Cape Town

Last Friday morning, I flew from Lusaka--> Johannesburg--> Cape Town for Labor Day weekend. Cape Town came highly recommended from many folks here, and after going I can see why. Without question, this was one of the better vacations I've ever been on, and even though the weather was terrible (cold-ish, rainy, and very windy the entire time), I had more fun than I could have imagined.

At the Lusaka airport, I met a young Irish woman named Karen in the check-in line, and ended up sitting next to her on the flight. She was on her way to Maputo, Mozambique for a conference there, and was laying over in Johannesburg. Karen was very well-traveled and told me stories of her trips around Africa and Asia, and about her work at Habitat for Humanity in Dublin. She also expressed her concern about the future of humanity if Barack Obama isn't elected President, and called most Americans "nutters." Highly amusing. We also played with the 2-year old son of the Zimbabwean guy sitting in our row.

I bumped into my boss Carmen and her husband Jason during my layover in Johannesburg, but we were on different flights to Cape Town so off I went. Upon arriving, I picked up my rental car, which was basically a white Micro Machine, and drove to my bed & breakfast. Cape Town's stunning scenery was apparent right away, and the fog swirling super-fast around the top of Table Mountain was unreal.

I finally arrived at my B&B, but couldn't figure out the doorbell and didn't have a working phone; I have not yet mastered the use of sim cards and prepaid calling here in Africa. Apparently, I could have picked up a new sim card for like $5 at the airport, and used my phone in South Africa. Maybe next time I'll be more savvy. Instead, I went to get a coffee and sandwich across the street and begged the use of a phone from my server, then headed back to check in.

Now, I must say that my B&B turned out to be one of the best parts of my trip, and definitely one of the better travel decisions I've ever made. I chose it because it was in a funky neighborhood downtown, rather than on the beach. I also chose it because I didn't want to stay too close to my boss (who was in Cape Town for the weekend with her husband and son), as I didn't want them to feel obligated to entertain me. My place was also cheap, but in the end I think what put me over the top was this photo of the red-tiled bathroom in my room that was on their website...not sure why, maybe divine interior-design intervention.

Anyway, the real reason my B&B was so awesome was because of the live-in owners, Yoann and Adheera. In addition to running a stylish, clean house, they were incredibly warm and generous to me while I was there. I wish I had gotten a photo of them and their 10-month old Léa; this is them in a photo from their website, but you can't really see them.

Yoann is a Frenchman from Brittany, and Adheera is South African. Yoann came to South Africa 11 years ago to work for a couple French companies there. Adheera is an intellectual property lawyer who has represented Microsoft and lobbied for some other tech firms. They started the B&B a couple years ago, but only recently moved to Cape Town to manage it themselves.

After I checked in, I spent an hour online reading about Sarah Palin (I had logged in literally 5 minutes after the wires started reporting the story), then drove up to Camp's Bay where Carmen and Jason were staying. We met up with a former CDC-Zambia-er named Jenny who now works in Swaziland but who was also in Cape Town for the weekend. Jenny is actually from Newton, MA and knows my friend Jenny from Newton. Small world.

We had dinner at Codfather's, where we had awesome fish, good beer and wine, and craptastic sushi; I'm sure the sushi was fine, but I was daring and tried a tuna roll and, not surprisingly, hated it. Raw fish just ain't for me. The cooked Cape salmon was unbelieveable though, and the others (monkfish and a couple others I can't remember) were great too.

When I got back to La Rose, Yoann and Adheera invited me to stay up and have tea and dessert with them and their friend Zurika. We chatted and joked for like 2 hours over awesome masala tea; Yoann defended everything French as perfect, Zurika and Adheera defended everything Indian, and all three of them trashed America. I think I held my own. Fun times.

Saturday I had planned to go to Robben Island, where Nelson Mandela was imprisoned before the end of apartheid. Unfortunately, they cancelled the day's ferry rides and tours due to weather, but I had a nice walk around the waterfront before going back to La Rose. The photos here are from the waterfront area. Unfortunately, the cable car to the top of Table Mountain was also closed due to weather, and as those were the two touristy things I had planned, I was out of options for the day. I decided to go to an organic market with Yoann and Adheera, but when we arrived we found the market was also closed, though on the grounds we saw a group of baboons (didn't get a photo).

That, however, proved to be the start of an awesome day, as they took me for a 90-minute drive around the Cape instead. They told me about the history of Cape Town and the areas of the city where people of racial minority groups were expelled from during apartheid, and explained some of the political and cultural tensions between different group and how that spills over into their partisan politics. We saw some amazing views of the Indian and Atlantic oceans, gorgeous scenic moutains and fields of proteas, the South African national flowers. We stopped to go to some small shops and have lunch in Noordhoek (excellent chicken pie and fresh berry juice), and then kept on driving after lunch. Their daughter sleeps really well in the car, and they said they'd probably be taking a drive even if they weren't showing me the Cape.

We drove for 2 more hours, stopped to see some whales breaching over a cliff, stopped again to see the penguins (left) near Simon's Town, drove past the navy base, and went through a bunch of really nice little towns on the coast before heading back to the city. It was without question one of the best drives I have ever been on, and better because I didn't have to drive and could take it all in.

Saturday night I was supposed to babysit for Carmen and Jason's son Alejandro (pictured here), but since the rain and wind were so heavy they decided not to go out. We got some good pizza (the crust was a bit dry, but the goat cheese and other toppings were awesome) and stayed in at their place instead. Funny side note: a guy at the pizza place asked me about my UMass hoodie, and said he'd visited and that it was a beautiful area. He lived in New Haven at the time, and agreed with me that New Haven has the best pizza in the world. Hilarious.

Sunday was a trip to the wine region of Franschhoek about 45 minutes outside Cape Town. We had tastings at two wineries, poked around the shops in town, and had lunch at a great brasserie (potato-leek soup, lamb shanks, good coffee...mmm). The dollar-to-Rand exchange is pretty good, so everything was relatively inexpensive; I think lunch was like $20 and good wine like $10-12/bottle. At the second winery, we saw a semi-cheesy ceremony where the owner sliced open a bottle of wine with a sword, but I was tipsy so I got a kick out of it.

After a sleepy ride back home (thankfully Jason abstained at the last winery and drove us home safely), we stopped at a mall for some shopping and then went back to La Rose for Yoann's Sunday-night crepes ritual. They had some other friends and guests over, and Carmen and Jason joined us. The crepes were soooooooooooooooo good, and the best filling was this caramel-cream-mint sauce that someone brought. Unreal.

On Monday I slept in a bit, had another of Yoann's fantastic breakfasts (eggs fried with herbs snipped from his garden outside about 30 seconds before going in the pan, fried mushrooms/cherry tomatos/onions, toasted multi-grain bread picked up from the bakery that morning, fruit salad, orange/mango juice, good coffee), and went to walk around the city. I only had about 2 hours before I needed to leave for the airport, so I just browsed some of the street markets and bought a pair of shoes to get rid of the rest of my Rand. The downtown area is really cool and I wish I had more time to explore. I got a good coffee on my way back to La Rose, said goodbye to Yoann, Adheera, and Léa, and headed back to the airport.

The trip was definitely one of the best vacations I've ever had, and it was nice to go to a big, developed, and English-speaking city for the first time in a month and a half. I had such a good time in fact, that I may go back again in November before I leave. The weather will be warmer and I can try to do all the things I missed and then some. Cape Town = highly recommended, and I think I came away with some good new friends as well.

Next week, I'm going on a 5-day trip to the Western Province of Zambia with a delegation from the embassy. That trip will be a LOT different from my touristy vacations to Dar and Cape Town, but will hopefully make for some good reading and good photos next week. Au revoir until then!