We drove out of Stellenbosch on the R310, through wine country and green hills and stone mountains, past ostrich and horse ranches. There were prostitutes standing along the N2 junction, out in the sun, wearing bright short tight clothes, waiting.
Khayelitsha came up on the right. There were thousands of shanties made of corrugated rusty metal and faded cardboard signs and concrete and wood. You could see more of them all the way to the horizon. Wood telephone poles and concrete light posts were the only things sticking up above the houses.
The highway rose over a hill and we got near the sea. It was turqoise, streaked with lines of waves coming in. Sand was spilling onto the road from the dunes and the wind and we had to swerve and slow down.
It was getting overcast and rainy. Surfers were on the water, bobbing.
We drove down the east side of the peninsula to the national park, to Cape Point. We drove to the gate of the park. It was drizzling. The lady at the gate said it probably wasn't going to get much nicer.
Cezanne drove fast through the fynbos to the tip of the park. We parked at the stairway to Cape Point. There were dozens of big tour buses and vans and hundreds of tourists in shorts and hats and sunglasses. We walked up the stairs to the old light house.
Cezanne said he's done some TV commercials. He's never starred, but has been in the background. He did a Heineken one, recently. When he was little he was in a commercial as a tennis player.
I took some pictures in the fog and the mist. We walked down and drove to the Cape of Good Hope, the southwestern tip of Africa. I waited my turn and took a picture near the famous sign. We hiked up a trail and sat on the side of a cliff while the sun came out and the water turned a deep shining true blue.
We drove out of the park. We didn't see any zebras or ostriches or baboons or seals. I saw a lizard that I took a picture of, and people.
There was a stand set-up by the back gates with wood sculptures of giraffes and lions and other safari animals. There were different sizes of each sculpture, small enough to fit in your hand, or too big to fit in your car.
We drove up the west side of the peninsula, past seaside towns. There were don't-feed-the-baboons signs everywhere. There were more roadside vendors selling the same sculptures we'd seen before.
We drove along the M6 into Hout Bay. It's a toll road, along the cliffs. It gets closed sometimes because boulders fall down and crush peoples' cars and kill everyone inside while they're driving and sightseeing.
We drove past the look-out points and didn't stop. The sky was clear now and the sunlight bright and dense. My left arm was getting sunburnt while I sat shotgun.
We got into Clifton, a lavish South Beach-type part of Cape Town. It's a narrow strip between the sea and Table Mountain. Cezanne was listening to KFM, the pop station. A new Alicia Keys song about New York was getting a lot of airtime. I felt kind of trapped and suffocated as we waited in lunch hour traffic with the sea on one side and a wall of mountains on the other.
We got into the city bowl and parked near Long Street and walked to Greenmarket Square for lunch.
We went to a place called Kauai. It's a Hawaiian-themed wraps and salads and smoothies healthy fast food place. It's a South African chain. I got a Peanut Bliss smoothie delight and a chicken Moroccan wrap. Cezanne got a grilled oriental chicken salad and a Mango Bang fruit smoothie. We sat under an umbrella at a table out front along a pedestrian mall.
Cezanne got up and went to the bathroom. I heard a woman sitting nearby talking in a clear composed voice about why she lives in Cape Town and what she likes to do here and what she's looking for career-wise. There were two guys in matching grey tucked-in golf shirts sitting with her. One had a clipboard and was on the phone. The other was listening to her.
We got our food and ate. The waiter came over and asked if I was still busy. Yes, I said. He came back a while later but stayed near the entrance and looked to get my attention. I looked and he gave two thumbs up with a look on his face. I gave him a TU and he smiled and walked back in.
The girl who was talking had brown curly hair and pale skin and freckles and light eyes. She finished talking and the guys said they'd be in touch and now the other one was talking on his phone and they got up and left. She got up and went the other direction.
I asked Cezanne if you can tell the difference between a coloured person and a black person in South Africa. He said it's easy and started pointing out people nearby. But then it's more complicated than that because there's English-speaking coloureds and Afrikaans-speaking coloureds, and then blacks with all sorts of different origins.
Cezanne is an English-speaking coloured. He said his parents named him Cezanne because they were watching an arts show on TV about the French Impressionists after he was born and they liked the name. He said he's trying to get into the arts more now, feels like he should.
We drove back to Stellenbosch and I got dropped off at my hostel.
I laid down for a while then went and met Joe after his afternoon broadcast.
We met at The Mystic Boer and got Carling Black Label beers. I got a pizza with avo (avocado) and feta and bacon. Joe said South African's have a thing for feta cheese and avocado pears. We talked for a couple hours til after dark. We said bye and I walked home and went to bed.
Bradley was picking me up early the next day to go back to Cape Town and go to the Consulate.
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