BudgetTravel

For dinner, locals are unanimous in recommending Karoo Kombuis (Karoo Kitchen, 18 Deurdrif St, 023/5411-110.), run by a trio of those aforementioned free spirits, with a menu that changes daily. For one night yesterday, I went off my Bijlia Cana meal plan and had the bobotie (a traditional South African crumbled lamb bake) with vegetables and a lemon bake, that set me back all of $5. As with all establishments in sleepy Prince Albert, where you never know where the next customer's coming from, you need to call ahead for reservations. Ask for a table on the stoep (porch), since it overlooks Prince Albert's most haunted street. (If you spot a white dog trotting past, summon a priest.)

Another popular place, this one upscale, is The Blue Fig (61 Church St, 023/541-1900), which does traditional South African food like lamb, ostrich, yogurt, and so on in a semi-nouvelle style. Dinner will cost about $10 here (which is shocking to some locals) and there's a pleasant forecourt. After dinner, most of Prince Albert's cast of characters pass through the Swartberg Arms pub, on the main street, and they're very friendly to outsiders since many of them were introduced to the town that way.

On one end of town is an olive farm and a weavery that both encourage visitors. On the other end, Gay's Dairy sells full-cream milk that was inside a cow yesterday, and beyond it, the Swartberg Nature Reserve (and a rugged valley known darkly as "The Hell") beckons with miles of empty hiking trails. The main street features a handful of funky shops, such as a vendor of brilliantly colored mohair blankets (they start at $25, a steal), and an abundant co-op gallery (next to the tourist office), where local artists offer their desert-inspired works. I was tempted by a chair that was cleverly covered with bits of broken ostrich shells. It was by a quirky young artist named Gideon, who inside the gallery, also offered for sale a toilet emblazoned with "Elvis is Alive," again in ostrich shell.

And beyond this blip of a town, swaddled in the serenity of the Karoo desert, are miles of quiet, windblown hillocks. Pick one around sunset, which is always the lurid fluorescent red that only desert sunsets can be, and watch the show. You may find underfoot, as I did, a leftover shard of rock, hewn by ancient hands, that once served as a spearhead for a forgotten African warrior.

Everything can be arranged, for free, at the Tourist Office (023/541-1366, patourism.co.za). Make sure you visit the one marked by the figure of a man inside the South African flag; the other "tourist info" office is not official and has been known to turn people away when its "partner" inns are full. Chalk it up to another one of those town eccentrics.

Wine, wine and more wine

My tenth day in South Africa brought me to Cape Town's famous wine region. Instead of venturing to the very well-trod vineyards of Stellenbosch or Franschhoek, which have become so popular that their prices are no longer completely fair, I drove an extra half-hour (making a total of about two hours) to the glorious town of Tulbagh.

Tulbagh (pronounced TOOL-bach, with a hard "h" as in the Scottish "loch"), snuggled in a cul-de-sac of mountains in the Breede River Valley, has one of South Africa's best-preserved streets of Cape Dutch architecture. Like the Art Deco mecca of Napier, New Zealand, the city's textbook-worthy architecture was actually saved by a cataclysmic earthquake. In 1969, Tulbagh was wrecked by a quake that flicked the facades off many of the the 200-year-old farm buildings; in rebuilding, town planners wisely went back to the original plans of all the houses and faithfully re-created the town as it appeared in the 1800s. There are probably no finer or more faithfully maintained examples of a Cape Dutch streetscapes than Church Street in Tulbagh.

The B&B I have chosen is Tulbagh Country House, built at the dawn of the 19th century and one of the town's most historic buildings. Ginny Clarke, the exuberant proprietress, doubles her B&B with an art gallery crammed with quality works by local artists. When I stepped in the door, I set eyes on a watercolor by a painter from nearby Worcester that I simply had to own. The price: about $25, with a handmade frame, for a portrait of such quality that I would easily pay $200 for its equal back home. (Tulbagh Country House: 24 Church Street, 011-27-23-230-1171.)

After telling me all about the history of the house and warning me about a friendly female ghost that sometimes appears in the dining room after hours, Ginny gave me one of the softest beds I've ever slept in, big as a swimming pool, in a cavernous farmhouse room with beam ceilings, the original groaning wood floors, and my own private courtyard. The price? About $17, with a full cooked breakfast served on Spode bone china. (Shocking, isn't it?) Ginny also rents a few detached cottages, also on Church Street.

The surrounding area presents just as much graciousness for such little money, and unlike the high-traffic sprawl around Stellenbosch, most local wineries are within five minutes' drive from the main street, which makes it much easier for foreigners to tour.

Feeling decadent, I went a few kilometers out of town to Twee Jonge Gezellen ("Two Young Bachelors"), renowned for its excellent sparkling wine (known, of course, as "champagne" in France). There, in the growing heat, I sat next to burbling fountains, in the shade of grapevines, and sipped from $3 bottles of fine sparkling wine. Other popular wineries are nearby, including Drostdy Wine Cellar (drostdywines.co.za, known for making South Africa's surprisingly good boxed wine, or "Happy Boxes," as they're insightfully called by locals) and Theuniskraal (theuniskraal.co.za). For incredibly cheap wine blends, try the co-operative cellar at Tulbagh Winery.

Ginny's son, Jayson, turned me on to another local Tulbagh secret: its anonymous-looking slaghuis, or butchery, makes some of the best biltong in the area. Biltong, for South Africans, is a more popular snack than potato chips or even french fries for North Americans. It amounts to a delicious type of jerky, and it's available in many flavors that foreigners find enthralling, including ostrich, springbok and kudu (both African antelopes), or the most popular, beef. South Africa's beef is generally grass-fed, as nature intended, and not pumped with the grains and antibiotics that give American beef its unnaturally pillowy texture. That said, Tulbagh's slaghuis sells some of the softest, rarest biltong I've ever seen; point at the slab of dried meat you want (most cost a little over $1) and the ladies behind the counter will shred it for you. You don't have to dice it up, though; many South Africans, including Jayson, seem to love knawing away on massive hunks of meat.

The refined pleasure of Tulbagh seems a world away from the oddball appeal of Prince Albert. Tulbagh is also much closer to Cape Town. From Cape Town, take the N7 north to Malmesbury, then take the R46 to Hermon, where you turn onto the R44. Everything's marked and easy to drive, and there's even a lovely mountain pass on the way that's not too terrifying for drivers used to right-lane travel. You can also detour through Ceres ("SEER-eez"), not far away, to tour the region that produces the famous brand of fruit juices that often pops up on American shelves. (Tulbagh tourism: 14 Church Street, 011-27-23-230-1348, tulbagh.com.)

Back to Cape Town to tally up the final costs

My remaining time in Cape Town will be spent volunteering. South Africa leads the world in AIDS infections, and its poverty has long been a global concern, so I plan to visit a local shelter for street children and see what service I can be for them. Then, deeply regretful, I will clamber aboard South African Airways (which, as a specialist in long-distance flights, has always succeeded in making me comfortable) for my trip home.

Although I haven't been able to sit down and hash it out yet, I have a rough idea of how much it would cost someone to take a trip like the one I just took. First of all, don't go with a guided tour company. South Africa is English-speaking, and infrastructure is generally first-rate, so guides and hand-holding is not necessary. That saves a great deal on cost, and people who book independent self-tours will find that the high prices of African vacations are pretty much inflated.

Flying on South African Airways during shoulder-season months, as I have done, the price of flying all the way down to Cape Town from the East Coast of America was $995 plus taxes, and that includes five nights' hotel. From there, you can just extend your return flight as long as you need, get a rental car (I paid $350 for two weeks, plus $20 for each tank of gas), and book your own accommodation as you go along-bank on $25 a night and that's more than enough for the sensible consumer to buy food as well. So for two weeks in Africa, doing the same things I've been doing, you'd pay around $1,500, including airfare, or around $100/day.

Take a cruise, go to Disney, fly to London -- no matter what you choose I guarantee you'd spend much more in half the time. Contrary to myth, Africa is not an expensive destination. You can safely add it to your life's experiences, and for much less than you think.