An absolute delight for the female shopper, a tourist’s paradise for a huge variety of curios to choose from. Just make sure you bring plenty of cash and your excellent bargaining skills, even then you won’t have enough to buy all your heart desires.
Chameleon Village is situated at Hartbeespoort Dam, about 45 min from both Johannesburg and Pretoria. You can bring the entire family for shopping, fun and entertainment as there are plenty to do. You can shop till you drop, enjoy scrumptious African cuisines and even pay a visit to the reptile park.
Here you can go wild between plenty of stalls in the hall or under thatched roofs, with the most colorful and amazing handcrafted gifts. There are plenty of little restaurants selling mouth-watering food with nice wooden benches for you to relax on while enjoying some entertainment provided by local artists.
You will have to come with your bargaining skills and face, this is not for the faint at heart. Some good advice will be, to first get the feel for the prices from different stalls and then start bargaining, especially if you are a tourist.
These are two hand beaded ornaments on the side roof of the coffee shop to draw some guests. Here you will find your fix of caffeine to either get or keep you going.
At one of the entrances I discovered this artist. I loved his work because I could feel the emotion in these pieces, he also had some hand carved wooden animals, masks and a Zebra skin for sale.
There are also shops selling all kinds of African wooden and limestone sculptures of animals, chiefs, carved pieces of the African continent with animals on it and masks.
The ladies sit in their stalls beading away on their next product to sell. There are a wide variety of beaded necklaces, bracelets, earrings and broches with multiple bright colours and exquisite patterns.
They even have some beaded animals and one of my favorite flowers “The Protea” our national flower. All over you will find bright colorful paintings.
I was absolutely mesmerised by the patterns and colours of these beaded baskets.*
At this stall you can buy some patterned hand woven rugs, pillows and bags.
I love the sound of the African drums and then also their look, here are just a few you can find at this market.
One off my all-time favourite, the wide variety of painted and carved ostrich eggs. You can buy them with or without these horned stands.
I love chess sets and had to take a photo of these as I thought they were exquisite. They have some with animal carved pieces. The materials used are wood, limestone and emerald stone.
I am not a big fan of having parts of an animal for an ornament in my house, but I thought there might be some hunters out there which will appreciate these pieces.
Last but not least, what will an African curio shop be without its bright colorful and patterned traditional shirts and hand painted bowls?
To all tourist planning on visiting my country this is Chameleon Village is a must as lost stop before heading home. This market is surrounded by beautiful resorts, you can go out on the dam with a boat, experience our beautiful birds and reptiles, go visit the scratch patch with gemstones and go up the cable-way to experience a tranquil and breath-taking view of this town, the surrounding mountains and the dam.