With great rainforest comes great water. Rivers, lagoons, streams, rivulets. Lakes, ponds. Estuaries.
Venturing to Gabon’s interior, I saw more Giant Kingfishers in an hour than I had seen in my 64-year-old life. Africa’s biggest rainforest is awesome, getting there is worth the considerable effort, as you discover so much about the country, its people, its potential.
The birdlife is prolific: on the estuary in Loango National Park hundreds of Darters flew with our small boat, on the mighty Ongoue River, deep into Gabon’s famed forest.
It takes six hours by small speedboat from Port Gentil, a small harbor town 45 minutes by air from Libreville, to get to the tiny five-hut camp of Akaka. Here you are alone in the middle of the rainforest. Although the only guest in the park, I was provided with three helpers: a chef/fire maker, a boatman/bird guide and a house/bar maid. But I run ahead.
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This was my first visit to Gabon. The country is green, humid, has a musty smell, is very French and fascinating.
New and expensive cars, in slow traffic along a lengthy boulevard next to the sea, take you from the small airport to beachfront hotels in Libreville. The country looks rich but when you leave the city you become aware of the chasm between the haves and have-nots. You discover that the fancy SUVs are owned by the rich, but mainly by NGOs, oil companies and government employees.
With 1.5 million people, a lot of oil and the biggest rainforest in Africa, Gabon has great potential. Tourism. Technology. Transport. Telecoms. All need work.
I woke up on my first morning to a grey and greasy ocean: the eastern Atlantic. A lukewarm humid wind was blowing across the beachfront.
People are warm and cheerful, yet seem reluctant to do anything. Trying to organize a tour to the fabled reserves in the rainforest was trying, to say the least. Tour companies are thin on the ground.
Prices can be high, at $415 a night in Loango and $130 for dinner, bed and breakfast at the only hotel in Olako, a small town where most residents live in shacks. The hotel would struggle to earn three stars. But you can bargain everything in Gabon, from the price of accommodation to the price of a cold drink.
That said, the rainforest is certainly that overused word: awesome. It inspires awe and defies description—talk about one huge, tall, straight tree and it is immediately out of its jungle context. You can’t describe the wood for the trees. The extent, too, is vast.
In 2002, President Ali Bongo declared 11% of the oil-rich country a protected area, a decision with enormous consequences.
A decade later the decision is creating work for many, from bureaucrats to conservationists, forest police to scientists. All agree that Gabon is not yet ready for ‘real’ tourism, but it does have a detailed plan, which is to be ready by 2015.
It includes addressing the lack of qualified personnel in all hospitality sectors; providing tour packages in languages other than English; improving marketing and the establishment of accredited tourism companies. Patience, money, effort and professionalism are absent. The chain of command is weak; economic viability is precarious and service needs improvement. Gabon needs close links between government, community, industry and scientific and conservation partners.
Heading up Gabon’s parks is Professor Lee White—a strong supporter of the president and a realist about the state of the country. White says Gabon is not set up for tourism&#8230; yet.
“There is a big vision for industrial Gabon to help the economy, but we need to take account that Gabon is also 88% rainforest, and 20% protected areas. Other countries create parks in their cities, we have created cities in a park. Our challenge is to plan to expand Libreville with an emerald necklace around it of those gems of protected areas. I’m lucky, I probably work for the greenest president on the planet. Some of our neighbors are less green so we do have cross border problems.”
Getting to my first park was certainly an experience. To give readers an idea of what it means to travel in this water world of rainforest: I left the hotel in Libreville at 5:30AM in a taxi to the airport, took a 40 minute flight to Port Gentil, then a taxi to the fish market, waited for an hour or two, took a speedboat for three hours, changed to a long boat, traveled by car for two hours, only to arrive at 3:30PM—10 hours later. And then you are only at the park’s entrance. And I was lucky, as I had run into a concession owner at the fish market, who happened to be going to the park.
The 9AM boat up the river to Omboué left 90 minutes late at 10:30AM.
Both my Gabonese fellow travelers inquired politely, and independently, before we embarked whether I knew that Jesus was my savior. I considered myself fortunate to know the answer.
Wide-eyed at my first look at the forest, I vocally enjoyed the boat trip, which was merely a commute for them. Everyone travels on water in that area, roads are few and far between.
The next morning my carefully arranged 7AM boat was only ready at 9:30AM, to take me from the outskirts of the rainforest to its heart of Akaka. There is no electricity at Akaka, it is wild, a tiny camp built facing one of the innumerable rivers, estuaries, lagoons. The tented huts are sparse and clean, each with a shower and toilet.
It took another three-hour boat ride to get there, it was a fascinating boat trip on a lagoon, into floodplains and flanked on all sides by massive trees, papyrus, palms and undergrowth. Deep in the rainforest, wild animals emerge and the birdlife becomes more prolific.
Two forest elephants lifted their trunks to sniff us as we arrived. And I ticked a Hartlaub’s Duck, then a beautiful Shining Blue Kingfisher, and a Slender-snouted crocodile, looking very unthreatening with his long, thin jaw.
My three-person team cooked French food that was superb, rather anachronistically given the jungle setting. A communal kitchen-cum-dining room overlooks the water.
En route to Akaka common birds on the river included scores of Palm-nut Vultures, Green-backed Herons, Hamerkops, as well as Pied, Giant and Shining Blue Kingfishers. We counted 76 Jacanas in an hour, and over two days saw eight African Finfoots, a bird rarely seen in South Africa; it looks like a duck, swims like a duck but it ain’t a duck.
By night, in the dark of the forest I tried to tell frogs’ calls from birds, or were those weird sounds perhaps insects, monkeys or bush babies?
Wonderful and exciting. Truly, Africa’s Eden.
The forest elephants of Loango, unlike many African parks, are solitary or in twos. No herds. It was curious to see one, great long tusks colored brown, struggle through the muddy bank, each foot audibly sucked by mud as it was withdrawn with difficulty, before the beast plunged ever onward, through even more mud.
A buffalo also tried running from us, quite comically, its legs in mud up to its tummy.
As you drift quietly along the estuary, dense forest keeps opening up to large plains, still with water everywhere and brilliant green ground cover. In one single view at such an opening I saw a flock of 31 Pelicans, a pair of elephants, Great and Cattle Egrets, a hovering Pied Kingfisher, three African Darters, a flock of about 40 White-faced Whistling ducks, and a Nile Crocodile who was observing it all from the bank, while two buffaloes struggled through the mud.
We stopped floating down the estuary soon after, tied up the boat and took a walk through the forest for an hour, believing mistakenly that we were going “to the sea” whereas we were just going “to see”. English is a problem in Gabon; the president is committed to changing the national language from French to English. Good luck!
We saw three different kinds of monkeys and two species of buck, a duiker and the Sitatunga, a large and striking antelope rather like a Kudu.
Some very special Hornbills haunt the trees, including the big Black-casqued Wattled Hornbill and the Piping Hornbill—“Peeping Hornbill”, my guide kept chanting—we saw a huge Great Blue Turaco, and around 40 African Skimmers on a sandbank with a dozen Royal Terns plus a few White-Fronted Plovers.
Near Loango Lodge two hippos in the lagoon eyed us warily, around 200 meters from where they surf in the sea.
But it’s not just about the birds or the trees, elephants, crocodiles, buffaloes or the like. It is the whole magnificent rainforest that inspires wonder.
Ecotourism will always be a tough battle but at least Gabon has a plan and a very good place to start. President Bongo and the good professor White deserve the conservation world’s support in their admirable endeavors.

Africa’s Eden  By Boat

When she was nine, Zuriel Oduwole, who lived in Los Angeles, entered into a history competition that challenged students to make a short documentary on a revolution. As the youngest participant, Oduwole proved that age is nothing but a number.
This was more than just a competition for Oduwole. Of Nigerian-American heritage, she was born in Los Angeles in the summer of 2002, and had lived in Paris and Hong-Kong with her parents. She has been fascinated by Africa for as long as she can remember. This project was an opportunity to educate herself further and show why the continent had fascinated her so.
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While Oduwole’s sixth grade classmates planned projects that looked at California or the United States, she wanted to go further. With her parents’ support, she chose Ghana as a country with a well-documented revolution. She traveled to the West African nation, where she interviewed two men who had ruled the country for many years—Presidents John Rawlings and John Kufuor.
Oduwole’s documentary was given plaudits for originality.
Following the success of the project, a year later, the 10-year-old Oduwole started to make documentaries about African political and business leaders, who are making a difference in their countries.
She now has an impressive CV, which features interviews with some of Africa’s most prominent figures—President Ellen Johnson Sirleaf of Liberia, President Uhuru Kenyatta of Kenya, President Goodluck Jonathan of Nigeria, President Jakaya Kikwete of Tanzania, business magnate Aliko Dangote and a few more.
“I like to do many things, like interview people to find out how they see things, especially presidents of countries, to find out what they are doing to help their citizens. I was excited to interview President Uhuru Kenyatta in May, because he is the newest elected African leader. I asked him questions like how he plans to bring his country together after a tough election, and how it feels being elected to a position his father [held] many years ago,” says Oduwole.
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Interviewing President Sirleaf was particularly meaningful to her, because she was the first female president in Africa.
“She encouraged me to study hard and to pursue my dreams, [she said] that I can be anything I want to be. President Joyce Banda of Malawi told me the same thing too, when I interviewed her last year.”
She also enjoyed speaking to the president of Nigeria.
“His interview was unique because he laughed when I asked him how much good luck his name has brought to Nigeria, but he answered in detail, so that was very nice. He is really cool too, and I like his hat.”
While it proved to be an exciting time for her, Oduwole’s trips to Africa opened her eyes to many harsh realities, it spurred her interest to get more involved. She decided to cast her net wider by championing a program called “Dream Up! Speak Up! Stand Up!” with the help of the prestigious Lagos Business School and the US Consulate in Lagos, earlier this year.
“I am very interested in the girl child and the things they face in Africa. As you know, the girl child always gets [fewer] resources in Africa compared to the boy child and that is not fair. I spoke to students in some schools in Lagos about the need for the girls to dream big and speak loudly on important issues. I also wanted them to know that the girl child can do the same as the boy child, if she is given the opportunity to try. Girls are just as creative as boys,” she says.
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Oduwole has ambitions of becoming an athlete and competing at the Olympics. She has a flair for literature and would like to write children’s adventure books. Unlike most girls her age, she has an interest in robotics.
“But when I get older, I want to be the president of the United States. When I say this, people say ‘Why don’t you want to be the president of an African country, where you are from?’ Well, I tell them that I have to think smart. If I am the president of an African country, I might be able to affect my country, or maybe two countries. But if I am the president of the United States, I am going to be able to affect the United States, and many other countries in the world, especially in Africa. I have to [make] policies that help Africa and the United States too.”
Oduwole, the oldest of four children, was home-schooled by her mother and other home-school teachers. She belongs to a private schooling system that enables students to attend events and projects outside of school, while preserving a traditional classroom interface. At 10 years old, she is in the seventh grade—two grades ahead of the average 10-year-old child in the United States.
She has visited more than a dozen countries and is fluent in English and Mandarin. She’s currently working on developing her Nigerian languages, Yoruba, Igbo and Hausa. Oduwole believes her travels and lessons provide an opportunity to represent Africa to her peers in the United States.
“I always tell my friends in school back in California that Africa is not bad at all, and there are some nice things there. Sometimes, they don’t believe me when I say there are malls in Africa. So, with my documentaries, I hope to rebrand Africa by showing the rest of the world positive things about Africa,” she says.
With all her activities on the continent, there is a bigger picture for Oduwole. She would like to see the children of Africa going to school rather than selling wares on the streets.
“They need an education so they can have good jobs when they get older, especially the girl child. I am really hoping that with the interviews I do with presidents, they would see that an African girl child like me is doing things that girls in their countries can do also.”
Oduwole is doing her part and hopes that with her mission, she can be a big voice of change on the continent.

Little Big Voice

The number of millionaires in Africa is rising faster than anywhere else in the world. Thanks to fast-growing economies and a thriving oil industry, the continent’s wealth is forecast to remain on the up. But where do Africa’s nouveau riche spend their money? For now, most jet to London, New York or Singapore to buy the latest fashion.
Hanneli Rupert wants to change this. She is the 28-year-old daughter of billionaire Johann Rupert, the CEO of Richemont, the Switzerland-based group behind top brands like Cartier, Dunhill and Montblanc. With her luxury brand store, Merchants on Long, she brings Africa’s top labels to South Africa, for most this is their debut.
“A lot of African high-end designers export directly without ever selling in their home countries or on the continent,” says Rupert.
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Housed in a double storey Art Nouveau building on Cape Town’s famous shopping mile, Long Street, the store delivers a true Cape-to-Cairo experience. Merchants is stocked with merchandise from Ethiopia to Nigeria, Sierra Leone, Cameroon, Senegal and Ghana, most of which is 100% handmade. Luxurious fashion items hang next to antique shelves filled with exquisite jewelry, bags, perfumes and homewares, while works of contemporary African artists and photographers grace the walls.
Rupert, who divides her time between Cape Town and the United Kingdom, says she modeled Merchants on London’s famous Dover Street Market, an über-trendy, multi-designer store with a glamorous feel.
“We fit into the idea of the aspiring, new Africa,” she says, while sipping a cappuccino.
Merchants’ in-house coffee bar only serves ethically-produced coffee grown on the continent, that can be drunk from crockery custom-designed for Merchants, by South African ceramicist Michael Chandler.
The store attracts a diverse mix of customers, ranging from European and American tourists to African business travelers and South Africans.
Before Rupert opened Merchants in late 2010, she spent close to a year traveling across the continent to pick and choose the designers she wanted to work with. She was looking for creatives who didn’t imitate European design but had developed a personal style linked to their African heritage.
“I want to grow an African aesthetic. I want Africa to be known as a hub for exotics and manufacturing, not only as an export haven for raw materials,” she says.
Since then, Rupert has worked tirelessly to put African designers on the global map. The Merchants pop-up store she opened in London last May, which received much praise, was the first step towards putting a global spotlight on African luxury goods.
“There is such a desire to see contemporary African design internationally. I am absolutely certain Africa is going to be the next booming art and design market. It’s already slowly happening,” says Rupert.
On the continent, too, the rich and trendy have taken note. In March, Rupert represented some of her designers at the annual Arise Magazine Fashion Week in Lagos, Nigeria; the labels were applauded for their style and quality.
“I want to showcase the manufacturing capabilities of the continent. People have a lot of misconceptions. When they think of design in Africa, they think of beading, not of sustainable trade. I wanted to give people a different perspective,” she says.
Rupert puts the new interest in African high-end fashion and design down to a wave of brain regain—a reversal of the brain drain of the 1990s, when thousands left the continent to pursue job opportunities overseas.
“There is a new trend of patriotism on the continent,” she says.
Rupert is part of that trend. She trained as a fine artist and painter and returned to South Africa, after a four-year stint in London and Athens, to start Okapi—a line of luxury leather handbags that feature springbok horns as talismans. She planned to launch an Okapi flagship store in Cape Town, but her father suggested that she open a multi-brand store first, to increase marketability.
“Merchants would never have happened without his advice,” she says.
Johann Rupert knows what he is talking about. He runs the world’s third largest luxury goods company, which he inherited from his father, Anton, one of South Africa’s most successful business tycoons. With £10 in his pocket in 1941, Anton Rupert started a multi-million dollar conglomerate that today spans luxury goods, finance, tobacco and mining interests, and encompasses hundreds of companies in 35 countries across six continents. The business later split into Remgro and Richemont. FORBES estimates the family’s net worth at $6.6 billion.
Two generations later, the luxury business is almost an inherent part of Hanneli’s genes.
“It’s having the access and growing up in an environment where you learn about business on a day-to-day basis. I learnt simple but important things from my father, like not underestimating your customer, and customer service being hugely important. I also learned to rely on my instincts,” says Rupert.
And her instincts tell her that there’s an increasing demand for authentic, ethically-manufactured African goods. She made this the overarching concept behind her Okapi label and Merchants on Long.
“There is a shift towards buying locally. People want traceability when it comes to what they eat. They want to know where it comes from. People start to want the same thing for clothes and design,” she says.
With entrepreneurship in her veins and an eye for opportunity, Rupert is set to make her mark as her family’s next generation of luxury business owners.

The Billionaire’s  Apprentice

Firms like to talk about investing in Africa. But what they are really looking at is a jumble of 54 sovereign countries, with their own laws, regulations, cultures and languages. Only a few people are knowledgeable about all the countries. Among them is Riaan Manser.
Forty-year-old Manser grew up in Richard’s Bay, on South Africa’s east coast, where he spent most of his childhood roaming the outdoors. He studied human resources because he wanted to work with people. Manser took a job with private healthcare provider Prime Cure in Cape Town, selling insurance.
“One Sunday afternoon, I realized I wasn’t completely happy. I did my job just to make money. I decided my life was going to be much more than that. I made the decision to change my life,” he says.
A year later, in 2003, Manser mounted his bicycle and went on a 26-month ride across Africa, peddling 37,000 kilometers through 34 countries. He got to know Africa and its people slowly, learning important lessons in life.
“When I left South Africa, I wasn’t very organized. I had zero visas in my passport. I had to negotiate everywhere I went. I would have to remain calm and negotiate in extremely stressful situations, when I was freaking out inside,” he says.
With every country he explored, Manser came to understand different cultures and dynamics, over time he  developed exceptional people skills. He gained wisdom that can only come with experience and, as he firmly believes, trial and error.
“I want people to understand that success comes from failure. We like to learn from other people’s mistakes very much, but the problem is that you normally don’t learn as astutely as you would if you learnt on your own. You’re generally most successful if you are willing to take a calculated risk.”
His insights have attracted the attention of numerous major multi-nationals from the mining, retail and financial services sectors, which Manser—who meanwhile also paddled 5,000 kilometers around politically unstable Madagascar and circumnavigated Iceland—now consults on how to expand into remote parts of Africa. Among them are mining giant Anglo American Platinum, heavy machinery manufacturer Bell Equipment, South African supermarket chain Shoprite and Zurich Bank International.
“I speak to CEOs but also to staff, who will be deployed to African countries, telling them what they can expect on the ground—be it regarding infrastructure, cultural issues, bribing or how to make business decisions in a foreign cultural context,” he says.
Manser, who remarkably never paid a single bribe during his adventures, says integrity, morality and patience are the keys to unlocking Africa’s potential.
“You must make [it] clear upfront that there is no room for negotiation about bribes. The most important thing is not to seem desperate. Desperation can be smelled a mile away. Even when I was panicking inside, I didn’t show one ounce of desperation,” he says.
Instead of paying kickbacks to smooth the rocky road of expansion, companies, especially those exploring natural resources, should focus on building good relationships with both national governments and local communities, suggests Manser.
“It’s vital that companies stop regarding Africa as a place where you can just take out resources. There has to be some giving… a generator for a village, digging a well. Communities don’t want to hear promises of better infrastructure five years down the line. They want to see improvements to their lives right away,” he says.
Manser knows how customs officials must be approached in Ghana compared to Angola, how to deal with government departments in Nigeria and how to open negotiations in Mauritania. Although his advice often seems almost obvious, at least in hindsight, it’s based on insights that can only be gained from having been there and having done it.
Patience, however, is key to commercial success in almost all African countries, says Manser.
“Don’t rush people. Don’t try to bulldoze them. The humility that comes through patience will lead to trust and ultimately to respect for each other. It’s the basis for building good relationships,” he says.
But the decision to be patient can’t be made in a boardroom. It’s something managers have to learn in a foreign context, on a day-to-day basis, says Manser.
Another key requirement for successful expansion is selecting the right people to do the job, Manser believes. In the small island nation of Madagascar, that has been experiencing years of political turmoil after a coup d’état in 2009, consolidation is seen as much more important than expansion.
“People just want stability. They want short discussions with firm results. So whoever negotiates on behalf of your company needs to know that,” he says.
In the end, it all comes down to good leadership: a lesson—and probably the most difficult one—Manser learnt when his travel partner Dan Skinstad, who has mild cerebral palsy, fell out of the boat when they circumnavigated Iceland in a two-man kayak, and almost drowned in the icy waters.
“You need clarity of thought in difficult situations. If there is a crisis, you have to make a decision with clarity, not in a panic. You take stock of what you promised, of what you want to achieve and then implement what is necessary to get you there,” says Manser.
Good leaders acknowledge other leaders. When Manser returned from Africa, former president Nelson Mandela was so impressed with his feat, he requested a meeting with him, saying Manser was an inspiration to the continent. Manser has made that his goal.

Two Wheels Two Years  34 Countries 37,000km

It was a surreal night of luxury, to the clink of expensive glasses and the strains of jazz, high on Northcliff Hill overlooking Johannesburg. The valley below spreads out like a carpet of twinkling lights, cooled by a cutting wind from the west. On this night the news on the television is grave; it speaks of hungrier times, strikes and inflation.
At the top of the hill, these fears are far from the thoughts of the diners, who each paid $3,000 to sip on the finest and most expensive wines in the world. Around the table, millionaires chat of bouquet and burgundy. Hands, adorned with sparkling diamond rings, swirl balloons of wine. This is The White Club.
<div id="attachment_1941" style="width: 310px" class="wp-caption alignleft"><img loading="lazy" decoding="async" aria-describedby="caption-attachment-1941" class="size-medium wp-image-1941" src="/wp-content/uploads/2017/04/586-5-300x200.jpg" alt="" width="300" height="200" />The White Club, Northcliff, Johannesburg; 23 May 2013 &#8211; Photo by Brett Eloff</div>
It took inspiration from the London-based Whites, a club created by Francesco Bianco in 1693. It was at his house, which was later painted white, that members indulged in chocolate and bought tickets to the King’s and Royal Drury Lane Theaters. In 1773, The White Club became a place where wealthy men conversed over cigars and fine wine.
In 2009, René Dehn, founder of Gratis Denmark, stepped down as CEO, and took the idea on the road. Now, the Dane travels around the globe, accompanying his well-aged companions. Among them: a 1959 Dom Pérignon Rosé and a 1959 Château Lafite. The uncorking of the bottles always poses a challenge.
“It’s the only little part of the job that I don’t like. You’re a little bit excited but at the same time you are nervous… I’ve gotten over the fact that it feels like I am killing the bottle.”
It’s not easy moving vintage wine around the world. The bottles must be packaged in temperature-controlled cases that are shock absorbent to prevent damage.
For those who wish to join, there is only one way in.
<div id="attachment_1942" style="width: 310px" class="wp-caption alignleft"><img loading="lazy" decoding="async" aria-describedby="caption-attachment-1942" class="size-medium wp-image-1942" src="/wp-content/uploads/2017/04/586-61-300x200.jpg" alt="" width="300" height="200" />The White Club, Northcliff, Johannesburg; 23 May 2013 &#8211; Photo by Brett Eloff</div>
“You cannot buy your way into the club; it’s strictly by invite only. You have to attend one of the smaller dinners around the world in order to be considered for member status,” he says.
The qualities that make for the perfect White Club member include: the ability to be a good dinner partner, who is comfortable and easy going and, above all, willing to share. It’s about creating a sense of community, based on one common bond: the love of expensive wine.
“There was a South African member who missed a dinner in Switzerland. He sent a bottle from his private collection to the people around the table, for them to enjoy… that is the mindset and thinking of sharing that gives me a high.”
In May, The White Club made its third visit to the African continent, bringing along some of the most sought-after and rarest wines in the world. The star of the night was a $24,000 bottle of Château Pétrus, from 1947.
Two teams, each consisting of a wine sommelier and a renowned chef, competed for the best wine-dish pairing.
“I’ve done a springbok fillet, which is wrapped in slightly smoked springbok, served on a bed of butternut rösti… I’m serving it with a piece of foie gras, so it’s going to be something very classic, something very French,” says Coco Reinharz, a French chef from Sel et Poivre restaurant, in Sandton.
<div id="attachment_1946" style="width: 310px" class="wp-caption alignleft"><img loading="lazy" decoding="async" aria-describedby="caption-attachment-1946" class="size-medium wp-image-1946" src="/wp-content/uploads/2017/04/586-129-300x200.jpg" alt="" width="300" height="200" />The White Club, Northcliff, Johannesburg; 23 May 2013 &#8211; Photo by Brett Eloff</div>
Dehn believes that everyone wants to belong to an elite social club and that Africa is the right place, right now.
“It happens in countries where you have a new merging culture of being wealthy, where people have an idea of things they want to spend on.”
In this world of recession, how do White Club members keep to their luxurious pastime?
“In the level that we are doing it, recession doesn’t mean anything. There is always a percentage of people that are above the recession,” says Dehn.
On this night, hard times were far from the minds of the people who had the money to dine like kings and queens on the top of a hill, in the middle of Johannesburg.

Wine At $6,000 A Glass

Sue Viljoen and Buddy Vaughn make their way down to the fourth floor cabin. It’s early in the morning and the weather is warm, the ocean is crystal clear and just yesterday the couple saw hundreds of red starfish as their ship made its way along the east coast of Africa.
The ship anchors offshore. The two climb down the gangway and jump into a small 24-man orange rubber duck boat. Their destination Portuguese Island, off the Mozambican coast, 562km from their home in Johannesburg.
Viljoen sits down near the end of the rubber duck, by the motor. Vaughn, being slightly heavier, is told to sit at the front. Once everybody is seated the boat master shouts that they are taking off.
A huge swell catches the dingy as it speeds off. Vaughn turns around to Viljoen. She is drenched. Soon, they are all soaked. Here there are no busy harbors, nor busy roads, just untouched white sands.
The couple spends the rest of the morning watching the other passengers disembark.
“The best was watching the ladies getting off, in their dresses, soaked up to their knees with their things held above their heads. And it’s actually really funny,” [&#8230;] “I could go back right now—I would go back tomorrow and do it all again,” says Vaughn.
In Africa, going on a cruise ship offers more than the average holiday, it’s an adventure and this is one of many travelers’ tales of the 20 million people who cruise the world every year, says Cruise Lines International Association (CLIA). This year CLIA expects $36 billion will be spent on cruises.
According to Allan Foggitt, head of marketing and sales for MSC Cruises South Africa and former owner of Starlight Cruises, business is on the up.
“For the last two or three years it has been recognized as the fastest growing sector of the travel industry.
“If one looks at our local cruise line industry, which we [MSC Cruise Liners] hold a monopoly, we expect a revenue of R450 million ($4.8 million) a year. Each vessel can accommodate around 2,150 passengers and over the period of the season we can expect to accommodate 130,000 to 135,000 passengers annually and about 98% to 99% of them would be South African residents,” says Foggitt.
MSC operates out of Durban, South Africa, and travels along the east coast of Southern Africa en route to Mozambique, Madagascar, Mauritius and Il Santo Marine. Cruise ships also travel from Cape Town up along the coast of Namibia.
Cruises around Africa are still seen as small change when compared to the international cruising industry. George Argyropoulos, who emigrated from Greece to South Africa to set up Cruises International, explains that 30,000 South Africans are willing to leave their shores and spend up to $30 million. This is nothing in comparison to the billions made in the industry overall but African business is competing with the likes of Israel, the Middle East (UAE), Belgium, Holland, and Portugal—a market almost six times that of local African cruises. The key to building the African market is acquiring a draw factor.
“When you compare it with a Mediterranean cruise; you start in Barcelona and then you’re in Monte Carlo, and the day after that you’re in Florence and the day after that you are in Rome. So why must I fly 17 hours to Africa for a cruise? To see what?” says Argyropoulos.
Competition is tough but the strong dollar helps the African cruise industry. It means airfares are cheap along with prices onboard ships.
“The vessels have gotten even more elaborate, so that in many cases the cruise ships themselves are the destination, literally offering what one would expect to find on a land-based resort,” says Foggitt.
Africa looks to Europe for its business. Europeans make up 85% of those who cruise around the west coast of Africa; on short trips around Southern Africa, they are almost entirely South African.
Investment in the cruise industry comes with a number of problems.
Argyropoulos says that Africans earn less money than Europeans and Americans, so the additional costs of flights and VISAs are expensive and time consuming.
There is also a lack of infrastructure in many ports on the continent, restricting the area where large liners can dock.
“If one looks at Europe you can literally be in a recognized famous city every day of your cruise.In the United States and the Caribbean you can be on a different island every day; you can be in Jamaica one day and then zip across to the belt of Mexico. There are so many different destinations, so many exciting well-established ports that have the infrastructure you would need in terms of buses,” says Foggitt.
“The other thing is distance. If one wants to get to Mauritius which [has] the infrastructure and the tourism background or even Réunion, with these destinations you are looking at cruises of a minimum of 10 and as many as 14 days to get to those destinations. That limits a lot of people in terms of leave,” he says.
Cruising can be dangerous too. There’s piracy off the coast of Somalia and cruise ships have been caught up in it. Anthony Sharp, CEO of Typhon, makes a living out of combating piracy by providing private convoy naval protection units. He says that buccaneering costs the global economy between $7-12 billion a year and costs up to $6.9 billion a year in Somalia alone.
Piracy is waning but it’s not going to go away says Timothy Walker, researcher of conflict management and peace-building at the Institute for Security Studies in Pretoria, South Africa.
“The latest figures are that there are five vessels with 77 passengers being held captive. But there has been a reduction in the number of passengers and vessels and many of them would have been captive for a very long time and we are not sure if there will be any resolution. Negotiations are still being done,” says Walker.
“The majority of incidents this year have occurred around the Gulf of Guinea along the west coast of Africa. Generally most people credit private security companies onboard as deterrents they provide, and the rate of adoption of the best management practices recommended by the International Maritime Bureau,” he says.
To avoid the pirates Foggitt says MSC follows routes along the west coast of Africa rather than risk being attacked en route from the Mediterranean.
“Cruising in South African waters never goes far north and in these seas there has never been any pirate activity. With huge international effort the pirate situation is very much under control so if anything the danger area has been controlled,” says Foggitt.
Once the fear of uncharted waters and the lack of provident ports is overcome, Africa has untapped potential for the cruise liner industry. As the industry continues to grow more and more ships are being built, it’s a reality that people need somewhere to escape and they are willing to pay for it.

Riding The Rough Seas  Off Africa

The Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC) is immensely rich in resources but past conflict has held back the realization of this wealth, leaving its people amongst the poorest in Africa. The country is expected to be home to the world’s eleventh largest populationa by 2050. Raw mineral deposits are estimated to be worth in excess of $24 trillion but lay idle as fighting plagues the country.
It has seen at least four million people killed and another three million displaced.
Government forces continue to fight the rebel group M23 in the east, and recent peace talks have been suspended. Rene Abandi, leader of the M23 delegation, was quoted saying that negotiations are meaningless.
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This could jeopardize the economic foundations that have already been laid. Eustache Ouayoro, country director at the World Bank, says that over the past few years, the DRC has been able to make significant progress to restore security across most of the territory, political reconciliation and economic recovery with the support of international partners, including the World Bank. So the world waits with bated breath.
Experts look to the country’s vast untapped wealth to pave the way to economic freedom, but say the road to this is likely to be a long one. Ouayoro says that positive signs are there, albeit tentative. The DRC may be emerging from instability and taking its first steps towards a new development era.
The country’s citizens suffer from poor healthcare, limited education and poverty. According to the World Bank, the DRC ranks last among the 187 countries in the Human Development Index. Poverty is widespread, with 71% of the population living on $1.25 a day.
The DRC, however, has been making steady strides in economic growth. Inflation was under control and in single figures in 2012, compared to 500% in 2001, and the World Bank says that with economic growth of 7.2% in 2012, and 8.2% expected in 2013, the DRC is among the countries experiencing some of the fastest levels of growth in the world at a time when it is non-existent in Europe.
Debt relief has helped. DRC was granted an estimated $16 billion debt relief under the World Bank and IMF’s Heavily Indebted Poor Countries (HIPC) Initiative. The write down has helped improve the country’s fiscal position and has allowed it to invest its debt savings in to development opportunities.
The World Bank reports that only a mere 10% of the DRC’s huge tracts of arable land are farmed, and only 13,000 hectares are irrigated. The country has four million hectares, but is currently importing at least 30% of its food. The World Bank believes its land could feed a billion people.
Ouayoro says that for the country to realize its full potential, there needs to be: improvement to the business climate; progress on anti-corruption measures; economic governance and stronger government institutions. It will also have to address the large infrastructure gap and prioritize food production and agriculture.
“We must promote inclusive growth in the DRC by making its economy more irresistibly competitive and helping to spur the creation of new, well-paying jobs, especially for the country’s growing ranks of young people,” Ouayoro says.

The Poor Rich Country

It all started with a coffee addiction. Carl Pretorius drank five to six shots of espresso a day until the caffeine started affecting his health. He looked for an alternative, but he didn’t want decaf, nor tea.
“One late morning, I was about to have another espresso, but was feeling jittery. I literally tore open two Rooibos tea bags and popped the leaves into the espresso machine. That wasn’t really good, but the idea started there,” says Pretorius.
It took him several weeks of refining his attempts to get from the strong tea that came out of the espresso machine that day, in 2005, to the world’s first ‘red espresso’, which today sells all over the world.
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“I experimented with different grinds. Every time I tried a variation it got better, until one day, the consistency was perfect,” says Pretorius.
The flavor was intense, smooth and nutty. And the ritual of drinking a shot of something hot and sweet was similar to that of having an espresso. Then Pretorius added milk to turn the Rooibos espresso into a cappuccino.
“After I tasted it, I knew this really had potential. I got goose bumps,” he says.
Pretorius’ entrepreneurial instinct kicked in. Only six months after putting the first batch of Rooibos into his espresso machine, he filed an application to patent the cut of the tea leaves and preparation method. He then hired an attorney to verify that he was indeed the first person to come up with the idea.
“They did a very thorough global search but there was nothing like it,” he says.
Next, Pretorius checked if there was a market for a tea-based espresso. He visited a friend’s coffee shop in Paarl, in South Africa’s Western Cape province, wrote ‘Rooibos Cappuccino’ on a small chalkboard, sat and waited.
Within a couple of hours, a range of customers had ordered the new beverage. Everyone loved it, giving Pretorius the boost he needed.
He got his friend Pete Ethelston onboard, who invested several million rands, and the two founded Red Espresso. Just a few weeks later, the naturally caffeine-free beverage was sold in the cafés of South African upmarket food and retail chains Woolworths, Mugg &amp; Bean and @Home throughout the country. Suddenly, old-fashioned Rooibos tea was new and sexy.
Pretorius believes it is the product’s authenticity that led to its fast commercial success. Red Espresso is made from 100% export-grade, wild, hand-harvested Rooibos tea. Because it is grown organically, it has a small environmental footprint and is extremely healthy, with 10 times more antioxidants than regular Rooibos tea and five times more than Green tea.
Within six months of serving the first Rooibos cappuccinos in cafés, the demand for a retail product came. Customers liked the coffee alternative so much they wanted to brew their own red espressos at home. Today, the multi-award-winning “tea that plays by coffee’s rules” is available in more than 600 South African stores and 16 countries around the world, with Canada, Portugal and South Korea being the biggest export markets. A move into Germany is planned for the second half of this year.
Expansion plans weren’t always straightforward, though. While Rooibos can be found in almost every South African kitchen, people in most other countries had never heard of this particular herbal tea, grown only in a small region of the Western Cape. As a result, red cappuccinos were a much harder sale overseas.
“We basically have to educate the customer base first,” Pretorius explains.
The company gives Rooibos virgins a taste experience by first introducing red cappuccinos to the food service and only later move into retail.
Early expansion into the United States taught Pretorius and his team a tough but invaluable lesson. Whole Foods Market, a major American chain of natural foods supermarkets, listed Red Espresso as one of their products that would be sold in thousands of stores throughout the country.
“That was a real achievement, but the product didn’t go off the shelves, because nobody knew what it was. We realized that you need to go in slowly, go through food service to create the demand and then go into retail. We had put the cart before the horse and eventually had to pull the product. Now it’s a matter of going back into the US market, but more slowly and probably state by state,” Pretorius says.
The Americans’ increasing affinity for healthy drinks could give Pretorius an extra advantage. According to Beverage Digest magazine, coffee consumption in the United States fell for the first time in decades by 2.3% between 2006 and 2009, while tea drinking increased over the same period by 4.5%.
Pretorius, who still indulges in the odd espresso, says: “We are very excited about that trend. While we don’t try to compete with coffee, we offer coffee drinkers an alternative. And that’s happening.”
He is also eyeing a range of other markets like China and the Far East, where tea drinking has a long tradition and people don’t need to be seduced into trying coffee alternatives.
“Those are exciting markets for us because people there are herbal tea drinkers and keen to try new options,” says Pretorius.
He’s painting the world red, one cup at a time.

Something Red Is Brewing

Picture this: the biggest horse racing event in Africa, with vast prize money and the top riders in the world. This is what Phindi Kema wanted, but a wrangle with the owners of a racecourse soured this dream. This has left the horse breeder frustrated, desperate and packing her bags. She is off to the United Kingdom, taking her skills with her.
Kema grew up on a farm. Her grandparents were farm laborers and her parents bred pigs, but she broke away and pursued a law degree at Fort Hare University—in the Eastern Cape. After she qualified, she worked as a coordinator for the Truth and Reconciliation Commission—a restorative judicial body, which was assembled after the abolition of apartheid in South Africa—and in various senior corporate positions, but the pull of the farm was strong and Kema returned to her roots. She bought a citrus farm near Addo Elephant National Park, in the Eastern Cape, through the Land Affairs Proactive Land Acquisition Strategy (PLAS) program and became a farmer in late 2006. She befriended her neighbor, Elwyn Phillips, who was a horse breeder, and bought his Elandskraal stud farm. She renamed it Iphi’Ntombi—meaning ‘where is the girl?’ in Zulu—after the Zimbabwean-bred champion filly Ipi Tombe.
“She [Ipi Tombe] had a great career and won international races and made a name for Africa. She is now breeding in Kentucky. I suppose, I set a challenge for myself right at the beginning of my career and I’m still at it.”
At the time Kema was the only African Thoroughbred horse breeder in the country. She picked up the trade quickly, but after three years she felt that it was time to move on. She pursued her dream of creating the biggest racing event on the African continent, which led to the start of her company, Africa Race International (ARI). Phumelela Gaming and Leisure, a horse racing and tote betting operator, approached Kema with a deal to buy Arlington Racecourse in the Eastern Cape. The deal was almost complete when Kema became suspicious of certain clauses in the contract. Phumelela wanted all financial guarantees 30 days after signing the agreement even though they had not set an occupation date. The other condition was that Kema had to use Phumelela’s license and was not allowed to purchase her own.
“This was not acceptable to me as it meant that Phumelela would be in control of my entire betting business and fixtures relating to my racing.”
Further research revealed that Phumelela had bought Arlington Racecourse for a mere R1 ($0.10) and expected Kema to pay R50 million ($5.4 million) for it. Kema later found that this was common practice in the industry.
When contacted on the issue, Phumelela declined to comment.
According to Kema, in the past five years, four of the country’s racecourses have been sold for property development. Gosforth Park was sold to Wes Bank and is now a racetrack for motorsport and Newmarket, in Johannesburg, has been sold to retail.
“While other countries are growing the sport, South Africa is stifling the growth of the industry. Other countries look at us and they actually mock South Africa because they understand that this model is not sustainable and this is a recipe for disaster.”
Kema was frustrated with the Arlington Racecourse deal and became vocal, but felt that her words fell on deaf ears. Then she lodged a complaint with the Competition Commission and backed the case with research from her team of lawyers and experts on international horseracing. She lodged another complaint with the public protector to investigate the 1997 agreement, regarding the selling of racecourses between the Gauteng provincial government and the racing industry.
“Further to that, I instituted an R80 million ($8.6 million) civil claim through the Equality Court against the Gauteng provincial government. The respondent failed to oppose the claim and missed the set deadline of October 5, 2012. The matter is still before the courts. I was then invited to Parliament to give the Portfolio Committee on Trade and Industry an account of what had happened and put forward recommendations. Lastly, I wrote a letter to the International Federation of Horseracing Authorities (IFHA) to bring the matter to their attention.”
Kema says the government’s lack of knowledge on the subject made the process even longer and the fact that she was more knowledgeable did not go down well.
“Sometimes people with big titles do not enjoy being told that they have been duped, so they take what you say personally and react accordingly. This tends to ruffle more black and white feathers especially when it comes from a black woman.”
“I am appalled by the way the regulator runs the race office. I am resentful that the rich people have actually stolen the racing assets that belong to the country. This is what this whole issue is about […] that is what is killing South African horse racing.”
As things became complicated Kema’s life became court hearings, law suits and travel between Johannesburg and Port Elizabeth. She could have easily backed down but the inspiration of her mother’s late father, Joseph Wilcot Kavie, kept her strong.
“He owned properties when black people under apartheid laws were prohibited from owning properties. He never saw himself as a victim; he turned every negative situation to his benefit if he could make it when the odds were against him, why would I fail? &#8230; That’s the thought that drives me… I admire so many people but Sol Kerzner, Phuthuma Nhleko and Sir Sam Jonah stand out because they are all groundbreakers, who comfortably transcended so many barriers and Africa has a reason to be proud.”
At the end of February, Kema moved to her spouse’s homeland of the United Kingdom. She’s on familiar ground, having visited the country many times and one of her fondest memories is her visit to the Queen’s stud farm. Her plan is to relax, reflect and possibly write a book.
“I like the British attitude and the UK is my adopted country because it has taught me so much of what I know. In as far as horseracing is concerned, I feel deeply connected with them because they are supportive of my aspirations and do not see me as a threat, precisely because they are experts in this field and therefore have no insecurities.”
So this front runner has removed the blinkers from people’s eyes, even when the odds were against her, she never spit the bit and now it’s time for her to canter.

Racing Uncertainty

Climbing Kilimanjaro is on the bucket list of most people on the African continent. Most of us at the ABN Group have had a personal ambition to make this trek but the opportunity came in the form of a corporate memo from our founder, Rakesh Wahi, who asked for volunteers. All of us that went on this mission enrolled without really understanding the implications of what we had signed up for.
What followed was four months of training and getting ready for our greatest test of physical and mental endurance. We went on several hikes as a team, culminating in the final climb of Sentinel Peak in Drakensburg, South Africa. Through this period we assessed the strengths and weaknesses of team members and came up with a marching order and buddy pairing that in retrospect were the main reasons for our success.
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A few days before we set off for the trip, I was given the responsibility to lead the 15-strong team, including two members joining from Murdoch University Dubai (an affiliate company). Rakesh gave me one task: Do what you need to but make sure that all 15 people make it to the top. Failure was not an option. For a mountain that has a 41% success rate for climbers, this was not an easy goal. Our head guide validated that of the 150 teams he had taken up the mountain over 10 years, only nine had a 100% success rate.
What followed between March 11 and 17 was one of the most exhilarating experiences of self-discovery for each and every one of the team members.
For corporate governance, our travel policy dictated that we set out from Johannesburg in two teams that regrouped in the sleepy town of Moshi in Tanzania. Some of us saw the magnitude of what lay ahead as we saw the majestic Kilimanjaro in the far distance, rising above the clouds at the same altitude at which we were flying. We assembled at the Keys Hotel and shared a memorable dinner of pizzas and beer and a final bath with the understanding that the next seven days would be spent in lesser luxuries.
After a group briefing and an introduction to the team of seven guides, 46 cooks and porters we set out on March 11 for the first day’s hike on the Rongai route. Most of us had packed about 13kg into our backpacks (constituting water and foodstuff) and a 14kg duffel bag was carried by our porters with all our clothing and provisions. We had expected rain on this hike but didn’t realize that it would hit us as soon as we started. Young children walked with us, nonchalantly in the rain, making us forget the discomfort. We ended the first day’s hike after an 11km march that we completed in four hours ending at an altitude of 2,400m. Other than the rain, this was an easy trek. As we walked to our camp site we were greeted by eight yellow tents pitched close together that were to become our home for the next six nights.
Our routine for the first five days was quite consistent; getting ready by 7.30AM, breakfast at 8AM and the daily march from 9AM to 2PM to reach the next base camp. We progressed steadily from 2,400m on day one, to 3,450m on day two, 3,683m on day three, 4,300m on day four and 4,730m on day five. Each day we would acclimatize by walking up about 200m in altitude with the concept of “walk high and sleep low”. We discovered, to our delight, that CNBC Africa presenter, Samantha Loring, is a qualified yoga instructor and she would make the team stretch and do breathing exercises that appeared frivolous when we started out but became our lifeline as we climbed above 4,000m.
Some events became common through our journey: The early breakfast of eggs, porridge and bananas, warm pea or cucumber soup for lunch, welcoming tea and Milo with popcorn at 4PM each day, before acclimatization, and soup with an overdose of starch and protein for dinner. The rule was to finish three liters of water at a bare minimum each day. One thing was clearly evident—organizers were making sure that we packed extra calories for the final assault on the last day.
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The build up for the first five days was gradual and most of the team managed to get by with little or no discomfort. Communications had died with the expended battery life of our cellphones and the solar charging devices were a disappointment. Despite the shortcomings, I did manage to speak with my five-year-old son, who was distraught that daddy was gone for a week; for all of us the contact with families remained comforting and a constant encouragement.
We started the assault on Uhuru Peak at midnight on March 16, with our headlamps providing the much-needed beacon of hope as we progressed slowly, but surely, up a 70 degree gradient. The temperature dipped to approximately -17 degrees and winds picked up as we reached 5,000m. The journey from there to Gilman’s Point, at 5,700m, took us about seven hours. As team leader I was put under the most severe test as I tried to help team members face their individual challenges. We stopped for comfort breaks periodically but stayed together through all that the mountain could throw at us and the whole team made it to Gilman’s Point. This was our first milestone. The journey to Uhuru Peak from Gilman’s Point took approximately two hours and we all finally summited at 9.15AM on March 16.
Reaching Uhuru Peak saw emotions flow from all team members. Tears of joy were the expression of accomplishment and pride that we all felt. Once rested, the team decided to do the Harlem Shake, which was undoubtedly the expression of insanity that overcame everyone for a moment. The team then made its way back to Kibo Hut in three hours to a well-deserved hot lunch and nap before moving down to the next base camp. The ABN team conquered Kilimanjaro to become only the 10th team that our guides had managed to all take up to the top of the mountain.
As team leader, I saw some changes in every one of my team. First and foremost, 15 individuals went up the mountain but one family of 15 came down having accomplished the mission successfully with a priceless bond that will be cherished forever. What did we all learn? Just one lesson: No goal is too great or too small to accomplish if you work slowly and steadily as a team. In addition to this, as a leader I learnt that a leader needs to show genuine concern for his team and be there for them, larger than life, when they need him most.
<h4>Rakesh Wahi—the vice chairman of the ABN360 Group—dreamed up and financed the trip. He is a fit 53-year-old, who spent nine years of active service as an officer in the Indian Army and knows all about rough roads and battles.</h4>
Why Kilimanjaro? 
“The trip was symbolic of where we see ourselves as a business. Climbing Africa’s highest mountain and the highest freestanding mountain in the world resonates with our vision to be Africa’s leading business media conglomerate. The true test of leaders is when you push them over the edge from their comfort zone into a zone of physical and mental hardship, and then observe their ability to think, rationalize, overcome hardship, carry their team members and reach a group goal. The behavior patterns of people change in such grueling conditions and personal survival can sometimes overtake a group goal. But, like in a battlefield, personal matters must become secondary to a bigger cause that everyone must believe in. That cause then defines the success of the team and motivates them to achieve the goal… This kind of physical and mental test cannot be achieved in a beach resort.”
How difficult was the ascent? 
“There were several challenging moments. From a physical point of view, many members developed different ailments from fever, fatigue, insect bites, sunburns and altitude sickness to nausea and stomach-related viruses. On the mental side, the main challenge came on summit night when people had to call for their inner strength to make it to the top.”
How did it feel to stand there proudly at the summit? 
“I could see emotions flowing down each one’s cheeks and the pride on their faces to have made it to the top together. When we started out, there were 15 people with different identities and backgrounds. When we reached the top, I could see that a family was born… On a personal level, it was a great achievement as my son, Sid, was also on the team. It was a great opportunity to spend time with him and see him face his own challenges to make it to the summit, despite getting altitude sickness and severe hypothermia.”
The Harlem Shake? 
“This was indeed a surprise item on the agenda. The average age of the team was under 30 and a lot of their language, music and conversations were foreign to me. I did however, enjoy everything that I heard. I was at a loss when I was asked to join in the Harlem Shake but did it as requested by the team. I rehearsed it with the team at 4,700m and they were overjoyed to see me participate. I think it was a victory lap for the modern generation and could well have been any other form of expression. I thought it was rather cute and unique when I saw the final product on YouTube; after all how many people have behaved like complete lunatics at 6,000m.”
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A Breathing Break And A Harlem Shake  On The Rooftop Of Africa

It was a name that took less than two years to build. Wakaberry, inspired by the 2010 Soccer World Cup anthem ‘Waka Waka’, with a sales turnover of more than R25 million ($2.8 million) a year from 13 stores around South Africa, with nine more on the way.
The company is the fruit of the labor of the Fouries. Michele studied to be a primary school teacher, while her husband, Ken, played rugby for the Natal Sharks. In 1998, Ken received a professional contract to play for Leicester Tigers and they moved to the United Kingdom. They later relocated to Wales, when Ken was offered a long-term contract with the Cardiff Blues. During that time, Michele completed a Master of Science Degree in Criminology and Criminal Justice. Cardiff became a second home to the Fouries but five years later, when Ken’s contract was up, they decided to move to the United States.
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“We traveled to the States a couple of times on holiday and I think that by nature we always like fresh challenges; we’re definitely the type of people that don’t like to sit somewhere forever. So we kind of find new challenges and really liked North Carolina.”
In 2005, the couple moved to Wilmington, North Carolina, where they bought a restaurant, appropriately named Ken’s Bagels.
“That was probably our biggest move in terms of being entrepreneurs—going into a completely unknown field, into an unknown country. And only about three weeks into the actual process of looking for a business to buy did we discover the name of the particular business and I said if that’s not a sign then I don’t know.”
Two years later, after acquiring the business know-how that they needed, they decided to open their own restaurant—Café Brava. It served everything from Rooibos tea to Ouma rusks.
“We’d been open probably about six months with Café Brava and got to know the relatively small South African community in North Carolina and seen again that there was this market for South African products. So we did the research and found a company that does the importing for the big stores in Atlanta and New York and we were able to have a little selection of South African food stuff,” says Michele.
The business did very well but the recession of 2008 was a game changer for the Fouries. Michele admits that it was something she would never want to experience again but as tough as it was, it was a lesson.
“It was very difficult in the States. We’d lived through kind of both sides: the boom of 2007 and 2008, where retail was riding high. It was relatively easy, by the end of 2009, to see businesses that were booming pretty much shut up shop within a two-month period. Having lived through that has made us cautious financially and aware that success of today does not mean success of tomorrow.”
The couple moved back to Durban, after their daughters were born, to be closer to their family. When they arrived, the Fouries contacted their friend David Clark, who owned a shipping business, to oversee transport logistics. They noticed that there was gap in the market in South Africa for frozen yogurt. They had seen how it sold overseas and the three entrepreneurs decided to go into business.
“We were lucky enough, we were able to sell our existing business in the States before we left and we used the funds from that to fund Wakaberry. We self-funded the initial store, set up in Durban, in Florida Road, and have done that since day one. It was never funded through bank loans; it was all our personal money and blood, sweat and tears that had gone into every step of it.”
The franchise works on a self-service, pay-by-weight concept. Mixed berry, kiwi, watermelon, strawberry and vanilla are a few of the yogurt flavors, which can be topped up from the candy bar filled with sweets, chocolates and fruits. However, according to Michele, franchising was never the plan.
“It was really born out of necessity. Florida Road was open for three months and just became so busy that we had to open a second store, which we also owned—the Durban North store. From there, we just were receiving so many queries on a daily basis at our office and from customers that it came out of customer demand.”
For a market as young as this, new legislation can play a huge part in the future of the business. In February, the Department of Agriculture, Forestry and Fisheries published a set of requirements for different types of edible ices, including frozen yogurt, which will be phased in over 12 months. Michele believes that as important as these regulations are, a lot more still has to be done.
“So people that say they have got natural yogurt where it’s made with powder, they will not be allowed to do that anymore. I think it’s a good starting point but I think even the authors of the legislation would agree that there’s still a long way to go in terms of the class of edible items or frozen desserts. Though there are internationally accepted standards in terms of the percentage of the bio cultures and probiotics that have to be present in any dairy to be classified as yogurt. It’s very technical but that is what they’re trying to achieve in the long run of finding a base level of a classification for yogurt.”
For the Fouries, it is merely another obstacle on the road walked by the true entrepreneur.

Waka Waka This Time For Africa

He was young, ambitious, eager… and bored most of the time. At the age of 24, Allen Ambor had held a few corporate jobs here and there but hated every minute of it.
“I was bored out of my wits,” he recalls.
The last time he had fun working was when he waited tables in a steak house to finance his studies. That’s when he decided that he was going to open his own restaurant.
It started with many challenges. Ambor had saved $215, a fair amount of cash back in 1967, but it wasn’t even a tenth of what he needed. Fresh out of university, he struggled to get a loan or lease for the premises he had found in Cape Town.
“Nobody was willing to sign surety for me,” he says.
It took 18 tough months until his persistence paid off. Ambor was ready to open the first Spur steak ranch, a business that would grow into one of Africa’s top restaurant chains.
The obstacles didn’t end there. Ambor had planned to open a franchise of the Johannesburg steak house he used to work at, but the owners let him down just a few days before the launch. They didn’t send the nine employees they had promised to train or any of the kitchen supplies.
“They didn’t have the faintest clue about how to franchise,” he remembers.
Ambor quickly had to come up with a Plan B. Between his girlfriend, who was a good cook, his mother’s food chemist friend and himself, he whipped up various sauces and dressings, which were later to become signature condiments of the business.
To top it all off, Ambor did not receive the promised décor, either. Within days, he had to design his own decoration and logo. In line with the cowboy and crooks theme of most steak houses at that time, he decided on the image of a cowboy boot’s golden spur, which also became the restaurant’s name.
Ambor only changed the logo to the brand’s current Red Indian insignia in the mid-1980s, at the height of apartheid.
“I wanted to give a signal to people of color that they were welcome in our businesses. The Red Indian is spiritual, highly respected and had also been wronged,” he says.
Even though redesigning a company logo bears high risk of losing brand recognition, Ambor felt it was a good move: “It was a gut feel and it turned out to be the right thing at the right time”.
For more than four decades, he would trust his instincts as much as his business acumen and thus grow Spur into a $35.9 million global brand with 240 local and 29 international restaurants, including in the United Kingdom, Australia and a range of African countries: Botswana, Kenya, Lesotho, Malawi, Mauritius, Namibia, Nigeria, Swaziland, Tanzania, Uganda, Zambia and Zimbabwe.
“I don’t just work with a calculator. In the restaurant business, it’s gotta come from the heart. If you are only worried about the back pocket, it’s not going to work,” he says.
Ambor understood right from the start that making customers happy is the most important aspect of any restaurant business.
“Consistency, delivery and caring are the key things it comes down to,” he says.
That meant giving customers value for money, even if profit margins were not as high as they could have been. For three years after opening his first Spur, Ambor didn’t increase the menu prices.
“It was a signal that we weren’t just out for profit. I wanted to let my customers know that I was loyal to them, hoping they would also be loyal to me.”
The model worked. Spur Corporation set out on a fast-paced expansion strategy. Ambor sold his first franchise four years after opening the first steak house. Today, a franchise license for Spur costs R100,000 ($10,800). In the late 1980s, he added two more family restaurants to the mix: Panarottis pizza pasta and John Dory’s fish and grill. A year ago, Spur Corporation entered the fast food sector when it acquired DoRego’s, which has 75 outlets across South Africa, for R30 million.
“We are constantly innovating,” says Ambor.
But most of all, it was a lot of hard work, says Ambor. He never shied away from getting his own hands dirty and was known for running a tight ship. For years, he worked 20-hour days, setting an example for his employees while training them on the job. Not everyone was pleased to have an employer constantly breathing down their necks.
“People who didn’t like it, left. But those who bought into what we were doing stayed and became pillars of the organization,” says Ambor.
Many of Spur Corporations’ managers started out as waiters in one of the restaurants. One of them is Pierre van Tonder, who began as junior store manager in 1982 and took over the reins last year, when Ambor, at the age of 70, stepped down as CEO.
“You’ve got to be responsible and make sure there is succession,” explains Ambor, who has taken on the role of executive chair.
He now starts his days with yoga and spends only an average of five hours a day at the office. But whoever thinks Ambor is taking it easy couldn’t be more wrong: “I might only be at my desk for a few hours each day, but my head is going all the time”.

SPUR-ed  On By Boredom

Guinea, a mining capital in West Africa, faces great economic problems as it heads into parliamentary elections next month. The country faces ethnic tensions, threats to democracy and economic instability.
When it comes to resources, Guinea could be regarded as one of Africa’s richest countries. Rich in minerals, hydropower and agriculture, Guinea also holds almost half of the world’s bauxite as well as substantial amounts of iron ore, gold and diamonds. These resources remain under exploited.
Reforms are underway with tighter monetary policy and budget. According to the African Economic Outlook, in 2011 the Guinean economy progressed after the return to constitutional government. This saw real GDP peak at 4%. Despite government’s strict budget policy and determination to curb credit, inflation remained at a high of 21.2% in 2011. It is predicted to drop to 10.1% in 2013.
The International Monetary Fund (IMF) and World Bank’s International Development Association (IDA) have supported Guinea in its effort to gain debt relief. Combined, the IMF and IDA contributed $2.1 billion to the country in 2012.
In October 2011, the African Development Bank (AfDB) backed 77 Guinea operations which were worth approximately $818 million. These operations included: 58 projects, nine studies, seven institutional support operations and three non-project loans.
With the economic challenges faced by Guinea, this year’s elections will be regarded as a beacon of light for the country and will hopefully bring change to the nation. The eyes of the world will be on the country as they vote for their president.
President Alpha Condé, 75, was elected in 2010 in the first credible democratic elections since the West African nation gained independence from French rule in 1958, but parliamentary elections that would see Guinea’s full transition to civilian rule have been delayed for almost two years. The vote was originally scheduled for May 12 but elections have now been delayed until June 30, 2013.
In late February thousands of supporters of the leading opposition party, Union des Forces Démocratiques de Guinée (UFDG), took to the streets accusing Condé and his ruling Rassemblement du Peuple Guinéen (RPG) of attempting to rig the vote. Nine were killed in clashes with security forces and hundreds injured in the riots. The UFDG is backed by the Peul, the largest ethnic group in Guinea, whose supporters accuse Condé’s government of politically favoring the Malinke, the second largest ethnic group in the country.
With the opposition walking out of talks with the government that were organized in the aftermath of the violence, and calling for further protests and strikes, international observers are concerned that Guinea could further descend into violence and derail the nation’s journey to democratic rule.
Guinea’s main opposition leader, Cellou Dalein Diallo, who lost to Condé in a tight presidential run-off in November 2010, said the opposition would do everything to stop the election if it was held without them, according to a report by Reuters. Analysts say this is a troubling sign.
Vincent Foucher, a senior analyst for West Africa at International Crisis Group told FORBES AFRICA that the political standoff could setback Guinea’s economic gains.
“If they blow this one there is a very serious possibility that people in the armed forces could say, ‘You politicians are not able to handle those democracy things so we [will] step back in,’ and that would bring us back to 2008 which would be a real shame,” says Foucher.
He adds that basic consensus on the electoral process must be achieved for the elections to go ahead.
“The situation is so tense that I do not believe that full consensus is possible.”
Ahmed Sékou Touré, Guinea’s first president, was a firebrand socialist who rejected Charles de Gaulle’s offer of integration into the Franco-African community. Touré ran an authoritarian government for over 20 years in which torture, arrests and executions were commonplace.
After an unsuccessful invasion led by Portuguese Guinea, now Guinea-Bissau, Touré became increasingly paranoid, accusing the Peul population of attempting to overthrow the government. After his death in 1984, a group of army generals staged a military coup and Lansana Conté became president, and was followed by Moussa Dadis Camara in 2008.
Guinea came into the international spotlight in the aftermath of the September 28, 2009 massacre of some 150 opposition protestors and the rape of more than 100 women by security forces during the military regime of Dadis Camara. The International Criminal Court is currently investigating the case but Human Rights Watch has said the government needs to do more to bring those responsible to justice.
Due to mounting international pressure, Guinea held its first democratic presidential election in 2010. International observers deemed the elections free and fair but they were marred by ethnic rivalry and clashes between civilians and security forces.
Foucher says there have been significant moves away from the tyranny and turmoil of the past but that Guinea still has a long way to go.
“There are some interesting developments and you could say there is a dialog about electoral institutions.”
In addition to its bauxite reserves, Guinea has large iron ore, gold and diamond deposits and has long been on the radar for international investors and multinational mining companies. Upon taking office, Condé promised to redevelop the mining sector and review existing mining contracts signed under previous military dictatorships.
In 2011, Condé revised Guinea’s mining code to allow the government to take a minimum of 15% of shares in mining companies operating on its soil, with an option to buy a further 20%. The government has set up a review body to look into previous mining contracts and overhaul the mining code that determines the role the state plays in governing the industry.
Resources watchdog Revenue Watch Institute, funded by billionaire George Soros, is advising the Guinean government on transparency and how to better negotiate with large mining companies. Leading development economist Paul Collier is also an advisor to the government and Tony Blair’s Africa Governance Initiative has a presence in the country.
In an interview last year with The Guardian, president Condé, a former pro-democracy activist, said he would be “The Obama and Mandela of Guinea” and that he would transform the nation into a stable and developed democracy. But analysts say Guinea’s future stability will largely depend on his ability to negotiate with the opposition and build trust around the electoral process.
Guinea is emerging from a long period of political instability and the socio-political situation remains uncertain. Political differences concern the future of the electoral process and financial and logistical problems.

A Test For  Guinea’s  Fledgling  Democracy

Diplomatic channels between South Africa and Mozambique have come alive with activity over the vexed question of rhino poaching. The poachers use Mozambique as a springboard for their deadly sorties across the border into the Kruger National Park. South Africa’s flagship reserve, with an estimated 12,000 rhinos, is one of the world’s great sanctuaries for the endangered species.
High-level meetings are scheduled between the conservation authorities of the two countries, to inspect conditions along the boundary where the incursions happen. This is a marked difference from the arms-length exchanges, since the outbreak of poaching three years ago.
Mozambique and Vietnam—the biggest suppliers, to Asia, of the highly prized rhino-horn powder—received stern criticism at the March meeting of CITES (Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species), in Bangkok, Thailand. The South African delegation pleaded for international assistance, in a motion adopted by the global assembly of conservationists. CITES asked Mozambique to explain its efforts to curb the poaching. It instructed the country to tighten its anti-poaching laws and to step up its enforcement against the poachers and smugglers.
The urgent need for closer cooperation between the countries was noted in a report by Mavuso Msimang, the rhinoceros conservation issue manager of South Africa’s Department of Environmental Affairs. The brief is to solicit the widest possible range of views on how to conserve and manage the endangered species.
In 1996, Msimang, a notable anti-apartheid campaigner, became the first black chief executive of South African National Parks (SANParks), which is a custodian of the country’s national reserves. He became known as ‘Mr Fix-it’ for the roles he played in diverse areas of government after he left SANParks.
Msimang canvassed opinions of everybody connected to rhinos and their conservation. The report he handed over, late last year, to the department’s minister, Edna Molewa, had,  inexplicably, not been made public by the time of the CITES meeting, though parts of it had been disclosed in increments.
He proposes the need for tougher and better coordinated security action between government agencies, ranging from more highly trained and well-equipped game rangers to the armed forces and even SARS (South African Revenue Service). His most contentious recommendation was that legal trade in rhino be allowed on a well-regulated basis, as a way of undercutting the lucrative black market.
He says that there is no silver bullet. The antidote to poaching needs to consist of a wide-ranging set of measures. One of these would have to be engagement with Mozambique over poaching incursions by way of the Great Limpopo Transfrontier Park, which the two countries and Zimbabwe established by treaty in 2003. The transfrontier agreements also need to be upgraded to provide for anti-poaching operations.
The crisis has shattered the dream, which was born in the era of South Africa’s Nelson Mandela and Mozambique’s Joaquim Chissano. It was a pact of supreme trust in which their two countries agreed to open their adjoining national parks, across national boundaries, to allow the animals wider roaming areas and to promote tourism. The arrangement was talked of as the world’s biggest animal kingdom and a jewel for global tourism.
Then the rhino poachers struck. In 2008, they killed what was then considered a worrisome 36 animals in the Kruger. Last year, the tally for the park stood at 425 of the 668 killed throughout the country. Within the first four months of this year, the national toll had exceeded 220.
Kruger’s rangers have received combat training and the police and army have been called in. Spotter planes have come into use, as have helicopters for rapid response. More and more, the fire-fights leave corpses behind. Within a short few years, this peace park, as transfrontier parks are called, has turned into a war zone.
David Mabunda, SANParks CEO, noted that 90% of the poachers come from Mozambique and that they were well-armed, with apparent military training.
“Many go back in body bags. Others get arrested. But they just keep coming,” he says.
South African public sentiment has started turning against the transfrontier scheme, especially as it involved dropping the old high-security fence that, during the border-war years, shielded the Kruger from Mozambique.
“There will be no other way [than putting up the fence] if the relentless incursions of poachers from Mozambique continue,” says Mabunda.
The fears for the scheme were evident from Werner Myburgh—CEO of the Peace Parks Foundation, that Afrikaner industrialist and conservationist Anton Rupert set up in 1997, with Mandela and Prince Bernhard of the Netherlands as its patrons.
“It would spell the end of the scheme,” he says.
Big donors, among them the German and French governments, would lose faith and funding, for the Mozambican part of the project in particular, would dry up. Around 6,000 people from Mozambique’s adjacent Limpopo Park, a million hectare tract of land that the Chissano government turned into a reserve for the specific purpose of the transfrontier project, would have to be relocated. Last year, these villagers agreed, after years of excruciating negotiations, to move to host villages outside the park. This would serve anti-poaching operations by making it impossible for the poachers to use the villages as hiding places.
The fear is that reconstruction of the fence would create the impression that the reserve scheme is collapsing and that this would not only jeopardize the translocation, but cause more people to move into the park. This could worsen the poaching problem rather than resolve it.
Myburgh insists that it is, therefore, for the sake of the rhinos that the fence should stay down and that the transfrontier scheme should be pursued with greater vigor. The treaty provides for a joint security committee which, if functioning properly, should serve as a perfect agency for sharing information and running joint anti-poaching operations.

A Deadly War Shatters The Peace Park

Sola Owoloja has been working in the business for five years; he understands how to please. He had to transport a comb from New York to Johannesburg. It must have been a very special comb. He naturally said: “Yes”. You have to.
The patron staying at a Johannesburg hotel had left the comb, given to her by her dying mother, in a hair salon in New York. West Chauffeurs got in touch with the New York hotel and within 48 hours the comb was hand delivered to the patron.
Running around, chauffeuring, catering to and cajoling the rich is what makes concierge services pay. On another occasion, a patron asked to deliver an elephant across the Atlantic to the United States as a gift to his daughter. Luckily, the request was not followed through, again Owoloja would have said: “Yes”.
“Integrity is very important. If you make a promise to your guest, you have to keep that promise. We made a promise to our guests. We will bend, we’re flexible. We’ll do anything to keep them satisfied,” says Owoloja.
In 2008, Owoloja and Kagiso Dumasi saw a gap in the market for a concierge company in South Africa that would cater for the needs of wealthy travelers. Owoloja oversees the operational, financial and recruitment side of the business, while Dumasi looks after the marketing.
West Chauffeurs can make dinner reservations; find scarce theater tickets and presents in a hurry, as well as deliver combs.
Nigerian-born Owoloja learnt early on at home, in Lagos, that you have to do business however you can.
In Lagos, while in his twenties, he dabbled in the supermarket business with a friend. He moved to South Africa with the hope of running an oil services company, but failed. He moved back home but later returned to South Africa to start a business with the little entrepreneurial experience under his belt.
“When the chips are down, in the face of adversity and massive challenges, you need to still inspire people to get them to see beyond the challenges of the day,” says Owoloja.
Their Johannesburg business prospered through a link to Quintessentially, a global luxury lifestyle company, known for its high net-worth clients.
With a little help from the National Empowerment Fund, West Chauffeurs increased its fleet from two cars to eight, after making more than R1 million ($108,800) in its second year.
They relocated from the central business district of Sandton to another affluent suburb, Melrose Arch. This opened up the business meetings market. The company had to swear its drivers to secrecy as many deals were struck on the road.
Towards the end of that year, an opportunity came to run the travel desk for two new five-star hotels in Cape Town but it all went downhill from there. The two found that they had expanded too quickly.
They had entered into unfamiliar territory, in an international tourist city that has well-established hotels. West Chauffeurs found itself exposed, a small business that relied too much on the hotels for guests for business. The two new hotels were unable to fill up enough rooms to secure business for West Chauffeurs. The Johannesburg office had to keep Cape Town afloat.
“For a small company, expansion should be managed very carefully. We were profitable in our first year, but we did not think through that move carefully. We expanded very quickly without the structures to manage the expansion in terms of cash flow, record keeping,” says Owoloja.
At the end of each month the business was short of around 65% of their costs, which they had to source from the profit made during the previous year.
“It dried up very quickly. We tried to get overdrafts, personal funds to pay salaries but it was quite difficult. We picked up heavy losses in Cape Town but yes those are lessons learnt. They were painful,” he adds with a chuckle.
Owoloja says a big mistake was for the company to go without a management account and financial statements for nearly a year.
But that’s all in the past now. In early 2011, West Chauffeurs packed up office in Cape Town and focused on business at its headquarters in Johannesburg, where the company was doing well.
They signed a contract to run the travel desk for the five-star African Pride’s Melrose Arch Hotel located in the trendy precinct. Again, they struggled with being too small and having to run a high occupancy hotel with demanding clients. The hotels patrons were skeptical about making use of their services because they were much smaller than established car rental companies.
Through it all, things started to look up. The company now turns over nearly $800,000 annually.
“We went from nothing to quite a bit. There’s this very nice feeling that comes with making things work,” says Owoloja.
West Chauffeurs currently has twelve cars and employs 17 drivers and consultants. They drive clients from First Bank of Nigeria, Liberty Life and Barclays, to mention but a few.
One of their biggest achievements was beating more established companies to drive members traveling with the British Lions during their rugby tour to South Africa in 2009.
The softly spoken Owoloja says they are wary of leaping without looking, the scars of the Cape Town run deep. For now, their plans are to grow other services within the West Chauffeur brand in Johannesburg and capture the leisure market.
Surely, when the time is right, the answer will be: “Yes”.

Category: Travel

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