Cape Point

The day after Table Mountain I was having trouble descending stairs, my legs having had enough of that running down, but Sandra was having trouble getting out of bed having picked up a bug somewhere. That evening we decided physicians could heal themselves and on Tuesday we would join a tour down to the other end of the Cape peninsula. On enquiry however we balked at the fifty pounds a head cost (there is no pound sign on this keyboard!) and were changing our minds, when a voice behind us lamented the same problem... and suggested hiring a car to do the trip ourselves. So, with newly met Irenka (of the unsuspected Huddersfield Polish clan?!) and Jerome from Paris working as a trapeze artist in Mauritius, we did.

After a full hour spent trying to extract a car from the reluctant car rental company, who preferred to timestamp our hire and then have us wait in their foyer indefinitely, we set off southwards, me navigating, along the sea roads. Which were beautiful. One section was actually reserved as a scenic drive, called Chapman's Peak, although this could have been an excuse to make money from tolls as the whole lot was amazing. At the other end we found Simonstown, containing a naval base (who practiced helicopter manoeuvres over the bay while we were there) and an African penguin colony.

We followed the boardwalks down through the trees and past containers half-immersed in the ground (for nesting) to a small beach covered with small birds. They were very quiet which was a surprise. There seemed to be two groups, one dug into the sand on the open beach and one under the boards standing about. Those in the middle seemed pretty calm and looked like families (penguins mate for life) but the other group appeared pretty aggressive, they kept going for each other and ganging up. I even caught the moment of treachery when one slyly pecked his neighbour in the back.

This one looked lost



We progressed from there down towards the southern point, the actual Cape of Good Hope. Encountering some baboons on the way. These pictures are actually from later but still baboons.

I will try to finish this post later when there is time... but there was the Point itself, and zebras.

Table Mountain

WE CLIMBED TABLE MOUNTAIN it was very exciting.

There is a cable car to the top of the mountain, which I didn't know about. So most of the people on top had travelled the thousand metres up on that. Losers. We went up the proper way. We had a false start on this, the day before there was cloud over the top of the mountain so we wouldn't have been able to see anything, and we were too late to climb it in the morning before the noon sun. So last Saturday we (I) packed the 3 recommended litres and set off.

The so-called easiest route up is via Platteklip gorge which is roughly in the middle of the mountain as you look at it from the city. It starts with what would have been a pleasant hike up through some woods, with streams, lots of flowers and life etc, had it not been for the armada of flies which attached itself to each hiker as soon as they stepped onto the path. We saw some poor peroxide blonde whose hair now looked leopardprint. Once we got through the woods however and onto the barren rocks the flies stopped.

The next part of the climb was over boulders. Here they were all of a fair size and trodden in heavily (into each other) so they were at least stable, but orange rock for an hour is hard work. We were rewarded with steadily improving views on the way up. The worst part of this section however was the complete lack of shade. The tree cover had fallen away and this part was on the bare face of the mountain so we were in full sun for this whole time.

Eventually we started to climb into a depression in the mountain face which transformed into the gorge. Here the path began on a switchback route, necessary as I would estimate the slope as about sixty degrees. The rocks here formed occasional stairways, more by accident than design I think, and the "steps" were between one and two feet high throughout. Being a gorge there must be some streams that run through, and some vegetation reappeared. Fortunately without the flies! The best part of this section was that as the folded ribbon of the path reached the western edge of the gorge, some shade was to be found. Better still, here some water dripped from the peak which cooled the rocks we leant on and the leaners. Following our first proper rest of the climb and a liberal reapplication of sun cream, which with the sweat was dripping off us in unpleasant white rivulets, we progressed steadily up the gorge. The bright point of sky at the head of the gorge contrasted with the dizzying walls of rock surrounding us as we climbed, and the ground fell away behind us to a vista of the flat city below and bright sea beyond. The only animal life to be seen were birds wheeling overhead, flying between perches nestled in cracks in the vast bare rockfaces, orange flashing from their wingtips and their calls the only sounds, aside from our footsteps and the echoes of climbers ahead testing the acoustic properties of this funnel.

And eventually, after two hours of steady hard climb, the top. Which was crammed with the aforementioned cable-car losers. They were easily recognised by their sandals and dry shirts while we were pretty drenched with sweat. Again, losers.

The view from the top was incredible. You would expect the best to be had from looking over the city, but in fact the outstanding aspect was looking south. The Cape Peninsula has a backbone of a line of separate peaks known as the Twelve Apostles (there are about fifteen). Following the path along the southern edge of the table, we came upon the shop and restaurant and rewarded ourselves with some kind of yoghurt muesli thing for Sandra and a cold beer for me. While we sat in the garden the birds which until recently had been flying over our heads now hopped along the walls next to us.

As for getting back down again. Our plan had been to hike up and take the cable car down. However we had left ourselves impecunious... so Sandra took the cable car and I walked. Two hours up but 40 minutes down! My legs were like jelly and I had to stop a couple of times because I couldn't stand, before charging again headlong down the mountain. I only lost my footing once though.

Our legs were sore afterwards. It was worth it.

 

Robben Island

Friday saw us take the trip to Robben Island. The island is just outside the harbour of Cape Town and is infamous for being the site of incarceration for political prisoners during Apartheid, most notably Mandela.

We were warned that the trips book up weeks in advance but we just walked into the ticket office and bought a couple for the next sailing. Which was handy. The boat over was a hydrofoil and the waters here are rough. I did not enjoy the crossing. Once on the island itself we began with a coach tour around it which was good, as a desert island off the coast it is quite pretty if slightly bleak. Before use for a prison it was variously a leper colony, a slave colony and a prison again, and there was a museum of its history at this viewpoint:

After finishing the coach tour we were taken into the prison itself by a former prisoner, who explained how it was organised and how the political prisoners were separated from the ordinary criminals so they could not spread their ideology - reminded me of concerns about radicalisation in British jails. The ordinary prisoners were kept in large communal cells like these:

Now our tour guide said he was kept in such a cell. Which, reading between two not so tricky lines, means he was an ordinary prisoner. We didn't ask why. The mural in the shot is because after it was closed as a prison in the 90s it was used as... something else. Children? Can't remember. The sisal mat in the picture is what they slept on before the wardens were prevailed upon to install beds. The longest serving member of the South African parliament was a (white) woman who campaigned against Apartheid for most of its life, and it was she who was responsible for many of the basic amenities provided to the prisoners.

During the coach tour, as well as the standalone single pen in which Sobukwe, founder of the Pan-African Congress and the only political prisoner ever officially to be called that was held with his six guards, we were shown the quarries where the prisoners worked. Part of the prison was built with stone extracted by the prisoners themselves, who were then locked in it. Political prisoners, maintaining separation from the ordinary population, worked in the limestone quarry, which is why most of the leaders of resistance to Apartheid suffered from sight and respiratory problems: they did not have any eye protection with the bright white stone under the blazing sun all year round, nor was there any protection from the dust (which the guide alleged caused TB, clearly indirectly).

After visiting the prison sections for ordinary criminals we continued to the political area. Here prisoners were kept in single cells, the size of which shocked me. They were square, eight or nine feet across. A mat on the floor, a bucket and a small cabinet were the furniture. Mandela's cell (9) had its furniture:

Criticism of Mandela or any of the other leaders seems to be taboo in this country. They were locked up for terrorism after all. The only mention of this was in the gift shop, where newspaper cuttings from the Cape Argus newspaper at the time (biased against them naturally) gave descriptions of the crimes they organised. The roundups however were general, of all the organisation leaders.

The prisoners were numbered by the order in which they arrived in that year, stroke, the year. So Mandela's number was 466/64, which I've seen adorning t-shirts and I recall Mandeep in connection with it.

Last thing: the Cape being one enormous nature reserve/park and this being a desert island, there is a penguin colony. More on penguins in a forthcoming post about Tuesday's tour of the peninsula.

NUS criminals

Off topic, but the morons who smashed up 30 Millbank today need to be hounded down like dogs and incitement by the NUS investigated and that organisation decapitated if possible.

Clifton beach

Friday saw us go down to the beach. There are two main beach areas, Camps Bay which is the most popular, and Clifton just north of there. It has four beaches (named First - Fourth), the first two are apparently too secluded, third is the unofficial gay beach and fourth is the nicest. We got the minibus taxi down as far as Sea Point which is still a fair way away from where we wanted to be. These minibuses are reminiscent of the tube in that they lurch around alarmingly and are excessively crammed, although they differ in that you can't stand up but are at least guaranteed part of a seat and are a quarter of the price. We then walked round the coastal road and were pretty stunned by what we saw. This area is the answer to the Cote d'Azur (or perhaps Sandbanks) except it is clean, has stunning scenery and every house is also a fortress.

I'm sure I've seen this company ADT at work in Britain. At home I don't think they do armed response though.

This beach was quite different from any I've been on before. All along this stretch of coastline the houses/castles reach right down to the seafront, indeed in some places they are built into cliffs and the waves crash onto rocks below ground/-6th floor balconies. On the road level these houses (blocks of flats really) are simply a door into a lift and a ramp into a larger lift for the cars, preserving the view for the other side of the road. Incredible. On beachy stretches, footpaths snake down between the mansions to the beach level, on which there are no facilities like cafes, restaurants, chipshops, car parks, contraceptive outreach centres etc like in most of the UK except for a very clean and well-maintained toilet block with everything signed by the "Clifton Villagers' Association" and some guys on the beach selling ice creams from cool boxes and renting out umbrellas (pictured) at R25 for the day which we thought was a decent deal given the total lack of shade and my total lack of melanin.

The beach itself was beautiful. Clean smooth white sand, not busy, very peaceful, azure sea, even a few palm trees for effect. Sandra got quite agitated by the bearded man who left his headscarfed wife in a coat and trousers under a brolly while he went swimming, but aside from them... well, see her so-called revision photo above.

And I remembered sun cream! Unlike the previous day but I have forgiven myself as we didn't have summer at home this year and I couldn't remember the last time I'd used it.

Green Point

Thursday we spent exploring Green Point which is this area around the football stadium.

The stadium itself I haven't actually bothered to take a photo of yet. It's opposite our hostel (which is why I was so surprised when I heard they'd been disappointed with the world cup, but I suppose it depends on which teams were there) and is bowl shaped in white. They're still building the shiny road arrangement which was meant to be there for the travellers.

The park behind was closed for some reason, apparently still building it again, but we walked round and found THE SEA.

Moving round there was a lighthouse which is now some way inland, along a beautiful stretch of coastline. It really gave the feel of being the Atlantic and the waves were huge, causing us to abandon sections of the coast path, sometimes in a hurry.

Further round we decided to quench the thirsty of our long journey on a rooftop. The theme, set to be "now we are really on holiday", naturally led me to buy the Economist, I still haven't fully worked that one out.

I also spotted their Pimm's selection (had to order one of course). They had on offer classic Pimm's with lemonade to which I had to beg them not to add pineapple, and with ginger beer. Now in the UCL Conservative Society we created a few summers ago our house cocktail. Our patron is Nicholas Soames and it was invented at the bash after campaigning for him so it was called a Soames, and consists of Pimms and ginger beer. Naturally I was so delighted at seeing a Soames on sale in South Africa that I had to record it.

Then Sandra came back to the hostel and found some more Germans to talk to. Naturally.

The City

I'm going to try to go through what we've been doing recently.

On Wednesday we tried to explore the town a bit. We wandered around quite a lot, from our hostel down to Loop St and Long St which are the sort of social centre of town. Off Long Street we found a market selling all kinds of souvenirs, mostly drums and masks etc but quite a lot of qorld cup stuff too, and definitely a few vuvuzelas. I have so far resisted the urge but it won't be long. On that square was an art gallery looking at apartheid, the resistance to it and the art from blacks at that time. Some of it was great, some very dark and naturally some pretty poor (modern art again...) The building was interesting, all ancient furniture, you could imagine when the building was new.

After this we went to find some lunch in "Pick n Pay", South Africa's answer to Tesco's with a typically direct name policy it seems. Good except that it doesn't sell multipacks of chocolate bars so I am breaking my Mars-a-day habit. Eaten in the Company's Garden. When the Dutch started settling Cape Town in the late 1600s they sent a gardener out here to plant a vegetable garden to help fulfil the Cape's purpose of warding off scurvy. Over time this has evolved into a beautiful botanical garden, all wonderful trees and plants from all over (not just SA!) It has also developed rather aggressive wildlife, pigeons and squirrels, one of which hopped up and sat next to me before I leapt out of my seat to defend my Danish. Here is an inquisitive duck lookalike trying his chances, it was a huge thing which initially crept up behind me which was a surprise.

And the tenacious squirrel:

There was a lovely rose garden:

We also found the South African National Gallery which we are reserving for what we Europeans call a rainy day, but here they are more worried about wind as when it comes from the South East it can reach 80 mph apparently, they call it the Cape Doctor.

Then we wandered across to find the South African Parliament. Being boring types we found this very interesting. They have tours which are another rainy day plan. Sandra risked extraordinary rendition by taking a picture of it.

And later discovered what looked like an interesting building so we took a photo of it anyway. Pretty sure it's no longer an insurance company and I've forgotten who the chap in the foregound is.

Dinner

Steak. With my hand for comparison. Sandra's had the other half, it came as one slab of leg and we ate the lot. Fried it bleu. Price? R35 which is about £3.50.

Waterfront

We went out yesterday afternoon to the Waterfront. I didn't know why it's capitalised either. It's a sort of shopping stroke restaurant cafe bar complex which looks out across the main old bay of Cape Town. The town was founded as a port for sailors rounding the Cape and it remains a working port, so the view consisted in large part of container ships and tugs, but also mountains (they are hard to avoid). Anyway we walked round for a bt and decided to go for (half price!) cocktails and dinner. Our conversation went like this.

Adam: I have R300 so we should keep below that for dinner.
Sandra: It's ok I have my card.
Adam: Alright then. *orders wine*
...
Waitress: That'll be R302
Sandra: Adam my card's in your wallet.
Adam: What this old one?
Sandra: Adam you have the wrong card.
Adam: Er, Waitress...

So we have promised to go back again tonight. Two rand is less than 20p so it's not that bad.

Oh yes. A story I forgot from yesterday. After pulling our baggage off the carousel in Joburg, we went to take it away on the trolley when some blokes with a sniffer dog came round. They'd already been round once so we thought nothing of it, until the dog became very interested in my hand luggage. So much so in fact that the aforementioned blokes made me take it apart on the floor. Bearing in mind these dogs are supposed to be looking for cocaine or explosives or somesuch it did not look good. The culprit turned out eventually to be... Aniket. Who as I said had packed us some tasty pasta salad, which also included an entire cooked chicken. Which the dog wanted. I've never seen guards so fascinated by the contents of a lunchbox (maybe it wasn't just the dog who was hungry) but eventually we were released, only of course to be stopped again on the way out of Cape Town airport as described below.

Today we are off to the main part of town. Pictures to follow.

Arrival

So about 24 hours after leaving Camden, we have arrived in Cape Town.
Stood up most of the way to Heathrow.
11 hours in the middle of a row of ten on a 747 to Joburg.
3 hours wandering OR Tambo airport talking to people, of which more later...
2 hours in a 737, which I am now identifying as "the ryanair plane"
Lift to the hostel
Lie down.

I've been on Ryanair more times in the last year than is reasonable for anybody and so hadn't realised flights could be quite nice. In between sending BA cabin crew to fetch me G&Ts (if they want to strike they should earn it first) I watched Salt which was terrible and half of the Godfather which was worse, but it beats sitting next to a perspiring obesity statistic with your water bottle stolen by security men and a cackling Irish airline magnate demanding three quid for a new one.

Oh also I discovered that talking to said airport security men results in your bag being checked for explosives.

Anyway after getting through reclaim (thank you Granny for the strap but nobody else pays six hundred quid for a ticket and takes their clothes in a sports kitbag, so it wasn't hard to recognise anyway!), devouring Aniket's pasta salad despite an (awful) breakfast on the plane and playing baggage weight monopoly with Sandra's textbooks, we sat in the middle of a row of four seats to wait for the plane. Sandra got a homophobic Korean priest and I got a friendly (and alarmingly tactile) bloke off for a funeral who warned me not to trust anyone, unless they're white of course. Hoping he was an exception to the rule here.

Was very excitable on the second plane about mountains and wine and landing, which involves crossing over Cape Town and turning round over the sea to come back in over beaches to land, although also taking us over vast expanses of corrugated iron rooves. Dehydrated and randless for the budget airline water (foolishly presumed the 100 ml fluid rule applied here - it doesn't) we made it out of the airport, were picked up by the man from the hostel who was surprised there were two of us and who crammed five people and masses of luggage into a VW Golf which didn't like it.

I have a bone to pick. On the first plane, as mentioned we were in the middle of the row, again people either side of us. I got a snoring antisocial Guardianista-type who impeded my loo breaks (did I mention the free gin?!) whereas Sandra got a German woman and chatted to her for the whole flight, in foreign. Just like at dinner the previous night. So when we arrived at Cape Town, who were we sharing our lift with but two Germans. So I talked to the driver, for about a minute before we were stopped by the police. They seemed concerned either that he was an unlicensed taxi man or that they hadn't been bribed lately, it's unclear. Apparently part of the problem was the tinted windows, which driver Peter explained were so people can't see how many are in the car with you, deterring carjackers. Naturally.

Anyway now we are off to not get mugged, robbed, raped, beaten or stabbed in what we are told is the "posh area" which also contains the only nearby supermarket. Hmm. Oh yes WOOLWORTHS LIVES! In a South African incarnation anyway. There was one in the airport and one here allegedly. First however... a nap.