Sounds and Feel of Cape Town II

A few other things to add that are a part of my experiences in Cape Town that I thought about after publishing the first one.

There is the taste of the ocean. Most every day for about three weeks I’ve had that briny taste of the False Bay as I’ve gone surfing. It leaves a slight taste on your lips, and occasionally a big taste as you swallow a mouth full or get the sea blasted up your nose from a wave. The smell of the salt water also hangs in the air like a blanket over Muisenberg and follows you around too as the water dries it leaves behind a salty residue and gets into your hair and on your skin until you take a shower.

Muizenberg beach

Emissions control in South Africa seems to amount to turning your car off when you arrive at the convenience store. In other words I don’t think they have any and there is a light haze of smog that tends to hang over the area. Traffic is not really any worse than what you would see in Chicago but the smell of exhaust hangs in the air, especially during the rush hours. I have not noticed a single hybrid on the road since I have been here.

The other thing I have not seen a single one of while I have been here is an automatic car. Everything I have seen has been a manual transmission, which I find a bit interesting. They have to be readily available here if people wanted them but I have to assume that the average South African has little interest in driving one. I drive a manual myself and have for years, but in the U.S. I have to search for one, just the opposite in South Africa, you would have to search for automatic.

Something I will not miss is the sidewalks and stairs in South Africa are not even, at least where I have been. With my years of engineering training (translated into zero) I could easily pick up a job building stair cases on the Metro line. Stairs are totally off and as I take the train one step is often not the same as the next. After 3-1/2 weeks I still trip up on the stairs at the station as they are not where I expect them to be. Some are 6” apart, some 4” and everywhere in between. They are also not always flat but sometimes have a few degrees pitch to them. There are times that I must have looked drunk trying to climb up and down the stairs.

Homes and businesses here are built like minimum security prisons. By that I mean that every house has a tall fence around it and these fences are often topped with spikes, like a wrought iron fence; strung with either barbed wire or razor wire; or running an electrical fence line to keep people out. It does not matter if you are living in a mansion or in a corrugated steel sheet structure in one of the townships, everybody has them. I have not witnessed much in the way of crime while in Cape Town, one purse snatch on the train, but it is absolutely on the mind of the average South African. Home security systems that dial up private armed guards are also quite popular and the signs warning trespassers is quite common.

House keys are a trip here. They are the big old fashion kind that probably have not been used in the U.S. since the 40’s or 50’s. They have what I would call normal keys but they consider these for locks and such and not for doors. I actually bought one as a souvenir at a locksmith shop and they guy thought I was a bit crazy when he asked me which key and I told him I did not care. He found it strange that we use the small keys.

My house keys vs. a South African house key

Sauce, South African’s love it and everything comes with it. You order a burger or some sandwiches and invariably it will be drowning in some type of sauce. And the sauce is typically something I have not every seen before. Peri Peri sauce is popular but I am not really sure what exactly it is. It looks like 1,000 Island Dressing and sometimes is not all that far off in taste too. There is also a spicy Peri Peri sauce but if you don’t like those then they also have a light colored sauce too. What they don’t seem to have much of is Ketchup or Mustard or BBQ sauce.

They also love their flavors here too. If you want to get potato chips I hope you like Mexican Chipoltle, Sour Cream, Cheese, Braai, and a bunch more flavors that I have never seen before. Some brands don’t even carry plain old salted potato chips, Lays was the only one I could find.