(Part of 2009 Summer Holiday)

Nieu-Bethesda is a small (a grid of 4 by 6 roads), dusty (30 km dirt road to get there and only dirt roads in town) village in the Karoo (a desert in the south of South Africa). It is famous for being an art colony, for having fossils and  tourists but no street lamps, which makes for better star gazing. Interestingly enough, there is a new part of the village a bid further away, probably where the workers live, which has street lights. The new part is not famous for anything.

Our accommodation was very basic, being an old church hall, with old stone and wooden floors, old, charming furniture and fixtures (so far so good) and a drop toilet (not good). As the toilet was next to the bed room the smell haunted us. Next time I would go a bid upmarket.

The art part started with a certain Mrs. Helen Martins, who for no apparent reason decorated her house and garden with rather heavy folk art. People how like that style will find it great, we were underwhelmed. Now there is a number of galleries and most focus on folk art, but we found a nice black and white print of the town at the art center which we took home. 

The fossils are very old even by fossil standards, they are from animals that got extinct even before dinosaurs were around. The details escape me by now and nobody knows why they all died, but fascinating.

The biggest attraction for me as well as for any other reasonable human being is the fact that Nieu-Bethesda also has a brewery, specializing in ales. They are extremely  tasty, the cheeses produced there as well are very good and I can only recommend the cheese and salami platter. In this case, really, a visit to N-B is not complete without a visit to the brewery.

Nieu-Bethesda is a great place to be a bit away from everything, just relaxing. It is very easy to get around by foot, has some nice cafes and character (one morning I saw some kids racing down a road in a donkey kart, how cool is that?). Just make sure you get a place with a flush toilet.