Cape Town, South Africa

Think San Francisco, or Sydney, and just add Table Mountain as a backdrop and you have Cape Town.

John says: OK, you cannot “just add Table Mountain as a backdrop” it dominates the skyline, at over a 1000m or 3000ft. It’s this huge block of granite with almost shear sides that has been cut of at the top (just as you would a boiled egg) to leave an almost perfectly flat plateau. You see it from almost everywhere in Cape Town, sometimes a building will obscure it, but then you round a corner and there it is, as if to say “This is Cape Town!”

Music, music and more music

Cape Town is a modern city of around 3 million people with everything - it’s almost culture shock for us. Sidewalks, pedestrian precincts, lots of museums, a huge performance arts space with three different theatres. One of the reasons South Africa made it to our list was that I had heard that Cape Town was the playground of the rich and famous – I can understand why, you definitely have to be wealthy to own property here. It was not always like this, but about 10 years ago when the Rand fell against the Pound, Europeans flocked to the Cape and began snatching up coastal properties everywhere.

John says: Property values went up because people discovered the great beaches and views and the prime properties were snapped up. You can sit and look out at the beach on one side with Southern Right Whales swimming by and Table Mountain on the other. Not bad.

As we have moved closer to the Antarctic, the weather is decidedly colder here. Our hotel puts up a five day weather forecast, and when we arrived (Sunday) it showed that the only sunny day was going to be Wednesday – they were right. It is cold enough that we leave the heat on in our hotel room when we are out during the day so we have a warm place to come back to. Unfortunately we have sent all but one warm fleece each home to the States, so we are struggling for warm clothes. We are now wearing socks and tennis shoes instead of sandals. It’s hard to believe two weeks ago we were roasting in the heat of the Seychelles. Brrrrr.

So what to see in Cape Town? We are staying in at hotel at the bottom of St. Georges Mall which is a pedestrian precinct, and in pretty much in the center of town. We found a local tourist information kiosk and the young woman there told us about taking a bus tour around the city on a “hop on hop off” bus (much like we did when we were in Paris last year) to get a feel for all the sights in the City and then decide which sights we really want to visit.

Up until that day, we had been told that Table Mountain was closed (obviously, just the cable car up, as you can’t really close a mountain!) due to bad weather. It turned out that it had been a week since the cable car had run. So, as it was at least not raining, it was cloudy but not too windy, we got off the bus at Table Mountain stop and took the cable car to the top. We were definitely in amongst the clouds. One minute you couldn’t see anything and the next the wind had blown a hole in the clouds and there was blue sky and more mountains everywhere. At some point the terrain looked very bleak like we were on Dartmoor, in England. In fact John said that it would be a perfect setting for the Hound of the Baskervilles. Then the sun would break through and it was picture perfect for about one minute and then gone again. It was just that quick. We were told about someone who strayed off the paths up there and was lost for four days. I can believe it. The mist/clouds come in so quickly and are so thick it is hard to see anything – the horizon definitely disappears. Again, Mother Nature is a wonderful force not to be reckoned with. When you get to the top there are several paths to choose from – it was bloody cold, did I mention that? – and so I said let’s just take a quick walk around and scoot back to the cable car. We walked for two hours! It was just that the views (when we could see them) were amazing.

Then I saw a woman walking on what seemed to be another peak – let’s see how she got over there I said, and we did. It was a wonderfully exhilarating walk, and we were up there far longer than I thought we would be. But it seemed like just as I was about to give in because it was soooo cold (did I mention that?), the sun would beam through and the heat was instant. I was really glad we took the opportunity to see Table Mountain when we did, rather than waiting for later in the week, just in case the weather didn’t cooperate again – it would have been sacrilegious to miss it.

John says: I was really proud of Lynne, she was so cold (I think she mentions that!) and I must admit I was a little chilly! The signs had said it was a 45 minute walk and that seemed a little long. So, we took off on our quick scoot around. It was amazing! We ended up walking around for two hours. At times we thought we were the only people up there as the mist closed in around us and deadened all sound, the next minute the wind would blow away the mist to reveal amazing views, some as we stood right on the edge of a 1000ft drop, others to show towns bathed in sunshine miles down the coast. I am sure that every day you go up there it’s different. Our day was amazing…..

Then back on the bus (which happened to be the same one we first caught) to continue the tour around Camps Beach and Clifton finally getting off at the V&A Waterfront which is like the Wharf in San Francisco except newer. The waterfront is reclaimed land and only about 6 or 7 years old. We ate there and strolled around for a while. It was great fun walking around seeing the street performers. There was a group of nine guys from Kayalishta (one of the townships) singing acapella and so we bought their CD and I’m listening to it while I type this – of course I haven’t got a clue what they are singing!

John says: The waterfront was a nice area; I think it would be great in the summer with the warmer weather. We did have lunch there which I enjoyed but which Lynne was not very impressed with. We did have a great bottle of wine with it though!

Having done the round-the-City tour, we made a plan for the rest of our time in Cape Town which consisted of the South African Museum (which was more of a natural history than a cultural history, lots of whales and sharks and sea life) and the Kirstenbosch Gardens (which was okay, but its winter here so not many flowering plants to photograph). We also took a half day tour to the Cape of Good Hope and Cape Point (which we thought was the southern most tip of Africa, but isn’t, that would be Cape Agulhas) on the windiest, rainiest day.

John says: It was such a pity that we did not get to spend more time at the Cape of Good Hope. It really was very wet and windy. I also didn’t realize that it was not the most southern tip of Africa. You hear so much about ships rounding the “Horn” in South America and the cape in Africa; it seems that the cape got its name because if they managed to round this point, then they had “Good Hope” of surviving the journey! I have looked out over many seas and oceans and know that with most of them, there is a long way before you hit land again. Let’s face it I live on the Pacific coast, but looking out from Cape Town, it just looks a long way….it just looks like it goes on forever….

On the way we passed through Boulders Beach which is where African penguins are indigenous. Penguins only drink fresh water and so they have salt glands adjacent to the skull to stop the build up of excess salt obtained through feeding on fish and drinking salt water. Salt is expelled through the nostrils and they get rid of concentrated salt by flicking their beaks which is why you constantly see them shaking their heads. Boy penguins let girl penguins know they are around by braying, the noise sounds like a donkey, (seriously, we heard it) and so this particular type of penguin is also know as a Jackass penguin – poor things. It was great to see them just walking and swimming around the beach.

Someone suggested that if we had time, we should visit Century City - a shopping mall - which was built at the beginning of the new century, thus the name. We are not great shoppers but Cape Town boasts about the fact that it has over 400 shops in one place, so after the Gardens, we thought we would check it out. It is pretty impressive for South Africa, actually for Africa in general. It is just like South Coast Mall in LA or Walnut Creek’s Mall, or something straight out of Las Vegas. It is pink and cream stone with an Italian feel. It’s built either side of a manmade canal with the shopping center on one side and hotel complexes on the other. The inside of the mall has al fresco paintings on the ceilings and stained glass windows and is all very grandiose. It was scary, it’s the first time I felt as though I was back in the States and it just didn’t feel right. It is three floors with a 20 screen cinema complex as well – we popped in to see the latest Pirates of the Caribbean movie. I know, terrible isn’t it, but we are travelers, not tourists and so occasionally we also get to do regular things, like go to the movies, do laundry. We also visited Mama Africa for dinner, again on advice from others – our advice, try somewhere new. It’s not bad, but it’s not great either and quite expensive. We had heard about another place called the African Café which we would probably try next time.

John says: Mama Africa’s claim to fame is that it serves a lot of different game. I had a mixed grill of Ostrich, Crocodile, Springbok Sausage and Gemsbok. It was OK, however I though most of it was overdone and a little dry. Fortunately I had the opportunity to try them all again later.

We also took a township tour. Township is a political term for the area that was for “Non-whites” as they were not allowed to live in the same area as “White” people. Parts of Cape Town were declared “whites only”. There is a museum called the District Six Museum so named after the area in Cape Town which, in 1966 was declared a “white” area. By 1983, 60,000, yes 60,000 people were forcibly removed, their houses flattened by bulldozers, to an outlying area known as Cape Flats and commonly known as the townships. The museum was opened in 1994 to memorialize that event. Suffice it to say the townships are pretty poor and people are living in conditions that most of you reading this would find uncomfortable. These tours are always given by residents of the townships.

At this point I have included a picture of two benches which are outside Office of Reclassification depicting where whites and blacks should sit. It makes reference to the Population Registration Act of 1950 which required that each inhabitant of South Africa be classified and registered in accordance with their racial characteristics as part of the system of apartheid. There were three basic racial classifications under the law: Black, White and Coloured (Mixed). There are stories of how ‘borderline coloureds’ who wanted to be reclassified as whites would have to undergo a ‘pencil test’. Officials would wedge a pencil into the applicant’s hair and if it fell out, the hair was deemed to be smooth enough to be that of a white person. If it stayed in, your hair was deemed to be tight and curly and therefore that of a black person and you were turned down. Reclassification tore apart families - children who recognized relatives in the street where told by their newly ‘white’ parents to have nothing to do with them. This law worked in tandem with other laws passed as part of the apartheid system. Under the Prohibition of Mixed Marriages Act of 1948, marrying a person of a different race was illegal. With the enactment of the Immorality Amendment Act (Immorality Act) of 1957, it also became a crime to display intent or interest in conducting a relationship with a member of a different race. It is hard for us to imagine what that must have been like, I’m only glad that we have all moved on, and particularly where we live in the Bay Area we are so tolerant. Fortunately, the South African Parliament repealed the act on June 17, 1991.

Our first stop after the Museum, was the Guga S’Thebe Arts and Culture Center (interestingly enough, sponsored not only by Cape Town Tourism, but also Microsoft). This center is where people are taught artisan skills such as making pottery or painting, and then given an opportunity to sell to the tourists.

We also visited a local witch doctor. John and I found this particularly unpleasant – can you imagine a bunch of people strolling into your doctor’s office and taking pictures while you are sitting there? Well, we didn’t, we just waited outside until the others in the group were finished. I think if the witch doctor had come outside to meet us, or we had met in a different place it would have been okay, but people were waiting to be treated and it just didn’t feel right strolling in and touching things and photographing stuff.

Once back in the van, we moved off to a different township. There are colored townships and black townships, very different from each other. One woman Vicky, an enterprising woman with an engineering degree, runs a Bed and Breakfast in the heart of Khayelitsha where tourists stay with her for 190 Rand a night including dinner and breakfast, and get a chance to experience living in a township. She has only two rooms in her place, but has convinced others to join her and can house up to 30 guests. She is obviously a shrewd business woman as all the township tours visit her place, and she is listed in Lonely Planet. There was a concrete and tile floor and there was also a very nice large flat screen TV in the main living room so she’s not doing too badly.

The tour also took us past an area where teenage boys from the Xhosa and Zulu tribes camp out for weeks in makeshift plastic bag tents in preparation for the circumcision ceremony that will mark their passage into manhood. We actually saw some of the boys dressed up in strange garb walking around the streets.

We were told that we would enjoy this tour. I don’t think we did. As travelers we have seen how a lot of the less fortunate in third world countries are living. The South African government are slowly rebuilding the area known as District Six and inviting residents to come back. They are also helping to build homes out in the townships and have introduced prepaid electricity so the homes now have power to them. It will take some time, but one day…..

John says: OK, this will be totally politically incorrect, so read on at your own risk. This tour was awful and frankly had no redeeming qualities with the exception of the District 6 museum. I knew a little about the townships and a tour sounded very much like “let’s go see how the poor people live”. The tour guide told us it was a vibrant community of different tribal cultures and that people liked living there. It wasn’t. It was a slum. There was no pride of ownership and why would there be. A 6 x 6 tin shack with limited power, no running water and no toilet facilities. People just dumped their trash in the street; let me expand on that a little.

They still bring in livestock for slaughter here, sheep and goats. A sheep’s head is a cheap meal here, the head is dumped into an open fire to burn off the remaining hair, the charcoal is scrubbed off and then it’s boiled and sold. Once you’ve finished eating, the skull goes in the trash, so does everything else that’s generally left from slaughtering an animal. And the trash goes…..yup, in the street. As in most societies, in the townships there are the lazy, the drunks and the drug addicts, add the fact that these people are dirt poor and it makes a perfect breeding ground for the criminal element and it abounds here. Given the money, I cannot believe that a single person would choose to live there. The doctor’s office (witch doctor we were supposed to believe) was a joke as far as I am concerned, not that I don’t believe in holistic medicine, I do. We spent a small fortune on Traditional Chinese Medicine in China and it works. Here however, it was I believe, set up for the tourists. Dead animals hanging from the rafters, lots of dried snake skins with everything covered in dust. The “Doctor” was dispensing potions in empty bottles of vodka or whisky.

South Africa is still coming to terms with the repeal of apartheid, both the whites and non-whites learning about each others’ society and how to live together having been forced to live in a societal vacuum by a repressive government for so long. It will take time for color to become a non issue here, for people to base their judgment on what others say and do and not the color of their skin. In my opinion a tour of the “Townships” is not helping promote the harmonious union of cultures but rather emphasizing the huge economic and social gulf between them.)

STELLENBOSCH

After checking out Cape Town, we headed out to Stellenbosch, the second oldest city in South Africa and the wine country. We decided to take the train which amazed just about everyone we told. Apparently it used to be unsafe to travel on the trains and people just haven’t gone back to using them. The trip is only an hour, and that’s after stopping at every station, and is about 12 rand (really cheap). We walked from the station to our hotel. Once again an angel was on our shoulder, and when we checked in we were told a large group was coming and they all wanted to be together so would we mind taking an apartment instead? Of course not. It was brilliant. A two bedroomed, two bathroom, kitchen, dining area and living room. Gorgeous. It’s a shame we were only there three days and all we were going to do was sleep there. That night we found out there was going to be a one woman concert locally, so we went to see Veronique, who was a contestant in the South African version of American Idol. She came third a couple of years ago and has set out on her own. Needless to say, we bought both her albums!

We rented a car the next day (father’s day) and I drove for 200 kilometers around False Bay and the coast and we had lunch at Pringle Bay. The day started out with blue sky but deteriorated after lunch to rain and wind, we did see some marvelous rainbows though. We knew we were having dinner that night at Moyo in Spier Winery, so we had to be back by 5:30 pm otherwise I think we would have kept driving along the coast and through the mountains, it was a pretty drive.

Dinner that night was amazing, I’ll let John fill you in. It’s a buffet, sort of, inasmuch as there are stations. But all the meat and fish is cooked as you ask for it. There is also a wine tasting area so you can check out which wine you might want with dinner. Our reservation was for 6 pm and I think we left around 9 pm having eaten ostrich, springbok, venison, gemsbock, snoek (fish), all followed by malva pudding. During the evening we were entertained by a group of folk on the drums and then they came around to each table and sang. For any of you headed that way don’t miss out on Moyo. It’s a little confusing when you first get there, but well worth a visit.

John says: After the somewhat mediocre food at Mama Africa I was glad we got the chance to taste game that was well prepared. Not quite sure what Lynne has left for me to fill in, I can tell you that the food was really good, especially the Gemsbok. It was as succulent and tender as the best steak and I had several pieces. It was an all you can eat buffet, but of course you get full so quickly. To make the most of it I sacrificed the vegetables and stuck strictly with the meat! I have read quite a few books on Africa courtesy of Wilbur Smith and a variety of other authors. Many of them talk about the “Bushmen” and their clicking, popping way of talking. Up to now I have only been able to imagine how that would sound. The group that sang to us though, sang exactly like that and it was a real treat to hear it. It was a great Fathers day.

One day left and of course we had to take the wine tour. We visited several wineries, beginning with Die Berkelder, then J C La Roux (sparkling wines and champagne)then our favorite - Rustenberg, not only because of the buildings and the wine, but because we met a lovely lady there by the name of Estreda. Again, if you are ever in Stellenbosch, pop in and see her.

John says: Estreda was wonderful; we regaled her with some of our stories, especially the Rabbit House story from Beijing which made her laugh. She gave us a book on the winery which will have a place on our coffee table with the many other books we have collected on our trip. She was also kind enough to present us with a bottle of wine as we left. Thanks Estreda!

Then it was lunch at Zorgriet and a visit to the ultra modern Takara ending the day with a traditional port maker Muratie. By the way Muratie has some of the oldest cobwebs you will ever see! As we still had some time left, our guide did a quick tour of the town of Stellenbosch, it was very like Carmel John said. It has a beautiful university, a mix of architecture, some Dutch and some Victorian, lots of churches and everything is painted white. It’s a very clean town in more ways than one I think, as they seem to roll up the sidewalks pretty early in the evening.

Next morning, we were back on the train to Cape Town and the St. Georges hotel where we left our luggage. We put on our best bib and tucker and off to the theatre to see the Ten Tenors opening night at the Artscape theater complex. It was fabulous, and yes, we did buy their CD too.