Day trip in Cape Town, part 2

The post continues from the last post shared.

Let me get some interesting tit-bits not related to the day-trip out-of-the-way first –

I don’t know whether we had full access to see all parts of fuller hall or not. Couple of days I was wondering around Fuller Hall, specifically next to where clothes were pressed. Came to know of the laundry service pretty late but still was useful. Umm… next to where the ladies/gentleman pressed our clothes, there is a stairway which goes down. In fact even on the opposite side there is a stairway which goes down. I dunno if other people explored them or not.

I was surprised and shocked to see bars in each room as well as connecting walkways etc. I felt a bit sad, confused and curious and went on to find more places like that. After a while I came up to the ground-level and enquired with some of the ladies therein. I was shocked to know that UCT some years ago (they were not specific) was a jail for people. I couldn’t imagine that a place which has so much warmth (in people, not climate) could be ‘evil’ in a sense. I was not able to get much information out of them about the nature of jail it was, maybe it is a dark past that nobody wants to open up, dunno. There were also two *important* aspects of UCT which Bernelle either forgot, didn’t share or I just came to know via the Wikipedia page then but nothing else.

1. MeerKAT – Apparently quite a bit of the technology was built-in UCT itself. This would have been interesting for geeks and wanna-be geeks like me 🙂

2. The OpenContent Initiative by UCT – This would have been also something worth exploring.

One more interesting thing which I saw was the French council in Cape Town from outside

I would urge to look at the picture in the gallery as the picture I shared doesn’t really show all the details. For e.g. the typical large french windows which are the hall-mark of French architecture doesn’t show its glory but if you look at 1306×2322 original picture instead of the 202×360 reproduction you will see that.

You will also the insignia of the French Imperial Eagle whose history I came to know only after I looked it up on the Wikipedia page on that day.

It seemed fascinating and probably would have the same pride as the State Emblem of India has for Indians with the four Asiatic Lions standing in a circle protecting each other.

I also like the palm tree and the way the French Council seemed little and yet had character around all the big buildings.

What also was interesting that there wasn’t any scare/fear-build and we could take photos from outside unlike what I had seen and experienced in Doha, Qatar as far as photography near Western Embassies/Councils were concerned.

One of the very eye-opening moments for me was also while I was researching flights from India to South Africa. While perhaps unconsciously I might have known that Middle East is close to India, in reality, it was only during the search I became aware that most places in Middle East by flight are only an hour or two away.

This was shocking as there is virtually no mention of one of our neighbours when they are source of large-scale remittances every year. I mean this should have been in our history and geography books but most do not dwell on the subject. It was only during and after that I could understand Mr. Modi’s interactions and trade policies with the Middle East.

Another interesting bit was seeing a bar in a Sprinbok bus –

While admittedly it is not the best picture of the bar, I was surprised to find a bar at the back of a bus. By bar I mean a machine which can serve anything from juices to alcoholic drinks depending upon what is stocked. What was also interesting in the same bus is that the bus also had a middle entrance-and-exit.

This is something I hadn’t seen in most Indian buses. Some of the Volvo buses have but it is rarely used (only except emergencies) . An exhaustive showcase of local buses can be seen here . I find the hand-drawn/cad depictions of all the buses by Amit Pense near to the T.

This is also something which I have not observed in Indian inter-city buses (axe to break the window in case of accident and breakable glass which doesn’t hurt anyone I presume), whether they are State-Transport or the high-end Volvo’s . Either it’s part of South African Roads Regulations or something that Springbok buses do for their customers. All of these queries about the different facets I wanted to ask the bus-driver and the attendant/controller but in the excitement of seeing, recording new things couldn’t ask 😦

In fact one of the more interesting things I looked at and could look day and night is the variety of vehicles on display in Cape Town. In hindsight, I should have bought a couple of 128 GB MMC cards for my mobile rather than the 64 GB one. It was just plain inadequate to capture all that was new and interesting.

This truck I had seen about some 100 metres near the Auditorium on Upper Campus. The truck’s design, paint was something I had never seen before. It is/was similar to casket trucks seen in movies but the way it was painted and everything made it special.

What was interesting is to see the gamut of different vehicles. For instance, there were no bicycles that I saw in most places. There were mostly Japanese/Italian bikes and all sorts of trucks. If I had known before, I would definitely have bought an SD specifically to take snaps of all the different types of trucks, cars etc. that I saw therein.

The adage/phrase ” I should stop in any one place and the whole world will pass me by ” seemed true on quite a few South African Roads. While the roads were on par or a shade better than India, many of those were wide roads. Seeing those, I was left imagining how the Autobahn in Germany and other high-speed Expressways would look n feel.

India has also been doing that with the Pune-Mumbai Expressway and projects like Yamuna Expressway and now the extension Agra Lucknow Expressway but doing this all over India would take probably a decade or more. We have been doing it since a decade and a half. NHDP and PMGSY are two projects which are still ongoing to better the roads. We have been having issues as to should we have toll or no toll issues but that is a discussion for some other time.

One of the more interesting sights I saw was the high-arched gothic-styled church from outside. This is near Longstreet as well.

I have seen something similar in Goa, Pondicherry but not such high-arches. I did try couple of times to gain entry but one time it was closed, the other time some repairing/construction work was going on or something. I would loved to see it from inside and hopefully they would have had an organ (music) as well. I could imagine to some extent the sort of music that would have come out.

Now that Goa has come in the conversation I can’t help but state that Seafood enthusiasts/lover/aficionado, or/and Pescatarianism would have a ball of a time in Goa. Goa is on the Konkan coast and while I’m eggie, ones who enjoy seafood really have a ball of a time in Goa. Fouthama’s Festival which happens in February is particularly attractive as Goan homes are thrown open for people to come and sample their food, exchange recipes and alike. This happens around 2 weeks before the Goan Carnival and is very much a part of the mish-mashed Konkani-Bengali-Parsi-Portugese culture.

I better stop here about the Goa otherwise I’ll get into reminiscing mode.

To put the story and event back on track from where we left of (no fiction hereon), Nicholas was in constant communication with base, i.e. UCT as well as another group who was hiking from UCT to Table Mountain. We waited for the other group to join us till 13:00 hrs. We came to know that they were lost and were trying to come up and hence would take more time. As Bernelle was with them, who was a local and she had two dogs who knew the hills quite well, it was decided to go ahead without them.

We came down the same cable-car and then ventured on towards Houtbay. Houtbay has it all, a fisherman’s wharf, actual boats with tough-mean looking men with tattoos working on boats puffing cigars/pipes, gaggle of sea-gulls, the whole scene. Sharing a few pictures of the way in-between.

I just now had a quick look at the restaurant and it seems they had options for veggies too. Unfortunately, the rating leaves a bit to be desired but then dunno as Indian flavoring is something that takes time to get used too. Zomato doesn’t give any idea of from when a restaurant is in business and has too few reviews so not easy to know how the experience would have been.

Notice the pattern, the pattern of small houses I saw all the way till Houtbay and back. I do vaguely remember starting a discussion about it on the bus but don’t really remember. I have seen (on TV) cities like Miami, Dubai or/and Hong Kong who have big buildings on the beach but both in Konkan as well as Houtbay there were small buildings. I guess a combination of zoning regulations, feel of community, fear of being flooded all play into beaches being the way they are.

Also, this probably is good as less stress on the environment.

The above picture is taken from Wikipedia from the article Miami Beach, Florida for comparison.

The Audi – rare car to be seen in India. This car has been associated with Ravi Shastri when he won it in 1985. I was young but still get goosebumps remembering those days.

First glance of Houtbay beach and pier. Notice how clean and white the beach is.

You can see the wharf grill restaurant in the distance (side-view), see the back of the hop on and hop off bus (a concept which was unknown to me till then). Once I came back and explored on the web came to know this concept is prevalent in many a touristy places around the world. Umm… also By sheer happenchance also captured a beautiful looking Indian female 😉 .

In Hindi, we would call this picture ‘virodabhas’ or ‘contradiction’. this is in afternoon, around 1430 hrs. You have the sun, the clouds, the Mountains, the x number of boats, the pier, the houses, the cars, the shops. It was all crazy and beautiful at the same time.

The Biggest Contradiction is seeing the Mountain, the beach and the Sea in the same Picture. Baffled the mind. Konkan though is a bit similar there as well. You have all the three things in some places but that’s a different experience altogether as ours is a more tropical weather although is one of the most romantic places in the rains.

We were supposed to go on a short cruise to seal/dolphin island but as we were late (as had been waiting for the other group) didn’t go and instead just loitered there.

IIRC the lookout bar is situated just next to Houtbay Search and Rescue. Although was curious if the Lookout tower was used in case of disappearance. lost people, boats etc.

Seal jumping over water, what a miracle !

It looked like the boat we could have been on. I clicked as I especially liked the name Calypso and Calypso . I shared the two links as the mythologies, interpretation differ a bit between Greek and Hollywood culture 🙂

Can see few Debian folks in the foreground, next to the Pole and the area around. Also can see a bit of the area around.

I don’t know anything about water sports and after sometime he came out. I was left wondering though, how safe he was in that water. While he was close to the pier and he was just paddling, there weren’t big waves still felt a bit of concern.

While the act was not to the level we see in the movies, still for the time I hung around, I saw him showing attitude for his younger audiences, eating out of their hands, making funny sounds. Btw he farted a few times, whether that was a put-on or not can’t really say but produced a few guffaws from his audience.

I dunno why the birds came down for. Mr. Seal was being fed oily small fish parts, dunno if the oil was secreted by the fish themselves or whatever, it just looked oily from distance.

There wasn’t much activity on the time we went. It probably would have been different on sunrise and would be on sunset. The only activity I saw was on this boat where they were busy fixing and disentangling the lines. I came up with 5-15 different ideas for a story but rejected them as –

a. Probably all of them have been tried. People have been fishing since the beginning of time and modern fishing probably 200 odd years or so. I have read accounts of fishing companies in early 1800s onwards, so probably all must have been tried.

b. More dangerous one, if there is a unique idea, then it becomes more dangerous as writing is an all-consuming process. Writing a blog post (bad or good) takes lots of time. I constantly read, re-read, try and improvise till I can or my patience loses out. In book you simply can’t have such luxuries.

No parking/tow zone in/near the Houtbay search and rescue. Probably to take out emergency vehicles once something untoward happens.

Saved 54 lives, boats towed 154 – Salut! Houtbay sea rescue.

The only small criticism is for Houtbay – there wasn’t a single public toilet. We had to ask favor at kraal kraft to use their toilets and there could have been accidents, it wasn’t lighted well and water was spilled around.

For us, because we were late we missed both the boat-cruise as well as some street shops selling trinkets. Other than that it was all well. We should have stayed till sunset, I am sure the view would have been breath-taking but we hadn’t booked the bus till evening.

Overall it was an interesting day as we had explored part of Table Mountain, seen the somewhat outrageously priced trinkets there as well as explored Houtbay sea-side as well.