Last week the cadet school was taken on a walking tour of Cape Town. We were then asked to produce a piece on the experience. Below is my piece which the facilitator remarked read like 'Bridget Jones goes to Cape Town'...
The first thing I noticed as I walk out on to the streets of Cape Town is the extraordinary number of foreign accents rising above the sounds of street vendors, cars and coffee machines. I look up between the tall buildings and notice wisps of cloud racing across a patch of blue sky visible in the gap. The on-shore wind pushing the clouds also brings the faint smell of the ocean into town. The ocean, I have noticed, smells different here to elsewhere along the coast. In the cape the familiar muggy saltiness mixes in with the smell of decaying kelp. Perhaps this not surprising considering the sheer expanse of kelp forests along the coast but what is surprising is that this is not an unpleasant smell.
As I round a street corner and I am temporarily choked by the fumes of red Cape Town tour bus that is idling while a long queue of tourists slowly boards. Emerging through the smoke we meet up with our tour guide, Ursula. Ursula is a grey-haired German lady whom I notice is wearing very sensible brown sandals. She warns us about Cape Town’s ‘irregular’ traffic which frankly I feel is like saying the universe is big. I mean, yes, the universe is big but vast or infinite may better describe it’s boundless quantity of ‘big’.
Ursula takes us at rapid speed along the streets pausing to point out landmarks and to give out history snippets. She then tells us that the next stop is below the street. ‘Oh no’ I think. I was probably the only geology student in the history of world who was afraid of going underground. Luckily I came to my senses and moved onto a career in biology which included brisk open spaces and lots of fresh air. But now, faced with my nemesis once more, my heart begins to beat quickly in my chest. As I start to descend the dimly lit stairs I detect that too many people are suddenly in ‘my bubble’ and start to feel light headed. To my immense relief I find at the bottom of the stairs is a well lit, and ventilated, shopping mall. Even I can’t be afraid of that.
Walking through the mall I am fascinated by Ursula’s explanation that the old Cape Town shore apparently used to be where I am currently standing. Midway through Ursula’s explanation a nearby shop assistant lets out what can only be described as yodelling wail and then suddenly looking embarrassed shuffles back inside the store.
Finally we emerge out into the extraordinary brightness of the grand parade. Unfortunately the spicy smell of food being cooked which wafts from the vendors is overpowered by the rancid smells emanating from multiple stagnant puddles along the pavements and by petrol fumes released from taxis as they rocket past. The music, meant I suppose to create atmosphere by the vendors selling their wares, is accompanied by screeching brakes and equally screeching shouts from the minibus operators indicating their destinations. I notice a particularly amusing sign outside one vendor promising to make you ‘Smile again!’ and depicting shiny gold front teeth in a huge smiling mouth. I also notice in smaller letters a sentence at the bottom of the sign ‘In god we trust’. I muse that, perhaps if you get your dentistry done on the side of the road, you will need to trust in god.
At this point my energy begins to fade and my legs start to ache. I still have not gotten used to my new bed and the backpackers across the road from my flat insisted on having a more rigorous party than usual the previous evening. We see the ‘Groot Kerk’, the Slave lodge, parliament and the government gardens. Here, in the gardens, the cute squirrels catch everybody’s attention and some even try to make contact. The biologist in me screams out and I try vainly to warn my fellow cadets that squirrels are likely to have rabies and are known to bite unwary fingers. Thankfully we move on with everybody still in possession of their digits and I see we are stopping at some benches. After a hopeful moment of thinking we will rest here, I notice that these are the old apartheid benches which indicate that only people of certain races may sit upon them. The smell of urine which surrounds them is not the only reason I no longer wish to rest on them.
Eventually we reach St. Georges Cathedral I do get to sit for a while. This cathedral being an Anglican church conquers up memories of my childhood. The smell of incense reminds me of one particularly disastrous midnight mass where I, for reasons unknown to all who are familiar with my inept ways, was chosen to bear the cross in the alter procession. It all ended rather badly with the large silver cross falling to earth with an almighty clatter during a silent period meant for prayer. I apparently had failed to secure the cross properly in its stand. The cross was sent in for repairs and needless to say I was never asked to serve the alter again.
Leaving the church Ursula informs us we are now heading uphill to the Bo-Kaap area. My wary legs scream, I can feel my sunburn is now reaching lobster proportions and I am more than just a little dehydrated. The Bo-Kaap, however, is charming and leaves me wishing I had remembered to bring my camera. Not so charming was the pile of what I originally thought was sick but later transpired to be somebody’s dinner cast into the street. It was only identified as such because of the heavily spiced curry smell emanating from it but on the upside the seagulls seemed to be enjoying it.
One small stop at yet another church later we were finished and I ambled off to find an ice-cream and rest my legs. Cape Town is defiantly a place unlike anywhere else and a walking tour is probably the best way to experience its true essence. Just do yourself a favour and get some sleep before you try it.
