Monthly Archives: January 2011

City Sightseeing Cape Town Tour – Red Route

Adventures, bus, Cape Town, ,
City Sightseeing Cape Town tour – Red Route
Last week I spent a couple of days in Cape Town. Cape Town holds a special place in my heart, partly because it is one of the most beautiful cities in the world and partly because, having lived there twice, I have that inexplicably Capetonian, often-mocked-by-Joburgers attachment to the lump of rock that dominates the scenery. This time of year, the days are long and beautiful, particularly when the wind isn’t blowing (and even to some extent when it is) as the city lives up to its reputation as a particularly attractive place.
It is also a place where I feel quite strongly that one should throw caution and social pressure to the roaring South Easter and enjoy the sensation of being a tourist. So, after an extremely frustrating morning of work, I set off on a Thursday afternoon to find something exciting to see in Cape Town. I was staying in town-ish (Cape Town Backpackers), so close to town. My initial plan was to spend a few happy hours at a museum or go back and finish exploring the castle, but then a red, open-top sightseeing bus drove past and I was immediately sold.
The departure (and terminal) point for these city sightseeing buses is the dedicated stop in front of the Two Oceans Aquarium at the Waterfront. The buses use a hop-on, hop-off system, so it is possible to spend a whole day travelling from tourist destination to tourist destination. A one-day pass costs a mere R120 (a Windhoek City tour charges R200). I didn’t have a whole day, so I decided just to sit back and enjoy the tour from the top of the bus. For the record, it is highly advisable not to forget sunscreen – even though the wind keeps it cool when you’re moving, the sun can be quite fierce.
The Red Route is the city tour. It starts by circling around from the Waterfront past the ICC, up Adderley Street, past St George’s and the SA Museum, around past parliament and the Jewish Museum, through District Six and back past the Castle and the Gold Museum. The whole way along, disembodied voices tell you interesting things about the places you’re passing via a set of red headphones handed to you when you buy your ticket. Yes, I realise it is probably mostly information that can be picked up in other ways but it is somehow more interesting and definitely more ‘sticky’ with the visual reinforcement at the same time. I didn’t realise, for example, that the pretty Lutheran Evangelical Church in town was, for the first five years of its existence, disguised as a barn because no church other than the Dutch Reformed Church was allowed in the Cape. Nor that the war Memorial near the station is dedicated to those who died in the world wars and those who perished in the Korean War.
From town, the bus travels up Buitengracht, New Church and Kloof Nek towards the lower cable station. Lions Head and Table Mountain both rose majestically against the blue sky as we got closer and closer. The road up to the lower cable-way is… um… exciting in a bus but the views are worth it. Several cable cars travelled up and down as the bus waited. The bus stops for a few minutes at the lower cable station, where people are able to hop off and wander around a bit. I was hugely tempted to go up the mountain, but decided there simply wouldn’t be time before I was due to meet up with a friend. One day is one day.
After the cable station, the bus heads towards Camps Bay. The wind was starting to come up now and the twists of Geneva Drive were a little hairy but the views of Atlantic sparkling below and the 12 Apostles stretching behind were exquisite. Also, a reminder of why people pay millions to live in Camps Bay.
From there, the bus winds its way past the stunning beaches and millionaire-flats of Clifton, through Sea Point, Three Anchors Bay, Mouille Point and back, past Somerset Hospital, to the Waterfront.
It was a lovely trip and a great way to spend a sunny afternoon. By the end, the South Easter was drifting the cloud across the edges of the mountain, adding its own special kind of magic to the day. I stopped for calamari and chips with the seagulls at the Waterfront before heading back to the backpackers and the evening’s plans.

Last week I spent a couple of days in Cape Town. Cape Town holds a special place in my heart, partly because it is one of the most beautiful cities in the world and partly because, having lived there twice, I have that inexplicably Capetonian, often-mocked-by-Joburgers attachment to the lump of rock that dominates the scenery. This time of year, the days are long and beautiful, particularly when the wind isn’t blowing (and even to some extent when it is) as the city lives up to its reputation as a particularly attractive place.

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Botswana trip, part II: Hot in the city

Botswana, ,
Botswana trip, part II: Hot in the city
My lasting impression of Botswana will be one of heat. Not that heat is always a bad thing. I like heat. But even I, with the memory of a snowy New Year’s still far too close for comfort, found it a little oppressive to begin with. Once the first few days had passed, it was glorious. It is worth noting, though, that sunscreen and plenty of water are not optional on a December/January trip to Gaborone.
The beautiful heat also makes for beautiful rain. The thunderstorms can be spectacular. The first few days there was no rain. Clouds built up but nothing happened. The middle of the afternoon was the hottest, most uncomfortable time of day. Hot and oppressive, waiting, waiting, waiting for the storm to break. And then, finally, a few days in, we were all sitting in a hot, stuffy room when suddenly there was the sound of rain on the roof. The skies opened and it rained. People rushed outside and danced in the brief shower.
After that, it rained almost every day. Perhaps the most spectacular was New Year’s Day, mid-afternoon when the heavens opened in a great cloudburst and water poured down for ages. It was so beautiful and so welcome that the South African guys rushed into the rain – a picture-perfect moment of rain in Africa.
The event I was in town for was hosted almost exclusively at the University of Botswana, so I didn’t see much of the country. The UB campus is nice, with several new buildings and several more in progress. I couldn’t help noticing that an awful lot of the construction is being done by Chinese companies. I suppose South Africa’s economy is sufficiently complex that it is less obvious here, so I notice far more when I’m in other countries the extent of Chinese influence in Southern Africa.
Which is not to say that South Africa is not playing its own fairly significant economic colonialist role. The Mall we visited a couple of times was filled with South African chain stores. The supermarkets, the restaurants, the movie theatres all brands from home, their ownership pretty much all South African. We had lunch one day, a fellow South African and I, with a couple of Scottish visitors who were a little taken aback that the steak house in Botswana’s capital advertised as the ‘Favourite restaurant of the South African family’. As convenient as this kind of travel can be – there are ATMs in Botswana of my own bank, for example – it always leaves me a little uncomfortable.
One thing we seem to have definitely exported successfully is our liquor laws, particularly the ones about not selling alcohol on a Sunday or public holiday. In fact they seem to be more serious about it – some regions of South Africa have passed by-laws relaxing these laws a little in recent years. The only reason I know about Botswana’s draconian approach to alcohol is because we found ourselves trying to make a traditional punch over the New Year’s weekend. Twice. The first time was on New Year’s Day (a Saturday), which is a public holiday in South Africa, too, so not that surprising. The second was on the following Monday, when, much to our surprise, it turned out STILL to be a public holiday. Liquor prices have also increased 40% in recent months. Apparently the president is a teetotaller.
The time was too short, the schedule too hectic to form much more of a lasting impression, except to know that this is another Southern African country to which I have no doubt I will return. I sat in the departures area of Gabs airport, waiting for my flight, with several new friends, from the US, from Ireland, from Russia, from Cuba. Many of them would never be back. I would. I will. For me, Botswana is part of my world, part of my reality, perhaps even a part of my identity I hadn’t found until now. So I leave knowing I’ll be back, a smile at the heat and the tiny airport and pocket full of pula to bring back the next time around.

My lasting impression of Botswana will be one of heat. Not that heat is always a bad thing. I like heat. But even I, with the memory of a snowy New Year’s still far too close for comfort, found it a little oppressive to begin with. Once the first few days had passed, it was glorious. It is worth noting, though, that sunscreen and plenty of water are not optional on a December/January trip to Gaborone.

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Botswana trip, part I: East London to Gaborone

Airports, Botswana,
Botswana trip, part I: East London to Gaborone
My trip to Botswana was largely unplanned. I had been thinking and talking about Namibia for months, but the subsequent Botswana trip was last-minute. It wasn’t going to be a trip with much travelling round and tourist travel – I’d be at an event at the university – but I imagined it would still be possible to get a sense of the country, so I jumped at the chance, booked a flight and started packing.
I left South African on the 26th of December, after Christmas with my family – a joy after being so far away the previous year, although I will admit to feeling some sense of nostalgia for the crazy international Christmas of 2009. East London airport is looking very new and shiny after the World Cup make-over, all except for the fact that not one of the flashy new information boards was working. I wondered if my flight would be on time. East London flights so often aren’t – both arrivals and departures. Just in case, I sky-checked my pack instead of checking it in. I normally check in my luggage. Yes, I’m one of those people who flies a lot but still checks in luggage. Why? Because it makes my life easier in two ways: firstly I don’t have to think about making sure I have no liquids or metal things in and secondly I get to get rid of my bag for the period of time between checking in and boarding the plane.
Sure enough, after a quick cup of coffee with the family and a rush through security, boarding was delayed. Luckily, it appears the airline has reached the point of simply accepting that East London flights will be delayed and now builds in extra time. This sounds bizarre but quite seriously, by the time I was supposed to land, according to my booking and the website, I was already in Johannesburg, through arrivals and heading for international check-in.
Air Botswana was checking in through Terminal A, so I still haven’t had the opportunity to go through Terminal B (the ‘Africa’ Terminal) at OR Tambo. I still have high hopes it’ll happen soon. For now, I breezed through check, security and passport-control and headed for the shops. I don’t normally shop on the international departures – past security, duty-free section – mostly because at this stage I cannot afford to add any more weight to my luggage. This time, however, I was in search of an adaptor. I found a very useful universal adaptor that was no help on this trip. In fact, it will be of limited help unless I can find a second adaptor to go from South Africa’s 3-round-pin to the kind of 2-pin plug that can actually go into the universal adaptor. Botswana uses 3-flat-pin plugs, for the record, of, I am told, the British type. This despite the fact that many of the appliances appear to imported from South Africa and therefore require an adaptor to plug into electrical outlets.
The flight to Gaborone departed from Gate A2. Gate A2 is a dark, secluded corner of international departures. By 5 minutes before boarding, there were still only about 10 people at the Gate. Not that I’m complaining – I’d prefer an empty flight to an overfull planeload of annoying people and small children, any day. The plane wasn’t that small – thankfully – I’d expected one of the tiny planes pictured on the Air Botswana website. The number of people was, in fact, small for the plane, so small that there wasn’t even assigned seating. It took about a minute and a half to find other people heading to the same event, with whom I spent the next 36 minutes – the whole flight to Botswana – chatting.

My trip to Botswana was largely unplanned. I had been thinking and talking about Namibia for months, but the subsequent Botswana trip was last-minute. It wasn’t going to be a trip with much travelling round and tourist travel – I’d be at an event at the university – but I imagined it would still be possible to get a sense of the country, so I jumped at the chance, booked a flight and started packing.

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