2010 South Africa – Cape Town
14th January 2010
We headed to Cape Town for the first of our two trips. Our hotel was in the centre of Town, about 20-minutes walk from the Waterfront which was a large area of restaurants and shops. I was surprised to find that parking opposite our hotel was not only plentiful but also appeared to be free. When I returned to the car the next morning, a man wearing a bright yellow jacket approached me and asked,
“Excuse me. Have you been parking here all night?”
“Yes,” I answered.
“It costs 30 rands a night to park here. It is a private space.” It didn’t surprise me as it was hard to visit any city that had parking spaces, let alone free ones and 30 rands a night seemed very reasonable.
“How do I know if you are authorised? You could be anyone” I asked him. He looked hurt. He took out his wallet and showed me a card from a security company.
“I work here. No problem” he said.
I had the choice of implying he was a thief by checking with the hotel if was genuine or accepting his word. What with the official-looking yellow jacket and the security card I accepted his word and looked through my wallet for some change.
“I only have 100 Rands,” I told him.
“No problem. I will change it with my boss around the corner.”
He ran off to get change and I waited patiently. Five minutes later I looked around the corner where he had run and there was no sign of him or anyone else. I went to the hotel reception and asked,
“Do you have to pay for the parking opposite?”
“No, it is free.”
He was hoping to rip me off for 30 rands and I had willingly given him 100. I had to see the funny side but it was a little sad that in future I would have to treat everyone with suspicion.
For lunch we sat in an outside café with a perfect view of Table Mountain. The sky was clear except for a single cloud which covered the top of the Mountain. It looked a bit spooky as clouds fell down the side of the mountain until they faded to nothing halfway down. This often happened and the locals would say “The mountain has a tablecloth over it.” Legend had it that it was smoke left behind after a famous pirate and the devil had a pipe-smoking competition. When the mountain was covered like that they closed the cable car. I had been warned that if Table Mountain was clear you had to visit it immediately because you might not get another chance.
In the afternoon we spent a pleasant couple of hours at the waterfront where in particular I enjoyed the many street acts that were performing. 
The next morning we had planned to go to Table Mountain. There was only a small cloud around the mountain so we thought it would be ok but I phoned just to make sure. It was lucky that I did because the cablecar was closed due to gale force winds so it was not just cloud we had to be concerned about but wind as well. We went to the gold museum instead which I found a bit boring but whilst sitting in their café we saw that they put on special nights with dinner, African music and dancing so we booked a table for that night.
There was a huge menu with several different courses served by very friendly and brightly dressed waitresses. As they brought each course to our table they explained what each dish was and where in Africa it had come from. We were entertained by a female African singer backed by two African drummers and a fearsome-looking Zulu dancing warrior.
A member of the kitchen staff joined in by pounding away on a drum and they all seemed to be having the time of their lives. For the finale, all the staff came into the restaurant wearing colourful costumes and started to sing and dance. I had never seen restaurant staff looking so happy. What a brilliant night it was and we even had our faces painted. 
The next morning the sky looked much clearer and I was told Table Mountain was open with good visibility. It was the perfect weather as it was also quite warm which was good because it could get very cold up there, even in the summer. There were two ways to get to the top, cable car, or walking. It took us around two seconds to decide on the cable car but as we got close to the car park we could see why a lot of people preferred to walk. It looked like there was a giant queue of cars waiting to get into the car park but then we realised the cars were parked along the road so we soon found a place. It was still a long walk to the cable car in the hot sun but there was a small shuttle bus that took us. I last went to Table Mountain in 1976 and there was literally just me and my ex-wife which is why I was so surprised at how many people were there now. There were two long queues, one for those who needed to buy tickets with a 30-minute wait and once you had a ticket you had to wait in the second queue for the cable car. Fortunately I had bought tickets on the internet so we were able to skip the first queue. The cable car moved around as it went up so we were treated to the full panoramic view. At the top, we walked around and had a coffee before coming back down again. I know you have to do these tourist things but all that hassle for what was nothing more than a pleasant view seemed a bit much. I thought looking up at Table Mountain was much more impressive than looking down from it. 
We read in the newspaper that a German was killed by a shark in Gordon’s Bay, an hour from Cape Town. It happened in only a few feet of water with lots of people around so talk about being in the wrong place at the wrong time. Sharks don’t even like the taste of humans so after biting someone they just spit them out, meaning the victim bleeds to death rather than being eaten to death. What was unusual about this case was that they never found any bits from this man so maybe the sharks in that area are less fussy. Gordon’s Bay had much warmer water than the rest of the coast but we still decided against swimming there.
The Cape Town tourist board boasts that all their taxis have meters which was true but they would have been much more effective if they were turned on. We told one taxi driver to take us to our hotel and after a battle, we agreed on 40 rands. When we got out of the taxi there was another battle when he informed us that we had to give him ten rands tip because he had six children to feed. We discovered later that if the meter had been on it would have cost us 20 rands.
2010 South Africa
