Takin' a breather in Cape Town

Ahhh... time to take a few deep breaths. There's so much to tell so I'll break it down into a few different posts. It's been a hell of a two weeks jumping from one end of South Africa to the other and Lesley and I have seen more in that time than some people see in a lifetime.

For the last two days we've been recuperating in Cape Town, which has quickly become my favourite city in the world. For a metropolis of 4 million people, it's surprisingly laid back. I have a feeling it has something to do with the amazing scenery and great weather. Cape Town is situated on a peninsula at the Cape of Good Hope, basically the southern tip of Africa that separates the Atlantic and Indian Oceans. In the centre of town is Table Mountain, a 1000+ metre high, flat topped outcropping that is visible from any vantage within the city. Half of the time it is covered by the 'table cloth', clouds that form around the top and gently spill over the sides of the peak, disappearing into nothing. Talk about having a view. We got some great pictures of this from the plane when, after flying from East London over a grey void for an hour and a half, the clouds suddenly broke to be replaced by a steep mountainside drop. The temperature has been quite a bit cooler than the rest of S. Africa which has been a nice break in my opinion, although Lesley, in her sweater, thinks I'm nuts for wearing shorts.

Cape-tonians (?) are pretty 'cool' for lack of a better world. Trendy, beautiful, tanned and seemingly carefree. Admittedly, like most urban centres in the country, this applies mostly to whites with it being far more common for blacks to be stuck with the lower-end jobs. I plan to dedicate an entire post to race relations here at some point so I won't dwell on it now. The music scene is a progressive meld of rock, dance music and African drumming. I haven't heard any hip hop yet which makes me happy.

The first day we were here, Les and I decided to splurge a little bit after being stuck in the bush for a while and go for a really enjoyable oyster/steak-in-chocolate-chilli-sauce/fresh fish dinner at an ' expensive' restaurant (the term is relative - it was about $30pp including the best bottle of white wine I've had). What struck me as odd was that, despite this being a classy restaurant with patrons in collared shirts and ties and nicer dresses, I still received the most friendly treatment from the owner and wait staff despite being in shorts and a tshirt with my hair flying all over the place. In a similar establishment in Canada (or the US or Europe for that matter) I would have been staring down the upturned nose of the same people and feeling like I really don't belong there. It was a really nice to have my expectations challenged.

Day two in town happened to be a Sunday, which meant that a massive flea market was happening down by the waterfront. Lesley and I walked around the endless stalls for a few hours. She found a great deal on a quality bongo drum so she's still grinning. We made our way to the harbour for a quick lunch where I had some of the best smoked salmon in history. Although the harbour is clearly the most touristy area of the city, that didn't take anything away from it. The place is absolutely gorgeous and is on an entirely different plane of existence than Toronto's waterfront. Half the reason I suppose is that it is still a working harbour. If anything gave me a sense that Cape Town is a thriving, healthy city, it was the bustling waterfront. In the evening we went for a few drinks at some local establishments on Long Street, the major bar area and crashed early (this traveling shit takes a lot out of you!)

Yesterday, we had a pseudo-surreal experience. We took a train down to 'Simon's Town' which is about 30 minutes south on the peninsula. It's the archetypal quaint, picturesque (insert other rhetorical descriptors here) seaside village cum rich suburb. The main attraction and our reason for visiting was the penguin colony that resides at aptly-named Boulder Beach. I truly had no idea what to expect. Our taxi dropped us in the parking lot and immediately we could see at least two dozen penguins sitting on the rocks not even 20 feet away. I didn't expect to see so many. I could have gone home happy, but then we actually walked down to the beach. There were freaking hundreds of them (About 3,000 in the colony I learned later). We could move amongst the throng of creatures -- that by the way you can't help but laugh at when they walk -- without causing them any distress. They just sat there looking (I'm almost convinced smiling) at us! Of course, as Lesley can tell you, if you do get within about 2 feet of them they do have a tendency to lunge for your fingers. Another experience in a series of irregular adventures, we had a picnic lunch on a rock in the middle of a group of about 50 of them. Wild. We ended the night with a late dinner and some short lived dancing at a club that might not have been disappointing had I been dj'ing (and by dj'ing I mean changing alternative rock CDs). The rest of our week is up in the air but there's a good chance a cable car trip to the top of Table Mountain and a tour of wine country will factor into our agenda somewhere.