It has been a while since we wrote our last entry, hence a longer post. The reason is that we have been travelling around following the World Cup; we were lucky to see the quarterfinal game in Cape Town between Argentina and Germany and the semifinal game in Durban between Spain and Germany (Go Spain!). Since we assume most people watched the games, we are not going to write about them except to say that the organization getting to and from stadiums has been amazing, and the stadiums themselves are breathtaking. We have posted some pictures of the last few games we went to.Cape Town is a magnificent city that is a nature lover’s dream place. It has lovely beaches, mountains, two oceans, tons of hiking, good food, wine country, whale watching, parks and gardens, wild penguins, some of the most beautiful views and drives, and the list goes on and on.
We spent the first two days outside of Cape Town in a seafront town called Hermanus, famous for its whale watching. The town was very lovely and the beaches were amazing. We saw some whales and after a long walk on a long sandy beach we came across a flock of flamingos hanging out in a lagoon.
In Cape Town, we were lucky enough to stay with the director of Ramin’s organization, Tessa, who is based out of Cape Town and who lives in a vibrant and colorful neighborhood that is primarily a Cape Malay area. We are not entirely sure what this means, but most of the people living there looked like they were a mix between Indian, white, and African, and there were tons of mosques around. The houses were painted in different bright colors and the neighborhood was on a hill overlooking Table Mountain, so you often had steep streets and many made out of cobblestone. The neighborhood was really convenient and we walked everywhere, including 45 minutes to and from the stadium. Although Cape Town has a ton to offer in terms of natural beauty, it is a pretty subdued City (except for the World Cup buzz), as far as street life goes, compared to our next destination Durban.
Cape Town also highlighted for us the enormity of the economic disparity along racial lines and the separation between white people and black people in South Africa. For example, when we would go restaurants or pubs to watch games in the City, the crowd would be almost entirely white. We took a short road trip around some of the beach towns and wine country and the people eating in the cafes and restaurants were all white. Even the beaches in Cape Town, like Camp’s Bay, were primarily white. Most troubling, however, were not just the demographics, but the extreme wealth around the City. Luxury cars and huge houses were common sights, and entire neighborhoods seemed transplanted out of Malibu. This is not odd in and of itself, until you start to drive past the airport through the area known as the Cape Flats or visit many of the other parts of the country where extreme poverty is the norm. The Cape Flats is an enormous ghetto or shanty town that sprawls as far as the eye can see on both sides of the highway- makeshift dwellings made mostly out of corrugated iron stuck together with tons of people walking around the highway. Of course this drastic economic disparity is common in a lot of countries but I think the reason why it is unique here is that it is so clearly black and white in a country where whites are very much a minority and is set against the backdrop of Apartheid, which ended only 15 years ago.
From Cape Town we flew to Durban where we rented a car so we could drive back to our house in the north (about ten hours). Arriving in Durban, we felt like we were in an entirely different country from Cape Town. We arrived at King Shaka airport as it was getting dark and got lost trying to find the back packer’s lodge we were staying at (at $70 a night, we don’t see how they can call it a backpacker’s lodge). We missed the turnoff on the highway and suddenly found ourselves in downtown Durban at night without a map or anything to help us navigate. It was totally crazy and it seemed like thousands of people were on the streets running in every direction. There was an energy in Durban that just didn’t exist in Cape Town. However, the biggest difference from Cape Town, apart from the fact that Durban is an uglier city, was that we did not see any white people as we entered the city center after sunset.
Durban is also home to the largest Indian population in South Africa (at least 3rd or 4rth generation- not recent immigrants), and I am sure it is one of the largest populations of Indians outside of India. We also heard that one cannot visit Durban without getting a good Indian Curry, and we must say that we think this is true after having one of the best Indian curries ever, at least that is what Ramin thinks.
An extremely scary issue that we encountered both in Cape Town and in Durban was the threat of violence by black South Africans against other Africans living and working in South Africa, mainly from Zimbabwe, Mozambique, Botswana and the Congo. Not too long ago xenophobic riots and hate crimes rippled throughout the country, and things seem to be heating up again. Many black South African feel that these foreigners are stealing their jobs or bringing criminality into the country. The radio and newspapers are filled with discussions and reports of another imminent wave of hate crimes. In Cape Town and Durban we spoke to two Congolese men who were clearly uneasy about being here. In Durban, the man we spoke to seemed desperate to leave the country and was genuinely scared. He was pleading with us to help him get into Canada (once he found out Ramin is Canadian), and it was really sad to listen to his pleas knowing that we probably could not help. Most disturbing is the tone on the radio from many listeners calling in. We heard 4-5 South Africans in a row call-in to a discussion making the most horrific accusations. One man was yelling about how Nigerians and Zimbabweans are all drug dealers and mixed up in crimes, and how they need to leave South Africa. What is remarkable about this is that this current wave of xenophobia and racism comes from people oppressed under apartheid based on race, and it is almost like people are blind to history. We hope that the rumors going around about an eruption of violence are just hyped up and that whatever is in the air right now does not explode into the xenophobic violence that South Africa witnessed a couple of years ago.
After watching the game in Durban, we headed for the Drakensburg mountains or “the Berg” as South African’s refer to it, a range near Durban that hugs Lesotho (a mountainous country that seems very intriguing and that we plan to visit soon we hope). It is a beautiful mountain range with some peaks up to 10,000 or so feet. There is plenty of hiking and camping to be done, and unfortunately we only spent two nights here on our way driving back home. We sort of fell upon a really quaint log cabin and for only $80/night it was a steal (trust us when staying at a hostel is the same price in this country). It overlooked a stunning reservoir and rolling hills (see pic). The Berg is definitely some place we will return while we stay here, and it is filled with tons of national parks all full of amazing hikes. One could easily spend months exploring these mountains.For our animal sighting this week I have posted a picture of a Pangolin. Apparently this is a very rare animal to see, and it looks like an armadillo with scales that look like artichoke leaves. The woman we were with, Stacy, told us she has always wanted to see one “her whole life” and that this was an incredibly special moment. We felt honored that we got to see one so soon into our time in South Africa and only 200 feet from our house!
We also came home to an act of animal vandalism. The bright orange squirrel that lives in our roof (made out of dried reed) decided that it was finally time to raid our pantry. It tore up all our cereal, flour and even the wine, which was found by us in a huge puddle on the ground. Apparently the squirrel has a taste for wine. It also apparently likes our bed, because we found plenty of droppings on our bed cover when we arrived. This was just taking it a bit too far! Unfortunately our decision to attempt to live in harmony with the nature around us will no longer apply to the squirrel. Ramin has borrowed a live trap to capture it and should the trap work, he plans to release it 20 kilometers away so it does not find its way back to the wine. 