cape town classic

so we made it safe and sound to the bottom of the world. spent the last three days enjoying the sights, smells, sounds and tastes of cape town. if you've never been here its like san fran married miami beach and then had a threesome with barcelona. needless to say its very cosmopolitan( maybe that's because we've been staying in the gayborhood). its also super jewy. we went into a grocery store on our first night and it was like we were in the supersol in scarsdale.

anyway we were supposed to take a 26 hour train from jo'berg to cape town but when i got to the station to buy tickets they told me the train was full for a week. so we rented a car and i drove a lot. I'm not kidding its a 16 hour drive that i did all alone in two days. Kim can't drive stick well and she certainly cant drive on the other side of the road so i did 11 hours one day and 5 the next. the drive was long straight and insane. But beautiful we drove through the karoo, which is a bit like arizona, or nevada minus the indian reservations, with the addition of wild ostrich.

stayed out in what is the equivalent of a small mid west white trash town in a cheap motel ( however we did have an excellent karro breakfast with lamb chops and boerwoers ( tasty sausage) eggs and veggies.

next day we drove the rest of the way through a totally different climate ( not after i got pulled over on trumped up charges of reckless driving. which was total shit but we didn't get fined and i have the international drivers permit so he let us go. on the way to the cape you have to pass through some insane mountains and we saw snow covered peaks against a perfect sky and wine vineyards all around. oh and we saw a baboon on the side of the road which looked like it was hitchhiking.

cape town is sweet and if i had to live anywhere in south africa it would be here. we're staying in bantry bay which is just off the coast. From the front door of our guest house you can see the mountains, and from the back you can see the ocean.

we did the cape of good hope and table mountain national park on tuesday and the cape wine lands in stellenbosch yesterday. good hope is amazing, we passed through a bunch of small surfing and fishing towns on our way down the peninsula from cape town. as is with most of south africa, we passed some multi million dollar homes and some insanely poor shanty townships. the drive is coastal so you can see sharks and whales breach when the weather is right. as we rounded the hook we thought of all the tons of IPA's that had to round the False bay on there way to the other side of the world. the waves were immense and we got to pass through some of the most desolate and beautiful scenery on earth. we saw springbok, three ostriches, and a tons of baboons in the park. the bottom of the world puts some things in perspective like just how large a place this globe really is and just how far away from home we really are.

in terms of close quarters its been all motels and guesthouses so far so we really haven't interacted too much with other travelers, i have to say at least from my perspective i am really enjoying kim's company and haven't once wanted to sell her into white slavery. shes a trooper and has put up with my madness to date, so thanks babe but we still have 51 weeks to go so forgive me if i start to loose my gourd in a couple of months.

we did a brandy distillery and a cape methode classic ( champagne style whites) as well as two more traditional wineries. i only managed to lock the keys in the car once so far. see i wasn't that drunk. capped the day off with some amazing fresh seafood on the docks in hout bay ( prawns, calamari, and hoek ( type of fish) slaw and a beer all for under 15 bucks.

today we dropped the rental car off in cape town centre and did a bit of walking around. hit up the Holocaust museum and the great synagogue. went to the university districts for some shopping and cafes, and did a stroll down Long St. which is there equivalent of Broadway. minibus taxi back to Seapoint which is a brilliant idea for new york, imagine those cheap chinatown buses ( not the ones that go to Philly and DC...the ones that are all in chinese and take people back to sunset park and flushing). 5 rand and you can hop on/of where ever you need to go. when i get home i'm buying 4 vans and doing the hipster circuit one over the williamsburg and one of over the Manhattan bridge charge two bucks a person don't leave till you're full and loop all day make a mint.

anyway back at the crib now about to go out for some night sunset photography on the promenade and then some Korean food.

bul-go-ki bitches

Soweto

I honestly had no idea what Soweto was going to be like. I had heard the talk of the people returning from their outings with Cedric. Tiny tin shacks as close as possible, 1,000 and 1,000 of people living on top of each other, Government promises leaving the people in destitute. Soweto is an urban area outside of Johannesburg that is made up of 49 townships  The area of Soweto is often known for its extreme uprising against Apartheid.

We were picked up at Pension Idube by Cedric. Cedric is an Afrikaner that has established a relationship with the people of Soweto to gain understanding of what happened in the townships during apartheid. As we drove he told of his work, explaining to us the youth, and their disinterested attitude which is really a stand against the verbal onslaught that they have grown up with from their grandparents and parents. I likened what Cedric does to Geoffrey Canada's work with the Harlem Children's Zone.
Alex will give you more information on what Cedric told us later on....

Soweto was overwhelming. Cedric dropped off in a township called Orlando East....this was however no Disney land. We were met by a local woman that had moved to Soweto from an area north of Jo'berg called Limpopo, in hopes of finding work. Eunice showed us around her 1 room home (bathroom outside shared with her 4 neighbors). Alex expressed interest in getting a shave, and Eunice walked us over to her friends house that is a barber. Alex sat down in the stool, had a questionable towel thrown over his shoulders and the man went to work. As Alex was shaved i explored the plot of land that belonged to the barbers father. On the plot of land stood a 4 room brick house that had been built by the government. From there the family had added 6-7 tin shacks to house their offspring and relatives, from what Eunice told us this is normal and one of the nicer homes. After Alex's shave we walked through Orlando East stopping only to watch a group of teenagers emulate the JabbaWockeeZ.

We hopped on a mini bus and rode to Kliptown. In my travels i have encountered great amounts of poverty, however i have never seen anything like this.

Full family's living in a tin shack the size of bathroom. It makes your New york city studio look like a mansion. The largest space is approx. 8x8 and often houses 3-4 people. No running water inside the shacks, instead there are taps with a hose spigot on top in different areas through out the township.....56 taps for 40,000 people. No electricity, so people use car batteries to power their radios and often use candles for light at night. Candles often lead to fires, and with the houses so close to each other many go up in flames at one time. I use the term tin shacks loosely as most of the homes are made up of old placard signs and billboards. What ever is big enough to create a side of a house.

After our walk through Kliptown we met with the owner of an orphanage called little rose. Little rose is situated right at the entrance of Kliptown. They have a feed the children program, which supplies the children with breakfast and after school snacks to keep them full on their walk to and from school (since there is no school in kliptown). They also provide after school programs and have a preschool program. Right now they have a 10 bed orphanage which houses 15 children from the kliptown township. They take in children rather than allowing them to be swallowed by the system. The organization is funded by visitors to the township as well as the people of kliptown....they have no government backing and no NGO help. I am trying to find a link for them and can't just yet...i will keep looking.

After Kliptown we stopped at a local butcher/Braai (BBQ) spot. Where we got to pick our own meat and then BBQ it. Alex manned the grill and impressed all the Africans with his skill. At his request someone bought Alex Jo'Berg Beer. After stern warnings from the locals to not drink and walk in the street as you may end up dead we all shared a carton of beer and were on our way.

Pretoria

we decided to pick up a car instead of trying to take a bus to Pretoria...good call it would have been impossible to do what we wanted to do otherwise. so we book a car for 230 rand a day which is about 30 bucks US and took a cab to park station , didn't get robbed and hit the M1 for the hour drive to the Afrikaners capital of Pretoria. stopped at Tings and Things ( the rasta reggae restaurant and bar that my old friend Anine suggested to us to eat some food and drink some beers while we waited for my long lost friend to meet us after work. i had no idea but shes a journalist who just returned to South Africa after years of living abroad, which was to our good favour. sat down and had a couple of beers thinking we would move on the next spot sooner then later. wrong. we stayed at tings and had a plethora of wacky shots and 2 for 1 cocktails until close to 730 . i think its the longest we've ever stayed in a restaurant that wasn't blue hills at stone barn. Pretoria is an interesting place, seemingly cleaner and safer then Jo'berg and certainly whiter. the red clay that lines most streets carries over to everything and its almost as if they put a city over a clay desert. we were only approached once for a handout and when we said no he was polite enough to agree to the answer and walked away.

Anine is quite the character and she told us a bit of her story. shes the daughter of an ambassador and what she wants most in the world is to move back to the land of her youth, the good ole US of A. we suggested she marry our friend David and even SMS'ed him with news of his pendant nuptials. awesomely tattooed, with streaks of purple running through her hair she reports for an Afrikaans newspaper as the murder/rape/incest correspondent for Pretoria. after a mix of beer/booze she thought it was best to leave the city center and head up to the 'burbs to meet her friends at a very South African bar. it was totally locals and i would be surprised if any other Americans had been there in the last year, if not ever. meeting some good people with wacky dutch names we had more of the local spirits and shared stories of travel and working lives. asking if we wanted to see some live music we missioned to the cafe Barcelona down the street and were surprised with tequila shots and castle beer as well as some blues in the vain of muddy waters. they still smoke inside here and it quickly got too smokey for my tastes. its weird when you venture out of the big city you end up in all white bars in strip malls with the AutoZone, KFC and a pizza place, seriously did i really have to travel 8000 miles for this.

by now its 10pm and one of Anine's mates decided it was a good idea to take a trip to the local rugby club to pick up a joint or two. well that was quite an adventure we made it to the club no problem but when we got there the kid who they were supposed to pick up from was so drunkhe forgot where he kept his stash, he also forgot how to speak English. that was good time. anyway by the time we got back to the bar anine had been called to a gruesome murder and kim and i decided it was time to head back to Jo'berg. with no real idea how to gt back to the Pension from the highway we took a chance and got off at the road we were told lead to the B&B, with Kim's good map skills and my fantastic driving we made it safe and sound. i love a city where stopping at red lights after dark is optional. more to come

were here, were queer, ive already drank alot of beer

so after 15 hours on a smelly plane filled with annoying churchy upper east side teenagers headed to malawi to build something or another we arrived in the bustling city of Johannesburg. we stopped by the customs ofice to have our equipment registered and over paid for our Air Malawi flights that wont take place till the middle of September. Johan, our overtly racist Afrikaaner taxi driver dropped us at the wonderful Pension Idube. all set up we napped and took a little walk to the Williamsburg of Jo'berg, melville. sitting in a hip coffeehouse we watched hipsters frolic about playing on facebook, talking ab out the dj they saw last night and wondering to ourselves if we really needed to fly 8000 miles to do the same thing we could be doing back in Brooklyn.

our first day was s low one and we headed back after chatting up the kid in the Nike store for info on chill places to see and what shops to visit in the area. over the campus square mall, ( south africans cant get enough of malls, apparently for upmarket jo'bergers shopping is like there crack, for everyone else crack is like their crack). tried to buy a sim card but no dice u need passports to register, also looks like my unlocked iphone is not really as unlocked as i thought it was, so yeah if anyone knows how to properly unlock a jailbroken iphone 3g 3.1.2 i would appreciate the help otherwise i need to buy another phone.

back to melville for dinner ( 500 grams of steak is alot of meat). its one of the few areas that is safe to walk around at night so we did a bit of a stroll came home and passed out.

day 2 was slightly more exciting, we got the sim card went food shopping for the braai( grill) that i wanted to do for diner and headed into Jo'berg CBD ( downt0wn). w hit up the SAB World of Beer which is by far the best beer tour on earth and amazing cheesy ad informative at the same time. we got to try african beer ( made from soghum ) its creamy and boozy at the same time. four free beers and the tour fr about $4 bucks not bad at all. we left in a cab although we could have done the walk easily as kim had her camobag( aka the plastic shopping bags from the grocery store which covered her camera and purse).

head to park station so we can collect our train tickets only to be told that there is no available train till sunday, well TIA ( this is Africa) welcome to it

head home grill up some boerwors and eat a bomb braai dinner. talk to my friend from high school who lives in Pretoria and we try to figure out bus schedules. the crazy lady who runs this guest house says we should just rent a car, but im cheap so i say no. well im a jackass cause its just as expensive to take cabs and buses and a plane to cape town as it is to rent a car. so now im about to pick up the car head to pretoria chill with Anine. tomorrow is the soweto tour and after that its a 16 hour drive across the country to the bottom of the world.

see you on the other side