Stellenbosch - Cape Town: 45km/28mi

Wednesday 11 March 2004

From the d'Ouwe Werf we drive straight to Cape Town. We get caught in the aftermath of the morning rush hour, but the good directions we got from our host get us in less then no time at Cactus Guest House. Simon is our host in this small, comfortable (gay all male) guest house, situated in a relatively quiet and pleasant neighbourhood with a view on the Table Mountain. All settled in we leave for the V&A Waterfront around 11am to catch the ferry to Robben Island from the Robben Island Museum at  the Nelson Mandela Gateway. There are countless boats to Robben Island, but this is the only one that gets you actually on the island. It is not that easy though, because the first available seats turn out to be on the 2pm crossing. We wander around the V&A Waterfront. It is a tourist entertainment area around the 19th century quays of the Victoria and Alfred basins. After a few decades of decay the area has been revitalized like Darling Harbour in Sydney. Old Victorian warehouses now stand side by side to fake Victorian shopping malls, theatres and attractions on the quays of a working marina. We have a drink on one of the outside café's with a view on the marina and the Table Mountain in the background. The Table Cloud is shrouded in clouds (the "Table Cloth"). We have lunch at Cafe Balducci, an up market Italian bistro on the quay. At two we sail out to Robben Island. The crossing takes about half an hour. From the islands dockside we continue on a bus tour around the island. Robben  Island was first used as a prison by the Dutch East Indies Company for rebellious indigenous inhabitants of the Cape, the Dutch East Indies (Indonesia) and Ceylon (Sri Lanka). Our guide is not an ex inmate, but a researcher and trainer of the guides. He was in exile during the days of Apartheid. He tells us the tragic history of the island in a very personal colourful and humorous way.  We start with the cottage where Robert Subukwe, the founder of the PAC, was kept in solitary confinement. Subukwe called up to resist the pass laws in 1960. According to these laws blacks always had to carry a pass to prove that the were allowed to be in certain "white areas" on certain times of the day. The protests that followed led to a mass shooting in  Sharpeville where the police shot to kill into a crowd of protesters and killed 69 people. Subukwe was considered so dangerous that he was imprisoned for 9 years totally separated from the other prisoners and was for a long time forbidden to have any contact with other people. Next on our tour is the graveyard for the lepers from the days the island served as a leper colony. The houses for the guards are now used as a conference centre. The view from the island on Cape Town and the Table Mountain is beautiful, but that would not have been much comfort to the prisoners at the time. The island has lots of penguins and seal (Robben in Dutch). The tour ends at the maximum security prison, where Mandela and his fellow leaders of the ANC and the PAC, like Walter Sisulu were kept prisoner.  Nelson Mandela arrived here in 1963. The harsh circumstances of the long imprisonment leads you only to admire their determination and to be amazed at their forgiving attitude towards their adversaries. Until 1978 there was no bed and no toilet and prisoners were body searched naked every day. They spent their days working the lime stone quarry. Quite useless as there was no demand for limestone at all. Prisoners' eyes were damaged by the reflection of the sunlight from the stones. Nevertheless the prisoners managed to win minor legal battles with regard to their conditions. Inside the prison a kind of university evolved where prisoners educated each other and the guards to university level. Mandela sat 18 years of his 27 year imprisonment here on the island. The island also has a number of canon batteries, which were built to defend the Cape against a German or Italian invasion during World War II. The joke is that the canons we completed in 1947. Our guide commented: "In Europe people have watches, in Africa we have time". At five we sail back to the mainland, filled with impressions and knowledge about the island's past. 

At night we eat at The Five Flies, a good restaurant down town. Our waiter does keep up a high pace, because we are in and out within an hour. 

Weather: sunny, around 25°C/77°F

Thursday 12 March 2004

The Table Mountain is clear today, so we decide to go up with one of the modern gondolas. Up there it is rather chilly and the view changes from good to bad and back. The city is obscured from view every now and then by clouds, but that is part of the mountain's charm, we suppose. We see a couple of Klipdassies running around. They look like oversized guinea pigs, but actually are small primitive ungulates.  

Back down again we pay our car watch and park the car back at the guest house. We walk into town via Government Lane. A traffic free lane that takes us past the Company Gardens, the Tuynhuis (Garden House; the president's residence in Cape Town) and the Parliament Buildings.  The Company Gardens were once the reason of Cape Town's existence. Here the Dutch East Indies Company (with slave labour) grew vegetables and fruits to supply its ships on their way to the East and back. The Tuynhuis is the residence of the President when he is in Cape Town. Normally the president is based in Pretoria, but as Parliament has its seat in Cape Town he has a residence here too. We walk towards the Bo-kaap district. This is a colourful neighbourhood where, since the abolition of slavery, the descendants of the Dutch East India Company's slaves still live. The are known as Cape Malays, but only a small proportion of them actually comes from Malaysia. Most of them have their roots in Indonesia and Sri Lanka. We visit the Bo-Kaapmuseum, that tells the story of the neighbourhood and its people.

We have lunch at Café Zanne (lovely buffet lunch) and end up at the Castle of Good Hope. Here we get a nice tour (in Afrikaans) through the Dutch 17th century castle built to defend the colony. Much attention is paid to the prison and torture rooms. The castle still has a military function, as the regional command of the South African Defence Force has its base here. 

We take a taxi back to the guest house. At 5pm we go out for cocktails at Manhattan, a gay café and restaurant. Later we eat at Café Paradiso near our Guest House on Kloof Street.

Later at night we explore the gay scene and have drinks at Manhattan's (live show) and Bronx, the nerve centre of the local gay scene here at the Cape - and has been for more than 10 years.

Weather: sunny and around 25°C/77°

Friday 12 March 2004

Today we are going to tour the Cape peninsula. We first drive to Muizenberg, the first sea resort you get to on the False Bay shore, coming from Cape Town. False Bay is on the Indian Ocean side. The water is warmer here, than on the Atlantic side, but there is more wind. Muizenberg can be reached by train, but has fallen to decay a bit the last couple of decades. We drink coffee at a practically deserted beach and drive on. We take pictures of the beautiful railway station of Muizenberg and continue to St James. Here we see a couple of colourful changing cabins on the beach, where families with small children bathe in a tidal pool. 

The next place of significance is Simon's town. It has a Navy wharf and is a busy sea resort with lots of tourist shops. The main reason for stopping here is on Boulder Beach, where we find a big colony of African Penguins. Because of their mating sound they are also called Jack-ass penguins. The beach is part of the Cape Peninsula National Park (entrance fee).  The beach is accessible by a system of board walks and we get to see the penguins from very close up. Many of them are brooding, but they do not seem to be disturbed by the attention. The penguins are a protected species, as their numbers have dropped by 90% in the last century by egg poachers and the use of guano.

After Simon's town we charge on to Cape Point national park. This is the last 20km of the peninsula. It is full of fynbos on the hills and we are told it is full of zebras and antelopes, but we do not see a single one. At the Cape itself, the southernmost tip of Africa we have to climb a bit to the view point, although we could have taken the funicular. It is  blowing heavily here, but the view is marvelous, both on the sea and the peninsula, with its wild coast - both on the Atlantic as the Indian side. Erik is approached by a tourist from Zambia, who just wants to chat. That happens more often here in South Africa. 

We drive along the Atlantic side of and have lunch in Scarborough at the Camel restaurant (average). At Noordhoek starts the Chapman's Peak Drive. A spectacular road edged on the mountains and cliffs of Chapman's peak. According to our Rough Guide the most beautiful drive in the world, but that is debatable. It is very beautiful with nice views and hanging cliffs. At the northern side of the drive we have to pay at the toll booth (R20). We follow the west coast along  Hout Bay (busy resort), Llandudno (less busy) to Camps Bay. This is where the suburban resorts of Cape Town start. Around 4pm we are back in Cape Town.

Early evening we drink an aperitif at Manhattan's, after which we go and eat dinner at 0932 a Belgian restaurant at Green Point. A trendy place in a way, but we had expected more. The food is good, but the open front gives on to a very busy road. Later at night we go to M-bar & Lounge @ Metropole. Hyper trendy lounge. Everything is red and the crowd is the kind that likes to be seen, cocktail in hand. Even the toilet is a sight in its own right. We close the evening in a more down at heel style in Bronx, where it's busy busy.  

Weather: sunny, 26°C/79°F

Saturday 13 March & Sunday 14 March 2004

We start the slowly. We pack our suit cases and get ready for a day at the beach. We drink coffee in our neighbourhood before we drive to Llandudno on the Atlantic coast. From there we follow the signs to Sandy Bay. We park the car and walk another 15 minutes or so to the dunes of the nude beach. At 10.30 it is very quiet, but during the course of the morning the people get coming in form town. It is very sunny and warm,but there is a breeze, which makes it more bearable. The water unfortunately is stone cold and not suitable for a real swim. Around 2pm we drive back to town. We have lunch at Tank in the Cape Quarter. This is a courtyard with a dozen trendy restaurants.  Tank specialises in sushi and crocodiles. We enjoy a collection of sushi and sashimi and lovely Cape Riesling. We then sit and sip a drink on the outside tables of Manhattan's before we return to the guest house for a shower and a change of clothes. At 5.30 we say goodbye to Simon and Cactus House  and drive to the airport which is only 20 minutes away. We have difficulty understanding how we should return the car. It turns out that we should have left it on the car park, uninspected and leave the key at the Sixt desk inside the terminal. But we keep looking for staff to take the car off our hands... 

We check in, eat and shop a bit before we board the aircraft at 7.45pm. We leave promptly at 8.35 for a long flight to London. In London we have an hour to connect to our flight to Amsterdam, all within terminal 4. That goes very smoothly indeed and in Amsterdam we find out that our luggage has kept up with us. We take the 11.16 train and a bit past midday we back at home. Tired, but satisfied and full of good memories. 

Weather: In Cape Town: sunny 30°C/86°F. In Rotterdam: cloudy 12°C/54°F.