Set in the Cederberg Mountains of the Western Cape, flanked by dramatic sandstone formations, is Bushman’s Kloof Wilderness Reserve and Wellness Retreat. With plains covered in fragrant fynbos and Karoo scrub, this Cape Floral Region is part of a UNESCO World Heritage Site, packed with endemic plants and wildlife.
Within the 7 500-hectare private reserve, wind-hewn boulders form caves and rocky overhangs with over 132 sites of Bushman Rock Art, some dated back 10 000 years.
Bella’s Cave is a stroll across the river from Bushman’s Kloof Lodge. As the area is too small to have been habitable, it is thought to be a shaman site, a place of power for trance dancing. Paintings decorate the exfoliating rocks with tiny figures of yellow ochre, one heavily cloaked; a mongoose-like creature; small antelopes and some images so weird and ephemeral that they might be apparitions appearing to a shaman in his half-conscious, hallucinogenic state. It’s difficult to identify all of the illustrations, so interpretations by archaeologists and art scholars vary. I feel as if I am peeping into the minds of the artists, somehow touching their joys and struggles, their concept of beauty, of spirituality and the respectful way they interact with nature.
It’s safe to canoe, to walk on the marked hiking trails, to cycle alone, as there is no dangerous game in Bushman’s Kloof Wilderness. The Cape Leopard – smaller than the leopard found elsewhere in Southern Africa – is shy and elusive, but one was photographed in the Cave Bee Cave camera trap, so it’s exciting to think how close she is.
We stop for breakfast snacks, worthy of a Relais & Châteaux establishment. I savour the locally grown rooibos tea and enjoy touching the leaves of a Rooibos plant and scooping up aromatic stokkies, which are also used to make tea. Adding water to dry Vygie seed pods, they open up into an elegant rosette wheel. A sun-seeking Graceful Crag Lizard basks on a boulder that’s decked in red and white lichen.
Rock-hopping over river crossings, we reach Fallen Rock, a habitable San site, spacious enough to shelter about 12 people. Fragments of clay pottery, stone tools and remains of ostrich eggshells – used to create white paint – remain in the cave. One of the scenes is a procession painting, representing the nomadic lifestyle of the San. Among the terracotta-coloured figures, females are identifiable by their ample buttocks and breasts, and some males by silhouetted penises; hunters carry bows and arrows, fringed carrier bags or spears. A tall figure in deep red ochre represents a shaman who is bleeding from his nose, a symptom of a trance induced by severe hydration. At Bushman’s Kloof Lodge, a Heritage Centre displays authentic Bushman artefacts including hunting, dancing, and digging sticks, jewellery, musical instruments, and magic sets – each with an explanatory text – that further deepen our learning and engagement with the art.
During our evening Nature Drive we spot Cape Mountain zebra, eland (a prominent figure in San art, associated with shamanistic rituals) and Ostriches. Sipping an artisanal gin and tonic, we watch the sun’s rays dip over the Tandjiesberg in the Biedouw Valley, humbled by this glimpse into the environment and the lives of South Africa’s earliest inhabitants, one of the oldest civilisations of mankind.
