Okei Wapi ?: Back to Europe......??

25^th- 29^th May – Days 238-242 – Cape Town, South Africa

It was strange to arrive in Cape Town. The “Mother City” welcomed us as a final stop on the Cairo-Cape Town run before the aimless farting around began in earnest. As we rolled in on the best bus we'd ridden in on the entire trip, we found ourselves looking through the windows in an upward direction, which was unusual. Cape Town is a big city, both in terms of population and in terms of how high the buildings stretch. To anyone jetting in from London or Paris or Berlin or New York for the World Cup just a couple of weeks away it may have seemed quaint and provincial, I don't know. To us, though, it was a city of big shops, big buildings, traffic lights and street signs and flashy cars, trendy bars and restaurants serving food from all corners of the world. We were suddenly back home, and we had a bit of time here to decide whether we liked it or not. The funny thing is that in all of those hours and days of sleeping in back-breaking beds in Ethiopia, rattling on those buses along those roads in Tanzania, and getting look-there's-a-white-guy attention throughout the whole trip, I was getting increasingly curious about how it would feel to be back in “the civilised world” where I could walk around like I was back home and where I was more or less anonymous. This was it – we were about to find out. We were about to go back to our previous lives for a bit. Although admittedly, we did have cheap beer, cheaper steaks and biltong to assist us.

Big mountains, big buildings

...and bright lights

With all the swagger and self-assurance of two people who were staying on someone else's money, M and I accompanied her parents through the gates of our home for the next 3 nights at a price which we would never have paid ourselves. Table Mountain, we were assured, was right behind us although the tablecloth of cloud was preventing us from seeing anything. We took refuge from the elements in a Vietnamese restaurant. The elements caused more problems as Yka and Tiina had unfortunately not packed enough warm clothes. As a result, we ended up wandering around shopping centres with chain stores. The rain was pouring outside and it was cold. It definitely was like being back home. Another funny thing, I realised – after all of the cultures and landscapes and different experiences we'd been through, Cape Town was the place where I first got a major culture shock.

International food...

...and international smokeables

To cope with it, we went around this European-style city doing European-style things - the South African museum which took us through the region's prehistory, showed us a huge array of stuffed animals, including my favourite the okapi, and a big display on marine life. This was followed by a trip to the aquarium where we saw various aquatic beings, as one does in an aquarium, and I discovered the “giant spider crab”, which is very impressive and entirely deserving of its name. We wandered the length of the seafront, stopping here for a glass of wine and there for a bite to eat. It was all very calm and civilised. Africa, of course, does have its ways of reminding her guests where they are, and I wandered the streets of Cape Town with a 9th staphylococcal infection drooping from my jaw, prompting mothers to cover the eyes of their children, attractive young women to cross the road as they saw me coming, and the Predator to come and hunt me down.

The waterfront's Marina...

...and its entertainment options

As it became clear that M's mother's wish to climb Table Mountain without being swamped in cloud was not going to materialise any time soon, we picked up a car, hit the N2 and sped away from Cape Town to have a look at what the Western Cape Province could offer us – the abundance of signs ensuring that we wouldn't get lost, and the chain service stations by the side of the road ensuring we could pick up a packet of Lay's or biltong whenever we got hungry. I'm still struggling to get used to it.