On the move - Cape town to Jo'burg

The list of things to do in Cape Town is endless. There’s a dizzying drive round the twelve apostles to Cape Point, where it’s popularly claimed the Indian and Atlantic oceans meet in their fury. In the city there’s the array of theatre and music, as well as a visit to the Bo Kaap, the old Capetonian suburb noted for its lively colours and Dutch-inspired houses. If I wanted, I could still spend time visiting the endless list of museums that seem to make up this place, or perhaps the beaches around the Cape. I elected to do none of these and instead stay in Stellenbosch.

But you can’t blame me. The town is small to the point of quaint, the Dutch architecture is shrouded by trees, and the town itself is surrounded by wineries and mountains. It’s reputed to be the second oldest European town in South Africa. It’s rustic, and it’s beautiful.

Walking down its streets, I pass an old bookstore and curiosity makes me wonder inside. I ask about travel books on Zimbabwe and the shop assistant shows me the section on Africa. There’s nothing. Nothing for tourists, that is. I should be unsurprised, but since I’ve stayed in hotels in Zimbabwe, I know such places used to exist. Unsurprisingly, replacing the Lonely Planets and Rough Guides are books on politics. I scan through the publishing dates, find two modern books and buy them both. Today has become a reading day.

As fate has it the next few days are reading days. Guardian journalist Andrew Meldrum has written a heart-wrenching personal account of his twenty-three years as a reporter in Zimbabwe in Where We Have Hope. He was the first journalist banished from Zimbabwe under their new repressive media legislation, and he tells a grim tale of a nation once reputed to be the breadbasket of Africa becoming reduced to desolation. In short, it’s worse than you think. Even Rwanda is doing better than Zimbabwe. This is poignant, since it’s only a few weeks before I plan to be there in person. Common sense will prevail, and if the situation is such that my life will be at risk, I will have to change my plans. It’ll be a shame because I know that the people are friendly, and the country is breathtaking. Still, I prefer drawing each breath without an iron lung, so safety is paramount.

But to better things. Several days prior, I was catching up with an old friend, and we got onto the topic of music. I was asked if I wanted to accompany him on guitar for a gig he was playing in a cafe. It’s a small time thing, low key acoustics, very bohemian I was assured, which typically means loose (musically speaking). So acquiescing, I found myself in my last Saturday in Cape Town with my books packed, a guitar on my lap, and an audience of inquisitive locals in a cafe named Mamu.

It’s a spacious place, nestled in the corner of the trendy Tygerburg falls development. Even though there was no rehearsal it was fantastic to play solo guitar again. Max, a Cape Coloured and the establishment’s owner, sat by for our 2-3 hour set, and once it finished, we ended up in the nearby bar, Cubana, talking until two that morning. He spoke at length about getting mugged in Cape Town and had me crying with laughter most of the time.

“Muggings,” he told me, “they’re just business. They want something, you want something. You trade. They ask for your phone, you ask if you can have your SIM card before you give it. You ask even if you can call ahead on it to say you’ll be late and they let you. You don’t get stabbed, and they don’t go empty-handed. Just business.”

Max seemed to like my style. I didn’t have the heart to tell him I was just fooling around with scales, but I was surprised when he asked for a date for a return gig. I pencilled one in for late May. It was a fantastic night, and I was chirping away to myself for the half hour drive back to Stellenbosch.

All good things, however, must come to an end. After a month I was getting too comfortable in the Cape, and needed to start moving again. One of my goals has been to perform some form of journalism while I was here, and I certainly couldn’t do it in the Cape. I booked a ticket for Johannesburg to start my second leg.

I had little sleep the night before I left, owing, I’m guessing, to the bottle of Durbanville Hills Peonage my brother and I drank to toast the end my visit. The flight to Jo’burg the following morning was therefore sedate. The hostess cracked jokes throughout the normally bland safety procedure demonstration, which seemed to be corporate policy for Kulula airlines. Oxygen masks were apparently intended to muffle our screams, and cameras had allegedly been installed in the toilets for the Capitan’s viewing pleasure.

I thus arrived in Jo’burg uplifted. It wasn’t to last. I had booked into the Shoestring Backpackers for two nights. It’s a large converted house close to the airport, and has a nice homely feel to it. In chatting to the owner (I didn’t catch his name. I hate situations like these – I never want to ask because it’s common courtesy to remember when a person tells you their name. It’s their name for goodness sake!) Sorry. He was a kindly spoken British man and fantastically friendly. About two minutes into our conversation, however, I hated him. I realise it’s a little extreme. I hate him because he told me he had agreed to host thirty teens from Yorkshire for a night. They were arriving in two hours.

Thirty stinking teenagers invade and life turns to hell. I then discover that because the backpackers would be so full (and I’d love to know why they didn’t tell me this before), I had been placed in a house across the road. I was spending the night with the neighbours. A bed is a bed. It was getting late in the day and my stomach was complaining because I had skipped lunch. While moving my bags to the neighbours, I ask the owner whether there are shops nearby I can get food. It turns out not in the slightest. So that night, while thirty teenagers feasted on a cauldron of spaghetti, I was to go hungry.

It doesn’t stop there. In I take an early night, and as I’m checking my bags, I notice immediately one of my locks are missing. Someone from the bloody airline must have snapped the lock off. I take an inventory and discover nothing missing, but I fall asleep fuming, tired, with a disturbingly empty stomach.

My plan for Jo’burg was to leave as soon as possible. God help me if I don’t.