A January Festival - Dias Festival in Mosselbaai

I've never been a big fan of festivals, be it music, culture, grape-harvesting or hunting.  However, I do find myself now in a town with festivals happening left, right and centre; so I thought - let's go with the flow then!

First up - the Dias Festival - Where Cultures Meet in Mosselbaai.

This festival celebrates the landing of Bartholomeu Dias's at what is now the town of Mosselbaai in February 1488.  Dias was a Portugese seafarer sent down south to hopefully find a route around the tip of Africa in order to find better spice (and other) trading route to India.

(Gavin Menzies also hold interesting, though highly controversial views about this).

So Dias continued a bit further east, to the mouth of the Boesmansrivier, before being forced to back by his crew, who might have been dead scared to continue.  On the return trip, he actually only "discovered" the Cape of Storms (later named the Cape of Good Hope). 

Off we went, with one eye on the gathering class and a Plan B at the back of our minds.

Plan B immediately turned into breakfast at The Blue Shed, while waiting for the rain to abate.

Then we ran out and saw...

…vintage tractors on the dune.

…a Morris like my mom used to have, right down to the colour!
(highly excited)

…remnants of the Portuguese parade
(the procession came past in …rain, so we watched from inside :-)

…something to eat.  Although well-known and wide-spread, it's the first time I've actually seen corn on the cob being sold at an event /bazaar like this.

But now the rain set in again, and no amount of promises of the Zheijing Wu Opera Arts Troupe, Indonesian dancers, more street parades or nothing was going to keep my men here.  

So we got a lovely takeaway lunch…

Lamb curry roti, anyone?

…and scrambled home.

Coming up…Harvest, Port Wine and Mampoer festivals, Literary, Klein Karoo Arts, Pink Loerie and Oysters, Speed, Forest Marathon and Rastafarian…I'll try it out!