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/ 21 December 2007
My good friend Les Bush is, at 60-plus, the Eternal Party Animal. In the words of some T-shirt bard, Les "fears no beer". And he treats Jack Daniels with scant respect. But when I invited Les down to our new home in the Karoo Heartland town of Cradock, he thought he’d spend a few days of peace, quiet and deep-navel contemplation in Meerkat Country, writes Chris Marais.
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/ 15 December 2004
A week of road-tripping through the south of Madagascar is like visiting the rice paddies of Vietnam, the French Quarter of New Orleans, the markets of India and the villages of Provence. Above all, in the midst of the poor and the exotic, there are the smiles. The Madagascar sapphire industry is mining at its rawest, with foreigners raking in the profits while the local peasants keep digging in the mud.