jerky) Festival.  

Fountains and flowering trees at Warm Baths in the northern Transvaal.

 

When I arrived in Pietersburg at 4:30 that afternoon, I immediately proceeded to the SATOUR (South African Tourist Board) office for local information but found it had already closed for the day.  So I paid my R6.00 fee at the municipal campground, and drove back into town to sniff out a bar or two.  All I found were two hotel bars; one at the Holiday Inn, the other at an old hotel downtown.  At the latter, I found a tiny men’s bar.  There were no vacant seats at the bar so I found a table in the corner.  There I quietly sipped my Castle and ogled the Playboy centerfolds stuck on the wall with feathers strategically placed over the pubic areas in accordance with the South African legal and moral code.  A couple of business types at the bar were having a rather uninformative political discussion in English.  Other than that, all I heard was dull bar room chit chat.  After finishing my beer, I walked into the hotel dining room for dinner.  I noticed the hotel had a ladies’ bar meaning both women and men could drink there but the gents needed to watch their language and behavior.  Perhaps I would check it out after dinner, but I later decided to mosey on over to the Holiday Inn first. 

As I walked through what I thought was an open entrance to the Holiday Inn, I damn near put myself in the hospital.  The “entrance” turned out to be a floor-length plate glass window that was so spotlessly clean that I nonchalantly assumed it was air.  SWACK!  My nose and one knee simultaneously collided with the glass.  The impact almost knocked me over.  What a shocker.  Fortunately, the glass was shatter-proof, and a startled black doorman who witnessed the mishap was relieved to see I wasn’t hurt.  Later, I contemplated the results of the glass breaking and me in a platteland hospital with 50 stitches in my face.

I hobbled into the ladies’ bar where suited business men and neatly-dressed middle class locals were drinking their highballs and beer.  While seated at the bar, I observed the interactions between the all-black waiters and all-white customers.  In the Sun and President Hotels in Gaborone, there would have been smiles and brief but friendly interchanges between the staff and racially-mixed customers.  Here, my impression was that black waiters were there to serve, maintain stiff faces, and keep their yaps shut.  One white guy at the bar was making feeble attempts to flirt with the young, slightly-attractive white barmaid.  She appeared unimpressed.  Two guys next to me were having a trivial conversation about gambling.  I left after one beer and decided to skip the ladies’ bar at the hotel where I’d had dinner.

The Strydpoort Mountains 10 km northeast of Potgietersrus are located in the eastern portion of South Africa’s Great Escarpment.  This distinctive geologic feature separates southern Africa’s Central Plateau (lying at an elevation of 1000 meters or more) from the lower coastal mountains, plateaus and plains.  Almost the entire route of my October trip was within the Central Plateau.

 

Suppose I should have tried harder to strike up conversations with people in South African bars.  Was it a case of shyness or fear of being caught up in boring conversations?  I rarely felt inspired to initiate contact with South African strangers in bars.  Still, I tried to act friendly and open, but South Africans rarely initiated conversations with me in these situations.  Even people-watching in bars or eves-dropping on conversations of English speakers revealed next to nothing of interest.  My original plan to meet South African whites by hanging out in bars was a flop.  I came to detest going by myself to South African bars.  Sitting on a bar stool, contemplating shelves of liquor while pouring down booze, smoking cigarettes, and trying to make chit-chat is not my idea of fun.  Perhaps Will Mahoney finally learned at age 40 that he is not a bar person!