Katie and Tommy: Around the World

We spent the early part of Wednesday in the Kirstenbosch Botanical Gardens. We read that they’re amongst the world’s best and Katie and I both felt that they very likely were! To get there, we took a “Rikki” taxi, a converted London taxi that works on a shared-ride basis. As you are enroute to your destination, it is totally possible that you could divert and pick someone else up before you arrive. Being in the taxi and then later in the gardens reminded me of an interesting part of South African culture–its 11 official languages! Amongst the white population in the Western Cape province, Afrikaans is the language most children will learn first. Afrikaans is a Dutch variant that evolved from the earliest Dutch settlers in the 17th century (what Cajun is to modern French, Afrikaans is to modern Dutch). The native black African population in the West speaks a language known as Xhosa, but thanks to the consequences of the 17th century arrival of the British, nearly everyone in the country speaks some English as a second language. This is what makes getting around so easy!

After we had spent a sufficient amount of time in the gardens, we called for another Rikki and went over to Cape Town’s waterfront, which was a quite lovely area. On the walk back to our hostel, we also stopped for a late lunch at what best can be described as a “gourmet hamburger restaurant.” I got an ostrich burger with beets, whereas Katie’s had a tuna steak with a mango sauce. I should also mention that we passed by Bentley and Jaguar dealerships. Sometimes the poverty of South Africa can be easily hidden.

I have been very surprised by the number of luxurious cars that I have seen around the city. If you’re white and living in Cape Town, there seems to be a very good chance that you will drive a Mercedes, BMW, or Audi. The book I am currently reading puts South Africa in an interesting context. If you took just the white population of South Africa (about 10%) and looked at all the general indicators of its economic fitness, the country would seem to rank comfortably amongst the Western European nations. If one looks at the whole population of South Africa, however, the country doesn’t seem to fare much differently than any other African nation. Most of the population lives in stark poverty.
 
From the drives we’ve done around and out of Cape Town, the remnants of the apartheid system are still visible. Townships (immensely huge slums) are still where most of the black, “coloured,” and “Indian” population live. Also, two phenomenon which are almost non-existent in Latin America and Europe exist here–strip malls and suburban neighborhoods. I think that these can be partially explained in the context that the historically very wealthy white population always was able of purchasing cars and with there being no real “middle class” the need for public transport never arose, as it did in the cases of Latin America and Europe. The consequences of this artifact we felt right away on Wednesday when we tried to get around the city without a rental car! Almost no public transportation exists!

We flew through an internet café to post a quick entry off our PDA, then went to the city’s bus station to catch our bus to George. It is funny how bus stations, in the US or abroad, never seem to be nice places, both in terms of their physical appearance and clientele. The bus we took was also a bit of a dud. We sat on the second story in front of the windows, and every time we stopped, these small cockroaches would emerge from the air conditioning vents. And because the driver would stop the bus seemingly every hour for no other apparent reason than to smoke, we ended up arriving an hour late (though safely I must say) to George, right around 2:45 in the morning. After a cell phone call to our hostel, we were soon asleep in their very lovely place.

Freedom returned again on Thursday when we got our new rental car, a beautiful Honda Jazz. We spent the day shamelessly lying on the beach, birdwatching, and exploring both the nearby wilderness and the resort towns.
 
Another interesting South African reality– the black population suffers from a very high unemployment rate (~30%) so they have a way of “making jobs” for themselves. One example is unofficial parking attendants. There will be a few males in literally each parking lot that will direct you to the closest free parking spot, help you back out, and supposedly also make sure your car doesn’t get jacked while you’re gone. In return, a small tip is expected.
 
The Garden Route, the name given to the 400 km roadtrip we’re making over the next few days, makes for a neat setting because both mountains and the Indian Ocean beach are within just a few miles of each other. Towards the late afternoon, we found a great hostel in a small town called Knysna and called it a day!

I must admit, the suburbs, strip malls, and coastal condos make us wonder… are we in Africa, or Florida?

Pictures from Cape Town

Pictures from the Garden Route

This entry was posted on Friday, January 18th, 2008 at 7:55 pm and is filed under South Africa. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.