Eclipse stops South Africa in its tracks

Darkness fell over the African bush today as the moon slipped over the sun in a total solar eclipse.

Thousands of foreign tourists and southern Africans watched the moon cross over path of the sun, bringing darkness for about a minute-and-a-half.

“There, that’s magic,” said Cherry Hochfelden, a Johannesburg housewife, as the light from behind the clouds dimmed and the sky turned a deep twilight.

Rows of cameras propped up on tripods clicked and onlookers toasting the occasion with vodka coolers cheered.

“Hey, don’t the predators come out at night?” joked one eclipse gazer.

Some despaired at the cloud cover that blocked the view of totality – the moment the glow of the completely covered sun radiates from behind the moon.

“It’s lovely to see the effects around us, but it’s not much use astronomically,” said Hochfelden’s husband, Gavin, an investment banker.

An amateur astronomer, he had attended a training session on eclipse watching at the Johannesburg chapter of the Astronomical Society of South Africa, but did not even bother using his fancy telescope because of the dark stretch of silver clouds obscuring the view.

The “path of totality” crossed Angola, Zambia, Zimbabwe, South Africa and Mozambique, before it headed across the Indian Ocean towards southern Australia where visibility was predicted to be most clear.

Wearing metal bangles up to their elbows and on their ankles, women from the Venda tribe wrapped in traditional brightly coloured striped and dotted fabrics of magenta, lime and yellow held up eclipse viewing glasses.

Whenever the cloud cover would lift, people nudged each other in a cacophony of languages to look through the silver foil glasses to catch a glimpse of what appeared as an ever shrinking sun – first a fiery ball, then a sliver, and eventually only a glow.

“It’s so magnificent, I think we should all see this at least once in our lifetime,” said Koichi Joe, a 31-year-old television director from Japan.

In an effort to make sure eclipse viewing would be a safe experience in Kruger, South Africa’s largest game park, rangers armed with Winchester rifles patrolled viewing sites.

A team of Nasa scientists were sent to South Africa to record the eclipse.

French astronomer Marie-France Duval works at a Marseilles observatory and served as a de-facto eclipse lecturer to her French tour group, explaining the mechanics and maths of the phenomenon.

The eclipse was her fourth, and she brought with her from France a wooden box refractor to filter the sight.

“We wait a long time for this day,” said Duval, trying to put the thrill of the solar system in context.

“If there are no stars there are no humans. Life depends on the sun,” she said and then turned to fiddle with the knobs on her refractor.

A group of French tourists balanced eggs on the top of an African drum, using the combined gravity of the sun and moon during the totality of the eclipse to hold them up.

Trevor Xivuri, 26, comes from nearby town of Malamuhele and works at a water project at Kruger Park, removing alien plants from natural areas.

He and his co-workers joked about the different interpretations traditional leaders were giving on the radio for the meaning of the eclipse.

Some said it meant rain and plentiful crops. Others said it was a harbinger of death.

Naniekie Magoro, wearing a crimson robe with blue stitching worn for important occasions by the northern Sotho speaking people of the area, said she saw her own meaning in the eclipse.

“It’s the hope of good changes ... of good things in the future,” said Magoro, a development worker.