Lunch time Namibian beer in honor of St. Patrick's Day

Happy belated St. Patrick’s Day from Cape Town.  If I know you, and I think I do, I bet you spent St. Patty’s Day drunk in a bar drinking green beer at noon.  Shame on you!  Unlike “some people,” I was out exploring Cape Town on the giant red double decker hop on/hop off bus blue route.  The blue route is the scenic route.  I stopped off at the Kirstenbosch botanical gardens, which is impressive and massive.  I walked around a bit and hopped back on the bus to do a township tour in Hout Bay.  The same township tour that I did the “drive by” with my friends the day before.  I feel like as far as townships go, I was in one of the more chichi ones and that I got a “vanilla” tour.  ”Kenny,” one of the community leaders picked me up at the hop on bus stop along with some weird guy who was a few fries short of a Happy Meal and he kept trying to touch me.  I was like “please don’t touch me” and he just stared at me instead.  I was definitely reconsidering the tour at this point.  Anyway, I paid my 50 rand ($5) and off Kenny, Happy Meal, and I went.  

There are clearly different levels of the standard of living within the township.  There were about 500 nice houses that the Irish version of habitat built and the rest of the 5000 or so houses are shanties.  I went into two of the Irish built houses and they were bigger than I thought they would be and they had multiple tvs in them.  I was like what the heck chuck?  I don’t even have more than one tv!  They had washers/dryers as well (again, I don’t even have that…well not legal ones anyway).  In that township there were 21 hair salons, one public library, and 63 pubs.  I went into one of the Sheebans and the booze was guarded by a woman who was in a locked room and you could purchase cocktails via giving her money through the bank teller like screen made of chicken wire .  I was surprised to find a brand new pool table in the Sheeban.  After the bar tour, my guide took me on a shopping tour.  I think he was trying to bleed me for money.  It appeared that the plan was to get me liquored up at the Sheeban and then spend a lot of time in the church/community center which also served as a crafts market.  I thought it was funny when I saw a bodega like store owned by Somalians called the New York Store, which claimed to have “anything you need.”  Really?  Can I get a burrito? Because I’m craving Mexican at the moment.  

The highlight of the day was having dinner at Mama Africas on Long Street and getting my “game on,” (pun intended).  I had the best meal in Africa there.  I ordered the kudu, springbok kebab, followed by a springbok/kudu potjie (pronounced poykee-a Cape Malay stew like dish).  O.M.G.! That alone was worth the 5lbs that I’ve gained here.  I also had a delicious Amarula cream on the rocks as an apertif.  It’s a local liquor compared to Bailey’s, but I think it’s far more delish than Bailey’s and has a mild and refreshing fruity taste.  Oh and lots of delish wine with dinner.  If I had died at that point, I would’ve said that I had lived a full, rather satisfying life.  

The rest of St. Patty’s day took a turn for the worst when we went to the ONE Irish bar on Long Street.  One of the members of our group was going to bribe the doorman to cut the line, but it turned out not to be necessary and we lasted all of 3 minutes there before realizing we were too old to deal with an overcrowded bar.  Our would be briber later remarked, “I can’t believe I was going to pay money to get in there.”  It was that bad!

From there we took our lives into our own hands when we took a cab home that was driven by an insane Zimbabwean cab driver who may very well have been under some illegal substance.  Thankfully, the luck of the Irish was with us and we arrived home safely.

Cape Town is South Beach meets San Diego meets San Francisco meets Chicago.  It’s SoBe because of the restaurants and the beautiful people that line Camps Bay and Clifton Beach, it’s San Diego because everyone is riding their bikes or running along the beach and being healthy in the way that makes vacation vino loving tourists feel slightly guilty, it’s San Fran because of the houses that are built into the hills and it’s Chitown because Cape Town can be very windy.  Cape Town is more beautiful than any of them though.  The scenery is breathtaking and it’s as if all of Cape Town is a moody artist’s canvas that the artist is constantly revising depending upon the time of day.

Today I set out to explore the Bo Kaap area of Cape Town on my own.  Bo Kaap is an area of Cape Town that is famous for its brightly colored houses, reminiscent of Buenos Aires’ La Boca neighborhood.  It’s also the area where the Cape Malay muslim residents reside and where one must try Bobotie, a Cape Malay dish.  The area is kind of built up in guide books as a “must see” destination, but other than a few rando streets that house the well photographed colorful houses, there’s not a lot to do there.  However, I did stumble upon some art galleries and craft stores.  The area is in the process of being gentrified and I noticed a B&B.  I also noticed a pretty cool looking purple house for sale and envisioned the idea of buying it and opening up my own B&B.  It’s a romantic idea and not entirely impractical as the labor costs here are insanely cheap, e.g., my friend’s housekeeper is paid $10-15 a day to clean the house, do laundry, and iron it. Hell, it costs more than that in New York to get my laundry done by people whose English skills are suspect and I’m left wondering if they’ve understood my request to separate my whites and colors and to add fabric softener.

After exploring Bo Kaap and pleading to the camera battery gods not to die on me, I wandered down to the famous Long Street in the “City Bowl,” i.e., the Central Business District.  I expected lots of cool boutiques, cafes, galleries, bars and restaurants and although it definitely had those things, it was a little Bohemian/Backpackers paradise for my taste.  However, it did allow me to explore the “African” markets.  Although I love to decorate my apartment with various artwork and tchotchke I pick up while abroad, I was disappointed in the markets.  Mainly, all of the markets in Southern Africa that sell “African” goods appear to be mass produced and/or aren’t from the area.  Frankly, I’m not interested in a mask from West Africa, of which there were plenty.  It was at the Pan African Market where guys from Cameroon and Senegal started speaking French to me.  Random!   I’m not even sure how it happened.   All I did was ask if the masks were West African and the next thing I know they’re asking me en francais if I’m a Capetonian as I “look like one” (why because I’m blanca)?  I take that with a grain of salt as someone else asked me if I was from the islands (which islands?  The Seychelles?).   Speaking of being mistaken for a local, I was asked to give directions to Table Mountain while in Bo Kaap and while I was holding a camera.  To give you some perspective, that’s like asking somene in Time Square who is taking a picture in front of the Jumbotron  for directions to the Empire State building…kinda obvious that they’re a tourist and kinda obvious where the Empire State Building is (look up dude, look up to the sky).

I later met up with the girls and we drove out to Chapman’s Peak in Hout Bay to watch the sunset.  On the drive back we randomly wandered into a “township.”  As defined by the infallable wikipedia, a “township” is a term that “usually refers to the (often underdeveloped) urban living areas that, under Apartheid, were reserved for non-whites (principally black Africans and Couloureds, but also working class Indians).”  In my observations, townships are 100% black and it’s not usual for white people to be in them unless they’re on a township tour.  In many ways, they’re like flavelas in Rio, i.e., a village full of tin shacks set up by squatters (in South Africa they’re called something like unofficial residents) that are entirely self-sustainng.  We snapped a few pics on the DL and then drove home and capped the night off with some good food, good wine, and some South African companionship.  Not too shabby of a day, if you ask me.