IMPOSSIBLE to imagine, but last week I was proved completely wrong.  Not just once, but twice – and in the course of a single afternoon.  It all had to do with places not living up to expectations, despite barrow-loads of optimism on my part. It concerned a visit to the Cradle of Humankind in Gauteng.  I was playing at being a tourist, and wanted to visit Gauteng’s World Heritage Site.  The first puzzlement was trying to find information about it:  the place apparently is called Maropeng (‘returning to the place of origin’ in Setswana), and not ‘Cradle of Humankind’. The ‘Cradle’ is, in fact, a region.  Maropeng is a visitors’ centre.  Sterkfontein is a cave.  It’s a bit confusing.  But it started well.   Just outside Lanseria was a road-block patrolled by smart, intelligent, good-looking and courteous traffic police (listen, I hedge my bets).  I asked them if we were on the right road to Cradle of Humankind, and they said yes. A short while later, we passed a large white sign confirming that, indeed, the Cradle of Humankind lurked in the vicinity.  But there was no other information.  We carried on, with me exclaiming about the beauty of the countryside.  There is a timelessness about it – especially drowsing under a midsummer sun – and I could quite believe that this was where my distant ancestors first argued about who was going to do the washing up. A few minutes later my friend, who was driving, commented that she thought we had travelled too far. “Nonsense!” I replied robustly.  “This is a World Heritage Site!  There is no way that it would not have large and unmissable signposting!”  I was imagining something along the lines of flashing lights, large billboards and huge direction arrows. My friend continued muttering to herself and, once we reached a populated farm stall near Magaliesburg, pulled over and ordered me to ask directions. I spoke to another smart, intelligent, good looking and courteous traffic officer, who directed me back the way we had come. When I protested that we had just travelled this road and not seen a single signpost, he said that there wasn’t one and that I should have taken the road to Kromdraai.  The turn-off, it transpired, was just after Lanseria. I conveyed this information to my friend in a very small voice and she heroically did not say anything all the way to Kromdraai.  Here we hit another snag – a traffic circle with three arms and no signpost.  I had learned my lesson by now and consulted the map (which was useless) and quietly recommended the middle road.  It was the wrong one. The rest is too painful to go into, but in short it is perhaps sufficient to say that we spent more than two hours looking for Sterkfontein and Maropeng (existing literature does not explain that the Cradle of Humankind is actually a region comprising various archaeological sites and that the two visitors’ centres are ten minutes’ drive apart. But that’s another story).  We almost gave up.  Unbelievably, the most important archaeological site in the world, and one of South Africa’s first World Heritage Sites, has only two small brown direction signs, both of them facing the wrong way.  Oh, and just to confuse the unwary tourist even more, the two visitors’ centres are known by the names Sterkfontein and Maropeng with no connection collectively to the World Heritage Site.  So someone who only knows the brand-name ‘The Cradle of Humankind’ will never find it. I furiously tried to salvage my pride by threatening to complain bitterly to management when – or if – we ever arrived, about the lack of signposting.  But management took the wind out of my sails completely by saying that I would be doing them a favour if I took up the matter of signposting, as they had been beseeching the government to upgrade the signage for more than a decade.  The culprit here, it seems, is the Gauteng government, who does not see the value of telling tourists where their tourist attractions are.  I have subsequently spoken to other tour guides, who confirm that the appalling signposting is one reason why they do not recommend the Cradle of Humankind to tourists. The real pity here was not the aimless seeking for the World Heritage Site (after all, I usually regard getting lost as part of the experience and enjoy the view), but the fact that we only had a limited time to visit the site as I had a plane to catch.  So the four hours I could have spent at Maropeng/Cradle were whittled down to one.  This is not nearly enough time to enjoy the splendours of the visitors’ centre, the hotel and the caves (which wonders I will describe in another posting).   Maropeng/Cradle is a tourist gem – it is such a pity that the Gauteng government allows it to remain buried.

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