Posted by 
050612
Considering that m’lady and I had spent thirty-six hours travelling halfway around the world we completed our many-legged journey feeling remarkably refreshed. I’ll say it one more time: flying at the front of the plane is an astounding advancement over flying at the back.
As a final added bonus we were amongst the first to disembark in Cape Town, so there was absolutely no lineup whatsoever when we met the long row of South African immigration officers who were waiting for our plane to arrive. Also, our bags had been marked with ‘priority’ tags so they were first out of the luggage tunnel. I had brought a guitar with me and I was shocked to find that the cardboard box I packed it in looked exactly like it did when I’d checked it in. Three different airplanes, three different baggage crews, three international airports and not a single blemish on an oversized cardboard box.
We loaded up a luggage cart and wheeled it through the Nothing To Declare door and for the first time in my life there were customs officials waiting. Our guy was only interested in what we had in the two cardboard boxes. He opened one and inspected our two bottles of duty free and nodded “no problem”, then he asked me what was in the other box.
I explained that it was a used guitar that my boss had given me to use for the trip and leave with someone before we returned, but I should have simply held my tongue. Due to the fact that I was intending to leave the instrument in Namibia I had to pay the VAT (value-added tax) on it. As it turns out, despite becoming independent of South Africa in 1990 Namibia and South Africa are still considered the same territory as far as customs tax is concerned.
So after a bit of a rigamarole with forms and whatnot I paid 120 rand* and received in return a receipt that allowed me free rein to dispense the guitar as I saw fit.
On the upside, the customs guy didn’t ask to look through the other three bags we had, one of which was packed to the teeth with medical supplies that we also intended to leave in Africa. Nothing illegal mind you, but I’m sure a peek inside would have induced another financial hit.
Being unfamiliar with the bank/ATM situations we would encounter I had opted to bring all of the money we intended to spend on the entire trip in cash, and with over $2500 in six different currencies tucked here and there throughout my person and my luggage we thought it prudent to pre-book a shuttle to our hotel. So when we emerged from the bowels of the O. R. Tambo International Airport arrivals section we immediately found our taxi driver holding a sign with our names on, easy-peasy.
Cape Town’s airport is very modern and western (for the lack of a better term), and as we loaded our luggage and pulled out of the parking area I remarked to m’lady how completely different of an experience our arrival had been compared to our previous African trip, four years earlier. The airport in Mali resembled an unkempt bus depot, the Bamako streets were more hole than asphalt, and foreign sights and smells permeated everything everywhere all the time. This time the only unusual thing we saw as we left the airport was cars driving on the left side of the road.
That said, it certainly wasn’t long before we passed our first township, a fenced in collection of tin shacks housing the extremely poor. Soon we passed another.
Just a few short minutes later we were close enough to Cape Town to see how gorgeous of a city it is, and soon after that we were passing nothing but million dollar homes. The extreme and obvious divergence between rich and poor was stark and unmistakeable.
As Cape Town was to serve as our ‘treat’ destination we had booked ourselves into a boutique hotel called the Primi Royal, just off the beach in the upscale Camps Bay area of town. Though cheap by Canadian standards at about $60 a night, the place looked wonderful. Each of the eight rooms offered fantastic views of either the ocean or the looming Table Mountain, the well-appointed patio had a small attractive pool, and our luxury room did indeed prove to be rather luxurious.
As soon as I dropped the luggage I filled the sink and pulled the plug so I could watch the water drain in the wrong direction. Then I trounced around the corner to a grocery store for mix ‘n chips and in no time we were into our hard-travelled duty free bottles and positioned on the deck in fluffy robes, comfortably showered and toasting a gorgeous sunny day.
After a couple of drinks the time change started to catch up with us, so we sprawled on the bed and lolled in and out of sleep for an hour or two before deciding to take advantage of the late afternoon. We rubbed the sleep from our eyes and sauntered down to the beach in time to watch the sun dip into the sea. The water was very rough but that won’t keep us from swimming. The fact that we were in the Great White shark capital of the world will be what keeps us from swimming.
After a long look-see at the ocean we cruised up and down the Camps Bay strip. We selected one of the countless restaurants that were fighting for the thinning early-winter crowd and enjoyed a nice meal for a pittance, including drinks. I had the local draft (Jack Black) while m’lady opted for a glass of champagne. For dinner I teetered between the beef burger and the ostrich before settling on the former; m’lady ordered pasta with sausage. Dinner, drinks and all came to less than 150R.
It got dark out fast. On our way back to the hotel we noticed that almost every establishment we passed was almost entirely dead, even the party spots and had been packed just an hour before. Sure, it was a Sunday, but could it be that this well-hyped area rolled up the carpet at 9pm every night? Time would tell.
Of course at this point none of it mattered to us. The jet lag and the time change finally got the best of us so we slowly bee-lined it back to our hotel, crawled between the cool, crisp bedsheets and let the crashing waves lull us into a deep, much-needed sleep.
Ahhh…There’s nothing like the first day of a long-anticipated journey.
*Or about $15. $1 CAD = 8 ZAR (which I will be henceforth typing as “R”)
