You get snow? In Africa? Oh yes. Plenty of it.
The lives of farmers (and tourism people) around the world are dominated, obviously, by the weather and their conversation is often peppered with wise meteorologically-connected sayings. ‘Red sky at night is a shepherd’s delight’ as they say in England. ‘Rain before 7 and clear by 11’. ‘Ne’er cast a clout before May is out.’ I know. It’s an odd one. Something to do with not putting away your winter clothes too early… There are still people who actually ‘put away’ their winter clothes? How quaint is that?
It would probably surprise a lot of readers to know, though, that in South Africa, many of our weather predictions are to do with, of all conditions, not heat, but snow. It is the first sign of winter when ‘daar is sneeu op die berge’ (‘there is snow on the mountains’) and when something surprising happens, like when someone turns up unexpectedly, for example, and we say ‘nou gaan dit sneeu!’ (‘now it is going to snow’).
Snow is not common throughout the country, of course. Much of the area north of the central dry area, the Karoo, never receives snow. It snows in the Free State, though, and sometimes also in Gauteng. The most snowed-on areas are the Drakensberg Mountains in the Eastern Free State and KwaZulu-Natal, and the Maluti mountains to the south of Lesotho. The mountains in the Eastern Cape Karoo near Graaff-Reinet and Somerset-East receive annual snow as do the Cederberg Mountains to the north of Cape Town near Ceres. In the North-East, the Dullstroom and the Long Tom Pass are occasionally turned white, on the Great Escarpment leading to the Lowveld and to the Panorama Route.
And yes, like everywhere else in the world that has snow, we have road closures and accidents as a result, and everyone goes mad, dons a funny-coloured jersey and a silly hat, makes snowballs and goes sledging. In fact, so few South Africans have ever seen snow that people will travel great distances just to look at it.
We also have real ski resorts, which will be opening soon for the winter.
In neighbouring Lesotho, one such resort holds an annual WinterFest of music in the snow to mark the opening of the two-month skiing and snowboarding season in early July, and another one to mark its closure at the end of August. It calls itself ‘An Unexpected High’. I like it.
Well-known Tiffindel, some 2270 metres above sea level near Rhodes, in the Eastern Cape, offers a slightly more traditionally Alpine experience, complete with several long runs, a snow park, competitions and après-ski. It is open from June to August, and if there isn’t enough snow, they make more. In fact – would you believe it? – CNN voted Tiffindell number 19 in the World’s Best Ski Runs in 2014.
The one thing we can agree on, though is that – as the Live Aid song has it – there won’t be snow in Africa this Christmas time, because we get our snow in the southern hemisphere winter. But what does the rock world know about snow in Africa? Toto even believed that ‘Kilimanjaro rises like Olympus above the Serengeti’ which of course it doesn’t. It is nowhere near the Serengeti, it rises above Amboseli. It does have snow on it permanently, though. Ask Ernest Hemingway. Ask anyone. At least for now.
Anyway, while the glacial snows of Kilimanjaro are slowly melting, the ski season in Southern Africa is about to kick off, so dig out your ski-suit, your gloves and your helmet – and your dancing shoes – and head to the high spots. Daar is sneeu op die berge.