Andrew Currie Online

For this, my final posting of photos from South Africa, I pay tribute to some of the little things that made my trip so memorable. For example, My hotel rate included full access to the daily breakfast buffet, where I would enjoy some local fruits, like the aforementioned tomango and granadilla (passion fruit), the goopy delight pictured above.

My fruit appetizer was only a warm-up for the tasty made-to-order omelette that followed. My favourite side was a healthy dollop of “beef mince” — my camera phone really didn’t do it justice.

Minibus taxis like this were parked in front of my hotel at all hours of the day and night. They’re usually bound for a single destination, and don’t leave until full-up with passengers. As such, the drivers have helpers who hang out the window and solicit business by repeatedly yelling out where the minibus is headed. The result? Every time I walked out onto the street all I could hear was: “Sea Point, Sea Point, Sea Point!” — except yelled ten times as fast.

More days than not, the hotel staff’s favourite cab driver was also parked outside. Livingstone — either his first or last name — had such a good reputation with the bellhops and parking attendants that I asked him to drive me to airport on my last day, and got this souvenir photo.

The billboard belongs to Cell C, a local cell phone company, and could be spotted by looking north down Strand Street from the elevator ride to my room. Home schweet home, indeed!

With only two days left in Cape Town, it dawned on me that I hadn’t really spent much time in the downtown core. My hotel was situated right in the middle of everything, so I made some time to get to know the neighbourhood a little better.

The train station was just across the street, supposedly one of most dangerous places for tourists. I guess the dude in the blue shirt does kind of have a crazed look in his eye… Unfortunately this photo doesn’t really do justice to the hustle and bustle of the five o’clock rush — everyone’s in a hurry to get home and watch their soaps!

The Castle of Good Hope was only a block further down Strand Street. It’s South Africa’s oldest surviving structure, built by the Dutch in the seventeenth century.

Some mannequins dressed in various Dutch period uniforms. Inside the castle was a great exhibit chronicling the Anglo-Boer War. The Dutch had built this castle to defend against British invasion, but that invasion didn’t happen until the late 1800s, when gold was discovered in the region.

Here’s a model of a British blockhouse, a heavily fortified structure built to defend rail crossings and other strategic locations for the Brits. It worked.

Okay, enough history! I was pleasantly surprised to see that mobile mania has also taken over South Africa — here’s just one of many street-side accessory stands dotting the downtown area. Unfortunately South Africans are a little bit behind in the technology, and I couldn’t trick out my Fido with any of the goodies they had for sale.

I did, however, make a new friend. A chance visit to a small shop behind my hotel ended up in a lengthy political discussion about 9/11 and the Muslim religion. And if a love of cell phones can bring two ideologies together, then maybe there’s hope for us all :’-S

Most days I’ve been here, there’s been a thick layer of cloud directly over Table Mountain, which the locals refer to as the “table cloth” — clever, eh? Here’s a photo of a typical morning view from my hotel room.

Monday morning I woke up to find the entire cape overcast, but the Tabletop clear. So I hopped into my rental for a quick drive up to the cable car station. This first photo, above, is a view of downtown from the mountain top.

This would be a stunning view down the mountain’s opposite side, but just after high noon the thick cloud started rolling in, completely obscuring the view. Fortunately I had another destination to visit, and my Micra to get me there. Emelda and Marriana, my company for the drive back from Aquila the previous afternoon, had told me about South Africa’s largest mall, Canal Walk in Century City. It was so large, in fact, that I had seen it from the highway driving back into town. So I set out for it again, and got lost for a good half hour. But following the labyrinth of highways and using the mountain as a reference point, I was soon there.

It was a pretty big mall. I wish I could say more, but all the stores were variations of the same brands we have back home. I did muster up to try some biltong for the first time. It seems to be for sale everywhere, and I can best describe it as different kinds of meat jerky. I think I had ostrich. It was awful!

To make matters worse, I left the suburban mall just in time to take part in the afternoon rush hour. It took me almost half an hour to make it from the exit down a 500-metre road to the highway cloverleaf; once on the N1 pointed back towards the core, I was grateful that most cars were heading in the opposite direction.

After dropping off my car at the hotel I took the free shuttle down to the waterfront to go music shopping. After listening to some African Dope at the local CD Wherehouse — clever, eh? — I decided to purchase a Mandoza Greatest Hits album instead — it’s awesome!

Tuesday morning I went for one last drive before returning my rental, and stopped for this windy photo opp in Camps Bay. That’s the Atlantic behind me…

… And here’s the reverse angle. Can you spot the Micra?

And here’s an extreme reverse angle, taken from atop Table Mountain on a sunnier day.

That’s right, I woke up Wednesday morning to a crystal-clear tabletop, so of course I had to venture up one more time. This is the cable car that takes you up.

And here’s photographic proof that I was indeed there. Click on the photo to see where my hotel is.

Hello, from the South African Airways First Class Departures Lounge!

I’ve got lots of stories and photos to post, but my power adapters don’t seem to fit here. No need to worry, though — there’ll be lots of time to write (and hopefully charge up my PowerBook) on my twelve-hour flight to Frankfurt. If not then, I’ll have a three-hour layover before my flight to Amsterdam. And if not there, then you’ll just have to wait until I get home!

Still two days behind in my posts…

On Sunday, I woke up extra early for the “comfortable two hour-drive” to the Aquila Private Game Reserve. What I wasn’t told as I set out on the N1 Highway was that the first half of the drive would be through blinding fog!

I still made it in time for a hot breakfast, before loading into a topless Range Rover with five other tourists and our guide, Jacques. Jacques was great, though he seemed a bit obsessed with rhino droppings, picking up soccer ball-sized turds to show us at every available opportunity.

And here are the owners of said droppings, a female white rhino and her young’un. It should be noted that the mama rhino is already pregnant with her second…

… Proving must frustrating to this guy, a poor white-but-with-blue-balls rhino bull.

You can click here for a short QuickTime movie (no sound) of a lion. They were serving the final days of a mandatory eight-month quarantine, to ensure they wouldn’t spread disease to the other animals. It was a bit of a drag that they were stuck behind an electric fence, but once they are released into the park there won’t be any more open-air vehicles driving around it!

By the way, the lioness in the movie is stalking some horseback riders who passed by us… Sucks to be them!

Pity the poor giraffes of Aquila, who have no food at their own height to feed on, and must duck way, way down for ground-level sustenance.

And a pleasant and unexpected surprise came after lunch, when two friendly native South Africans — Emelda and Marianna — asked if I would give them a lift back to town. In return I got to ask all sorts of questions about Cape-tonian life, and got hipped to “Wicked Wednesdays” on SABC, which I’ll be checking out tomorrow night!