Into the wilds of Cape Town

Turned an exercise of collecting a new camera into an expedition out onto the other side of Cape Town yesterday as well as to save R76 in delivery charges. Took a taxi into town and then a bus out through the poorer and industrial suburbs of Salt River, Maitland and Milnerton to reach Century City adjacent to the N1 highway leading north. This complex of grand business park, one of the poshest shopping malls in Africa and extensive residential development, much of it highrise, is relatively new as it wasn't here last century. The shopping mall is another one of those places that if you woke up from a deep sleep here, you would never guess you were in Africa.

You must have plenty of time to use the buses here as service frequency is low...some times only running once per hour but strangely there was no direct taxi service.


Prior to Christmas, I met a university student from Jo'berg whose parents worked for one of the partners in the development of Century City. Obviously a very wealthy man. Mickey's father did some sort of security/driver job and his mother was a housekeeper for the man's daughter and her young family. The developer and his family flew down to Cape Town for Christmas/New Year and Mickey's family drove the merc down for use here. He put them up in a comfortable hotel in Green Point though they did have childcare responsibilities as I know Mickey was taking the kids to the aquarium one day. I asked him about safety in Jo'berg and he said as they live "on the job" in the best part of town, it wasn't really a problem but did say that on his very first day going to university, he was held up by a kid with a gun and given the ultimatum....your cellphone or your life. Mickey did what he now admits was stupid and took off and didn't stop running until he got into a taxi. He now uses a didn't route to get to varsity.