I had to look up Calvinia on the map.Not because I knew nothing about it, but because I had always firmly believed that Calvinia was in the Western Cape, and there I was being told it was in the Northern Cape.And so it proved – south of the great salt flats of the Northern Cape, 400 kms east of Victoria West and 400kms south of Upington.What confused me, perhaps, is that it is quite close to Nieuwoudtville, which is of course synonymous with the glorious wild flowers of Spring.

But Calvinia is in the Hantamsberg, and combines the best of both provinces.And something rapidly becoming a tourist attraction in its own right, is Jo’s Guesthouse.Or rather, Jo himself.Jo is Johan Fritz, a lifelong resident of Calvinia and owner of the successful guesthouse that bears his name.Everyone in Calvinia knows Jo – just ask at the garage for Jo’s Guesthouse, and you will be directed there with a smile.

Johan was one of seven children.His father worked on the railways, his mother was a ‘domestic engineer’.From as far back as he can remember, Johan helped his mother in the kitchen, cooking and baking.When he left school, he went off to study cheffery (if that is a word) at the ProteaHotelSchool.On qualifying as a chef, he came back to Calvinia determined to set up his own business.This was fifteen years ago.

“It wasn’t easy,” he says in Afrikaans with a rich West Coast accent, complete with a slight ‘brei’.“I used my mom’s pots and pans and made the food in her kitchen.The potatoes for chips we peeled by hand, there were no machines.There was very little money, so we had to do everything the hard way.”

The hard way paid off slowly.Johan managed to get enough money together to set up a moveable stall so that he could sell hot pancakes on street corners.Further income meant he could expand his business to a fast-food stall.Hard work and application meant he qualified for a business loan.And five years ago he decided to turn two of the bedrooms into his three-bedroom house into a guesthouse, and Jo’s Guesthouse was launched.

Nowadays he has fifteen rooms, a dining room, and an open-fire restaurant in the back garden where he serves traditional braai-cooked dishes like lamb potjie.A farm dam at the back of the house was turned into a rustic swimming pool.

The secret of Johan’s success, he says, is the fact that he offers a completely personal service.Nothing appears too much trouble.Oh, and he has a a great deal of determination to succeed.

“The business is growing,” he says.“At the moment, about 40% of the guests are international, the rest are local – mainly business travellers.They always tell me they feel as if this is their second home.”

Johan has also created a personal form of community tourism:he has regular evening concerts where members of the community come along and perform for guests, playing music and singing the songs of the Northern Cape.A lot of his profit goes towards community upliftment, and he gathers donations from guests for his annual Christmas party for the neighbourhood children.

Jo’s Guesthouse was one of the winners of the Emerging Tourism Entrepreneur of the Year Award.The prize, which included a trip to the Berlin Travel Fair, allowed him to sell his guesthouse to German travellers, who make up a large proportion of his guests.

Calvinia might not be on any major route, but it is close enough to Cape Town for a weekend escape.During spring and summer it is worth a longer holiday.The town has the flowers, mountain trails, birdwatching, absolute silence at night, no crime, the flowers, the Hantam House museum, the famous Hantam ponies, sheep farming and correspondingly cold winters, an 8-metre high post box (yes, really), an annual meat festival, and then the flowers.

And best of all, it is in the Northern Cape.I can’t help it, but when the gusty spring rains are over and the summer days are well advanced (like now), I just can’t help yearning for the Northern Cape:for the hot days, the clear nights and fresh mornings, the flat countryside with arrow-straight roads, the red earth that always looks as if a light is shining from underneath, the shimmering heat haze, the afternoon thunderstorms and the smell of hot wet earth, the placid rivers with their willow trees and brown muddy water.And the people:the donkey-carts, the owners of small shops who chat to their customers in heavy Afrikaans, the children playing in their small front chicken-wire-fenced gardens, the cheerfulness, the groundedness, the dry humour.It is soul country, and something that it truly unique to South Africa.

To get in touch with Jo, email him at joscalvinia@kingsley.co.za or call him on +2727 341 2247.