Enjoying the Cape

As it turns out, we were able to enjoy a good night’s sleep, interrupted only by a Muslim call to prayer around 5:15am. Fortunately, we were both able to fall back asleep and woke up around 9:30. We had breakfast on the top floor of out hotel, enjoying a panoramic view of the city as we had omelettes and drank rooibos tea (a South African specialty). By the time we actually left the hotel, it was after 11, but we also didn’t have major plans for the day. The wind was still blowing quite strong, so Table Mountain was actually “closed,” however that is made possible, and I suggested we go visit the penguins on a day we don’t get blown away. We elected instead to walk around our neighborhood, which unsurprisingly is historically muslim. The immediately adjacent streets are known as the neighborhood of Bo-Kaap, one of the oldest areas of Cape Town. The buildings are painted in vibrant pastel colors — the kind of thing an Instagram influencer really gets off on. Luckily, we didn’t encounter too many of this type of person.

   We did have one interesting encounter, however, with some royalty. Since Prince Harry married Meghan Markle (now the Duchess of Sussex), they seem to be on the same travel itineraries as us. When Nicole (sometimes, but not often known as the Duchess of Essex County) and I were on our honeymoon, Harry also visited Sydney followed by Fiji. And on this trip, he had aims to go to Cape Town, followed by Chobe National Park in Botswana, and initially had planned to continue on to Namibia. He must have determined that Bricole was already going to Namibia, so he didn’t want to be playing second fiddle to America’s royal couple and elected to go to Malawi and Angola instead. On this day, however, Nicole had figured out a loose itinerary for the Ginger Prince’s day out. Press began showing up in the Bo-Kaap neighborhood, and we figured out that he was planning to visit the Auwal Mosque, the oldest in Cape Town. We had a bit of a wait before he actually arrived, but the wind died down a little bit and the sun felt nice and warm on our backs, so it wasn’t too bad. A security detail had lined up barricades to keep the general public away from the royal couple. Nicole and I were the last to be kicked out since we intentionally had put our largest lenses on our cameras to look like we fit in. A Cape Town police officer asked if we were press, to which I answered, “We can be,” and Nicole said, “We’re press in the U.S.” (What is wrong with us?) Evidently we weren’t convincing and went outside the barricades. It was a bit of a crowd clamoring for space just outside the barricades, but Nicole and I elected to back away a bit and up the hill behind a parked car so nobody could stand directly in front of us, but we could also see over everyone in front of us. Our long lenses would have no difficulty out reaching everyone’s iPhone zoom in the front row. It was a brief dropoff, where Harry and Meghan got out of a LandRover, walked about 15 feet, greeted the mosque’s Imam, and entered. Nevertheless, Nicole and I were able to capture the moment like a couple of low-paid paparazzos. 

 We walked back out of Bo-Kaap to our hotel to regroup for a minute before heading out on the free hotel shuttle to the Waterfront. It seems to be the go-to area in Cape Town for all kind of shops, restaurants, and other activities. Basically, it’s the Santa Monica Pier of Cape Town — crowded, sometimes classy, sometimes tacky, and very thriving. We walked around a little bit, catching glimpses of Table Mountain before sitting down to grab a beer and a pretzel at a local brew haus. We each had a local Cape Town ale which was refreshing, but also made us a bit buzzed after about three sips since we hadn’t eaten anything since breakfast. After our fill up, we walked around a bit more to look for some tchotchkes such as pins, magnets, etc. What is the point of going to South Africa if you can’t get a refrigerator magnet to prove that you went? Exactly.

 After the waterfront, we went back to the hotel for dinner. Everything we read (including the hotel’s own info book) says to not walk around at night anywhere, and use extra caution during the day. It all sounded very ominous, so we did return to the hotel before sunset, but I think there might be a bit of overzealous fear mongering at play. The waterfront would have been perfectly fine at night. And while Cape Town is a dangerous city, it isn’t dangerous in every corner of the city, nor is it dangerous to every type of person. The crime record and subsequent fears of crime say more about the socio-economic disparities that exist in South Africa than anything else. If anyone wanted to pinch my camera gear today, they had a pretty good opportunity if they’d been in Bo-Kaap in a crowd jostling around. But that didn’t happen because Bo-Kaap is a tourist area, so there were cops in the area (long before the royals were expected to show). The death of a tourist (especially a white one) is far more damaging because it generates headlines. A culture of systemic rape does not. And on that depressing nugget, we’re going to see penguins tomorrow! Yay!