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Published: November 28th 2009
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Saturday night in Cape Town - we decided we wanted to eat some of the local Cape Malay food. Our friendly hotel staff tracked down a restaurant at the Victoria and Alfred waterfront and put us in a cab to get there. The V&A is a spectacular waterfront development of shops, bars and restaurants, very smart and crowded on a Saturday evening. Most of the other streets in the centre seemed remarkably empty - apparently not too many people walk around after dark. Anyway we had a different dinner of Bobotie (sort of spicy meatloaf, samosas, and a dish called something like Smeer snoek - a spicy fish dish - and found that the restaurant was unlicensed so forced ourselves into Belthazar's wine bar. They claim to have the biggest selection in the world (over 600 wines). Have to make a comment on the inbalance between staff and diners/drinkers, almost everywhere we went it was noticeable and slightly disturbing that the people who manage were white, the people who do most of the hard or manual work were black and the customers white. I imagine this hasn't changed a lot in last twenty years even if the politicians have.
Sunday
morning was bright and a bit breezy. we decided to head up Table mountain. Took a taxi to the lower cable station and rode the cable car. By the time we got to the top it was getting very windy with rolling clouds across the mountain, amazing views of the including Robben island and the big new world cup stadium. By the time we came down the mountain had been closed and the cable car stopped. Felt that our timing had been good. Walked back into town through some rather smart streets - big houses with lots of serious security, some with electric fences and armed response warnings. A city of many faces.
Have to be honest and say that we had quite a lazy afternoon as the wind blew and the sun shone. Thought about going to the local cinema but had a snooze instead. Sunday evening in Cape Town is pretty quiet, we ended up going to a local pizza place for dinner - again our guest house staff insisting that we took a cab there and back.
Monday was a day of walking, lots of walking, around central Cape Town. Started off strolling through company
gardens, visiting St Georges cathedral, wandering up to Bo Kap, having a lemonade stop, walking through the commercial area and through to the District Six museum. Small but very interesting museum which seems to us to sum up the absurdity of the apartheid regime - I read what the government did to relocate/destroy the local community and came away quite angry. Anyway, after a quick look at the outside of the old dutch fort we took a taxi back to the V&A for lunch at the waterfront and some more excellent fish and watching the world go by, before picking up our bags and heading out to the airport for the flight back to the UK.
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