Above Cape Town and Beyond
From its Lion’s Head summit to penguin-filled seas and lush wine farms, South Africa’s jewel shines.
Words by Sloane Crosley
Photographs by Paola + Murray
Let’s start at the top and go down, shall we? This option is not available when it comes to climbing one of Cape Town’s many peaks — which some offensively fit locals like to scale before work — but it is available to us, here and now.
So first, a more elevated approach to Cape Town, that vibrant prow of an entire continent’s ship: “If only we could eat our sunsets,” wrote the Nobel Prize–winning J.M. Coetzee, the city’s most famous literary son. “I say, we would all be full.” The man knows of what he speaks. Landing in Cape Town, I was struck by a dramatic landscape that seems to have swiped its blueprints from a Disney film. This same jarringly beautiful topography is visible in the background of a teenage Coetzee’s photographs, a treasure trove of which were discovered in his old flat and put on display at the Irma Stern Museum, near the University of Cape Town. The photographs tell the story of a young writer enamored with stark contrasts, a childhood shaped by apartheid, and a city with an all-too-recent past that’s still evolving into its future. But we’ll get back to all that. For now, let’s start again with the more sea-level approach: I have spent the past seven days showering in a bucket.
A giant plastic bucket. Picture the infamous I Love Lucy episode, but eighty-six the grapes. I have been using said bucket to collect water because Cape Town, also known as South Africa’s “Mother City,” is in the midst of a severe three-year drought. It’s on the precipice of becoming the first major international city to run completely dry. At publication, the city’s largest dam is at 10.9 percent, and residents are limited to 50 liters of water per day (down from 87 in mid-January). Signifiers of responsible tourism include flushing the toilet with shower water, paying for bottled water in restaurants, and sporting visibly greasy hair. While I was here, the government had dubbed July 15 “Day Zero” (though this date is in near-constant flux, dependent on how much water the city’s population conserves). Day Zero is the day the faucets shut off and larger, official water stations spring up, and it does not sound like a zombie apocalypse by accident. Already there are fines for “water abusers” and citizen-on-citizen judgment. I witnessed a woman in the posh Clifton beach area peer through the fence of a private home and chastise the owner for his full pool. Turning on the radio, I heard call-in guests taking stabs at Cape Town’s own version of “Keep Calm and Carry On.” My personal favorite: “Water we doing?”
But something tells me that, come July, marketing will not be the issue.
So how does it feel to be in Cape Town right now? Like the majority of crises you read about in the news, it is both far more and far less dramatic in person. Day Zero is omnipresent — there was not a single beach or coffee shop or bar or museum where I did not hear talk of the drought — and yet? The show must go on. If you live in an area afflicted with the occasional hurricane or tornado, put yourself in mind of that communal, anxious, electric vibe in the air hours before an event — perversely jubilant with a pulse of panic — as people stockpile supplies and wonder how bad things will get, who among them will turn out to be supply-hoarding maniacs and who will turn out to be heroes. Then, having had their fill of wondering, everyone decides to give themselves a break, go out and have a good time. Now spread those hours out over six months, and there you have it.
I visited Cape Town the last week of January, and during that time, I eavesdropped on or participated in endless debates on the drought and its potential ripple effects (oh, but would that were an apt pun). The tap water was already starting to taste a bit sediment-like to me, but I wondered if this wasn’t psychosomatic. Both ends of the Drought Concern Spectrum were proudly on display. According to my taxi driver from the airport, there was no water shortage. It was all a conspiracy. Which explained why he kept forgetting not to flush the toilet.
“But why would you remember not to flush the toilet if there’s nothing to remember?” I asked.
“Well,” he shot back, “I remember that everyone is nervous about it.”
Then he pointed at a charming gray house on a residential corner, stopped the car, and said, “This is you. Have fun!”
The show must go on.
Capetonians are a disturbingly friendly people — good luck to you if you can make it out of the most minor interaction without everyone knowing each other’s blood types. But though I never once felt in danger in their city, break-ins and opportunistic crime are common. If, like me, you assume that the warnings on travel sites are meant for inexperienced travelers, don’t. Locals take anything valuable with them when they park their cars, pop their radios in the trunk, and don’t leave cell phones unattended in crowded restaurants — though some of this is common sense and hardly specific to Cape Town. But all of it combined is why, upon arrival at the charming gray house, it took me several minutes to figure out the code to the front gate. I then had to retrieve the keys to the garden apartment from a lockbox with a new code, get through the second gate and the front door, then open the interior gate… and then wait for a security guard to show up, because I still managed to set off the alarm.
The benefits of staying in a real home are immeasurable — to name a few, you get to immerse yourself in the bloodstream and mindset of a city quickly, play house, live a parallel life, open the windows, and do as the locals do (bucket-showering and all) — but I will say, the cops don’t generally show up when you check into a hotel. Simone Borcherding, my wonderful host, was calm and collected on the phone, walking me through it as the alarm shrieked in the background. “Welcome to Cape Town, right?” she asked, laughing.
Part of me thought I might not leave again come sunrise. Which would not have been the end of the world. Simone’s home was high-ceilinged and personality-filled and featured a vine-covered porch where I found myself enjoying a glass of nerve-calming wine. I could’ve spent a lazy morning at Simone’s, pacing in my shower bucket, watching the fringe on her handwoven carpet go up and down with the breeze that blew beneath the door. There was also an affectionate urban lion in the form of a stray tabby who decided my legs needed to be rammed at all times.
But jet lag called, and so did Lion’s Head.
Lion’s head is like Table Mountain’s little sister, less imposing and easier to climb, and an ideal way to shake hands with Cape Town. Though not for those with a fear of heights (sections require gripping onto chains screwed into the rock face), it juts up Cape Town’s center like a dreidel handle and provides the best views of the city. The path up is crowded, even at 5:45 a.m., but Henk Brand, my Airbnb experience guide, who leads private mountain excursions, knows a secret way. The good news is we don’t see another human being until about 15 minutes before the summit. The bad news is it’s because we take the hard way up. I keep citing a desire to take in the view or examine rock formations to cover for my more winded moments. Henk appears to fall for this — and why wouldn’t he? Cape Town is not the kind of beautiful you stop seeing after a while. It reminds you every day that it’s the prettiest girl at the dance with its apocalyptically bright beaches, necklace of scalloped bays, and, of course, Table Mountain, with the “tablecloth” of clouds rolling over it.
Because Cape Town is so cosmopolitan and culturally hip (the Zeitz MOCAA museum, which opened in September, is truly one of the finest contemporary art museums I have ever visited), it’s easy to forget how far-flung it is. Which is where climbing a peak comes in. It’s powerful to gaze out toward the Southern Ocean and imagine oneself as standing on one of three prongs (counting South America’s Cape Horn and Melbourne, Australia) that frame the icy jewel of Antarctica. Surveying the land a bit closer to home, one sees the details of the sprawling city “bowl,” how Capetonians refer to the neighborhoods that circle Lion’s Head. From here, I spot my trendy Tamboerskloof neighborhood (like New York’s West Village or Paris’s Marais, it’s been trendy for a long time), the touristy-but-posh Camps Bay, the up-and-coming Woodstock, the V&A Waterfront, the Sea Point promenade, and beyond.
As Henk and I reach the summit around 8 a.m., I notice my embarrassingly heavy breathing is covered by a strange new sound: drones. Three of them, hovering directly over our heads. Henk and I joke about chucking our phones at the drones, but who really loses in that scenario? Irritated natives look around, trying to nail down the culprits who are interfering with their morning peace. In that moment, I know Cape Town and I are going to get along just fine. After Henk and I clomp back to the road, I decide my next activity will be to try my luck at the two things New Yorkers love second best to being irritated: bookstores and meandering.
Cape Town’s literary scene extends well beyond the Coetzee-ness of it all. In addition to multiple independent bookstores, there’s the Open Book Festival, which draws authors from all over Africa, and beyond, every September. Meanwhile, on Long Street is Clarke’s Bookshop, a 62-year-old independent bookstore that sells new and secondhand books as well as old southern African maps. Upstairs is a rare books room that smells both musty and tropical, like what would happen if the top floor of Manhattan’s Strand bookstore transported itself to Honolulu. On the day I visit, a customer comes into the shop and actually announces: “You’ve got a book I’ve been looking for for years!”
Parallel to Long is the bustling Bree Street, which is a kind of epicenter for Cape Town adorableness. Any list of “must do’s” in Cape Town, no matter the sender, will come complete with a few Bree Street stops. I head over to Jason Bakery, where I order a strong cup of coffee, a bottle of water, and a bowl of granola the size of my head, topped with fresh papaya and kiwi. Meanwhile, nearby there are plenty of shops filled with upscale merchandise at corresponding prices. I purchase a bowl embedded with ostrich egg shards from Avoova and quite consciously do not do the same at Missibaba, slowly backing out of the store and its display of oversize handwoven leather bags.
There’s also plenty to consume in the Bree Street vicinity after the sun sets — by consume, I mean imbibe. The area is littered with bars that all sound like hair-metal bands but are the opposite of hair-metal bands: At Outrage of Modesty, accessed through an unmarked door, patrons are first presented with potpourri sachets that look like tiny ghosts and smell of lavender or ginger or chocolate. Based on this sniff test, a drink is made not by a mixologist, but a “storyteller.” This seems intolerable until you take that first sip and all manner of hipster sins are forgiven. The House of Machines serves refreshing negronis to patrons who migrate to the benches outside. Down the road, the Power & the Glory is a quaint café by day and a bar with a locals-only vibe after dark. As the night rolls on, patrons spill into the street in a friendly mass. The evening I go, someone pops open a bottle of champagne for no discernible reason beyond the constant one: better than drinking water! Or, as the woman who gets hit with the champagne cork declares: better than drinking alone!
But me, I am not alone. I am with Haggie.
Two years ago, one of my best friends married a South African woman. Unable to attend the wedding, I was sentenced to gawk at the photos on Instagram. When I told her I was finally going to her hometown, she replied instantly, “You have to hang with Haggie!” and put me in touch with Ian Haggie, her gregarious blond-haired, blue-eyed “best man,” a native South African who, in a delightful coincidence, works for a local tourism company. With its highbrow and lowbrow choices in every category imaginable — physical, culinary, social — Cape Town is an endlessly stimulating and fascinating place to be. So while Ian is off-duty as a guide, going anywhere with him and his friends means not just eating a taco or looking at street art but learning about the history of a building, and sometimes the entire history of the Dutch colonization of Cape Town.
One evening, we go to the Pot Luck Club, one of the best restaurants in town, located in the Old Biscuit Mill, just upstairs from one of the other best restaurants, the Test Kitchen. Note: Capetonians are serious about their reservations, so it’s best to book at places like the Test Kitchen and La Colombe months in advance. The neighborhood, Woodstock, resembles Williamsburg, Brooklyn, in 2002, in both its promise and its wee-hours desolation. The cocktail menu has about 15 kinds of gin martinis on offer — which, to my mind, is 14 too many gin martinis. Ian explains that this is “a thing.” A gin boom, of sorts. Though the area is known for wine, gin-based drinks have become incredibly popular in Cape Town in recent years, which Ian credits to the fact that South Africa was closed off for such an extended period of time during apartheid. “When I was growing up,” he says, “Cape Town was sleepy. A fishing village in terms of things to do and cut off beyond that.”
So while the city leads the way in homegrown trends, international ones are slow to fold in. Cape Town registers as otherworldly, but its history is very much of this world. If you’re looking for a reason why things are oriented as they are here, be it something profound like the extreme poverty in sections of Cape Town flats or something frivolous like a gin martini, all roads tend to lead to the same place.
As Ian drives me home through the central business district, I point out an electric sign in Christmas light formation, strung between buildings and blinking in merry fonts: “Together We Can Save Water! Avoid Day Zero!”
“That’s everywhere, huh?” I say, tapping the window.
“Yeah,” he agrees. “That we didn’t have to import.”
It’s possible I feel too at home in Cape Town. In the middle of the night, nursing a hangover and half forgetting where I am. . .I flush the toilet. I gasp. You would think I’ve accidentally flushed the family goldfish.
“Did someone die?” Ian inquires when I meet him the next day. We are meeting to explore the Bo-Kaap neighborhood, but apparently I look as sullen as I feel. So we drown our sorrows in a pre-breakfast treat (calories evaporate when you cross time zones — it’s science) of Cape Town street food. Most of the more famous snacks, such as biltong (dried cured meat), are off-limits to the likes of my pescatarian self, but we order a couple of golden, lightly fried curry balls. They are spongy and fragrant, covered in yellow grease and served in waxed paper. As Ian explains, these are probably not the curry I am used to. These are Cape Malay curry. Cinnamon and nutmeg play a larger role in this food than they do in India. Though there are Indian flavors to be found in Cape Town, as well. There’s everything to be found here, as well. (Even the phrase “as well,” which is sprinkled into any South African’s speech like cinnamon.)
Bo-Kaap is a predominantly Muslim community (no alcohol served, just in case I was interested in a little hair of the dog — which I was not). It also strikes me as a microcosm of Cape Town. South Africa is known as one of the most incredibly diverse places in the world, both in terms of biodiversity (there are species of plants and amphibians found only on Table Mountain; a trip to Kirstenbosch National Botanical Garden is a must) and culturally (there are 11 official languages in South Africa). Bo-Kaap, where the freed Malay slaves settled and where tourists now flock to take pictures of the fluorescent-colored houses, is a true mix. As we wander the narrow hills and walk along Rose Street, where artisanal coffee shops have sprung up, both the energy and the disparity of the place are palpable. I watch as during a professional photo shoot (the houses really are irresistible), the photographer has to step back and point his camera in the air while two little boys in white tank tops come marching down the road, one selling candy, the other clutching a giant bottle of soda. They breeze right through the set. Which is, to neither of them, a “set.”
I inhale a delicious breakfast of eggs, salmon, and zucchini fritters on the rooftop at Harvest Cafe & Deli and then peruse merchandise made by local designers and artisans in the market below. At noon, I hear a deep boom in the distance, which Ian explains is the cannon coming from Signal Hill (also known as “Lion’s Rump”). In addition to commemorating fallen soldiers, the “noon gun” was originally red for the benefit of sailors, who would sometimes take refuge from the wind in Table Bay and would lose track of time otherwise. “You can hear it really well downtown,” Ian says. “It’s how you know it’s time for lunch.”
Which reminds him — he has to go back to the office. I encourage him to leave me at Atlas Trading Company, a spice market where I pick up a little contraband: tea, chili peppers, and Moringa powder, made from the nutrient-rich leaves of the plant by the same name. Apparently, it’s the best thing for you. You name it, it’ll make it better. But despite its pea-green hue, a bag of the stuff looks like 1980s Bogotá. The fact that customs does not stop me on the way home remains a miracle. But I know ahead of time that spices are not going to be the issue — not compared to Cape Town’s most famous legal drug.
But if, for some cruel reason, you are forced to choose just one vineyard in which to spend the day, get thee to Babylonstoren. By now you will have deduced that Cape Town lends itself to hyperbole — you must go to the botanical gardens, you must go to the modern art museum — and yes, you must, but get thee to Babylonstoren. Slightly off the beaten path, Babylonstoren is like a campus for aesthetes, consisting of a garden, spa, hotel, cheese shop, healing garden, “prickly pear maze,” bakery, greenhouse, and Babel restaurant (where palate cleansers are fresh plums and some of the salads come with ice cream). The white Cape Dutch–style buildings cut a clean profile against the verdant scenery, which includes Spekboom, or “elephant bush,” an aptly named succulent, edible for humans and a favorite treat of elephants.
Babylonstoren is what running away from home as an adult looks like. But, loath as I am to leave wine country, I have to get back to town. I have an early date the next day — not with Ian, but with some dapperly dressed birds.
I wake up to the sound of my phone vibrating. It’s Terry Corr with Airbnb’s popular Paddle with the Penguins experience at the Shark Warrior Adventure Centre in Simon’s Town. (In addition to the penguins, there’s also a snorkeling with seals — no word on bowling with blowfish.) Terry wants to let me know that gale-force winds have been “blowing unabated between 25 to 30 knots this week,” which means that paddling kayaks in the ocean is out of the question. “Weather permitting,” he reminds me, and right now it certainly is not. I protest. Was I watching streetlights sway and swallowing fistfuls of my own hair yesterday? Sure. Did I not see the wind rip a cricket bat out of a child’s hands and blow it into a gutter? Sure, but I could take it! I am perhaps overly attached to the idea of ending my trip in the ocean, surrounded by penguins.
Luckily, Terry has a backup plan that involves meeting him on Seaforth Beach, about a half an hour away in Simon’s Town and accessed via a more twisty and visually dramatic version of the Pacific Coast Highway. Upon arrival, I walk down from a parking lot full of portable grills and music playing to a crowded but jovial beach where the kids outnumber the parents three to one. Terry and his coworker, Jon Monsoon, wave to me from a narrow slip of sand at the end of the beach. On a rock beyond them lie about 30 penguins, relaxing in the sun. Terry and Jon are in the midst of putting up a new fence with signs warning beachgoers that this is fragile territory, off-limits. The city has finally agreed to give them money for this fence — before it was just a rope — and I wince at Terry’s glee. Over the past 100 years, the world’s endangered African penguin population has declined 95 percent, and 66 percent remain in South Africa. Should the city not be funding more than a trip to the hardware store? I hold one of the poles in place in the sand as Terry strings rope through it and explains the delicacy of the situation: “It’s not as simple as it seems. This used to be one of the nonwhite beaches in the city. White people weren’t allowed on this beach. So there’s remnants of that and sensitivity to it. You can’t just start eliminating parts of the beach.”
“And Happy Feet has a lot to answer for,” Jon adds with a wry smile. “Sometimes the kids throw things at the penguins because they want them to dance. And if they can’t dance, they want them to fly. And then this penguin who’s just swam miles and miles has to get back in the cold water.”
Fence secured (for now), Terry escorts me to the main colony, on neighboring Boulders Beach, which is a penguin Babylonstoren by comparison. It’s a national park, ticketed with turnstiles and a sturdy boardwalk safely elevated above the penguins. There are a couple hundred of them, walking in pairs, keeping their babies warm, diving into the ocean, eyes pink and blinking from the salt and the sun. Why the Seaforth Beach Penguins don’t just hang out here, 200 feet away, eludes me. This seems like poor penguin logic.
“Maybe they’re sick of the paparazzi,” Terry offers, gesturing at all the people gawking at them.
A few of them flap their arms in anthropomorphized agreement.
“The Seaforth ones know we’re helping them,” he assures me. “Once the new fence is up, they will take over the dunes behind it and nest there. But it’s hard. I don’t think they know they’re endangered.”
Of course they don’t, I think as we walk back along the boardwalk. I can’t decide if penguin higher consciousness is a pleasant or horrifying fantasy. For now, it is only humans who have the ability to see seismic threats coming — and it is only humans who can stop them. Or try. I look out onto the water, which hosts a countless number of blues that I feel sure must only appear in this special corner of the earth. Ah, if only we could wash those filling sunsets down with a gulp of this perfect ocean. And then I hear it — the faintest boom of a cannon in the distance, telling everyone what time it is.
How to Be a Good Cape Town Guest
“We encourage travelers to visit the Western Cape and enjoy all it has to offer whilst being mindful of our water scarcity,” says Alan Winde, minister of economic opportunities. “Tourism is important to our economy. By using water sparingly, you can help save resources and jobs.” A few pointers:
• Get in the habit of stop-start showers: Wet body, turn off tap, soap, and rinse.
• Collect rinse water in a tub and use it to flush toilets. (Airbnb has partnered with Wesgro to outfit hosts’ homes with water-saving showerheads.)
• Only flush the toilet when necessary, and use toilet paper sparingly.
• Use hand sanitizer.
• Fill a cup for brushing teeth and shaving.
• Reuse rinse water from the washing machine for the next cycle.
About the author: Sloane Crosley is the author of The New York Times bestselling essay collections, I Was Told There’d Be Cake, a finalist for The Thurber Prize for American Humor, and How Did You Get This Number, as well as Look Alive Out There, and the novel, The Clasp. She served as editor of The Best American Travel Writing series and is featured in The Library of America’s 50 Funniest American Writers and The Best American Nonrequired Reading.
