Back in Africa - Hand-picked travel information for the best holidays in South Africa & Botswana - Uitenhage, E. Cape: Prickly Pear Festival

The Prickly Pear Festival is held near Uitenhage in the Eastern Cape's Nelson Mandela Bay. 

The prickly pear as main attraction of the Festival not only has novelty value but educational value as well. Sixteen tons of prickly pears are processed for the Festival. Products made of the fruit and leaves of the prickly pear include preserves, bread, prickly pear syrup, pickles, chutney and sweets, available from the prickly pear stall at the festival. 

Visitors can treat themselves to all the traditional foodstuffs such as potjiekos, spit-roasted meat, boereworsrolls, sosaties, spuds, as well as halaal fare and refreshments ranging from gingerbeer to witblits. Members of the Friends of the Museum Society staff the twenty odd foodstalls, beergarden and teagarden. More than a hundred craftstalls with stallholders from as far afield as Cape Town and Gauteng offer a variety of goods ranging from art, ceramics, toys, clothing and woodwork to haberdashery. 

ENTERTAINMENT
Entertainment is a very important part of the festivities and a good drawcard to ensure high attendance of the event. The entertainment program, starting at 08h00, includes local groups, bands and entertainers as well as better-known national artists. Jumping castles, go-karts, mini motorbikes, a Ferris wheel and an eleven-meter high slide provide ample entertainment for the youngsters and the young at heart. 