Bags dropped, we took a drive through Bo-Kaap,
Cape Town's Malay quarter, famed for its colorful homes. We did not have much time, so we resolved to
return here to take pictures. We never
did. Sad because it is a really
beautiful sector of the City Bowl. Look
it up online - it's stunning. We were in
a hurry because we were having lunch with Tiziana, whom I'd seen at Madame
Zingara two nights earlier. She
and I know each other from working together at the Wild Fig Restaurant
in Observatory not deep into the Southern Suburbs.
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The restaurant was sold a few years after I
left South Africa, but a number of the staff have remained in contact. We have also maintained a friendship with the
brother and sister who owned it when we worked there. Today, thanks to Tiziana, six of the group
were having a reunion, and most of us had not seen each other in years. Tiziana wisely chose the Wild Fig itself as
the venue for the reunion, and what a joyous occasion it was! Regrettably, some of the former staff have
moved abroad while others simply could not make it. Never mind, we were all in great
spirits. Interestingly, a handful of us
spent time in London after our Wild Fig days, and worked together again at
Rules Restaurant in Covent Garden.
It was here that I complimented the waiter for
remembering to bring me cold milk with my coffee - finally, someone was
listening. His service was impeccable
and the food outstanding. I was
persuaded by the specials and, if memory serves, had a warthog starter followed
by blesbok as a main course, served with a mild gorgonzola sauce. It was so scrumptious that I ordered the same
main to take away for supper.
After parting, Tonya
and I drove deeper into the Southern Suburbs, and I took a route through
Constantia, which passes grand opulent homes and dense forests. The road eventually empties into Hout Bay,
and we went to look up Brett, whose wedding I had attended on my trip in
2010. He was not home, so we then drove
via Llandudno, Oudekraal, Camps Bay and Seapoint back to the City Bowl and home
to the Silver Lattice. How stunning the
Cape has always been!
On Tuesday, we were out by 8am for our next
encounter with African wildlife. Heading
east, we first stopped in Somerset West, a town to which my parents had retired
in 1992 or 1993 and from which they again moved in the 2000s. Here I finally had time to get into a branch
of ABSA to transfer money for the delivery of my driver's license. (After my thwarted attempt at the Wedge in
Sandton, it was soon the weekend, and the next week we were in the Kruger Park
and in transit. Yesterday had been a
public holiday, so today presented the first opportunity.) I then had to find a Post Net to send the
documents to RSA Docs in Pretoria. The
South African Post Office is entirely unreliable. The staff is often on strike, work ethic is
scant, and items disappear from the mail into an employee's personal collection
almost as often as not. Companies like
Amazon won't deal with the SAn postal services.
Luckily, Post Net does not suffer these shortcomings, and though they
charge more, their services can be trusted.
Business out of the way, we traveled further
east, taking the coastal route through Gordons Bay, Rooi-Els, Pringle Bay,
Betty's Bay, Kleinmond and on to Hermanus.
En route, I took Tonya into Pringle Bay to show her the house that my
father built there while I was in high school.
It was on a trip to see the builders' progress that I first clapped eyes
on the Cape. We had lived further
up-country all my life, and had never been further south than the Eastern Free
State, which borders Lesotho. I fell
instantly in love with the fynbos, the dramatic mountains and the windswept
grey of the Cape winter. Now in 2015, my
father's rondavel, long since sold off, still stood among the ever increasing
number of homes. Ignoring Tonya, I drove
through the settlement, convinced that I could get back onto the eastbound passage
through the other end. I should have
listened - we had to turn back all the way through Pringle Bay, and the clock
was ticking.
We made it to Hermanus with only 20 minutes to spare. We registered with the tour company, listened
to the safety and conservation talk, and then boarded the boat.
Today we were going to visit the Southern Right
Whale in its natural habitat. The
weather was wonderful, the boat ride soothing.
We ambled by a number of specimens.
At times, the engines were cut as a group of majestic mammals lounged
around our boat. Our whales were
somewhat lethargic, and there was neither breeching nor lob tailing. Once or twice, however, we did witness both
pectoral fins flapping above the surface.
Our guide was interesting, fun and informative.
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Docking after three hours of exaltation, we
were both famished. We chose an eatery
from the options along the beachfront.
Our waiter was a good salesman and we ordered all his recommendations. We each had a sirloin sandwich flavored with
a Dijon sauce. Even the fries were
tastier than normal, and I asked where I could buy the spice with which they
were coated. Our server then brought a
small bag of it to the table for me to take away. When I went to use the facilities, he took R1
from his pouch for me to drop into the lock.
Needless to say, he earned and received a fine tip.
We journeyed back to Cape Town. Tonya was done in, so she lingered at Silver
Lattice while I went to dinner at Nelson's Eye.
This establishment has been serving steaks since the 1960s and remains
one of the superior purveyors thereof in the city. This was my first visit and indeed the first
time I'd heard of it. Here I would meet
Debbie D, who'd been unable to join us at the Fig, and her boyfriend, whose
name now escapes me. I left my wallet at
home because I was walking, and when I saw the prices, I knew that steak was
not on the cards for me. Instead, I
ordered veal medallions in a creamy cheese sauce, and I was not at all
disappointed. The meal was certainly
outstanding. Debbie had not changed a
bit since our last meeting. She still
spoke at a million miles a second and hopped from topic to topic. To be heard, I had to continue speaking and
refuse to cease while she still rattled.
This quality in her is rather endearing.
Even when she types an email, all form of punctuation is ignored and
single paragraphs cover many topics.
On Wednesday morning, we had some time to
return to the city centre to get our hands on some art. I knew exactly what I wanted, so for me it
was Greenmarket Square and a shoe store nearby.
I took Tonya first to the Pan African Market on Long Street, where I
knew she'd have a very difficult time choosing from among the thousands of
handicrafts from all over the continent.
While she made her decorative decisions, I bought a pair of CAT shoes, a
brand I have not owned for many years. I
love CAT for their comfort and durability.
Then I returned to the market where on Saturday we'd each bought these
lovely paintings on banana leaves. I'd
bought four and she had picked out three.
I was here for one thing only - the framed statues of a Maasai
couple. I adore these statues and many
years earlier I had one in an early Taichung apartment. What happened to it I have no idea, but I
miss it.
In these pictures, the one on
the left is the one I brought home in 2015.
The picture on the right was taken in my second home in Taichung. The Maasai statue stands on the table, while
above it hangs another peculiar South African art form. This one was made by my mother, but they used
to be very common all over the country.
The depictions were mostly of township life and the medium was anything
available - cans, bottle tops, cardboard and other discarded items that were
glued onto a board to create a three dimensional picture. On this trip in 2015, I saw few of these, and
the ones I did see were not as impressive as they once were.
Tonya, for her part, had found, among other
interesting articles, a most unusual item. This pouch from far-flung
Cameroon. A metal pouch! Must have been some strong
lady who carried this around. I had a croissant at Mozart Cafe while I
waited for her to be done, and the poor dear got a bit lost finding me.
Unnerved because of our experience on Saturday, she did eventually make it to
the cafe, and then it was time to once again head south, to the suburb of
Newlands, at the foot of Devil's Peak.
Our destination was Montebello, a craftsmen's
workshop complex in what used to be a farmyard. There are all sorts of
artists here, and also a restaurant at which I worked for five minutes a
lifetime ago, Gardener's Cottage. We were here to see Nienke, whom I'd
met as a student in Port Elizabeth. More about that later. As we
arrived, she was just finishing up with her ceramics students. She has
been teaching and selling ceramics from Montebello since she graduated.
We lunched at the Gardener's Cottage, where I had a magnificent Caesar salad
and a slice of lemon meringue pie - this latter delight is something I have
never seen in Taiwan. Yum! The owner of this eatery Lee Barty had
been a teacher at Silwood School of Cookery, whose graduates have gone on to work in top kitchens
worldwide, "from Heston Blumenthal’s Fat Duck & Dinner
restaurants to Jamie Oliver’s No 15, Raymond Blanc’s Le Manoir, Gordon
Ramsay’s and even the French Laundry."
Nienke paid for us both, and then we retired to
her home. She and girlfriend Kate (who
owns the nursery at Montebello and does landscaping all around the city) had
bought a house in Kenilworth, just a few roads west of where my brother Andre
lives with his wife. The house had been
in disrepair, and it stood on a plot of land four times the size of any
surrounding lots. They'd spent the last
year renovating it with their own blood, sweat and tears. They'd moved inner walls, put on a new roof
and ceiling and laid a new wooden floor.
All windows and doorways had also been replaced. There was still work ahead, but when Nienke
showed us pictures of the building they'd bought, we were both thoroughly
impressed. Perhaps the most astonishing
aspect of the renovation is that they'd slept in a tent on the patio for four
months (I think that's what she said) while laying the floor. I would never dare in a country like South
Africa where opportunistic crime is rampant.
She brushed it off, explaining that no one dared enter their property
because of the four watchdogs.
We returned to Silver
Lattice to rest a while. This evening we
would sup at Mama Africa, whose menu specializes in cuisine from the continent,
a culinary equivalent of the Pan African Market, just a few blocks down the
same Long Street. I'd invited Tarryn and
Evan to join us. Tarryn I'd met years
earlier in Taiwan. She is friends with
Andrew and Nicky, whom we'd visited in White River. They'd all left Taiwan within a year of each
other, and Tarryn had initially settled back in Johannesburg, where she'd met
Evan and married him. They'd moved to
Cape Town a year or so before our visit.
They are both inspiring individuals.
She works with disadvantaged communities, teaching them to grow and
maintain vegetable gardens and to eat well.
He works in the field of green energy and green economy. Since the topic of green living came up, I
mentioned how impressed I am that the Taiwanese recycle everything, and how sad
it is that South Africans do not. His
response was eye-opening and heart-warming.
He said an informal sector exists in which people earn a living by
collecting recyclables; this sector provides a living to some 45,000
citizens!
Mama Africa was certainly
worth the visit. The decor was engaging,
our conversation animated. Entertainment
was live music, and I was thrilled to be at the opposite end of the restaurant
to the musicians - they were loud! Much
of the menu was game-oriented. I started
with Mozambican chicken livers and graduated to a game grill. On my plate were samplings of crocodile,
warthog, ostrich, kudu, springbok, venison sausage and pap. (Pap is a South African dense maize porridge,
eaten with sugar and milk for breakfast, or with a hot meal instead of other
starches, especially covered in gravy as a compliment to braaied meat.) I love pap!
Tonya had the same, and we each complimented our meal with sides of
spinach and butternut. There was too
much to eat in a single sitting, and we took home doggy bags.
On Thursday, we woke to find that our trip to
Robben Island had been cancelled due to the weather. The skies had turned dark, a light rain fell
and the Cape's notorious wind was churning up the waters between harbour and
prison. We were meant to take this trip
together with Juliet, a former colleague who worked with me in Taiwan. She'd had insurmountable visa trouble while
there and had returned to Cape Town some years earlier. I did not wish to cancel that meeting, so we
drove to the Northern Suburbs to pick her up and then headed towards
Stellenbosch, another of the Cape's gems.
It remained grey and rainy the whole day, slightly spoiling the views to
which I'd hoped to expose Tonya. We ate
at the Dros, an institution among the local students. Stellenbosch is known largely as a university
town, though it is also an important player in the wine industry. Lots of the country's best wines are pressed
here from grapes grown in the area.
After lunch, I drove the ladies to Tokara Restaurant, another of the
many establishments at which I had worked for five minutes. It was still as spectacular as I remembered,
and there were some art installations to enjoy additionally.
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From here, we picked up Juliet's daughter and
her boyfriend's son - Eryn and Brandon.
The two children are the same age and get along well, much to Juliet's
relief. They were on a stud farm, where
Eryn had been attending a horse riding lesson.
To get there, we drove for a long time through meadows and farm land I
had never seen. The surroundings were
spectacular. We dropped them off, and
then Tonya and I returned home to get ready for tonight's outing. While booking Madame Zingara, I had
found that West Side Story was being performed at Artscape, formerly the
Nico Malan Theatre, in the City Bowl. We
were both thrilled to be going.
Entering the theatre, I
spotted a radio studio called Fine Music Radio, which broadcast
directly out of Artscape. I jotted down
their frequency, and from that day on, every time we got into the car, this
station filled my ravenous ears with classical music. Most of it was unfamiliar to me. The DJs were a giant snooze, but they did
impart some interesting background information about the pieces they were
playing. There was one by a contemporary
of Mozart whose name I did not catch.
What I did hear was that Mozart had written to his father about this
other composer, saying that he'd become more frugal recently and was now only
drinking ten bottles of wine a night.
The drunkenness was not audible in the music, but it was so much more
alive for the anecdote.
We both loved the performance. Tonya had seen it before, though I never
had. I did know some of the tunes, of
course, but was thrillingly surprised when I heard "America" - I'd never
known that song came from this musical.
("I like to be in America! - O.K. by me in America! - Ev'rything free in America - For a small fee
in America!") The cast was
talented, the set interesting, the costumes colorful. I fell deeply in love with Tony (played by Jonathan
Roxmouth) the instant he opened his mouth to bellow. He was capable of the sweetest sentimental
pianissimo and the most heart-wrenching, all devouring rapid crescendo to a
powerful fortissimo. I didn't care much
for the music, it being in an idiom I don't appreciate, but the performance
taken as a whole left me filled to the brim and trembling
with delight.
