Piglet's Potter

Cape Town

Posted on August 16, 2007 by Emma

It's raining in Cape Town and I am told this is rare, but the practised way the locals lean against the wind suggests otherwise. We arrive in the dark and take a taxi to Long Street, past miles of shanty towns stuffed in awkward groups around the complex motorway ring road. If we return, we will remember to have small denomination Rand with us, to tip the man who arranges taxis. As it was, he got 50 Rand, about a third of the actual fare into town.

We are staying in a boutique hotel called Daddy Long Legs (link) where each room has been done up by a local artist. So, as their brochure says, you literally sleep in a work of art. We are in Beingmak1one - a stark white room, with a 3D graffitti like structure contstructed above our bed, looking like a the fallen ghost of a once mighty Transformer. It's very cool. The whole place is very cool, muted lighting, a well stocked bar, helpful and well informed hip young things manning the front desk.

Long Street is lined with bars, local and exotic restaurants, music stores and street-wear clothes shops. This is the place to be to have a good time. Despite being right in the middle of the party street, our room was blissfully quiet, overlooking a small courtyard and an office block, all shut up at night.

It's a truism but there's no other place in the world like Cape Town. It is a bustling vibrant city, with all the amenities that that implies - but there are hints of Paris, with its formal gardens and neat Parliament buildings, bits of New Orleans with its cool vibe and old world, verandah-covered charm, hinting at seedy deeds inside and yet Cape Town is still pockmarked with the history of its origins as an empire garrison town: a fortified Castle (still an activie military base) and canons that line the sea walls. Looming like a proud guardian above the city is the huge imposing escarpment of Table Mountain and shamefully pushed out to its outer edges are the frayed and twisted metal shanty towns - haphazard aglomerations of families, barefoot soccer games, weary bones and dreams, drifting away in the wood smoke or rotting in the still, squalid water that surrounds them.

Following the rain on our arrival, our first day in Cape Town was overcast so we decided to potter about getting our admin done - a visa for Mozambique, road maps for the long trip up to Namibia. We had a delicious breakfast at Rcaffe directly below our hotel, wandered down through the market stalls and eventually to the Castle. The Castle is a two or three storey, thick walled pentagon embracing an inner courtyard of neatly clipped grass and cobblestones. It's worth the visit for the history and evolution of Cape Town, interesting but not mind blowing.

There are various museums and galleries of interest in Cape Town, which cater for all sorts but one that is unmissable is the District Six museum. This museum tells the story of the 60,000 individuals who were forcibly removed from their homes and relocated to the flat, far reaches of Cape Town - ostensibly because their neighborhood, District Six, was run down but actually because they were black or coloured and cruel ignorant white people wanted their land for housing developments, shopping malls and carparks. The well educated man with kindly eyes who, without a hint of bitterness, tells us of the deconstuction of these peoples' homes, their community and their humanity is an ex-District Six inhabitant. I couldn't talk for a while after we had left.

Mercifully, the tablecloth of cloud that had enveloped Table Mountain all morning cleared by the late afternoon, so we shot up there as quick as we could only just making it into the queue for the last couple of cable cars up. Table Mountain is really high up - deceptively high for a mountain whose foothills are dotted with very swish, rich people's homes. I am not usually afraid of heights but I felt my toes curl involutarily as we neared the top. The facade of mountain that the cable car climbs up suddenly narrows to a peak - a bit like the Flat Iron building in NYC - and then there is nothing but a long way down and birds riding the swirling up drafts on either side of you. We ooohed and aaaahed at the view, took lots of photos, marvelled at the brightly blooming aloe and caught the last cable car down in time for a sunset taxi ride to dinner. We found a fantastic Ethiopian restaurant (Addis on the Cape) literally two streets away - what more could we ask for?? We ordered too much and we ate too much, but it's my favorite food in the whole world. I don't need a reason.

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