The other Blouberg
They circle like cargo planes against a blown-out November sky. Johan van Wyk and I have our binoculars trained on hundreds of white-backed vultures about 400 m above us. They don’t seem to be heading anywhere – maybe they’re just flying because they can, and who wouldn’t? They stay close to the top of the cliff, where pale blotches on the rock face indicate nest sites.
The colony at Blouberg is home to about 1 230 breeding pairs, which makes it the biggest colony anywhere of these endangered birds. In the 1990s, the population had dwindled to just 500 pairs, Johan tells me. He has been here since then and has witnessed their recovery first-hand.
Blouberg is an inselberg with sometimes densely wooded slopes. It stands 15 km west of the westernmost point of the Soutpansberg, and its highest point – usually marked Blouberg Peak on modern maps – is 2 051 m above sea level. On older maps, the peak’s proper name remains: Ga-Monnaasenamoriri, which means “the man with the bald head” in Sepedi, a reference to its bare rock dome. The mountain is roughly 30 km long from east to west, and if you want to drive a circle around it, you need to set aside a full day. The best place to launch such an expedition from is the 9 320-hectare Blouberg Nature Reserve, a provincial reserve proclaimed in 1983, adjacent to what was then part of the homeland of Lebowa.
In a way, time has stood still since then. The people who live in the settlements around the base of Blouberg – Indermark, Senwabarwana (formerly Bochum), Buffelshoek – still struggle to make a living. There is very little development and the big highways like
