An exhibition about the early origins of mankind at De Hoop Nature Reserve inspired Bi nne Huisman to give Glenda Kemp a call…
A bird of prey hangs suspended over the vlei and the sing-song of cicadas permeates the heat. My cellphone is clammy, pressed against my ear.
On the other end, Glenda Kemp laughs joyfully. Butterflies flit in my stomach - I mean, Glenda Kemp, the apartheid-era python stripper! Her name is on a 30 Seconds card.
Now in her 70’s, she's busy relaying a memory from 1979 when she was travelling to London with her python aboard an SAA flight. At Heathrow, the snake arrived on a conveyer belt amid all the passenger suitcases.
"And there was my snake," Kemp shrieks. "In its basket, which was sommer upside down!"
That day she was picked up in a limousine. Here at De Hoop Nature Reserve, traffic is sparse. There are no tar roads. On the stoep at the Wild Fig restaurant, my chat with Kemp continues.
Let me explain how this came about…
Near the southernmost tip of Africa, De Hoop is swathed in silence and salty winds. A few farmstead buildings, a scattering of baboons and bontebok, some conservationists and a handful of tourists do nothing to dispel the solitude.
Two years ago, I hiked the reserve's famous five-day Whale Trail. We skinny-dipped in the mornings, tiptoeing over jagged rocks to icy waves, pausing to pick up paper-thin argonaut shells.
A memory etched in my mind: descending Potberg, past protea-studded fynbos into the tiny bay of Noetsie.
Overnighting there in a cottage, our braai fire flanked against starry dark, we raised G&Ts to the full moon. Back then, I was unaware that just a few metres away, scientists had been excavating a cave since 2010, uncovering some of humanity's earliest secrets.
Today, this archaeological site is top of mind. I'm on a press junket to witness the opening of an exhibition called the "Origins of Early Southern Sapiens Behaviour", an ironically futuristic mixed-media reflection on our past, housed in a white-washed building at the reserve.
Politicians, scientists and diplomats have all pulled up for the event in clouds of dust. Attendees include Western Cape Premier Alan Winde, a Russian film crew and a bevy of Overberg mayors.
We all squeeze into a low reed-ceilinged room for the proverbial ribbon cutting. Behind the microphone, De Hoop's general manager Hendrik Arendse rather movingly refers to the event as "our big day".
Archaeology professor Christopher Henshilwood details excavations at three coastal caves, including the one at Noetsie and at world-renowned Blombos near Still Bay. Eyes gleaming, he exclaims: "These sites are rare, like hen's teeth!"
Filmmaker Craig Foster (My Octopus Teacher) co-curated the exhibition over 15 years. He says this exhibition is the best story of all, a time machine into our past: "A coming together of science and indigenous knowledge, of filmmaking and art."
Inside the dim exhibition rooms, words and images are projected onto a huge epoxy human head, a reference to ancestral prayer.
Screens against the wall tell origin tales; one video features Zolani Mahola (formerly of Freshlyground) in flippers, snorkelling, saying that being in the ocean brings her nearer to her Xhosa roots.
Glass shelves are packed with bones, stones and smooth, burnished metal. I ask De Hoop's lead guide, Dyllon Visagie, about his personal highlight.
He leads me to a screen with skeletal bits and abalone shells.
"This is super cool," he says. "These are snake bones, a snake that once belonged to Glenda Kemp."
A short while later, I find Glenda's number online and press call. To my surprise she answers - a spritely Afrikaans voice.
And this is how it comes about: me pacing the Wild Fig's stoep, listening to anecdotes about pet pythons from decades ago. I tell her about the snake bones at De Hoop.
It might be one of mine, she says, laughing. There were many snakes, she explains; a German man sourced them for her…
That night, I sleep at the Melkkamer manor house, which you reach by boat across the vlei.
From my four-poster bed, I'm watching the star-speckled sky through large sash windows: swirls of light; the Southern Cross, reliably canted.
Just as well science leaves room for magic and poetry, too.
The Origins of Early Southern Sapiens Behaviour exhibition opened in January 2024 and can be viewed at De Hoop over the next three years. See dehoopcollection.com for accommodation details.
