Whatshot
Through My Eyes
Through My Eyes
Date: 2019-06-21
It's usually after my frequent visits to Cape Town, the Mother City, that I become so reflective. Time to sit back and allow a place to tell its story. The story of Cape Town is a comedy and tragedy kind of scenario, on one hand you have the organic grocers and the yoga studios and on the other, the hundreds of homeless, sleeping in plastic bags trying to prevent death by exposure.
There are the wine farms, the cool cafés and the outdoor venues and the Mercedes-Benz station wagons driven by gentleman wearing tweed jackets paired with a Panama hat. In Cape Town you will find some of the coolest people in the world, some of the most privileged and some of the most impoverished.
A visit to Cape Town always provides for interesting observation; Noordhoek beach, cloaked in its hazy splendour and its dramatic Atlantic vengeance, has nothing on our soothing Dolphin Coast majesty.
Their star graded eateries are grand, yes indeed, but who wants to pay R400 for a bottle of Pongracz Brut and R180 for a vegetarian pizza, I'm happy paying for quality but I also dislike being ripped off.
Over the years I have found Capetonians cultured and reserved, I like that about them, you don't just fit in just because you think you should fit in, you will fit in only if you can "out cool" them, its has been an interesting challenge for my husband and I, we sometimes find ourselves overplaying the "game", with hilarious results. But hey, we at least try, not like some people who write Capetonians off just because of their pretentiousness.
We have some really cool friends in the Mother City, they are from a different country to ours and that's what makes them so fabulous. With lots of flair and an abundance of splendour, Capetonians are exactly whom I want to be when I grow up.
And as I cast an envious eye towards our Capetonian friends, I stand reminded at just how blessed we are here in KZN, and I am reminded of how special the country we live in is.
Yes I know we are a few steps behind Cape Town, in 2014, the prestigious New York Times voted Cape Town as the Best Place to Go for that year. The Mother City beat out 51 other cities from around the world, including Perth, Taiwan and Dubai. The publication described the mother city as, "a place to meditate on freedom and the creative life that followed," as an ode to their vibrant design and arts culture.
We can compare and criticise until we're blue in the face, but there is nothing that inspires patriotism more than realising just how much we love each other as South Africans and how well things tend to work out when we work together.
Here's to more Cape Town travels.