Last October, when I visited Mapungubwe WHS in South Africa, I got intrigued by the cute small statue of a golden rhino which was found in a grave there. The rhino itself isn’t displayed at the site (a copy is): the original is in possession of a University Museum in Pretoria. Coincidence has it that just now they have lent this golden rhino to the British Museum in London for an exhibition on South African Art. So that’s where I headed yesterday.

I had paid 12.5 EUR beforehand for an entrance slot to the exhibition at the opening hour of 10 a.m. It has received good reviews , so I expect it to be busy all the time. My surprise could not have been bigger when I stood in front of the first display case: it contained the Makapansgat pebble ! This is the most curious discovery from one of the other South African WHS, the fossil hominid site of Makapansgat . It is a reddish brown, face shaped pebble, apparently taken ‘home’ by an Australopithecus africanus. It was larger than I had imagined it, about ca. …

According to this Thematic Study from 2014, the WH List contains 35 sites related to the Silk Roads / Routes. We had 27 already in the Silk Roads Connection , but with Bam, Lhasa, Mount Qingcheng, Bisotun, Soltaniyeh, Esfahan, Shustar, Takht-e-Soleyman, Armenian monasteries of Iran, Hatra, Samarra, Bosra, Anjar, Baalbek, Kathmandu, Makli (Thatta), Divrigi, Nisa and Itchan Kala 21 others could be labelled that way. And there is no end to Silk Roads nominations: the tentative lists of Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Tajikistan, Uzbekistan, India, Turkmenistan, China and Iran all contain explicit serial Silk Roads sites.

The Thematic Study found no less than 54 ‘Corridors’ within the Silk Roads system, linking ‘nodal’ points along the routes such as cities and towns. Nominations of these separate Corridors are now slowly brought forward. There is one already Pending : in 2014, the 'Silk Roads Penjikent-Samarkand-Poykent Corridor' (Tajikistan – Uzbekistan) got referred. In addition to the already inscribed Samarkand and Bukhara, this 365km long stretch would include places like Chor Bakr, Penjikent, Raboti Malik Caravanserai, Vobkent Minaret and the Bahouddin Naqshband complex. Besides trade, Sufi pilgrimism is the …

The Croatian coastal town of Zadar has been engaged in a battle with ICOMOS since 2012 to get a favourable recommendation for inscription on the World Heritage List. It has tried three times so far with its Roman and early Christian remains, although they were told already in 2014 “Please stop pursuing this!” The town also boosts a second Tentative Site: a part of the serial nomination for the Venetian Works of Defence , which is up for nomination next year. Last week I visited Zadar to check them both out. As recently as 2016, the ‘ Roman Urbanism of the Zadar Peninsula with the Monumental Complex on the Forum (Croatia) ’ has been nominated and subsequently withdrawn after a negative advice. It focused on Zadar’s Roman orthogonal street network and Forum. The remains of the latter were discovered after World War II when “about 60% of the city’s historic fabric was destroyed”. What’s left of the Forum opens up to the seashore. It’s a large square, with on the city side notable monuments such as the odd shaped church of St. Donatus and a Pillar of Shame. The St. …

Plitvice Lakes National Park already became a World Heritage Site in 1979. It was among 6 sites from Yugoslavia that were inscribed that year, sites which now lie in 4 different countries (the others were Ohrid, Kotor, Split, Stari Ras and Dubrovnik). Plitvice is one of those ‘golden oldie’ Eastern European tourist destinations, like the Wieliczka Salt Mine or the Postojna Caves. One wonders if there comes a time when nobody will go there anymore. But it still attracts over one million visitors a year . I visited in early November - so what is Plitvice like out of season?

I had stayed overnight in a town nearby, which allowed me to be present at the Lakes at 8.30 a.m. A November trip proved to be rewarding financially rightaway: no parking fee is required at this time of year, and the cost of an entrance ticket is cut in half to 55 kuna (about 7.30 EUR). This gives unlimited access to the various park entrances for one day, plus free transportation on the ferry across the largest lake and the shuttle buses. Quite good value I think.

The …

The Vredefort Dome is one of the most unique sites on the World Heritage List. It covers a representative part of what is the largest meteorite impact structure on earth. The structure is also the oldest at 2023 million years (or as some sources say: the second oldest after Suavjärvi which seems to be slightly older). This also makes it the oldest WHS in our Timeline . It’s virtually impossible to comprehend how old this is: the impact happened before our continents split, before most forms of plant life as we know it existed (only stromatolites lived after) and well before animals and humans came into existence. The crater site lies in the Free State and North West Provinces, near the towns of Parys and Vredefort and some 1.5 hours west of Johannesburg. No towns exist in the dome itself, but there are many farms. Almost the whole designated area is private land. That’s one of the reasons that the site is hard to visit. And also you really have to know what to look for: the crater itself is so large (400km in diameter) that …

The Maloti Drakensberg Transboundary World Heritage Site covers hundreds of km’s of a mountain range on the border between South Africa and Lesotho, with protected areas on both sides. The whole region is known for its beautiful mountain landscape and abundant rock art. It’s especially popular with South Africans (pensioners mostly) for weekend getaways.

Traditionally, the South African Drakensberg mountains are divided into 3 parts: southern, central and northern. I started my visit from the south, with the quaint English-style town of Himeville as my base. From the neighbouring town of Underberg daily 4x4 tours leave to travel the Sani Pass. This is a steep gravel mountain road that ends in Lesotho at an altitude of 2876 m. This may be one of the last years to experience this soft adventure, as the South Africans are planning to pave the road up to the top (the Lesotho side is already paved). This would deprive the tourist operators in Underberg from their steady income. But it may have a positive side also, opening up more creative tours besides just driving up and down.

Touristy as it might …

Human Rights, Liberation Struggle and Reconciliation: Nelson Mandela Legacy Sites is the full name of a South African Tentative Site covering 13 groups of sites related to the anti-apartheid struggle. They cover locations ranging from the Sharpeville Massacre site to prominent institutions for missionary education which “produced Southern African leaders who presented a synthesis of Western and African values”. It needs a good understanding though of South African history during the past 100 years to get a full grasp of what’s included and why. But I was willing to be educated. As I had another long drive ahead of me – 440km between the WHS of iSimangaliso and Drakensberg – I decided to visit two of these anti-apartheid sites along the way. I first hit the town of Groutville for the ‘Chief Albert Luthuli Home & Museum’. The museum is already signposted from the highway. Fortunately so, as my TomTom navigation did not recognize any street adress in Groutville. The town is definitely not one on the itinerary of European tourists, crossing South Africa from (white) tourist enclave to another. Groutville is 99.6% black. To me it felt like a town …

iSimangaliso Wetland Park lies well on the main tourist trail around South Africa. It’s a huge park, stretching for 220km along the Indian Ocean coast until the border with Mozambique. It also has a 5 km wide marine component along the whole coastline. I stayed for 3 nights in the town of St. Lucia, which is the tourist capital and main access point to the park.

Because of its size, there are completely different ecosystems to be enjoyed. For the marine part, I had set my eyes on a whale watching tour. But unfortunately it was cancelled due to strong winds. So what I mainly did was drive around by myself. From St. Lucia there are two gates into the park, one to the Eastern Shores and one to the Western. The park is remarkable for South African standards as it is very green. No shortage of rain here, compared to the severe drought much of the rest of the country suffers from.

On my first morning I entered via Bhangazi Gate, which leads you to the Eastern Shores ending at Cape Vidal. For the best part …

The Ngwenya Mines comprise the only entry on the Tentative List of Swaziland, a country without a proper WHS so far. The site has been lingering on that list already since 2008. It claims to be the “oldest mine in the world”. Its iron ore deposits were worked at least 42,000 years ago, when red haematite and specularite (sparkling ores) were extracted by the forefathers of ancient San Bushmen. The mining history of Ngwenya further consists of early iron smelting by the Bantu from 400 AD on and the ‘modern’ mining of the 20th century by foreign companies. I entered Swaziland by rental car from South Africa, crossing the border at Oshoek. The turn-off for the ‘Old Ngwenya Mine’ lies right after the border crossing. It is signposted well. After a few kilometers uphill drive I arrived at the gate to the Malolotja Nature Reserve, of which the former mines now are a part of. A ranger welcomed me, collected the 28 Rand entrance fee and jumped into the passenger seat so we could drive further up to the mine itself. The first view of the mine pit is quite spectacular. Although …

Mapungubwe Cultural Landscape lies at the northern border of South Africa, adjoining Botswana and Zimbabwe. This remote setting probably accounts for its low profile and limited visitor numbers, even among World Heritage Travellers (ranking 830th out of 1052). In the nomination file it was noted that although many WHS have to deal with high numbers of visitors, the sustainability of Mapungubwe is threatened by attracting too few of them.

What I found however was a well-cared-for National Park, worth anyone’s visit for a day or so. On my first two half-day trips into the park, I focused on game drives and brushed up my mammal list total: I saw mongoose, klipspringer, southern giraffe and steenbok for the first time. The park isn’t teeming with wildlife: there are no fences between the park and the adjoining zones in Botswana and Zimbabwe, so the animals migrate a lot between the three countries. Also the density of mopane bushes makes it hard to see smaller animals. But especially the dramatic landscape, with lots of old baobab trees, ridges and canyons makes the park attractive.

Mapungubwe was a large inland settlement that …