We said a sad goodbye to Kwandwe and then in a car for the 2 hour drive back to Port Elizabeth (or PE as the locals call it). We drove through Grahamstown which has some lovely colonial architecture in the middle and some extraordinarily deprived townships (or “informal settlements” as they call them here) on the outskirts. We had a latte in the airport and Hannah was mistaken for a star of the latest Harry Potter film which tickled her a bit.
We landed at Cape Town and were met by Oliver the C C Africa driver for the drive into the center. Oliver talked and talked and talked and talked on the way in. He could talk for Africa in the world cup of talking. There’s a lot of development going on in Cape Town for the football world cup which is coming to South Africa in 2010. In the UK we talk about the Olympics in 2012 as something which is a show case for the UK and which will generate jobs but at the end of the day, who cares? Sure, Sebastian Coe might have been unhappy but losing the Olympics is a small price to pay for making Lord Coe slightly less smug. In South Africa, the World Cup will have an enormous effect on the economy. Big infrastructure and development projects are happening all over the country. On the way into Cape Town, Oliver pointed out the “informal settlements” that we were driving past. They are pretty desperate places. The first two looked terrible. The third one was a building site and the fourth one had been replaced with some newer developments. The replacement houses aren’t going to win any prizes in Conde Naste Traveler but they’re a huge step up from a shanty town. It’s a good sign of progress.
We were met at the Cape Grace hotel by the receptionist Boris, an Austrian, who was obviously on youth opportunities hotel training. We were tired and grumpy after a lot of traveling but Boris wanted to take his time showing us round the hotel. His Boratesque phrases made us all giggle a bit. When I handed over my credit card, he said “naaiiiice” just like Borat. Cue some snickering from the peanut gallery. Also an interminable description of the opening hours of the library (“should I take notes” I said) was pretty amusing. When we got to the room, Boris insisted on showing us the room: “here’s your sewing kit, here’s the TV guide, here’s the drawers and here’s….the wardrobe”. Eventually I ushered him out of the room and we unpacked.
The Cape Grace is on the Victoria and Albert Waterfront in Cape Town. It’s pretty much indistinguishable from any other docklands redevelopment anywhere in the world. If you imagine the South Street Seaport in New York, it’s just like that. Lots of chichi little shops and restaurants. Absolutely nothing wrong with it and in some ways it’s a sign of the development of an urban middle class in South Africa which is a good thing. After all the good food at the C C Africa lodges, we had fish and chips on the harbour wall and settled back into urban living for the next few days.
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