Crocodile tastes kinda like pork

We arrived in Cape Town yesterday after a long overnight flight to Johannesburg followed by a 2 hour flight here. Quite bagged, of course, and we do wonder if we can do a trip requiring this level of exertion in the future. Anyhow, best not to make any decisions when so tired!

The hotel is quite small (9 rooms) and run by 70 year old Ursula and her son Michel; both very warm and welcoming people. After a short walk, we had a nice chat - probably an hour and a half - with Ursula as she described her life in South Africa (she was 5 years old when family moved here) as well as giving us tips on what to do and how to be safe. Crime is a huge issue here and it’s been made worse by the more or less open border that S.A. has had with other African countries. Many homeless economic migrants from Nigeria, Ethiopia, etc. They all have to eat, of course, so robberies, mugging and much worse is the result. Very high murder rate here and can often involve children and infants. Interestingly, she said police were almost useless so one sees many private security guards all over the place. There’s one right outside the hotel that the neighbourhood has hired.

Unemployment and especially youth unemployment can approach 50%. Life expectancy is quite short - 62 years or so for men - as a result of AIDS and related conditions, tuberculosis,etc.

As terrible as the Apartheid regime was, she said at least they kept the lights on as rotating power outages are the norm. There’s one scheduled in about 20 minutes’ time. So, S.A. is a huge work in progress. Nevertheless, it was clear she loves the country and is hoping she will live out her days here. She will move to Europe if it gets worse.

We went to Marcos African Place for dinner which is one block from the hotel. Very lively with African band (3 xylophones, drums and singers) and very good food. I had their African platter featuring eland, springbok and crocodile. The latter tasted a bit like pork! Also, it looked like potato but not certain what it was as the server had, to my ear, very thick accent. Getting home to the hotel? Not so easy as Nancy described in her post. Ursula as well as restaurant staff said do not walk home on your own (one block!). And they were right as Nancy tells you.

Ursula offered the opinion that we’re quite spoiled in Canada and I have to agree with her. When I think about it, there are only a handful of countries that offer a good and safe situation; where most things work (e.g. democracy, the rule of law) and corruption is not a big problem. It’s my dumb luck that Canada is one of them.