Cape Town and other travels in South Africa.
Pictures of this chapter can be seen at:
Cape Town and surroundings
http://picasaweb.google.com/akeyserlingk/CapeTown#
The Baldies
http://picasaweb.google.com/akeyserlingk/SAS09Baldies?authkey=UXmhEJ0ib8c#
Sea Point
http://picasaweb.google.com/akeyserlingk/SeaPointSA#5305709340849647170
We arrived into the Cape Town area on Wednesday February 18th as scheduled however that morning the whole area was shrouded in fog. As a result, we had to hold our position for over 2 hours waiting for a clearing in the fog. We made our approach into the rather tight passenger pier of Cape Town but the clouds had not lifted enough to see Table Mountain. This is a shame as the view is spectacular. Many of us were up early to see this entry but could have stayed in bed that morning.
I had booked tickets for the 3 of us for the 11am ferry boat out to Robben Island, the former political prison where Nelson Mandela and his other anti-apartied companions had spent many months. Luckily, Brigitte negotiated our way off the ship before the diplomatic briefing was finished as we would otherwise not have made our appointed boat. It is a fast catamaran which seats some 200 passengers for the 25 minute ride. Robben Island is almost a must for a visit to Cape Town. This is also a tool to limit the number of visitors to the island to maximum 1000 a day. It is very well organized and the guides originally were all former political prisoners who told their story with conviction. Our guide was one of only 10 former prisoners working as guides as it has been almost 25 years since they were set free. Our guide walked us around and told of his own life in this prison which the South African government used to confine all the most important political prisoners during the Apartheid era. Mandela was imprisoned for 26 years and spent most of those years here on this island in an 8 by 8 cell with little or no furniture or any comforts. It was a degrading experience and I have always admired how this man whose youth was stolen from him could walk out of prison and not succumb to the temptation of wanting and seeking revenge. Of course, that would have led to a bloodbath and the total collapse of the country.
The tour can be depressing but on the other hand I have found it to be an uplifting story of how these inmates supported each other and even managed to further their education during those harsh years. It was also a case of how the inmates and their guards bonded over the years to a point that years later some of them are still in contact with each other.
It is a sad period for South Africa, but only one of several sad periods this country has gone through which include the Boer wars which pitted British Empire troops against the Dutch descended farmers or Boers. The Robben Island prison is being maintained as a reminder of what one group of persons can do to the other and perhaps as a warning that such behavior is human but unacceptable and highly barbaric.
We had planned to visit Table Mountain that afternoon but a cloud sat on the top which is referred to as the Table Cloth. So we ended up doing shopping and other chores. I picked up a mobile phone sim card so that we had a mobile phone which is always useful. One thing I needed to use the phone for was to reactivate my American Express card. It had been blocked in Namibia by Amex when I went to buy something there despite the fact that I had notified them I would be traveling. Very irritating, as I had notified them that I would be traveling and I had even given them a list of the countries I would be visiting. After many holds and ghastly elevator music, I finally was able to convince them that I was me. Even more irritating as the same thing happened to my Visa card in Spain. They are so focused on fraud that they forget that they are in the service business.
The next morning, Budget car rental delivered our car to the Table Bay hotel which was just in front of our ship. Very convenient. So we took our spiffy new BMW and headed out of the city. With no fixed time to arrive in Tulbagh which is about 150 kms we headed first to Paarl which is in the heart of the wine producing area of SA. There we visited the Afrikaans language museum. Afrikaans is the language which developed in South Africa based first on the Old Dutch which the first white settlers brought with them and then added to over the centuries by the Koi languages of the locals and other languages of peoples imported from Malaysia, Indonesia and Madagascar. In fact, many of the slaves imported from Asia were Muslims and as such had learned to read the Koran and were therefore better educated than their Boer owners who were often illiterates. The Afrikaans language was therefore written for these people in Arabic script and there are even books written in Afrikaans in Arabic script. Afrikaans is still widely spoken in SA but it is tainted as the language of the Boers who are directly associated with Apartheid. It is now one of the 11 official languages of this country. I am not sure how you run a country with 11 languages. Canada has enough problems with 2 languages. But in SA the language of Parliament is English so at least there everyone understands the others. Whether they listen has not yet been established…
After a visit to the Paarl museum which is an historical one, we had a light lunch and continued on our journey. At one point, we headed for Bain’s Kloof Pass which is a high mountain road out of one valley and into an other. The views from this mountain pass are spectacular although B was white knuckled in the back seat with Emmett enjoying it no end. We stopped several times at look out points to enjoy the views. It was a clear day and you could see forever, really.
We arrived around 5pm in Tulbagh where we had scheduled to have dinner with our cousin Kurt. As earlier reported, Kurt had had a fatal bicycle accident only the week before we arrived. We checked into our very nice bed and breakfast. It had a small swimming pool of about 3 meters in length. Emm then proceeded to swim 101 laps while I went for a walk on the main street of this small town. On my return, we decided to pay our respects to our deceased cousin and drove up to his house on the outskirts. We paused for a moment of remembrance. Kurt’s house was small but had a beautiful view of the surrounding mountains which are snowcapped in winter. We then went back to our B&B in time for a delicious meal in a the restaurant where the chefs are an Irish couple who have won several awards.
Early the next morning, we were on the road as we had booked into a private game park and needed to be there at 8am. After a good breakfast in the game park, we loaded onto special vehicles designed for game viewing with 4 or 5 rows of benches rising towards the back. We took the back row as that is where the view is best as one is higher than the other people. We were assigned a young ranger who was completing the practical year of his ranger training and who did an excellent job of pointing out and explaining the animals. At one point, he explained that certain animals could not be found in South Africa as they were native to Africa… The South African are like the Brits who do not feel that the UK belongs to Europe. We asked him to repeat the statement but he corrected himself. But no more than 10 minutes later he made the same distinction. For Emmett it was a great thrill as he had never seen wild animals out in the open fields. We saw all the animals with the exception of cougars which can only be seen in Africa, we were told…
After lunch on the reserve, we drove south down to the Ocean and back to Cape Town. It is a beautiful drive through huge and lush valleys where wine and fruit are grown in massive quantities. It is quite amazing to see the contrasts of the extensive infrastructure of roads, harbors, railways and agriculture in SA compared to the rest of Africa. SA is a power house producing more goods and services than the rest of Africa combined... Despite naysayers who predicted that the place would go to hell in a hand basket when the black majority took over, SA is physically in good shape. Politically, they have not settled down yet and have not mastered the corruption and crime which is rampant and very detrimental to the country. It is interesting to come to this country every few years and to see that things have not changed much although with the very free press everything is known and reported. I only hope that gradually a sense of country and sense of duty will replace the sense of entitlement and rampant abuse of public office.
We drove back to Cape Town against bumper to bumper Friday evening traffic which one finds in any industrialized country. Between rush hour and week-end traffic, we were glad we were going into town. We parked our car in the lot of the Table Bay hotel and headed to the ship for dinner.
On our fourth day, we were joined by the ship’s official photographer who asked me whether he could join us on our planned trip to the Cape of Good Hope. I gladly invited him to join us and we headed south taking the eastern route to the Cape as the Western road was still under repairs after rockslides which had happened months or years earlier. It is a lovely drive through small towns like Simons town which are nestled along the coast and which are residential as well as tourist towns. We spend several hours on the cape admiring the amazing views from about 1500 meters above the sea. Despite popular belief, the Cape of Good Hope is not the most southerly point of Africa. That distinction belongs to Point Aguhlas which is about 300 kms to the east. I had planned to show Emm that point but it was over 300kms from Cape Town and more than one could drive in one day.
On our return from the Cape we stopped in Simon’s town to visit the Boulders beach where a large flock of African penguins live. In an excellent layout of walkways, one can amble along the beach and observe these penguins from very close up. The birds seem as interested in humans as we were in them. So one ends up staring a standing penguin often no more than a meter away and realizing the penguin is doing the same to you.
We then went into Simons town where I had seen the entry to the local Yacht Club on our way through that morning. As most clubs are limited to members, it took a bit of brazen walking in to convince the guard that I must be a member with my guests. We had a nice lunch overlooking the piers upon piers of sail and motor boats. There is a lot of money still in South Africa although I did not see any black faces in this club.
On our final day in South Africa, we decided to use the double decker tour bus as we had in Grenada and Sevilla. In this case, one of the stops was the cable car which was fine as we intended to take the cable car up to the top of Table Mountain if it was clear. On that morning, the mountain was clear so after an hour of touring the city, we jumped off the bus, stood in line for 20 minutes to get out tickets and turn to ride the very sophisticated cable car to the top. One goes from about 200 meters altitude to 1083 meters in about 5 minutes in a cable car which can hold 90 people and where the floor rotates 360 degrees during the trip. In fact, the cable car is capable of carrying a substantial amount of water to counteract the often very high winds on the face of the mountain. The ride up is impressive even though this was my 5 or 6th time. The car rides on a cable which is 1200 meters from the bottom station to the top one with no supports on the way. Once on the top, the views are breathtaking and the winds are also breathtaking and it is cold up there if there are clouds. But it was worth the trip.
We came down the mountain, got on board one of the double decker buses and completed our circuit by going along the beach towns on the west side of the Peninsula such as Clifton, Sea Point and others which are beach towns and crawling with Sunday afternoon beach crowds. A bit gaudy but such are beach towns throughout the world.
We returned to waterfront in time to visit some of the handicraft markets where we purchased a nice painting which we intend to give someone as a Christmas present. We were scheduled out at 8pm that evening. At 8 pm the winds in the harbor and out to see were so strong that the captain decided to delay our departure for a few hours. In fact, we did not leave until 8 am this morning when the winds had died down and the tugboat and pilots crews were once again on duty. Still the passage around the Cape was rough with winds reported at 45 knots, which is almost 50 miles per hour. Considering our own speed of almost 30 miles per hour, the winds on the decks were howling and no one was allowed out. We passed the Cape and our now steaming towards Mauritius which we expect to reach on time despite the delayed departure.
South Africa is a great destination and I would return again and again.
It was great to be back in Africa where I had spent many very interesting years professionally and personally. I too am bitten by the attraction of this great continent and it people.
Cheers
February 23, 2009
Monday, February 23, 2009
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