Derek Hanekom tends to run into trouble in extraordinary ways.
He swam against the tide in the ANC to ask Jacob Zuma to step down when it was not fashionable to do so. He was fired from the cabinet because he was blamed for the former president not being able to speak at Ahmed Kathrada's funeral. His tweets almost got him booted out as ANC disciplinary committee chairman, and he had to apologise for saying land expropriation was "nonsense".
Tourism would ordinarily be seen as a rather tame portfolio, but Hanekom is back as minister, possibly because he is on a crusade to get people to love South Africa, and is willing to go the distance to showcase its tourist features.
This includes gliding off mountains, diving off bridges and floating across the Magaliesberg in a hot-air balloon.
The next goal, apparently, is ziplining, which Hanekom says he hears is terrifying the first time.
Hanekom first stepped into the ring of fire in 1976 when he and his wife Trish were arrested during a candle-lit demonstration at the apartheid police headquarters, John Vorster Square, in Johannesburg.
They joined the ANC and conducted underground activities while farming on a smallholding in Magaliesburg.
In 1983, they were both arrested again, this time charged with high treason. Due to international attention on the case, the charge was reduced. He served a three-year sentence and Trish was released a year after him.
They went into exile in Zimbabwe and returned to South Africa after the ANC's unbanning.WHITE AFRIKANER LINEAGE
Hanekom's race remains as notable now as it was then - his white Afrikaner lineage adds to the heady mix of diverse characters in the ANC leadership.
"My race is not insignificant," Hanekom says in an interview in Knysna, "but the colour of my skin does not define me."
Hanekom has served on the ANC national executive committee since 1994 and is one of three current ministers - Jeff Radebe and Nkosazana Dlamini-Zuma are the others - who were in Nelson Mandela's cabinet.
The location of the interview is not inconsequential. Knysna is recovering from last June's deadly fires that swept through the region, causing mass devastation. Just nine months later, the town has returned to its picturesque splendour as one of South Africa's prime tourist attractions.
Occasional scarring in the vegetation and a few skeletal remains of houses are the only visible signs of the week when the blaze would not die.
Hanekom, too, is in recovery. He made a comeback into the cabinet last month after a year in purgatory. He was among those axed during former president Jacob Zuma's dramatic midnight reshuffle last March.
The main targets then were Pravin Gordhan and Mcebisi Jonas, but Zuma took the opportunity to also remove Hanekom, who had become a thorn in his side.
Hanekom had famously led the charge against Zuma at a November 2016 ANC NEC meeting, where he asked the then president to step down in the interests of the party and the country.
Although the call went unheeded, it opened up the debate about Zuma's leadership in the ANC and emboldened more people to speak out.WRATH OF THE ZUMAS
The final straw for Zuma appeared to be Kathrada's funeral, just over a year ago, which Hanekom presided over as chairman of the struggle icon's foundation. Zuma was told that it was Kathrada's wish that he did not speak at his funeral but the former president and his supporters believed the snub came from people like Hanekom.
In a week of high drama, the funeral served as a resistance rally. Hanekom lost his job a day later.
"It was a very emotional time," Hanekom says. "It all happened at once and there was a lot of pain."
Hanekom has been forthright, including on his Twitter timeline, about the damage to the ANC and the country during the Zuma years. He became a public agitator against the former president even though serving in the NEC necessitates toeing the party line.
This drew the wrath of Zuma's supporters in the cabinet and the NEC, and from the former president himself. He was also viciously attacked by Zuma's son, Edward, who called Hanekom "a vile dog".
"I put those things behind me very quickly," Hanekom says. "Some of the comments were deeply offensive. But I set up my own barriers. I had to continue doing what I was doing and I guess I was going to be vilified for that. People close to me were more angered; I developed a thick skin."
Hanekom says being dropped from the cabinet was not unexpected but he felt he had left unfinished business in the tourism portfolio.
One of the sore points was that none of those dismissed were informed that their services were no longer required.
Hanekom says he and his wife stayed up late waiting for the announcement, but eventually went to bed. He woke in the early hours of the morning to find an SMS from someone telling him that Zuma had announced a new cabinet.
Hanekom's appointment to President Cyril Ramaphosa's cabinet last month was under very different circumstances. All those who were being appointed as ministers and deputy ministers were called to the president's official residence in Pretoria and informed of their new posts.
They were still there when Ramaphosa went to the Union Buildings to announce the reshuffle to the nation.
For weeks, lists of supposed configurations of Ramaphosa's cabinet had been distributed, featuring Hanekom's name. He says he "specifically guarded against believing rumours or speculation".
"I don't believe that it's something that was owed to any of us, irrespective of what we did in the past 11 months. We were not owed any reward for campaigning [for Ramaphosa] pre-December."'HEAR THE VIOLINS PLAYING'
Hanekom admits that the presidential race was "a source of anxiety" in the run-up to the ANC conference.
"If that had gone wrong, we would not have been able to navigate out of the difficulties. We were working very hard for Cyril to become the president and we achieved it, with a narrow margin."
Asked whether he thinks about what would have happened had Dlamini-Zuma won the race, Hanekom responds: "Yes. Next question?"
His elation at the outcome of the conference was evident a few weeks later at the ANC's anniversary celebrations in East London, where he engaged in rather vigorous dance moves on stage."There have been many emotional moments. The January 8 statement and the mood around the Eastern Cape was quite something. For me, it was quite emotional ... I knew at the time that he [Ramaphosa] would be president of the country soon. I knew we would assert ourselves very strongly."
But Zuma did not make the task easy.
Hanekom describes the period when the ANC was trying to convince Zuma to step down as "very tense days ... Nobody could say for sure what he would do up to the point when he announced it."
How did he feel when Zuma resigned? "Of course there was a sense of relief for someone like me who was at the forefront of prolonged attempts to get him to do it."
Hanekom is clearly starry-eyed about Ramaphosa.
"Didn't you hear the violins playing?" he jokes about the president's maiden state of the nation address. "I felt very emotional after Sona. I thought 'Wow!' I told him: 'You really made us proud'."
At the time, Hanekom did not know he would soon be a minister again, but Ramaphosa's rallying call around tourism thrilled him. Ramaphosa said: "Tourism is another area which provides our country with incredible opportunities to shine. Tourism currently sustains 700,000 direct jobs and is performing better than most other growth sectors. There is no reason why it can't double in size."
This is in line with the programmes Hanekom says he was working on before his firing, and with the targets in the National Tourism Sector Strategy approved by the cabinet last year.SEAHORSE IN THE ESTUARY
In order to achieve these targets, the regulatory barriers in the visa regime need to be addressed, which Ramaphosa signalled would be done.
This means that Hanekom is likely to spend less time butting heads with Home Affairs Minister Malusi Gigaba and more focusing on ways to draw large numbers of foreign tourists back to the country.
The visa regime, he says, has had a direct bearing on travel figures. There was a dramatic decline in visitors from China because of difficulties in obtaining visas. Tourists from the US and the UK dropped because of the requirement for unabridged birth certificates for children.
In contrast, there has been a 53% increase in visitors from Russia, due to a visa waiver.
Hanekom says one of his immediate priorities would be to improve security at key tourist sites marred by incidents of crime. These include Vilakazi Street in Soweto, urban precincts like Maboneng and walking trails.
Part of rebuilding the nation is making people love South Africa again, says Hanekom.
"I love this job. I love our country. I took to tourism like a seahorse in the estuary of Knysna," he laughs.
But the recovery process for the country has a long way to go, Hanekom says.
"We will not get another Mandela. Cyril is the man for the moment. With him proper healing has started."
ARRESTED FOR TREASON — THEN HONOURED
• The Hanekoms were arrested for high treason for feeding information to the ANC about the apartheid defence force’s attempts to overthrow the Mozambican government through the rebel movement Renamo.
• In 2012, Hanekom, then chairman of the ANC’s disciplinary committee, announced the expulsion of Julius Malema from the party, saying it was unlikely that he could be rehabilitated.
• In 2016, Hanekom was awarded the Order of Merit of the Federal Republic of Germany, the highest award bestowed on individuals by the German government, for boosting tourism between the two countries by more than 20%...