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South Africa |
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South Africa - now that's a destination I sure wasn't annoyed to get sent to on
business ;-)
I got into town (Cape Town to be exact) 2 days earlier to
explore this city and its surroundings as a tourist. I was extremely lucky, for a
really decent rate had been negotiated for me at the very stylish Arabella Sheraton
right next to the harbor and Waterfront (comparable to San Francisco's Pier 39).
This allowed me to stay in the same hotel all the time, during the pleasure and
business part. I have to admit that the business days were pleasure as well, for I
met many very nice people and we worked in a very relaxed atmosphere.
I strolled around the Waterfront on my first evening, going on a sunset cruise on a
sailing boat. To my pleasant surprise, I didn't get seasick. The same thing cannot
be said for at least one other lady, sitting rather close to me. At a certain
point, her partner started guiding her through controlled breathing, I almost
thought she'd go into labor. The sunset was obscured by clouds, but the view of the
city in front of Table Mountain was fabulous, and would have made for some nice
photo shots, except that the boat was rocking too much.
The next day, after having explored downtown for a while, I
decided to go visit the Kirstenbosch Botanical Garden. I knew that a Golden Arrow
bus was leaving close to the train station at 12:35. But when I got there - well in
advance - it just didn't seem plausible that this bus would leave from there. There
were some minivans around and (long distance) charter buses, but nothing that
looked like it would just circle around the city. I asked a lady working in one of
the travel agencies close by, but she just said "I don't know anything about buses.
I don't know anything about buses." without even listening closely to what I was
asking. I wasn't really asking her in her function of travel agent (even though
you'd expect that as such she could give me an answer), but simply as a local who I
thought might know her city. Anyway, I walked all around that side of the train
station that was generally known as "Bus Terminal". By now it was close to 12:30
and I still had no clue. All I knew was that this was only the second bus of the
day after the 7:30 one, so it'll probably be quite a few hours until the next one.
Finally, I studied the maps in my Lonely Planet city guide and found that there was
a "Golden Acre Terminal" on the other side of the train station. Did I maybe
misunderstand and it was a "Golden Acre" bus instead of a "Golden Arrow" bus?
Possible, I had only heard it briefly. I ran to the other side of the train station
(mind you, there are about 24 tracks!), ended up in a shopping mall and had to find
my way out again. There it was! A BIG bus terminal with tens of "Golden Arrow"
buses. (The bus terminal is right behind the "Golden Acre" shopping center, so it
might or might not be a typo in the book.) I was only about 2 minutes late, but my
bus had gone - so it seemed. Even though its destination was different from
Kirstenbosch, I went to the bus on the corresponding lot and asked if the
Kirstenbosch bus had already left. The driver waved a guy with a walkie-talkie over
and they ordered the Kirstenbosch bus to wait for me. I didn't quite understand at
first where I was supposed to go now, but it turned out that I could ride with the
first bus for a while and then connect to the other one that had just left. Indeed,
after a 20-minute ride I got off and onto the "right" bus, which indeed, as the
driver confirmed, only waited for me. I really appreciated that! When I later told
the story to Captonians (who complained about their buses), they said "No wonder it
rained today. One miracle is following another." (They currently have a draught in
the Cape region.)
I spent quite some time in the Garden and would actually
have stayed even longer, but I preferred to take the last bus back at 4:30. The
Garden is very beautifully located and kept in very nice shape. Unfortunately, not
that much was blooming even though it's currently late spring / early summer.
Nevertheless, I spent a lot of time on the flowers that were there,
practicing with my newly bought digital camera. After all, I want to master it when
I go on safari. I have to admit though, that on safari I probably won't use the
"macro" function a whole lot. But you never know: one of the lions might have
whiskers of particular interest ;-)
I was quite sleepy on the way back to downtown and figured I'd enjoy the hotel's spa on
the 19th floor for a while, enjoying the view over the harbor and all.
But as I got around the mountain, I realized that the "Tablecloth" had disappeared.
That's what the clouds are called which often seem to lie on top of Table Mountain.
So, I took a cab to the cable car station and on the way there heard all about
putting one's life into God's hands. God must have obscured the cab driver's
eyesight with His hands, for he thought that I was only 23. And I didn't even have
change to tip him accordingly ;-)
I stayed on Table Mountain until sunset,
playing some more with my camera. Now it was the zoom's turn to be explored, as
well as the different sunset settings. I'm about the last one to get a digital
camera, so I don't even have to start telling everybody how nice it is to just be
able to "shoot" away and then choose the best one. In a way, it makes photography
easier and less challenging, it seems. On the other hand, in my case, it really
awoke my interest to know more about it. "Aperture", "Speed" and all those terms:
from physics I know what they technically are, but I'm completely lacking the
feeling for how they affect a picture. Now I want to get that "gut feeling" of how
I have to program my camera in order to obtain nice shots. While I like the playing
part just now, I know that it will not please and challenge me in the long run. I
want to know beforehand which ones are the good settings and not in retrospect by
picking out the best picture.
Once down the mountain, I took a minivan to get back into town. In there, I met two
backpackers from England and Scotland (Ruth and Iona), who then invited me to join
them and their friend Sung Mi from South Korea on their day trip to Cape Point
(Cape of Good Hope) the following day. I gladly accepted for I thought about
renting a car myself, but I was dreading driving on the left side of the road. For
them, obviously, that wasn't anything out of the ordinary.
While they were really nice company, I realized once more why I actually like traveling alone, even
if sometimes there's a depressing aspect to it as well. But over all, I guess I'm
too much of an independent spirit to be willing to give up the advantage of
deciding when to do what. We were supposed to meet at 9am at the tourist
office, because the rental agencies are all located in its neighborhood. They
called me shortly before that, telling me that they were trying to rent a car
through their Bed & Breakfast place. They'd pick me up around 10:30am. That's
almost in the middle of the day! OK, I admit that I am not a morning person, but
it's different when I'm traveling and trying to get the most out of a day. They
arrived a little late, but then with all the paper work, who's to blame? I got into
the car and expected that we'd take off right away. Wrong! They needed to go to the
bathroom. They all got out and into "my" hotel while I continued to wait - only
this time inside of the car instead of outside next to the canal. Oh well,... They
came back, we drove to the next round-about to turn the car around and leave the
hotel complex. So I thought - but they parked again! Right in front of the hotel
again, just on the other side of the street. They wanted to discuss where to buy
food. Apparently their Bed & Breakfast was without breakfast. It was finally
decided not to drive downtown, where no one knew if and where there'd be any
supermarket. Instead, we stopped along the way. Now there's something that made
sense! We would only see later, that this had been far from being a good idea!!!
(Not that we bought food there, but that we bought food altogether.) After
about an hour's drive, we stopped in a place called Simon's Town to eat lunch. I
was still full from my hearty breakfast buffet, but they felt sorry for me because
I hadn't bought any lunch. So, I just waited once more. Our next stop was one that
I had also on my agenda: a penguins colony, right next to a popular beach. After a
while I was done with zooming in and out and ready to continue. But I waited some
more, for one forgot her film in the car and wanted to go get it and then come back
to the beach again, and another was just wading through the water. And I also
waited. (Read out loud with an American accent to get the punchline ;-)
)
It was past 4pm when we finally reached the park entrance at the southern tip of the cape peninsula. I
wasn't too happy, for I had wanted to see and take pictures of the baboons
("Paviane" in German) that live there. But Iona just sped by all the potential
baboon lookouts. Little did I know that we would get up close and personal with a
baboon! Of course we had heard and knew about their aggressiveness and that we
weren't allowed to feed them. We had no intention to do so, but things evolved
differently... Two or three cars came into sight, which were waiting alongside the
street. A clear indication that there was "something to see". Sure enough, a huge
baboon was peacefully sitting on the right curb. We stopped on the left side a
little further down the road. I was contemplating whether or not to leave the car
to take a picture. I wasn't going to get close; I knew by now that my zoom was
working beautifully. However, before reaching a decision, someone mentioned that
the baboon was slowly coming our way. Well, good, then I'll just take a picture
through the front window once he passes us. (I was sitting next to the driver.)
When I turned around to see where exactly he was, I saw him peeking into our
open right rear window and leaving no doubt that he was about to enter our
car. The English girl sitting there courageously tried to fend him off - but
unsuccessfully. With a lot of shrieking, hissing and yelling he was in the car -
and I have never left a car so quickly, despite my seat belt! The baboon left the
car again as quickly as he entered it, even before the girls in the back completely
got out - he "only" went for the food bag!
The cape peninsula forks into two
cliffs: Cape Point and Cape of Good Hope. There are two lighthouses on Cape Point
and it has all the touristy infrastructure. I'm not sure why, for the Cape of Good
Hope is the most southern tip of the peninsula. Interestingly, though, it doesn't
look that way. For some reason, one gets the impression that this "honor" should
belong to Cape Point. Another interesting fact, easily verifiable on any map, but
still often told wrongly: the Cape of Good Hope is not the most southern tip of
Africa!
Being there rather late in the afternoon had the advantage of having
to share with only a few other tourists. It also cast a magnificent light on all
these bushes of all kinds of different shades of green. The drive back was rather
unspectacular; the sunset not worth mentioning as it happened behind clouds.
The following two days I had to work. The
first day, I went to the renowned Groote Schuur Hospital. This is the hospital
where the worldwide first heart transplant surgery had been performed. In the
meantime it has lost most of its renommée. Unfortunately for them, but good for the
country, money was distributed differently by the new government after the
abolition of apartheid, to provide good health care not only for a few, but for the
masses. Groote Schuur got "stuck" with by now old equipment and had no funds to
replace it until recently. It seems that money has started to flow again for Groote
Schuur. The second day was spent at the other academic hospital in Cape Town:
Tygerberg.
That evening I finally found time to try out the hotel's pool and
jacuzzi. The pool was cold - after one lap (only a few meters) I was out again,
warming up in the whirlpool. The view from up there over the harbor was fantastic.
It was a full moon night, the moon's reflection on the water awesome.
On Saturday, I gladly accepted Rudi's invitation, to join him and his wife Sue for a
drive along the coast. Rudi is a consultant for our local representative Tecmed.
Rudi is German, his wife South African (well, originally from Zambia and
Rhodesia/Zimbabwe). Her German is flawless and her accent astonishing. I wished I
could speak the "good" German like her and not like the typical Swiss. Passionate
golfers, they had tickets to the "Nelson Mandela Invitational Golf Tournament"
close to a coastal town called Hermanus, where they were going to drop me off for a
couple of hours. Hermanus is quite famous for the whales visiting its bay from June
until November. It claims that it offers the best whale watching right off cliff
path, without having to board a boat. While it was a lovely afternoon, I didn't see
any whales. But then, Rudi and Sue didn't get to see Mandela either. ;-) That's not
who they went for, though. Instead they really badly wanted to see some golf pro's,
which they did.
On the way back we took the long route over some passes and
through wine country and had a nice dinner in Franschhoek.
I spent the following week close to Johannesburg, working. It was uneventful and in the evening I was more or less confined to my hotel room. That was fine since it allowed me to write this essay.