From Reporter Issue 82 

BED AND RAINBOW BREAKFAST

It was the end of the afternoon and I was sitting by myself in the front seat of an unlocked car parked on a side road in Khayalitsha, one of Cape Town's largest black African townships. For people I've dined with in the northern suburbs of Johannesburg that simple sentence contains the stuff of nightmares, and outside of South Africa the expression "black African township" is still invested with fearful overtones. In fact, my conspicuous whiteness aroused no interest whatever while I waited for my hostess Thope Lekau to return from buying beer to accompany our evening meal. Thope runs the Kopanong B and B in Khayalitsha, where it had been suggested I might like to spend a night or two. Kopanong is a new accommodation option for visitors to Cape Town and illustrates the way in which over the past three or four years tourism in the city has integrated the recent experience of its non-white inhabitants into its programmes.

Traditionally, the visitor was pointed towards Table Mountain (now with a new cable car which doesn't give out the ominous creakings of its predecessor), the waterfront, the Malay quarter, the Good Hope Nature Reserve, the Winelands and other familiar attractions - all offering, needless to say, memorable experiences. But now there's another dimension on offer: at its core has to be the now almost mandatory boat-trip to Robben Island where Nelson Mandela spent 18 years (or two thirds) of his captivity. Visitors are driven round the island, larger than Iexpected, with a stop at the quarry where prisoners were put to work. Then there's a tour of the prison building. Mandela's cell is not much larger than my bathroom, and visitors fall silent as they look into it. Guides are themselves ex-prisoners - mine had spent 20 years on the island (not entirely wasted: he got a degree in psychology) - and are intent on delivering Mandiba's message of peace and reconciliation.

Those who've not been to South Africa and talked to people who lived the system can never grasp - no book or film fully communicates the reality - what apartheid was like. It was not just about blacks and coloureds being forbidden to sit on benches reserved for whites or excluded from cricket squads. To understand how it worked you have to go to Cape Town's District Six and the museum named after it. Once a lively mixed-race area, in 1966 it was declared a white neighbourhood and all other residents had their houses bulldozered and were transferred to other locations. The physical and psychological suffering this caused only penetrates when you walk around the museum and read the testimonies of the victims. Survivors have inscribed their names on a huge floor-map of District Six as it once was and their messages reveal a pain that is unhealed after more than three decades. I was accompanied by Alan Petersen, a coloured Capetonian and an outstandingly good guide, who told me how, as with the Jews in the early days of the Holocaust, the non-white inhabitants of District Six and other such areas, couldn't believe that what was threatened would actually be done. They were wrong...

Until a couple of years ago townships were indeed no-go areas for most white Capetonians and visitors. Today there are regular tours of Langa, Guguletu and Khayalitsha, and these inspections by outsiders seem tolerated by the locals with evident good humour. Although there have been notable improvements - large sections of the townships now have running water, sewage disposal and electricity - there is a wide variety of housing, from crumbling shanties with no amenities at all to solid brick and mortar dwellings with all mod-cons like Thope Lekau's. There's much evidence of poverty, of course - unemployment is running at over 50 per cent in these places - and, if you've been in affluent neighbourhoods like Clifton and Camps Bay on the nearby Atlantic littoral, you realise that probably nowhere else in the world are the First and Third worlds so close to each other. But, relative to the past, for many people things have got measurably better. In part, this is due to communal self-help and the townships are being moved forward by grassroots social and economic initiatives.

As for South Africa in general, tourism is seen as a key to economic growth in the townships, and Thope Lekau is one of those driving this development in Khayalitsha. A community worker and former political activist, her personal story is illuminating. One of its high points was when back in the seventies she became the first black to be hired by the Pick'n Pay retail chain - at that time to be allowed to work as a check-in packer was a triumph. Listening to Thope's frank recollections is one of the rewards of staying at Kopanong. But she also looks after her guests well. Within easy walking distance of the sprawling shanty area, I had a comfortable room with my own shower. I ate well and particularly enjoyed Thope's rainbow breakfast of mealie porridge, boerewors sausage and bread and marmalade, reflecting in a single meal the country's main ethnic traditions. I got on well with Thope and any Reporter reader who turns up will be sure of a great welcome.

At Cape Metropolitan Tourism CEO Rick Taylor was delighted that I had enjoyed my stay in a township. "We have to involve the whole community in tourism and to get the message through to toravellers that this new dimension exists." Of course, he was quick to stress that the Cape is a place of diverse attractions. Indeed. Nature and history have made it one of the world's most fascinating urban areas with breathtaking landscapes and a past preserved in buildings dating from Dutch times onwards. And there's lots to do; from whale watching through wine tasting and sailing to flea marketing. But - and the question, as in most cities, is unavoidable: what about personal safety? The European press sometimes carries alarming stories from South Africa - though usually from in and around Johannesburg, a very different place and some 1000 kilometers from the Cape. As Peter Fabricius, who heads up the Western Cape Tourism Board put it to me: "We're aiming to increase our visitor numbers by around 8 per cent a year across the next half-decade and we're also actively targeting the convention market. You can't tell lies to people. Cape Town is a busy and growing city and it naturally has problems. Crime control is a priority, and for the normally prudent traveller it's no more dangerous here than in London or other major European centres. People tell us that over and over again once they've been to the Cape." And after several visits I can confirm that. Why not give it a try?

- For my money, the most agreeable way to get to Cape Town from here, is with BA via Heathrow. If you don't need any time in London - the first flight out's at 07h05 - you can take BA 345 at 15h45, move across to Terminal 3 and pick up BA 59, the overnight flight to Cape Town at 19h25. A meal and a bit of a doze and you're there! You can do the same thing in reverse to return, flying overnight from South Africa, connecting for Nice at Heathrow... and landing at 11h55.

- Largely due to the weak rand, South Africa is a cheap destination for the European visitor, and is certainly full of bargains for those used to French and U.K. prices. And that goes for hotels and restaurants, too. There's been a lot of investment in hotels and Cape Town has some very attractive properties. Here's a selection. All these hotels offer excellent service - otherwise they wouldn't be mentioned.

The Ambassador, Bantry Bay. I'm used to searching for suitable words when a hotel executive escorts me to what is sometimes a very attractive but not especially distinctive room. No problem when Nikki van Putten took me to my room at the Ambassador. The hotel overlooks the Atlantic and waves were crashing on the rocks below - and, with the window open, there was a wonderful sea smell. A great place.

The Victoria and Alfred (V and A) on the waterfront. The waterfront - Cape Town's version of San Francisco's Fishermen's Wharf - is a destination in itself with pubs, restaurants, theatres, craft markets, a vast mall - and atmosphere. The V and A offers a friendly and relaxed welcome and great comfort. I avoid eating in hotels usually but I lunched twice at the V and A's Waterfront Café. Amid more familiar fare, I went for smoked crocodile tail and grilled kingclip, a local fish, and on another day I tried the carpaccio of springbok. Lekker!

The Cape Grace - also on the waterfront. Again, very comfortable, and despite its recent opening (1996) with an air of venerable distinction. Maybe because of its library-cum-bar on the ground floor where you can enjoy your Cape Chardonnay while leafing through books from the fifties and sixties about a long-gone South Africa. Unusually, extending Australia's BYO principle, they'll cook for you anything you've hooked, shot - or simply bought at market.

The Cape Sun Intercontinental. Soaring 32 storeys above the CBD, this is Cape Town's prime business hotel and has a thriving convention traffic. It's well-placed for exploring the city (there's a free shuttle to the waterfront) and there are marvellous views from the higher floors. One of the hotel's two restaurants specialises in Cape Malay cuisine. That's worth trying - as a main course go for the bobotie if it's on and you'll know what I mean.

- During my travels around the world I've had dozens of guides - a handful atrocious (an elderly woman in Prague sticks in my mind), most okay and three or four outstanding - including Alan Petersen, already mentioned. Alan is immensely informed, fair minded and sometimes funny. If you need a guide at the Cape, give him a call. His number's on page 32 with all the others.

© Patrick Middleton 

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