Cape Town’s New Vibrance

CAPE TOWN, South Africa —  A plump fur seal pup sat on the pier near the water taxi stop. Walking by in a flowery African head scarf, a woman ate kabobs skewered on a broken coat hanger. At an outdoor bar, a blond woman in an orchid prom dress poured sparkling wine into tulip-shaped glasses. Two policemen trotted by on beautifully groomed horses. Five blue-black men so tall and lean they appeared to be on stilts hovered over a dreadlocked busker playing a didgeridoo.

It was getting dark in Cape Town, and I was at the teeming and vibrant Victoria & Alfred Waterfront, along with thousands of others who were celebrating life, prosperity and their fifth year of freedom. These are South Africa’s own days of Washington and Jefferson, days when the Founding Fathers appear live on television. Both President Nelson Mandela and Archbishop Desmond Tutu live here in Cape Town, where it is the best of times for tourism. In the last two years, foreign arrivals have shot up 24%. A March 1999 Travel and Leisure poll rated Cape Town as one of the five top travel value destinations in the world.

And I can’t disagree. In March I went to Cape Town, a southwestern seacoast city of about 800,000. It was a joy to visit, in no small part because it was such a bargain since the South African rand has lost about 20% of its value against the dollar in the past year. Cape Town has it all: mountains, beaches, clean air, great shopping, wonderful food and drink and friendly locals who are thrilled to have visitors after nearly 50 years as residents of a pariah nation.

South Africa’s No. 1 tourist destination is the Victoria & Alfred Waterfront, dedicated by Britain’s Prince Alfred in honor of his mother, Queen Victoria, in 1860 and now the world’s largest harbor-place project. Cape Town planners decided in 1988 to convert their dreary docks into a refuge for locals and a magnet for visitors. They built seven hotels, 40 restaurants, 300 shops, an aquarium, an IMAX theater and three museums.

On my first night in Cape Town I was at the waterfront at dinner time. Should I eat Chinese, Portuguese, Greek, Italian, Mexican, Californian or seafood? Do I drink the $8-a-bottle sauvignon blanc or the $10-a-bottle cabernet? I stopped at Aldo’s, a sidewalk cafe on the bustling Victoria Wharf. “You’ll like our wine list, sir,” the maitre d’ told me, and he escorted me to a prime table out in front under a red-and-white umbrella, overlooking the passing parade and the yachts in the harbor. A sommelier dropped by and said, “Nice view, pretty women, very cool.”

I ordered a Dewetshof Chardonnay d’Honneur, the most expensive South African white wine on the list, for $10.25 a bottle. It tasted of fruit and vanilla, as the long wine list promised, and a bit of almonds too. Two waiters treated me like a high roller, asking if I was happy with my wine. It was a Tuesday night, and every table was taken. My waiter recommended the kingklip, a flaky local fish, at $7 for a complete dinner. “It’s enough for two,” he said, and sure enough, I spotted a young couple speaking Afrikaans splitting a fish dinner. My kingklip was superb; it looks like halibut, tastes like salmon and was served with a lemon remoulade.

When I finished eating it was 9:30 p.m., and the free concert in the nearby plaza was going strong. A seven-man band of Cape coloreds, the local term for people of mixed race, was playing, and the crowd was clapping and dancing. Band members played saxophone, accordion, trumpet, drums and what looked like a variety of gourd. Much later I followed them to their beat-up white camper van, but first I was stopped by security.

Oh yes, security. The security at the waterfront defied belief. I was stopped three times during my five-day stay. First, a guard near the Quay Four Tavern asked me, “Sir, are you aware of our no-firearms policy?” The second time, a policewoman in the same spot asked, “Sir, is that a gun in your pocket?” (No, it was my micro-cassette recorder.) On the third occasion, after I passed through the metal detector at Planet Hollywood, a young woman ran a wand over me and then patted me down with vigor.

Part of the heavy security is due to recent terrorist incidents. A bomb that went off on New Year’s Day 1999, in the parking lot behind the Victoria Wharf Shopping Centre on the waterfront, injured two people. And last August a bombing at Planet Hollywood killed a South African man. A local Muslim extremist group is suspected in both bombings. No charges have been filed, but security, already prodigious, has been beefed up.

The U.S. State Department recommends “extreme caution” when visiting the “townships near Cape Town,” but not Cape Town itself. Lonely Planet’s “Cape Town” guidebook says these townships, ugly inland slums with no tourist attractions, “have an appalling crime rate,” but “the rest of Cape Town is reasonably safe.” And Weissman Travel Reports, a travel agents’ tip sheet, says, “The Waterfront is both pleasant and safe, day or night.” And that’s how I found it too.

I ended my evening at the Victoria & Alfred Hotel, a warm, clubby 68-room inn where my huge, luxurious room cost $127 a day with breakfast. And quite a stunning breakfast at that, with sparkling wine, smoked salmon, an omelet bar and table after table of fruits, meats, fish, cheeses and pastries. The hotel, a coal warehouse that was refurbished as a hotel in 1990, was the first one built at the waterfront. From my bedroom, I had a view of the harbor and the two mountains that dominate the Cape Town skyline, Devil’s Peak and Table Mountain.

The hotel prides itself on repeat business. Shortly after I arrived, the manager sent me a bottle of sparkling wine. And every day another gift arrived (the staff didn’t know I was a journalist): biscuits and cheeses, a bowl of fruit, a bottle of red wine, a cap with the hotel’s logo, all with a handwritten note.

On my second day I walked to the Victoria Wharf Shopping Centre. An indoor, air-conditioned mall, it was thriving when I stopped by. Four tour buses were unloading passengers, mostly American. Inside the mall, the 230 shops and take-out food spots were packed. I heard French, Spanish, Italian and German and at least four of South Africa’s 11 official languages. An army of sweepers kept the mall squeaky clean. I found shops selling glow-worm pencils for $1.25, Zulu baskets for $8, blown-glass vases from Swaziland for $3, enormous handmade drums and spears for less than $100, grotesque wooden masks for $8, and a kite the size of a condor for $80. Tacky souvenirs were in surprisingly short supply. At dozens of stalls, elegant and tasteful sweaters, wall hangings, tablecloths and figurines were for sale at prices that just knocked me out.

Entertainment, too, was a bargain at the waterfront. At Cantina Tequila, for a $2 margarita, I got to watch a four-piece band play rock classics with a beat so infectious that no one could stand still. The dance floor was jammed. Another night, I followed the limos, the tuxes and the scent of Giorgio to the Green Dolphin, where an evening of top-notch jazz cost me $1.50, the price of a glass of wine.

From the waterfront, it was easy to see the rest of Cape Town’s attractions. Starting right next door to the Victoria & Alfred Hotel, Topless Tours took me on a cheery, two-hour romp through the city’s high points for $5.75. I was free to get off at any stop and re-board later during the day for no extra charge. Our guide gave us a witty, well-informed capsule history of the city. We drove along Cape Town’s dazzling corniche, its long Atlantic Coast drive with beautiful beaches on one side and the Twelve Apostles mountain range on the other.

I also used the Waterfront Shuttle, a group taxi service, and with three other people I paid $1.50 for the 12-minute ride to the entrance to the Table Mountain Cableway. Once I was on top of Table Mountain, 3,566 feet above sea level, I found gardens, hiking trails and great views of the city.

One of my most memorable events was a ferry trip to Robben Island, where then-rebel leader Mandela was locked up for 18 years after his 1964 conviction for treason. (Mandela also spent time in other prisons.) The island trips cost $16 and last for 3 1/2 hours. I boarded the boat early to get an outdoor seat. The weather was glorious, the view of Table Bay and the Cape Town skyline was stunning and the bar was open, but this was a high-minded crowd, about 60 of us. Half a dozen were leafing through Mandela’s autobiography, “Long Walk to Freedom,” and the Malay woman beside me said she was going to pray at the Muslim shrine on Robben Island after the formal tour was over.

After 25 minutes, we disembarked on Robben Island, a nature preserve today. Long before we got to the prison barracks, our two buses passed springboks, jackass penguins, ostriches and a red-beaked oystercatcher. A former prisoner named Eugene led us on a walk through the prison. The highlight of the tour was a visit to Cell No. 5, where Mandela spent his prison years and where he began to write his autobiography. “I could walk the length of my cell in three paces,” he wrote. “When I lay down, I could find the wall with my feet, and my head grazed the concrete at the other side.”

At Robben Island, Mandela spent his days hacking stone blocks out of a quarry. Just how dramatically life had changed was made vivid to me when the ferry returned to the waterfront, and I walked over to the gleaming, sun-yellow Table Bay Hotel. A plaque in front proclaimed, “Opened May 30, 1997, by President Nelson R. Mandela.”

When I opened my drapes one morning, sunlight bathed my room, and I decided to go to the beach. I had done some scouting the previous day when I hired a car and driver to take me down the 25-mile Cape Riviera to the lighthouse at the Cape of Good Hope. I decided on the beach at Camp’s Bay because it was only 15 minutes south of Cape Town’s waterfront and had a wide choice of restaurants. With the crashing surf and a sea of colorful beach umbrellas in between, Camps Bay was an idyllic place to peel off my shirt and sit on a sun-sprayed bench to people-watch. I saw volleyball players, big bodybuilders walking small dogs and seniors in floppy hats nibbling on biltong, the dried strips of ostrich or impala that South Africans so oddly find addictive.

Later, I crossed the beach road to Blues, a restaurant specializing in California cuisine. I walked up a flight of stairs to a sprawling glass and brass room with a view of palms, sand, sea and mountains.

I ordered a poached salmon in Pommery mustard sauce on a bed of arugula and tagliatelle. It came with three kinds of rolls, and pea pods, carrots, zucchini and cauliflower arranged like fine art. I ordered one glass of Dewetshof Chardonnay, and then a second. This was a super meal in a room with very attentive service, and it cost me $14.

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GUIDEBOOK

Reborn Cape

Getting there: Flights from L.A. to Cape Town require a plane change. British Airways (through London), KLM (Amsterdam), Lufthansa (Frankfurt) and American (Miami), with a connection on South African Airways, fly to Cape Town. Flying time is about 18 hours. Round-trip fares start at $1,729.

Where to stay: Victoria & Alfred Hotel, Victoria & Alfred Waterfront, Cape Town; telephone 011-27-21-419-6677, fax 011-27-21-419-8955; Internet https://www.ambassador.co.za. Doubles $195. Table Bay Hotel, Victoria & Alfred Waterfront; tel. 011-27-21-406-5000; Internet https://www.suninternational .com. Doubles $245.

Where to eat: Eateries at Cape Town’s Victoria & Alfred Waterfront are worth a stop: Aldo’s, local tel. 421-7846. Dinner for two, $24. Cantina Tequila, tel. 419-8313. Dinner for two, $18. Tasca Portuguese Restaurant, tel. 419-3009. Dinner for two, $24.

For more information: Waterfront Visitor Centre; tel. 011- 27-21-418-2369, Internet https:// www.waterfront.co.za.