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.

I arrived in Cape Town at 11 p.m. on Saturday night, which was just enough time to get settled and catch a good night sleep (crucial as we were waking up early for a tour of the wine land region).  The South African wine region is about an hours drive from Cape Town and is very reminiscent of Napa and Sonoma.  We hired a driver, which is key!  His name was Wilmart and he introduced himself by saying “you know Walmart, well my name is Vilmart, like Walmart.”  Ok, Vilmart…can you rollback the price of being our private driver then like Walmart does?  No?

Our first stop was Noble Hill, owned by an American family and is located in Paarl.  The son, a Harvard grad, helps out.  He spent a large part of his life growing up in Nigeria and the family has an agricultural background.  Talk about a dream life-moving to one of the most beautiful areas in the world and working on your family’s vineyard.  Noble Hill was by far my fav vineyard (although not my favorite South African wine.  Experiencing my favorite SA wine would have to wait until I visited some local restaurants).  But because my friends were local celebrities there (basically because they were such Noble Hill wine lushes), we got the VIP treatment there and we were slightly buzzed by 11 a.m. 

From Noble Hill we headed to Glen Carlou also in Paarl Valley…pretty vineyard and one of the women working there is from a Cali wine family and her father named a wine after her, but our “sommelier” was a bit of a jerk so that diminished the experience.  It didn’t stop me from buying a pinot there, but when I went to pay for it with my credit card the guy was visibly and verbally annoyed.  He signed loudly when I produced the card and told me he hated credit cards.  I told him that he could either take the card or forget it.  Can you imagine?  

We then went to the town of Franschhoek  to have a decadent lunch at Le Bon Vivant.  The wine was spectacular and the beef medallion was to DIE for (pictures to come)!  I could’ve skipped the starter though, but 2 out of three ain’t bad!  Due to the time constraints, we skipped over to another wine region called Constantia.  We went to a few vineyards there…they were so-so, but I picked up a 2005 pinotage of  Groot Constantia (2005 was an excellent year for South African wine).   Pinotage is a signature South African grape. which I love.  Looking back, I probably should’ve devoted another day to wine tasting in the wine regions, but it wasn’t like I was deprived of wine the rest of my time in Cape Town as each dinner always contained a minimum of 2-3 various bottles of new wines.

We finished the tour around six and said good by to one of our friends who headed back to gloomy London.  Luckily, he’s moving to New York in a few weeks and I plan on dragging him to all things African in New York.  In his honor though we deemed it appropriate to open a bottle of pinotage to have with dinner.   Trader Joes better start expanding its South African wine selection.  That’s all I have to say on the matter!