Cape Town

I don’t think there were more beggars in Cape Town than in the other parts of Africa that I visited, but in Cape Town they were really conspicuous. I am not sure if it was because it didn’t seem to fit in such a beautiful setting – with the blue harbour on one side of town, the coast on the other and the majestic Table Top Mountain looming overhead at all times, or if it was because in Cape Town they were far more persistent. In West Africa, Lesotho and even Jo’Burg people tended to just thrust out their arm and demand “money!” and that would be the end of it. There in Cape Town people would follow you down the street for blocks and blocks telling you a long convoluted story about just coming off night shift with a sick child waiting at home and they have no money to catch the train home to nurse their child because they got robbed earlier, but if you couldn’t give them money then buying food for them was ok too because the sick child needed food. Of course any of these stories could have been true, but when you get asked 20, 30, 40 times a day what can you do? I caved a few times and gave a couple of people money… the old heart-strings do get tugged from time to time.

At first I stayed in a backpacker’s hostel on the busy and trendy Long Street. My first night there was a Saturday night and I was in bed my 9pm. Not because I was tired, but because I was bored. As I lay in bed wrapped in cashmere I tried to block out the thumping music resonating through the hostel. “How can anyone have a decent conversation over all that racket” I had written in my travel journal. I had two revelations that night: The first was that I have little tolerance for dance music; the second was that I was way too old for backpacker’s hostels.

I tried to 'get into' Cape Town. I could see why so many people raved about the place. The food was pretty good, the shops were selling brand-names, there were gay bars and a couple of really decent coffee shops. But if I wanted to spend a week in gay bars and coffee shops I would have gone on holiday to Melbourne not Africa!

The second, this time very quiet, hostel I booked into had free internet! I wanted to explore Namibia in a 4x4, but would only join a tour if a gun was pointed at my head and a million dollars cash thrown into the deal. So I jumped on the Lonely Planet web site and set-up a page calling out for any other traveller who wanted to go off-road driving and camping with me.

My angels had my back again! I saw a public conversation on the website between two guys discussing travel plans to Namibia. One wanted to leave in June but the other was ready now. I messaged him directly and he replied pretty quickly saying he just happened to be Cape Town as well. So we met up for a drink. His name was Michael. He was from Portland Oregon, was quite an attractive metro-sexual and the fact that he had to rush off to a yoga class made me think that yep! He’s the guy to travel with! I persuaded him to leave within the week, I had no reason to stay longer in Cape Town and he was heading straight back there after Namibia anyway.

I decided to fill my days before I left South Africa so I went cage-diving with Great White sharks. The first time I went down in the cage I saw a big 5m mamma shark and a couple of smaller baby ones that sped past in a blur of grey, though I could always see their eyes. They whizzed passed so quickly that it was hard to get scared or excited. I was more panicked by the ice-cold water than what was swimming in it!

The second time I went down in the cage it was eerily quiet for a long time. Then just before it was time to surface BAM! The big-mamma slammed into the cage rocking the entire boat. It literally had come out of no where! And just as quickly as she had let us know she was there she had vanished again. Her speed and ferocity made me think that perhaps I should have been more cautious and not held my arm out of the cage the whole time trying to snap the perfect shot.

On one of my last evenings before leaving Cape Town I climbed the infamous Table Top Mountain. I had wanted to do it since my first day there but it had always been too cloudy. I seized on the first sunny afternoon. I had planned it perfectly to be there for sunset and I sat alone perched on the edge of the mountain overlooking Cape Town, the harbour, the glimmering lights below. Clouds rolled and plummeted off the side of the mountain like a waterfall of smoke. I sat in peaceful silence and watched as the blue sky turned pink, orange, red, purple and finally black.

I wish I could say that was the last thing I did in Cape Town, it would have been a much nicer way to say goodbye to the place, but unfortunately instead I had a night of shameful debauchery with images that continue to haunt me. 

I had spent the afternoon at the beach with Michael and we went back to his hostel for the free wine tasting night. I found myself sitting with a group of men getting sufficiently drunk on unlimited free wine. I ended up kissing this cute French guy also named Michael but also slept with a local guy on a back-breaking tent floor… So far I could say that yes black men are bigger.

I called my girlfriend straight after and she was good about it. It wasn’t cheating because we had an ‘overseas agreement’ but it made me miss her so much it physically made my stomach ache.

Though the one good thing that came out of that night was Alex - a French guy who decided to join in on the Namibian adventure with Michael and I. 

I was really ready to leave South Africa!

The Old Trans-Karoo

For most of the train ride to Cape Town I shared the same level of excitement as the children running up and down the isle of the carriage in their underwear.

After the teary conversation with my girlfriend I stayed in that cabin alone and danced and sang out loud to De La Soul and Disney’s Greatest Love Songs. For a lot of the afternoon I knelt on the bench-seat and poked my head out the train window like a dog catching the wind in my open mouth. Jozzi was getting further and further away and the sadness that went with it was speeding fast behind me. Feelings of mystery and wonder were creeping in the closer I got to Cape Town and the rest of Africa… the sunset was magic! The brilliant glow hitting the horizon was hugely powerful, the golden sun was setting on the end of that chapter.

At 6pm I wandered back to my designated carriage where I walked in on three women nattering to each other over a table of assorted snacks.

Olga was a ‘coloured’ pensioner who talked way too much, had a wicked sense of humour, seemed to be mad as a hatter, called me “baby” and “sweety pie” and announced her soul purpose as being a vagabond, travelling all of South Africa numerous times over. May, also someone who called herself “coloured” was a bit of an alcoholic I suspect. Within the first ten minutes of us meeting she lamented that she didn’t realise there would be no ATM on the train (even though she had taken this train trip many times before) and was dying for a drink. I offered to buy her a beer in the dining cart, and after our third she mentioned that she was a lesbian in a five year relationship. She warned me that distance makes you cheat – she had twice. She kept taking photo’s of me which was really disconcerting and I had to tell her to stop. The third girl’s name I didn’t retain, but she didn’t spend the whole night on the train anyway. She was white and seemed quite unexeptional until she had three coffees in a row and each cup had three heaped table spoons of coffee and four heaped spoons of sugar.

I needed to get phone credit and May told me she would walk with me back to 3^rd class where you could buy anything. In first class there was an even amount of dark and black people in relation to white people, but there was not a single white person in third class, so as usual I stuck out and attracted a lot of attention! I was told all the phone cards sold out early. I could get snacks, beer and drugs though…

That night we stayed up late having some good chats and a lot of laughs. As we were all getting ready for bed, I was just tucking myself in to one of the top bunks when I heard Olga announce “see this Kai!” I peered down and there was Olga standing totally naked in the middle of the compartment cupping her breasts. She dropped them allowing them to swing like pendulums near her waist and declared “when you get to my age everything goes due south!”

I burst out laughing.

I was awake early enough to see the sun rise. I stared as we sped past some shanty towns. I was very annoyed that I missed a perfect photo opportunity of a slum nestled on the edge of a perfectly manicured golf course.

As the train pulled up in Cape Town a part of me was sorry to say goodbye to Olga and May. Though Olga had officially talked my ear off and May was sending me broke after I bought her beers and coffee and paid for some guy to carry her bags off the train. I was grateful they made that transition from Cape Town to Johannesburg not only bearable but actually quite pleasant. 

sunset on the trans-karoo

A shanty town snapped from the train window

May and Olga