The amazing trip of a lifetime I’d been invited on last year finally rolled around 3 November 2024. I had returned from Spain with almost 4 weeks to go to get 3 vaccinations each against Hep B and Rabies, have long-overdue cuddles with my granddaughter and various other life admin activities in preparation for flying to Capetown for an incredible 3-week itinerary. This was all organised by the good friend whose long-story heritage is Zimbabwe/South Africa before a UK life, and part of her 60th birthday year of travel. All I had to do was pay dosh when instructed and get myself and stuff ready.
It was luxury to have a door-to-door chauffeur service from my friend’s brother-in-law to Heathrow airport for an 11-hour overnight BA flight. The latter component of travel is definitely something I undertake through gritted teeth. Without having taken any flights longer than 4 hours for 30 years, my main fears about ‘toilet management’ – an unfortunately ever-present life theme – were justified. Selecting an aisle seat to remove some of the causes for concern before the 24-hour only in advance check-in is a significant extra charge on such flights. On the return journey the app check-in failed me in changing the window seat allocation to an aisle on so will have to pay more money if I should travel across oceans again. The BA flight apart from the above concern was all ok. My underlying anxiety re being in any aircraft I can keep in check and there was hardly any turbulence. Sleep hardly happened but I was comfortable enough. In the scheme of things, I know the necessary evils are minimal to be able to see other parts of the planet.
Driving from the airport to Capetown was really the first time for me of seeing significant large-scale non-developed world poverty of the ‘informal settlements’ (formerly ‘townships’) along the main arterial routes outside of towns and cities as the taxi brought us to our first 4-night stay at a lovely small hotel in the area of Greenpoint near the Water Front.
That afternoon we went on a tourist bus ride all around the city and it’s Table Top mountain, other bays and suburbs. We could see that indeed Capetown is beautiful and vibrant, with tourism & farming served at the ground level by black and coloured (the word they use) south africans and other nationalities, living in and travelling from obviously poorer parts. This artwork from the South African Contemporary Art Gallery captures the informal settlements, but does make them seem less ‘bleak’ to me.
The next morning saw us visit the District 6 museum which documents and gives witness to the imposed clearance by the Apartheid regime in the ’60s of a thriving albeit ‘poor’, multicultural area called District 6 to create a ‘white’ area. Very moving to read about the history and context for this, and listen to a guide in his 80s, who had been a resident there and lived through it. The clearance and relocation to the ‘Cape Flats’ area, miles away from people’s work, happened, but the area ‘white’ redesignation was not achieved and it still remains a green non-built on patch of land in the city centre.
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The theme of listening to black and coloured South Africans talk about their lived experiences of suffering under apartheid continued. We visited Robben Island, as part of the state-organised tour, where Nelson Mandela and many others were imprisoned for years into decades. The guide was someone who had spent 5 years there in the 70s as a political prisoner. Again very impactful and sobering. Nelson Mandela’s cell in the image – for many years prisoners were not given any kind of bed – just one indication of the levels of cruelty with which people (and many had not committed violence) were treated.
We had an early start for the next day’s driven tour round and about to Cape Point, the most southwesterly point of South Africa, with a stop at Simonstown and the Boulder Beach penguin colony and then onto the Buitenverbrachting vineyard in the Constantia area founded by Simon van der Stel, the first Governor of the new Dutch colony in the early 1700s. We saw plenty of baboons who are now needing management to protect residences and farms. On the return we came across 3 ostriches and about 12 little chicks sauntering along a road in the national park.
Day 3 was an even earlier start of a 6am pickup by a guide for our hike up Table mountain. It was a recognised route – Kasteelspoort – and I did not expect the rock climbing required up one of the Twelve Apostles – see photo – from Camps Bay below, with the prize of taking the cable car back down. Brimham Rocks on steroids.
The mountainside got steeper and steeper and therefore brought for me less and less looking back at the view, more just focussing on the next foot placement on the rock faces/ledges, and more anxiety.
At a stopping point after a very challenging section and seeking info from the guide about whether the route was going to continue like this, I and another of our four with a very definite fear of heights, were seriously concerned to hear that some of the remaining route required us to climb up ladders; my friend thought the guide said some 18 metres rather than the 5 + 8 he actually said, but both of us had images of vertical ladders up against sheer rock faces from a tiny ledge. Despite this, continuing up seemed preferable to having to re-trace our climbing with unavoidable gazing downwards, the route plateau’d out and anxiety retreated somewhat . The eventual sight of the ladders in the distance brought sighs of relief as we realised the location and gradient of the ladders did not match our fears.
Imho, it was a real achievement to get to the cable car – near 1000 metres, and the photos say it all.
It was well worth it to have these days led by very experienced and knowledgeable guides, to understand some history, and flora and fauna information.
The next part of our itinerary was a drive to Plett & its bay for a 5-day led ‘slack-packing’ walk from guesthouse to guesthouse in the Plettenberg countryside. We hired a car and broke the journey in Hermanus, where we had originally tried to book on a similar ‘camino’ activity. This part of South Africa is famous for whale-watching from the boardwalk but in the late afternoon/evening we spent there we were not fortunate. Still, this is also a beautiful part of the coastline. Before arriving there we stopped off at the most southerly point of South Africa, Cape Agulhas, where the Indian and Atlantic Ocean meet.
