Cape Town and the road trip

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  Cape Town, South Africa
Tuesday, March 7, 2006

Cresting a hill and looking down to Table Mountain and the ocean it dawned on us that we had done it. We had made it from Cairo to Cape Town as purely as possible. Less the logistic impossibility of Sudan, though we saw its northern and southern borders. We did it. Not the first and not the last. Everyday people take those routes. It was hard; we were harder, but not the hardest. Thinking about the size of the task filled us with a sense of accomplishment.

After finding a place to stay downtown, our first task was to celebrate with a nice meal. We found a sunny bright, chic restaurant on Long Street, a popular strip. Erin ordered a veggie burger with sweet potato fries. I had the mouth watering bacon cheese burger and a chocolate shake. We ate with sensations of triumph and glory. It was a wonderful feeling came first from knowing that we had succeeded in our ambitions, and second from not having to worry about whether I would spend the night retching the ground beef that I was eating in a filthy bathroom

Cape Agulhas

.

I hadn't really thought about the city at the end of the line when we took off in the morning at 6am with our heads wrapped in cotton scarves and the sun rising over Lalibela. Cape Town had eluded my sights until we crested the hill. My preconceived notions were modernity and accessibility, pretty hills and cold beaches.

Cape Town in fall after busing from Ethiopia is spectacular. People eat brunch at chic street side patios. Sporty cars drive along the left hand side of the roads. You can buy corn flakes and cold milk for normal prices at the grocery store. We took a long walk in the middle of the day and not one person said, "Hey meesta. Hey mama. Hey wazungu. My brotha, hey my sesta. Hey boss. Hey my fren. Where you come from? Where you stay? I have a problem."
There are beautiful houses and gardens. From almost everywhere you can look up and see the steep rises of Table Mountain, which the city is built around. And, from Table Mountain you can look down at the lovely city below and the stunning coast line beyond. There is a trail head 2 km away from the hostel. There are garbage trucks that collect trash. There is clean, prepackaged, multi-leaf salad at the grocery and there is a bacon cheese burger on Long street that is sublime.
We spent several days meandering through the streets enjoying the luxury of its ease. There is a lovely wharf where you can hear live jazz from the walkway and watch buskers perform. There is a shopping mall if you feel so inclined to walk freely through the air conditioning and depart with discretionary income. One day we started up Table Mountain, but got sidetracked onto another trail

Cape of Good Hope

. We found a view of the bay and the hills rolling down into it, and then found a boulder to sit on. We sat there daydreaming about living there for a little while. Get some punky job, take hikes, ride bikes, enjoy a month in one place. Again, something for the next time.
We diverted from the summit route and walked down hill, through tall pines to the beach instead. The water was cold but many people still swam in it. As we took off our sandals to feel the sand in our toes I thought of a quote from Confucius paraphrased by my uncle, "To a man who walks the globe in his shoes, the whole of the earth feels like leather." Then he added, "just mind the hook worms."
In reaching South Africa we had surfaced in the first world. We were in no way disappointed in that. It is also a pivotal point on the globe where we considered our route. East, like we had planned, through India and across Southeast Asia. Or, West to Argentina and then along the Americas back to Texas. We spent one day bouncing between travel agents, weighing our options and laughing at the decisions that we were having to make. Should we go up to the top or down to the beach? Breakfast now or brunch later? To walk or to write? East or West? India or Argentina?
We also had our minds set on taking advantage of the freedoms of the first world, especially before we launched again into the mayhem of dubious third world travel

Cape Town wharf

. On a Tuesday we made arrangements and on Wednesday we drove out of Cape Town on our schedule, listening to our choice of radio stations and hooting out the window in a red, rented Volkswagen Chico. We awarded ourselves eight days of a road trip along what they call the Garden Route of South Africa. From Cape Town we headed south towards the Cape of Good Hope, reaching it within an hour.
We sat on a bench looking East over the ocean, enjoying a pleasant picnic until a hungry baboon bushwhacked us. As we saw one walking towards a tour bus we said to each other, "I wonder if it is safe to eat here?" Just then we saw something move in the bushes next to us.
Erin got up saying "It's a baboon. Oh, here he comes!"
I grabbed our picnic bag, stood and turned to see a dark, waist-high primate with a furrowed brow, strong protruding jaw and large fangs scurrying towards us. In one leap he covered the ground that we had moved in half a dozen steps.
Erin threw her half eaten sandwich over his head trying to distract him. But, quick as a cat, he caught it and in one motion both shoved it in his mouth and leapt at us again, grabbing at the bag of Doritos that I was holding.
Erin and I split up, both back stepping in fear as quickly as we could

luxurious chocolate milk

. He followed Erin. I ran for the car, then remembered that she was still in danger. Just as I bent over to pickup a rock, a park ranger came running with a loaded sling shot. The baboon saw him too and ran behind a parked car.
We returned to the Chico to finish our lunch. The ranger came up and said, "Be careful with those thing, they can kill you. Incisors larger than a leopard you know." We looked in the side view mirrors and could see him sitting on the roof of the car behind us, looking in. By the way that he was inspecting it, I could have sworn that he was going to break the window, hot wire the thing and go joy riding with some friends. We packed up and headed for the point.
The mile long hike out to the Cape of Good Hope is a windy one. It edges along the cliffs and unimpeded gusts whip across it. The ocean is cold and rough, frightening even in its powerful disregard of anything but the moon and the wind. The early oceanic explorers were men of iron.
I stood at the rocky promontory, my body slightly angled into the wind with my arms in the air. The strength of the gusts and the crashing of the sea make you feel miniature and weightless. Yet, I was filled with a absolute feeling of accomplishment. The strong wind blew water from my eyes and as the tears raced towards my ears I smiled widely, knowing that we had reached a milestone.
The coast line is punctuated by lines of mountains. Aqua waves in lines of breaks leave foamy tracks on the surface of the water. We followed a route that took us along the shore as the base of the mountains, stopping at a whim to utilize the freedom of the car. In one cold water bay we saw flocks of penguins sunning themselves on the warm stones.

Natures Valley

By nightfall w made Stellenbosch, a picturesque Cape Dutch university town with canopied lanes, pavered sidewalks, beautiful architecture, art galleries, and botanical gardens, surrounded by vineyards and a national park. We strolled that evening arm in arm under the streetlights, along the avenues in the shadows of the trees. Just two weeks before we had run home down the dark, unlit street of Lilongwe with fear of being robbed in the night. This was the first evening stroll that we had been on since arriving in Ethiopia. It was safe, we had a car with a radio and seven more days to explore the mountains, beaches and vineyards of the Western Cape. We had a cooler with picnic food and we were flying out of Cape Town instead of saving a couple of hundred dollars by trekking back to Harare, Zimbabwe. It was luxurious; just as luxurious as the way that we had entered Africa, of the five star Crown Princess on the Nile. We couldn't ask for anything more.
The next day after coffee at a street café that smelled of jasmine we drove on, through wheat fields touching along the coast. Inland it was very similar to the Western Slope of the Rocky Mountains in Colorado. We ate a brunch of muesli, fruit and yoghurt on the beach just before reaching Cape Agulhas, the southernmost point in Africa, where the Indian and Atlantic oceans meet. We had spanned the length of the continent. Our north-south digression could continue no further.

penguins

Towards the evening we pulled into Napier, a sleepy farming town in the southern reaches. There were no backpacker guest houses to be found, so we pulled into Gunner's Restaurant to inquire about his B&B. "185 rand per person is what we normally charge," he told me.
I winced a little calculating roughly $61 for the night, then asked, "Do you know of anything any cheaper around here? We're on a long trip and sort of on a tight budget."
"Well, let's see. Just what is your budget?"
"We'd like to spend around 120 rand total."
He winced at that figure.
"We can camp, anything. We're accustomed to roughing it."
Then he smiled saying "I know what you can do, Mr. Yankee. Come here." We went to he balcony of his restaurant. He pointed down a hill to an open space. "See that field? That's the old rugby pitch. Nobody uses it anymore. If you'd like, you can go set up down there. There are facilities here that you can use, and if anyone tells you anything, you just tell them that I said that you could use it an if they have a problem, they can come talk to me, Gunner."
I thanked him and we drove down to the field

wildflowers

. Setting up consisted of us wedging our sarongs in the windows so that nobody could see in and putting our bags in the trunk so that we could recline the seats. That night we ate salad and a burger and drank a tall local ale at Gunners before retiring. We lied out under the stars in the middle of the field, supremely content with our spot.
The road trip continued with alternating views of green mountains and blue ocean. We ate picnics at our discretion for breakfast, lunch and dinner in gorgeous locations where there were no bus stops and immaculate views. We took hikes and waded in the waters. We reached waterfalls and swam in remote lagoons. Spotted colorful birds and spied on otters. The days whisked by in simple, natural bliss. It was wonderful.
On our return we stayed in Stellenbosch one more time to enjoy the gardens and the night time strolls. For our final picnic we went to the nature reserve and sat on large rocks with our feet in a cool stream sharing wine, grapes, nectarines, brie, fresh bread and dark chocolate. The sun set, meaning that we had five more days left on the continent.

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wine lands

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