Travel Notes: Cape Town

I lived here for a few months, in an apartment overlooking Clifton 4th beach. Each of Clifton’s four sheltered, boulder-strewn cuticles of sand are affiliated with different tribes: families, locals, dog walkers, the gay crowd etc. 2nd beach attracts an exuberant, fashionable lot and it was there I spent most of my afternoons, reading books but mostly ear wigging on other people’s conversations. (One particular unforgettable example of the democratic nature of Clifton’s beaches: an elderly hippy one afternoon, naked apart from a small drawstring pouch containing his unmentionables, performing sun salutations in obliviousness to the stir he was causing.)

Early morning and evening, the pavement below our apartment was used as a running track, people following the road all the way up from Green Point to Clifton and down to Camp’s Bay, past the surfers and pods of dolphins and seals and sea lions or – as was sometimes the case – the whales making their annual migrations past the city, flipping their enormous tales into the air as if waving hello. Just as in the beach cities of Los Angeles or Rio, Cape Town is a body conscious city. It’s the climate – all that flesh on show - but also something flashy in its character, the gold used as a neutral in most hotels and restaurants, the Botox clinics and advertisements for boob jobs and lunch hour injectables.

Elsewhere, head to De Waterkant, beneath the slopes of Signal Hill, for concept store and restaurant Loading Bay and Origin coffee, and an essential piece of Cape Town history: the Bo-Kaap area, streets of sorbet-coloured cottages that are the former residence of Cape Malay slaves brought to work in Cape Town from Malaysia and Indonesia. In order to understand how far South Africa has progressed (and how far it hasn’t), take some time to visit Robben Island, the prison where Nelson Mandela was incarcerated, and the District 6 Museum that tell the story of apartheid in South Africa. The era of segregation is far from over in a wealthy city like Cape Town and the divide between rich and poor, black and white, is vividly apparent. Taking a tour of Cape Town’s largest township, Khayelitsha, in the company of a resident-turned-tour-guide, proposes another side of the city and makes for a genuinely joyful encounter.

Also joyful is The Watershed at the touristy Waterfront docks. A converted boat shed with a cathedral-high ceiling, it hosts a huge number of stalls selling the best of local design, craft, fashion – including jeweler Pichulik – and homewares. If you only have 24 hours in the city, and are on the hunt for genuinely lovely souvenirs, go there. It’s worth visiting the grand dame of Cape Town hotels, the Belmond Mount Nelson, or the ‘Nelly’, as it’s affectionately known, the blush-pink gem of the city, with expansive gardens, elegant rooms, tea terraces, a buzzy bar, and views onto Table Mountain from a lawn pool worthy of a Slim Aarons photograph. Black birds with sleek seal heads balance on the edge of sun loungers, while the concierge comes poolside in his tails to run through guests’ dinner arrangements.