Cape Town - Carnival & Table Mountain

Saturday 02.01.2016

Behind our house, on the next street, there are colorful houses. It's the Malay Quarter. Small cafes, restaurants, boutiques, and colorful houses. We have a delicious breakfast, sit outside, and enjoy food & drink from lovingly assembled porcelain at a small and fine café.

We walk to Rose Street and now we are in Bo-Kaap, the Muslim quarter of Cape Town. One of the oldest parts of the city and famous for its brightly colored houses. The most famous ones are listed as national monuments, while just one street away, homeless people camp under plastic sheets and cardboard in gaps between buildings. Next to it is one of the oldest mosques in the city.

Rose Street is already closed to traffic with barriers, as the Minstrel Carnival starts at 12:00. The parade will end here tonight, probably around midnight.

The typical dress code seems to be yellow-red and a white-painted face.

We walk through Bo-Kaap and take pictures of the colorful houses, often hindered by the barriers. Hundreds of people are behind the barriers, lying on blankets or beach chairs, waiting in the shade under set up tents or umbrellas for the spectacle to begin.

St. George's Cathedral (the day after)

We pass by the now barely recognizable St. George's Cathedral where Desmond Tutu used to preach, walk along the classical Iziko Slave Lodge, and see next to it the Parliament House, which is located in a beautiful palm garden.

Parliament House

By now, crowds of people are walking along the narrow sidewalks behind the barriers, while there is still no sign of the carnival on the street. So we squeeze through until we reach Greenmarket Square, walk across St. George's Mall, but find nothing to buy.

The vendors are somewhat annoying, you can't look at their stalls without them immediately standing next to you and holding up everything they want you to buy. It's now 1:00 pm - the carnival should have started an hour ago - but nothing is happening. We look around on Adderly Street, where the procession is supposed to pass by, but nobody has seen anything yet. So now people have been waiting behind the barriers since about 9:00 in the morning. We consider getting camping chairs, which we need anyway, but they are sold out everywhere and ultimately there is no place to sit on the street.

So we look for a place to have coffee, find smoothies, and after an hour, we go check how far the carnival has progressed. A woman standing on the crowded sidewalk tells us that no group has passed by yet. It's after 3:00 pm! We walk to Long Street and then towards home.

We take a break in the apartment and then hail a taxi on the street and ask to be taken to the lower station of Table Mountain.

We checked on the internet if the waiting times are long, but there are none. That's surprising considering the holiday weekend, but it's true. We get tickets, wait briefly to get into the cable car, and then we go up.

Cable car guests...

It's funny that the floor of the cable car rotates so that no matter where you stand, you get a view in all directions until you reach the top.

The lighting is beautiful and we take photos from up here. It's already after 5:00 pm and we have a fantastic view of the Cape Peninsula to the south. Locals sit on the cliff edges and have picnics. We regret not bringing one of our bottles because Hilary and Jen have put a bottle of white wine and champagne in the fridge for us! Very nice! The wind is quite fresh and I'm grateful for my fleece jacket.

Cape Peninsula - towards the south

On the other side, you have a great panorama of Cape Town, Lions Head, Signal Hill, Robben Island, and the soccer stadium.

View towards southeast

Lions Head

Once back down, we have a hassle with the taxi drivers. Because we are not willing to pay four times the price of the drive there and the drivers tell us stories about the carnival (which probably still hasn't started), the "Chinese whisper" goes from taxi to taxi and nobody drives us. So we stand on the side of the road with our thumbs up, and G. finds a nice couple who give us a ride. The two are clearly well-off middle class and equipped with an iPad and iPhone. When they ask us why we came to South Africa and I say I want to see lions and giraffes, the woman is very surprised, "you do not have lions in Germany?" It's hard to imagine! :-D

Together we reach V&A Waterfront quite relaxed and then the search for a parking space begins. Even the parking garages are packed and at some point, we say goodbye to the couple and walk outside on foot. G. picks up the elephant she had her eyes on from a store. We catch a taxi and ask to be dropped off at Dixon Street at Villa Mia and have a burger and a nightcap. It's already 10:00 pm - what a full day! Since the smoothie at lunchtime, we haven't eaten anything. From our terrace, we see a fire on Lions Head. That's not where you want to be right now.