Urban Safari. Cape Town. Clearly an adventure more life threatening than anything out in the bush. The Concrete Jungle. Wild-life.
We feel it is time to head into the big city, The Mother City, for a “cultah” fix after being out here on the cliffs for three weeks.
The Spier Winery is one of the largest in South Africa and traces its founding back to the mid-1600’s. Annually they sponsor a Performing Arts Festival on their fantastic grounds, but this year have decided to hold it in public places in Cape Town to include those who wouldn’t normally get the exposure. Cool. Let’s do it.
Betty, our faithful GPS, who had counseled and gently guided us across the entire USA, coast to coast, had just gotten her Map of Southern Africa download and was ready to handle rotaries and left-side driving. Mimi programmed in the Parliament Hotel, and bing, bing, let me get my bearings….bam…she’s got it in her memory.
A few wrong turns, my fault, not Betty’s, and we enter the parking garage, up, up, up to level K. We plunk down our bags and are off to the first public performance of the five or so we would see over the next three days. Great stuff with a mix of French, Mozambican, and all shades of South Africans dancing, singing, acting, speaking and all taking place in squares and parks in the shadow of Table Mountain. Wonderful. Wacky. Wild.
Speaking of which, Cape Town, South Africa’s version of San Francisco, has its mini version of Haight Ashbury in Long Street. It is backpacker haven. Funky antique shops. Galleries. Restaurants serving grilled boerwors to curry to Vietnamese dog. Just kidding about the dog, probably rat, anyhow. It’s where the young and hip come to be seen. To drive the Beamer with the top down and the subwoofer thumping. To show off the latest dreads, or, as we were surprised to see, the return of the 60’s afro. Spiky heels and low cut tops. And you should have seen what the girls were wearing! For us hicks from the hinterland, it is a Gooolly, Gomer! experience. A welcome one.
We bought tickets for one of the night performances, Dreamland and weren’t all that comfortable walking there, after repeated warnings about our safety from everyone from the hotel clerk to Manuel, the artist who acted as our uninvited guide for half the day. The experience began in front of the National Art Gallery
with comp wine. Remember it is a Spier Winery Festival. Are we dressed appropriately? Well, there is everything from sari’s to traditional African wraps to khaki shorts and t-shirts. Just as night is falling, ten mounted policemen, mounted as in on horseback, encircle us, the assembled culturatti. One is clearly not an officer. She is dressed in a skin tight sequined black knight outfit and commands us to, “Follow.”
Who is going to argue with a knight and nine cops on horseback? We are led through the gardens to the courtyard of the Natural History Museum. The horsemen, plus one, again encircle us. Nervous tittering. A cell phone ringtone. And then, up on the balcony appeared three dancers writhing to an eerie, hypnotic flute/drum rhythm that had slowly risen. A voice from somewhere says something about dreams, and we are again led , this time into the museum itself.
Passing massive models and dinosaur dioramas down dimly lit corridors, and then the broad expanse of the whale room, Mr. Blue Whale skeleton suspended from the ceiling above us. I can’t capture all that happened in our “dreamtime” experience, but imagine: guys rappelling from the ceiling, a corpse-like dancer, draped in linen, moaning, video on the big screen with images that connect to very little, animations, black and white designs, an African guitarist/singer performing two beautiful songs in Zulu live, a narrator who walks in slow motion and describes her dream, dancers appearing left -right -below and above us at random times, and then, suddenly, a heavenly, angelic operatic aria begins. Is it from the speakers? No, one by one, about a third of the “audience” rises and belts out the most beautiful free form melody, and then walks out of the auditorium. By the end, we are firmly plunged into dreamtime.
We feel it is time to head into the big city, The Mother City, for a “cultah” fix after being out here on the cliffs for three weeks.
The Spier Winery is one of the largest in South Africa and traces its founding back to the mid-1600’s. Annually they sponsor a Performing Arts Festival on their fantastic grounds, but this year have decided to hold it in public places in Cape Town to include those who wouldn’t normally get the exposure. Cool. Let’s do it.
Betty, our faithful GPS, who had counseled and gently guided us across the entire USA, coast to coast, had just gotten her Map of Southern Africa download and was ready to handle rotaries and left-side driving. Mimi programmed in the Parliament Hotel, and bing, bing, let me get my bearings….bam…she’s got it in her memory.
A few wrong turns, my fault, not Betty’s, and we enter the parking garage, up, up, up to level K. We plunk down our bags and are off to the first public performance of the five or so we would see over the next three days. Great stuff with a mix of French, Mozambican, and all shades of South Africans dancing, singing, acting, speaking and all taking place in squares and parks in the shadow of Table Mountain. Wonderful. Wacky. Wild.
Speaking of which, Cape Town, South Africa’s version of San Francisco, has its mini version of Haight Ashbury in Long Street. It is backpacker haven. Funky antique shops. Galleries. Restaurants serving grilled boerwors to curry to Vietnamese dog. Just kidding about the dog, probably rat, anyhow. It’s where the young and hip come to be seen. To drive the Beamer with the top down and the subwoofer thumping. To show off the latest dreads, or, as we were surprised to see, the return of the 60’s afro. Spiky heels and low cut tops. And you should have seen what the girls were wearing! For us hicks from the hinterland, it is a Gooolly, Gomer! experience. A welcome one.
We bought tickets for one of the night performances, Dreamland and weren’t all that comfortable walking there, after repeated warnings about our safety from everyone from the hotel clerk to Manuel, the artist who acted as our uninvited guide for half the day. The experience began in front of the National Art Gallery
with comp wine. Remember it is a Spier Winery Festival. Are we dressed appropriately? Well, there is everything from sari’s to traditional African wraps to khaki shorts and t-shirts. Just as night is falling, ten mounted policemen, mounted as in on horseback, encircle us, the assembled culturatti. One is clearly not an officer. She is dressed in a skin tight sequined black knight outfit and commands us to, “Follow.”Who is going to argue with a knight and nine cops on horseback? We are led through the gardens to the courtyard of the Natural History Museum. The horsemen, plus one, again encircle us. Nervous tittering. A cell phone ringtone. And then, up on the balcony appeared three dancers writhing to an eerie, hypnotic flute/drum rhythm that had slowly risen. A voice from somewhere says something about dreams, and we are again led , this time into the museum itself.
Passing massive models and dinosaur dioramas down dimly lit corridors, and then the broad expanse of the whale room, Mr. Blue Whale skeleton suspended from the ceiling above us. I can’t capture all that happened in our “dreamtime” experience, but imagine: guys rappelling from the ceiling, a corpse-like dancer, draped in linen, moaning, video on the big screen with images that connect to very little, animations, black and white designs, an African guitarist/singer performing two beautiful songs in Zulu live, a narrator who walks in slow motion and describes her dream, dancers appearing left -right -below and above us at random times, and then, suddenly, a heavenly, angelic operatic aria begins. Is it from the speakers? No, one by one, about a third of the “audience” rises and belts out the most beautiful free form melody, and then walks out of the auditorium. By the end, we are firmly plunged into dreamtime.
One chore we wanted to take care of was buying tickets for the upcoming Cape Town Jazz Festival for us and our visiting dignitaries, Gary and Barb. We traipsed this way and that trying to find the Computicket without success. We finally ask a blue blazered young man in front of the Westin Hotel and he tells us to simply wait for the hotel shuttle which is coming soon and will take us right where we need to go. Great. So, we settle onto a bench there and can't help but notice the cluster of vehicles, police and otherwise, gathered by the main entrance. Moments later, who should stride from the hotel but Monsieur et Madame Sarkozy, President of La France! We are really the only non-security-type people standing there by the entrance, so as he looks over to us, I give him the manly nod and he returns it with a big smile, a wave, and a special wink to Mimi, the cad! Amazing in this day and age to be allowed to stand just a few feet away from a world leader. He must have been impressed.
Leaving Cape Town, we head to Stellenbosch, wine country, to meet up with a friend from Aramco. Helmut is in town to ride in the Cape Argus, a one-day, 35,000 rider bike race around the Cape. He is staying at…Spier Winery and Hotel and Cheetah Recover Center and African Craft Shop and Whatever Else They Have Managed to capitalize on in their spectacularly beautiful primo location. Several glasses of….Spier Chardonnay, catching up on who is doing what to whom and we are on the road that winds over the mountains, to the Overberg. Home.
Leaving Cape Town, we head to Stellenbosch, wine country, to meet up with a friend from Aramco. Helmut is in town to ride in the Cape Argus, a one-day, 35,000 rider bike race around the Cape. He is staying at…Spier Winery and Hotel and Cheetah Recover Center and African Craft Shop and Whatever Else They Have Managed to capitalize on in their spectacularly beautiful primo location. Several glasses of….Spier Chardonnay, catching up on who is doing what to whom and we are on the road that winds over the mountains, to the Overberg. Home.
No comments:
Post a Comment