Cape Town, South Africa:
Any Port in a Storm
I've been trying to figure out what to write about Cape Town for some time now. On the one hand, I enjoyed myself, but on the other, the things that made it enjoyable weren't distinct or unique to Cape Town. What I liked about Cape Town - the shopping, the restaurants, the night life - could have occurred in any major city. But coming from the north of Namibia they were a welcome change. I think I bought 15 books at various bookstores as well as some magazines and DVDs. I wandered around grocery stores eyeing the food (chesire cheese! Tim Tams!)
Whatever Cape Town has to offer that would make it a world class city were not apparent in the rough weather that we had (It hailed the day I left. I was surprised that my flight got off the ground without any noticeable delay). The Victoria and Albert harbourfront complex (V&A) would be eminently enjoyable when you could dine outside on one of the multitude of terraces.
There are things to do in Cape Town that you can't do anywhere else. Table Mountain does give Cape Town a unique backdrop and a nice vantage point when the weather is good. The Cape of Good Hope isn't far away. There's seal and penguin colonies and whale watching in season. But there are so many other places where you can do these things (and I have) that they don't feel particularly special to me.
But Cape Town is on the Benguela current, a cold water current running from Antarctica up the Atlantic coast of Africa. In winter, the prevailing winds travel with the current, leading to lots of rain, and very cold nights. The days would have been jacket-weather anyway, but the persistent rain added a dimension. Even in warm weather, the current ensures that the beaches are for sun tanning and not swimming.
Robben Island, where many apartheid-era prisoners including Nelson Mandela were kept, is close-by, but the waters were rough (4 metre swells) and the island museum's ferry had been impounded for money owed. Small craft were taking visitors over, but reports I heard said that the ride wasn't an enjoyable experience.
Long Street and the V&A did remind me of Sydney, but generally Sydney is a city that you can relax and unwind in. You need to watch your stuff at the beach, and be wary of pick pockets, but overall, it's safe. Not so Cape Town. I had three odd incidents in Cape Town. i don't know (can't know) if they were actually dangerous.
First, and probably most serious, on Long Street, three kids tried to block my path, the leader saying that he liked my jacket (it was just a MEC windbreaker, rather old and dirty at that). One of the others had some kind of metal rod that he poked at my chest. A nearby parking security guard yelled at them. I just pushed the rod aside and kept going.
The second time, I was walking in the underground concourse near the train station. Suddenly there was a man walking on my right side and a woman walking on my left, keeping pace. Anyone who knows me knows that I walk fast. You don't accidently keep pace with me - not one person, definitely not two at once. I glanced behind and there was a guy behind me too. I did a quick stop-step-left which put me behind the girl and beside the man following me. They all turned to look at me and I looked at their faces. They split into three different directions. I followed one for a bit, but decided that that might not be wise.
The third time, I was wandering around V&A, definitely looking like a tourist. I had just come out of a museum gift shop and was carrying a bag that had the museum's logo on it. I was looking for a store that I had seen before but couldn't find now - so my head was swiveling around all over the place, gawking I'm sure. I saw these two scruffy guys heading toward me. V&A is upscale, but very touristy. These guys weren't upscale or tourists. I just knew as soon as I saw them that something was going to happen. They walked past me, then fell in behind (I watched in a store window). So i put on the speed, and passed by a kiosk. Then I did a u-turn around the kiosk, coming face to face with one of them. I said "hi," he said "F---" (which is the same in Afrikaans) and went around me, joining his buddy who had still been trailing me. They stopped for a second, then head off and up an escalator. I'm sure they were going to do a snatch-and-grab.
Cape Town does have a reputation for being safer that Johannesburg (not saying much), and if you stay in the right neighbourhoods I'm sure it's mostly fine. I will probably at some point go back there, if only because I know that I need to recharge once in a while, and it's the closest place to do that (When I was living in South Korea, I used Hong Kong the same way - it was where I went when I needed a fix of "home."). Also, there are some excellent art collectives there, selling different types of art from the nations of Southern Africa. When it's my time to leave this part of the world, I'd like to go back and pick up a few things.
