the mother city

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the first thing you notice about south africa is how western it is, and it was great.. there were real buildings and pavements and roads and petrol stations and everything. it felt like home which was a welcome break after africa. at 6am we stopped at a petrol station and as the sun was rising we warmed up to a steak and kidney pie!! yum!

coming into jo burg wasnt the most horrific experience we've had. of course we were weary,its jo burg, but we were told so long as we didnt go to hillbrow we would be ok.so we jumped in a taxi pronto and headed to our booked hostel in the suburbs. the town itself looks a bit run down to say the least, however, didnt hang around long enough to check it out. our taxi driver was nice but incompetent,not clue where he was going, and insisted on going the opposite direction every time we told him, even when we showed him on the map.eventually we rocked up at what looked just like a house. they dont advertise the hostels here for obvious reasons. a fairly non descript stayover later (save for our excitment about the cheap offies and savanna cider) and we were at the airport to go to capetown.

touch down capetown. this taxi driver was able and willing at his job and even gave us a guided tour telling us where togo and what to do. table top mountain is the host with the most, and overbearing but reassuring site that the city centre nestles behind in 'city bowl', surprisingly smaller than you would imagine. most of the residential and suburb areas are to the north of the mountain.

we found our backpackers and quickly settled in. voted one of the best hostels in south africa we were in fora goodtime. the people were great and our room have a view oftable top, amazing! we headed out meandered down to the waterfront, admiring the incredibly normal looking shops and markets (they've got a woolworths there that is our equivalient of waitrose! its doing fine. haha) the waterfront was v cool, beats brighton anyday, lots of shops, bars, malls, boats and is even home to a few seals that have their own private sunbathing terrance. the stink though, and snore!

a beer a sunset and a general feeling of clean smugness on our faces and we headed back to our hostel for the local bbq (brai), which was, also, amazing. eat as much as you can snoek (a massive smoked fish with the biggest bones ive seen. but v tasty), a sausage called something like whoresborg,and all sorts of veg and salads and really good food. ahh, vegetables and real meat. we carried on drinking with our eclectic mix of new friends and headed to a swanky bar (v out of place in walking boots!) for a live jazz band and fancy cocktails. an excellent way to bring in capetown.

wednesday we treated ourself to a fry up and headed back to the waterfront for a tour to robben island. after getting the ferry across to the biggest tourist atttraction of south africa we we shuffelled onto buses forour tour to begin. some people say you havent been to south africa if you havent been to robben island, im not sure if i could quite quote that myself but it was certainly worth a visit. home to the prision that not only claimed 18years of nelson mandelas life but those of multiple political leaders and fighters against the apartide movement also. we saw the different sections where they were kept, the polititions all kept in the maximun security section b, how their daily lives would have been, the limestone mines they were forced to work in, physically damaging many of them for life, building their own cave to shelter from the sun and saw where some of the greatest minds of africa debated world issues. we went to mandelas cell, and quarters and saw the apartide divisions between whites and coloreds. it was moving and interesting, made more so by the fact that ourtour guide was an ex prisoner of robben island himself. his story was amazing and you could tell he never tired of telling it. he had beenmoved there after he was found to have trained in an illegal army in north africa to move against apartide.he was tried and convicted for terrorism and sentenced to 7 years in robben island which he severed. the one thing that he said about every person that went there was that they have no bad feelings about the place. for the prisoners it was like going to university. the polititions made implements to be able to teach others to read and write and pass their knowledge on. this continued from its beginning in 1961 right up until it the last prisoner was released in 1991.

so it was good. we even saw a couple of wild penguins.

back through town, via several shoe shops (could not be wearing walking boots out again!) and to our hostel to start drinking again, but not too much, we were on the wine tour the next day with several members of the hostel and even a couple of staff. we headed to kink boutique, a quirky bar with, of all things a sex shop upstairs (how very brighton meets amsterdam!) and boogied away to 80's disco for the night.

up at 7.30 for the wine tour.... what a day it was going to be!!

thursday we were up and ready to go at 8.30. the mini bus was full, mainly of people from ourhostel, including 2 of the staff. our guide for the day was a very jolly fellow named bruce. and away we went. through the valleys we drove and up through the fields of lined vines, turning red in the autumn weather. our first vineyard rocked up at 10.30, let the drinking commence. we learnt how wine was made, visited the vats that were brewing (maturing,a ctually), had our lists of wines and cheeses and were sent on our merry way to sample as many as humanly possible within a 45minute period (you were only supposed totry 6 but who was counting?!?!). so mucxh fun, running to the wine counter, where we would choose a wine, be dutifully told all about it, then runningto the cheese counter to match up our flavours. yum yum. they start with the cheese one coz invariably they know how the day will pan out! so we bought some of the stupidly cheap wine, got back on thebus and proceeded to drink the whole lot on the way to the next vineyard. hehe... hic! at the next vineyard our wine tasting specialist practically forced the wine upon us, no sooner had one glass been poured for our tasting pleasure he would already be bringing round the next (and they werent small measures either!) it was a test of strength and stamina! naturally we all suceeded but were starting to reel somewhat. we had a japanese girl on the tour as well, who didnt say a word for the whole thing but did start to giggle a lot. next vineyard was lunch, luckily i opted for the veggie pasta as everyone else went for the lamb burger, which was famously HUGE! more wine to follow, sweet wine and port. before our final winery where we went to the wine cellas and had a poke about. bruce had predicted our mood all the way through the tour, a testament to how long he had been doing the tours. he knew we would have a food slump after lunch so finished with the champagne to liven everyone up again. it did the trick and the bus ride back consisted of shouting, hooting and singing along to michael jackson at full blast.

the day wasnt to end there, we got back at 6, 1 hr to freshen up and were out again at 7. there was a convention in town in the massive conference centre they have (brighton centre size)... and it was a sex convention! haha. SEXPO had come to town. of course it attempted the agenda to promote awareness of lifestyle (1 in 4 people in south africa are HIV+), essentially it was just hilarity and debauchery including a massive blow up gold penis that you could race up, riding the bucking cowgirl, getting hypnotised, many competitions on stage seemingly revolving around winning a prize if you could take your clothes off the quickest and all other such frivolities that only a sexpodition could have. it gave gay pride a run for its money. and we had tremendous fun, clearly the most drunk out of everyone there. wayhey!

the night ended at a drum and bass night in a cool club in town, fiction. it was the perfect day... im really a true brightonian. haha.

obviously friday was a right off. we could hardly move. but at least we were all suffering together. but we went to the cinema in the eve.

day after the weather was rubbish. the thunderstorms had hit town. grr boo hiss. we couldnt go up table top and were gutted. so we went to the district 6 museum, a famous area of capetown which was the black hub of the city until the apartide laws evacuated the whole area and families were forced to leave houses that had been their ancestors for centuries. the museum is a tribute to the people and is dedicated to their memories of their times there. moving and worth a look.. do i sound like a guide book yet?

our last night was spent on a brisk tour of the pubs down the infamous long street. we happened upon a restaurant called meme afrikas only to find it was so busy we ended up encroaching around a group of smartly dresseds attempting to eat their dinner in peace. they were very pleasant though, and one of them even offered me a piece of his springbock to try, much to the astonishment of his companions.

so far so good, i liked capetown, even if it did take me a while to realise that the hoards of german tourists that i had thought were buzzing around the city were actually just the locals speaking afrikans. the reason it sounds like german is because it is actually a form of dutch, seeing as the dutch invaded and collonised some centuries ago. hmm, a history lesson i clearly hadnt been involved in.

but the south africans have a good sense of humor, they dont take themselves too seiously, which is a welcome break from the rest of africa. par example: on the plane journey from joburg to capetown we were told to 'fasten our seatbelts round our lovely hips', the piolet then announced that 'now we're in the air and theres nowhere for you to escape, we'll be bringing round the duty free!' and lastly 'please remember to take your belongings with you when you leave. any items left behind will be dutifully collected and distributed equally amongst the staff.' harhar, if only all flights were so laid back! and airports for that matter. 180 seconds more laid back to be precise.

lets not go there again.

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