Cape Town: Civilization at last!!

After 2 months of roughing it in the African bush, we made it to Cape Town, South Africa – aka, a little slice of heaven on earth. On-demand electricity, running water, hot water, drinkable water, good food and non-malarial mosquitoes.

Exhausted, and enchanted with the city from the moment we arrived, we pretty much scrapped our original plan of staying just one night and then immediately pushing off to explore the Garden Route. Instead, we decided that the good food, mild climate, rustic landscape and easy living were just what we needed for the last leg of our African journey. We ended up staying in Cape Town for 5 days and pretty much acted like typical tourists. We walked the city, had 4-hour lunches on the waterfront pier, took a tour of Robben Island (prison island home of Nelson Mandela during apartheid), embarrassed ourselves at an underground salsa dancing club, and, in general, made lots of great finds of previously “unknown” local establishments. (This has probably happened to all of you... you "discover" some great place that no tourist has ever been to -- because you happened to go on a slow night -- and then discover, the next night, that it's the noisiest expat hangout in town. Very disappointing.)

A couple of our best finds bear special note. The first was a fantastic little restaurant called Khaya Nyama, which translates as "House of Meat." You can imagine the selection on the menu, which offered not only traditional beef steaks, but several other types of game. We had an amazing meal with all sorts of animals that we had seen previously only through our land rover’s open windows running across the plains. We sampled crocodile, warthog, ostrich, springbok, eland, kudu, and gemsbok (see 'We've Never Tried That Before' entry for mini-descriptions). The springbok and kudu in particular were as tasty as they were cute – highly recommended. And the live music at Khaya Nyama was just amazing. We talked to the musicians afterward and one of them tried to teach us a few words in his native language of Xhosa -- one of Africa's famous clicking languages. He claimed that Susan was pretty good at the clicks, but he was probably just trying to be nice.

The second 'discovery' was a great little Cuban café/cigar bar. All the furnishings were imported from Cuba and the cigar room especially had the feel of an old time smoking room one would expect to find in their Cuban grandfather’s old house (if one had an old Cuban grandfather); the place had an amazing ambiance. Alas, our love for this place was dampened somewhat when we found out that the bar was one of a chain of Cuban café/smoking rooms! Obviously we did not leave our snobbery in the African bush.

While in Cape Town, the multi-talented and ever amusing Ms. Susan Banki also got a couple of chances to demonstrate her powers of self-defense. As many know, while South Africa is a beautiful, beautiful country, there is a bit of a problem of street crime, and we had been warned against walking in certain parts of the city at night. A couple of times, at dusk, we were approached by somewhat unsavory fellows. Both times Susan fought them off – not by using any brutish Uma Thurman, Kill Bill karate techniques, but by dispensing a severe, and VERY loud, tongue-lashing to our would-be assailants. Having stunned them due to the acoustic onslaught, we left them behind with a dazed, and slightly deaf, look on their faces. Susan Banki, the human sonic boom.

Our last stop in Cape Town was the Cape—the furthest point southwest in Africa and also the point near where the Atlantic and Indian Oceans meet. The scenery was breathtaking, with rocky cliffs, white sand beaches, aquamarine water and strategically placed light houses. To top it off, we saw gaggles of penguins roaming around mating, squawking, molting and generally being adorable in the way only penguins can be.

If anyone would like to go in with us and invest in some real estate in Cape Town, we are all ears. Seriously.