I was reading this article the other day – Cape Town, you can keep your mountain by Anne Stevens – and it left me feeling slightly befuddled.
In it, our author rants and raves about how much Cape Town sucks. An opinion she is allowed to have of course, but I did feel the way it was presented was slightly unfair so I’m going to go through it bit by bit and clear some things up.
“Oh, but we’ve got The Mountain,” a Capetonian remarked recently when mildly reminded that Durban has good beaches and warmer water. That’s part of the trouble. The bloody mountain is whichever way you turn, making a crow’s flight trip from Rondebosch to Hout Bay resemble the Great Trek.
Personally, I never feel the mountain is anything special other than a big rock. But then, I say the same thing about Ayers Rock and the Grand Canyon. People like unusual natural features, it’s not like we put it there just because we thought it’d be a nice little inconvenience.
Rush “hour” is actually a five-hour daily ordeal, morning and evening. Traffic grinds to a halt, lanes magically disappear. Bowl along in what in any other place would be the fast lane and you come around the corner to discover a 2km bumper-to-bumper line of vehicles waiting to get to an offramp.
This is blatantly unfair. In all my years of living in Cape Town, I have never seen lanes magically disappear. God only knows where Anne was driving when this happened. Also, it takes me half the time to get anywhere in rush hour traffic here than it does in Jo’burg. We’re by no means the worst in the world and any city has it’s fair share of problems. Try rush hour in L.A. – you’d better have your whole day put aside for that fun. How about Italy? A 3 lane highway becomes 6 lanes and you’d better give way for trucks or else you’re going to be squashed.
Then there’s the weather. Cold is one thing, rain is another. Cold and rain together, punctuated by howling gales, make for a hellish winter.
This is generally what a winter consists of. Cold and rain. I’m not entirely sure what Anne expects from us on this one.
But the rest of the arguments were specious and they shot themselves in the foot when they admitted that at the restaurants they frequented a glass of wine usually cost at least R50.
Ah yes, the restaurants…
I would venture that, by and large, they are not only characterised by indifferent service, but overpriced and over-hyped grub. Getting an honest meal for your rand is difficult.
Really? We manage to find quite a few places when we want to enjoy a damn good meal at very reasonable prices. I can only assume that perhaps these people didn’t do any digging and ended up at the usual talked about restaurants – which always end up being overpriced with some crappy food in any city in the world.
Which also affects the price of accommodation, permanent or otherwise. If you have a view of the mountain or the sea, you have to have lots of lolly.
Blatant lie. I have a view of the mountain and the sea and we REALLY do not have lots of ‘lolly’.
Move away from the upper-class areas with their beautiful old trees and commanding outlook, and you get some fairly dreary, dingy suburbs.
Same thing I see everywhere in the country. Cape Town is definitely not alone on this one.
There is one point I will agree on to a certain degree though:
All that aside, after the road system it’s the people who get up my nose the most: the Sloane Ranger wannabes in their pearls marching through Woolworths; the designer mothers drinking decaf at the Vineyard Hotel; the precious poseurs and their music classes; the ageing hippies at Kalk Bay.
Yes, I don’t like the image people either. But…I’m confused. See, last time I was in JHB, I came across plenty. And Durbs? Well, one trip to the Pavilion was enough to put me off for life. So really, we aren’t alone on this one either. That’s all I’ll say about Durbs though because I actually love the place and the people. Except for Anne at this point though because she’s being a little rude.
Anne is entitled to her opinion though. Unfortunately, it’s an opinion that seems to be borne out of a bit of ignorance, which is troubling. It’s troubling because this was published as an ‘article’ on IOL’s travel site. This is a site that can be viewed by anyone in the world, and this is what these people are going to see. An ignorant, error filled blog type rant disguised as a well written article by which they are going to judge one of our cities.
I’m not getting soppy about my own city. Honestly, I’ll be the first to ruin people’s rose tinted view of the city because it is NOT the most fantastic place on Earth. To attack it just a few short months before 2010 with no real facts? That’s just plain silly. All I ask for is some proper journalism in this country or at least to mark ‘articles’ like this one as an opinion piece or column.
While we’re on the subject though…
What is it that people in Jo’burg have against us? I’ve been hearing more lately on this whole subject of how it takes so long to get anything done in Cape Town and how an email takes two weeks to be answered. Quite frankly, I don’t know where this impression comes from. Everyone I know is constantly on the ball and trying to get things done – most of them don’t even bother taking lunch. And if you hate us so much, why do you keep coming here for your holidays?
And does anyone else think that these little ‘turf wars’ are just plain silly? Who really cares what city you’re from? Isn’t the focus these days on being proudly South African and all of that?
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Turf wars are a waste of time. After all, we know that everyone living outside the Republic of the Western Cape are only doing so because we don’t allow them in!
Craig´s last blog ..Commonwealth Karate Championships 2009
That article is a rehash of Hagen Englers infamous “10 reasons why Cape Town can f*** off” from 1998.
http://www.hagenshouse.co.za/story4.htm (caution lots of naughty words)
Craig – Tsk. Maybe we should have a real turf war discussion about life behind the boerewors curtain?
Darkwing – So a rehash of a piece that is 11 years old and then still fails to enter the spirit of the original piece which is actually funny? Losing respect for Anne here. Gotta say.
Thanks for that, was rather enjoyable
I think a little bit of turf war is healthy and keeps people on their toes. I often encountered the “oh Capetonians are soooo slow and laid back and sooooo stuck up” attitude and sometimes it is true but obviously most of the time it is not. But when turf wars get silly and petty then you gotta realise… there are other whole countries out there to gang up against
Po´s last blog ..Somewhere inbetween.
Don’t know much about Durbanites, although I do like them. They’re friendly and down to earth, not at all smug and self-satisfied. Johannesburgers are generally fast at getting things done. Capetonians are generally slower at getting things done. Those simply are the facts. There are exceptions, although one I do not like is on the roads, where they’re VERY fast and usually up your arse while talking on a cell phone, but never any traffic police to catch these moving violators. And why is it that no-one in CT knows that a faulty traffic light becomes a 4 way stop? You DO NOT all move into the middle of the intersection and block everyone from getting anywhere. Surely that’s common sense? Apparently not. And nothing is ever in stock here. Two very current examples: I tried to buy a Leica camera yesterday from a Leica stockist nogal. Not a fancy model, just a small, digital camera that I wanted that day as a birthday gift for a friend. It had to come from Jhb. Two days they said. Today I wanted a very common spare part for my wife’s 328i BMW. The part has to come from Jhb. Why is this? Its because no-one here ever complains. No-one is really that bothered. More’s nog ‘n dag. Its not a business town; its a tourist town and if its unfriendly, so what, so is Paris and Paris doesn’t suffer (now there’s a really and truly beautiful city that’s confident and not smug.) CT restaurants: plenty of value places. I think Anne Stevens was talking about the “top ten” that regularly vote each other onto the top ten lists. I’ve eaten at just about all of them. They’re mostly over-hyped, the food is over prepared, and they’re all over-priced for South Africa. Apart from some exceptions, the service is NOT good. But what absolutely gets my little goat is the slyness here. A waiter at a Green Point restaurant trying to induce my foreign clients into buying a bottle of SA wine at R1,000 until I told him to eff off in Afrikaans. He thought I was also a foreigner. Their sister establishment in the Waterfront NEVER has in stock the reasonably priced wine on its wine list, but they always have, and highly recommend, a hugely more expensive alternative, and when you have foreign clients, its a bit embarrassing to refuse it. A colleague of mine on the London Times once said “there’s nothing particularly special about any Cape Town restaurant.” I have to agree. The good ones are good but they’re no more special than a good restaurant anywhere else in the world. What does set them apart, is that tourists who could not ordinarily afford such quality in Europe, can afford it here. Unfortunately that is the level of tourist attracted to CT. Its still not a destination for high flying socialites – unless they’re flying from a tax man! – and then they just invent a title and gullible Capetonians are all a-fawning. But anyway, it is a pretty little town, as long as you exclude the Cape Flats, Mitchells Plein, the tin shack airport “suburbs”, Delft, Woodstock, Salt River …
Well then I must be permanently wearing rose tinted glasses… no matter where I am!
And I want to retire to the Cape one day.
I think Anne was PMSing.
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I wouldn’t swap Cape Town for anywhere in the world! And I’ve travelled a bit. OK, maybe Vancouver.
We have the same in Aus: Melbourne vs Sydney. Melbourne is more cultural and very sporty. Sydney has the beaches and the socialites.
The grass is always greener on the other side!
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Po – You’ve gotta be laid back to enjoy the view bru
Lake shoo – That was quite a rant man. Well done! I hear all of your points there and I can understand a lot of them but I’ll still disagree with a few. Like the service at restaurants. More often than not I’ve received great service. There are very very few places where I’ve had a problem. Apparently I’m going everywhere other people aren’t.
And Woodstock has it’s charms
Angel – I’ll start looking for the perfect retirement cottage for you!
Del – So where does Brisbane fall in the equation? And Perth? I’m actually a bit bleak that I’ve never gotten to Melbourne.
Although, I have heard similar remarks about it. I’ve been told the service and the people are absolutely abysmal there, which I didn’t understand considering what a great time we had elsewhere in the country.
I would never move to Cape Town.
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Orly? That’s fascinating.
I just don’t understand the weird tribes that you have living down there – those ones that worship that big basalt slab with the little up and down train-on-a-rope. (I grew up in Cape Town and now live in Johannesburg. I’m still not right. Recovery is a long painful process.)
Yeah, I don’t understand those ones either.
Or the tribe that worships those long stretches of grains of crap that get stuck everywhere.