What to do at night in Cape Town? You will be utterly spoilt for choice when it comes to eating out in South Africa. On the whole, food is affordable and the standard of food is usually excellent. Service is good. Cusine ranges from seafood, Malay curries and international cuisine to steak houses. For kosher food try Avron’s in Sea Point and for halaal food try Biesmiellah in the Bo Kaap.
I like Osumo, Kauai and Wellness Warehouse Cafe for divine fresh salads and smoothies. Vegetarians are well catered for there. Have a look at the Eat Out and Dining Out websites for more ideas.
After that you could head down Long Street for anything from stand up comedy, live music to an all night boogie. Green Point and Camps Bay also have a good few clubs and cocktail bars. To get about call a Rikki cab. They are London style share-cabs that are well priced and safe. It’s safe to walk about the busy areas but I wouldn’t get drawn into conversations with people on the street trying to sell things to you. Just say no!
For something completely different, how about an evening cycle tour? Or maybe a moonlight hike up Lion’s Head. For the cycle tour which is a 13 kilometre route that starts at 16.00pm at Cape Grace visit the operator website – Bike and saddle. For the full moon hike, take a turn up Signal Hill and find a parking space early. It’s a popular walk and can get crazy full of people. Take some snacks or sandwiches and a bottle of wine and head up to watch the full moon rise.
It’s like Soccer World cup all over again here in Cape Town. The roads are closing and fans are flocking into our part of the world. If we can pull off Soccer World Cup, well one more game is a doddle. An on-line poll done by a local newspaper shows that South Africans are feeling optimistic. Sixty-six percent of us think we will beat the Americans. Let’s hope the makarapas and the rest of the fan gear is as stunning as it was for Soccer World Cup.
A makarapa for the ignorant, is a hard hat that is carved with great care to create relief designs on the hat. The colour of the hard hat and optional painted images allow fans to display their club colours. And of course a hard hat is handy if fans become a bit boisterous. The de rigeur accompaniment is a pair of bright plastic oversize glasses. Tres soccer chic!
And what would a game of soccer here be without the obligatory vuvuzela. Bring them on!
Coming home is a bit like getting wrapped up in a thick warm blanket on a cold wet night. It’s the same oldness that feels so right and comfortable. Especially since I have had three and a half months of always different. I can find and eat what I want to. Me and the guy who sells the Big Issue on our corner street are on first name terms. I know what to expect with the weather and I won’t get lost if I go for a run.
Europe is in many ways far more trendy and affluent than we are back here in SA. But there is a wholesome naivety about South Africans. We don’t fear lawsuits or risking our health and safety. We say what we think and we mean what we say. We make do on far less and we get things done without fuss. I like that about us. Actually I love that about us and before I left I said that was what I would miss.
A friend passed the picture on to me of Green Point during the Soccer World Cup. I have to add, that apart from our down-to-earthness, we live in a spectacular city. I am so glad to be back home. I hope other people can see just what it is about being right here in Cape Town that makes me happy.
So we went to Stonehenge. I have a particular affinity with the workings of nature which includes an interest in crystals. Big boulders will do even better.
The stones were awesome, but the experience, if you can call it that, was a huge disappointment! A big fat tourist trap. Far too many people, then they rush you
£7 to enter and you still don’t get anywhere near the stones. I was left wanting to feel the stones.
Lucky for us we met a druid there who was campaigning for the return of the remains from the cairns back to the site of Stonehenge. Who knew they had ever been removed? He advised us to head 20 miles further to Avebury where we would be spoilt for stones and we could get up close and personal with them.
So we did. And we did. We will never truly know what the druids got up to as their craft was passed down orally and never committed to text. The Roman accounts indicate they might have been a bloodthirsty lot.
True to this blog I have to share that we have sacred and mystical spaces in Cape Town too. Visit the Sunpath Sacred Sites web page for some stunning pics and ideas that should make you positively want to go exploring. Stones with holes that capture the sun at certain times. Or “faces” in the mountains that look across to each other. Even ancient inscriptions on rocks. We got them too. Happy exploring!
In the photo is Table Mountain. No not our beloved Table Mountain in Cape Town. This one is in Wales. This Table Mountain is in the Brecon Beacons National Park and is about 600 metres high. In an earlier post I was saying we have place names from the UK in SA. One wonders if Australia, the USA, Canada; basically all the Commonwealth countries or countries where settlers were sent, all have the same place names. Could there be 3 Dundee’s, 5 Table Mountains, a couple of Yorks?
Except our Table Mountain was originally called Tafelberg by the Dutch and there is no mistaking it’s flat top and definite table like appearance. And ours is about 1000 metres high.
I get home in less than a fortnight. Table Mountain welcomes people arriving in Cape Town as the N2 heads toward the city. It never ceases to touch me and make me feel like I live in the most beautiful city on earth. Can’t wait!
Am coming to the end of my second month in the UK. Just arrived in Derry or Londonderry as it is also known. Spent the last two nights in Belfast. I always wonder when I come across a place name in the UK that has a counterpart in South Africa, did the settlers originate from those places? South Africa has a Belfast, an Aberdeen, a Dundee, East London, and loads more British place names.
I took a photo of Mc Clure Street in Belfast. My great grandfather came from Belfast and was a Mc Clure. Could he have walked here?
Belfast and Londonderry or Derry are well know for the violence during the time of “the troubles” in Ireland. We often think in South Africa we are the only ones who have ever had problems. It’s sobering to see photos taken during the time when life was not so great in this part of the world. These two cities resembled war zones. Our troubles in SA didn’t take as much of a toll on our buildings and homes.
A lot of effort has gone into repairing the old structures and rebuilding these two cities. There is a strange juxtaposition of boarded up shells of bombed buildings and untouched, repaired or brand new buildings. Even more effort has gone into repairing the soul of a war weary nation. People here want you to like them. They so badly want to put the past behind them. And you can’t help but want that too.
I hope we are like that.
