On the Run in October: South Africa--Cape Town and the Cape Peninsula

 

One view from Table Mountain

Once again, a backstory exists. Because, "Why South Africa?" I have been asked so many times. Perhaps the backstory really began in my high school years when my mother suggested that I read Alan Paton's novel, Cry, the Beloved Country. I liked the book then although I certainly did not fully appreciate its themes, its scope of history, or its hope for a future South Africa. I have read the book as an adult twice, and I plan to read it again soon.

Here then is the ending paragraph of Alan Paton's novel, Cry, the Beloved Country, first published in 1948:

    "Yes, it is the dawn that has come. The titihoya wakes from sleep, and goes about its work of forlorn crying. The sun tips with light the mountains of Ingeli and East Griqualand. The great valley of the Umzimkulu is still in darkness, but the light will come there also. For it is the dawn that has come, as it has come for a thousand centuries, never failing. But when that dawn will come, of our emancipation, from the fear of bondage and the bondage of fear, why, that is a secret." 

Umzimkulu River valley, a Google image. (We did not travel here.)

In the 1980s when economic sanctions against a S. Africa fully immersed in apartheid gained international momentum, S. Africa caught my notice once again. I remember discussing the issue with my mother, especially when the Reagan administration in the USA and the Thatcher administration in the UK resisted sanctioning S. Africa, instead denouncing Mandela and the ANC as communists and terrorists. Whether or not Mandela and the ANC were actually "communists and terrorists" did not seem to be the real issue for me: Apartheid was evil and should be addressed. I was glad when in 1986 the US Congress passed the Comprehensive Anti-Apartheid Act despite Reagan's veto. Anti-apartheid activism drew greater international attention to Mandela as well, and I became one of those who followed his story. I distinctly remember when S. Africa's President de Klerk released Mandela and other imprisoned ANC members from prison in 1990 and then when Mandela was elected S. Africa's President in 1994.

For me, a trip to S. Africa originally had to include Cape Town mostly because Mandela's story included that space. I really wanted to see Robben Island, the place where Mandela spent 18 of his 27 years of imprisonment. Due to weather and sea conditions, though, that didn't happen in the end. I viewed Robben Island instead from the coastline and from Table Mountain. Maybe a return to Cape Town awaits!

That's Robben Island out there!

So aesthetically situated, Cape Town easily steals one's heart. About the same latitude as Los Angeles, it has a Mediterranean climate. Indeed, the entire Cape Peninsula is beautiful. Cape Town, the oldest and second largest city, is one of three capitols of S. Africa, home to the Parliament. Henceforward, I shall review our three days spent there, largely in photographs.

From NYC to Amsterdam to Cape Town takes so much fly-time; we are as exhausted as we look.

After his release from prison, Mandela spoke on the balcony where this statue is placed.

Kirstenbosch National Botanical Garden

Table Mountain and the Views

We took the cable car up to the top, but one can hike to the top of Table Mountain, and here is one of the paths to the top that we sort of followed from above while on the cable car.

Cape of Good Hope, where the currents from the Indian Ocean and the Atlantic Ocean meet. (The southern most point, though, is Cape Agulhas.)

Eland, an antelope species--we spotted these off the road quite near to the Cape of Good Hope.

We visited the penguin colony that hangs out at Boulders Beach. Penguins delight in such an unexpected array of presence and performance!

On our tour of the nearby wine lands, I found a university town in which I could easily reside--Stellenbosch, home of the prestigious Stellenbosch University--and some excellent chocolate--DeVilliers, should you care to name-check it.

A church in Stellenbosch.

A statue of Mandela at the front of the prison from which he was ultimately released, Victor Verster Prison.

Cape Town and the Cape Peninsula really do beg a return visit. Already I have a to-do and to-see list underway inside my mind. Now, if I can just get myself to the other side of the planet again!

On the Run in October: NYC

A backstory comes first, though, because the October run-away actually commenced in a previous existence, the one before a pandemic, when my friend Pam and I booked a trip to Southern Africa for October, 2020. Well, obviously, that never happened, but two cancellations later, the third incarnation of the trip began looking more viable by late summer, 2021. Since flights for the Africa trip would depart from JFK, I decided that maybe a few days in NYC beforehand would be fun. After all, I hadn't spent time in NYC since I met my sister Diane there after her graduation from Parson's School of Design in 2006, and flying the distance from Hawaii to NYC surely justified some downtime before the next leg of a journey to the other side of the planet. Even better, three nieces agreed to meet me for a visit to the Big Apple.

I flew direct from Honolulu to JFK on a red-eye, arriving at 6:30 on a Saturday morning. The nieces wouldn't arrive until late Saturday night, so I had the day on my own. When the taxi dropped me off at our Manhattan hotel around 8:00am, I hoped to at least be able to drop off luggage. Pod Times Square Hotel will forever remain enshrined on my gratitude list, however, because they let me check in! Hence, I not only deposited my luggage, I brushed my teeth and took a nap!

View from the hotel room window. First morning and first night.

But I had a ticket for a matinee performance of Hamilton, so by noon I hit the streets, hoping to get my bearings, locate the Richard Rodgers Theater, and maybe even have a bit of lunch.

Hamilton, the performance, was such an incredible experience. I was blown away, residing in another realm throughout. The movie version of Hamilton's original cast I have watched at least three times, always mesmerized. The live performance, though, was electric, just brilliant! A view of the entire stage and all the unfolding action added context, details and nuance of subplot and character development. And, oh, the choreography of it all! I sat between two very tall men (who thankfully didn't sit in front of me), there with their wives, and both of them had their own moments of brushing away at their eyes, so not just I shed tears at the sad parts.

The nieces arrived around midnight. We reserved an entrance time for MOMA, agreed to play the rest of the next day by ear, and went to bed. Well, to be honest, I went back to bed!

In the morning we wended our way toward Time's Square, stopping first to document my Hamilton event with a photo of me outside the Richard Rodgers Theater.

At the Times Square Krispy Kreme, we each received a free glazed doughnut, compliments of our vaccination status, so that became our breakfast appetizer before we continued our wanderings in the general direction of the MOMA. Still, once we located the MOMA with time to spare before our reserved entrance time, we focused on procuring a real breakfast: in this case, pizza fresh from the oven! (Only in New York?!)

MOMA holds a lot of that good art that's not in Paris or London or Florence or Madrid or Rome...

although we did conclude that we need to make a trip to Chicago to see Georges Seurat's Sunday in La Grande Jatte!

After a yummy lunch of soup and fixings from Soup Kitchen International (See Seinfeld's Soup Nazi episode), which we consumed beneath a neighboring awning due to the drizzle, we meandered around the streets and through shops and to Serendipity for dinner before heading back to the theater district for a performance of Come from Away, a musical based on true events/stories that unfolded in the week following 9/11 when 38 planes were ordered to land in Gander, Newfoundland. Lively pacing and engaging characters made the play a fun watch; we also enjoyed the integration of the band/orchestra with the set and the actual flow of the story.

The Lego Store rated a visit.

According to Ashley's watch, we had walked twelve miles by the time we returned to our hotel, and our feet and level of exhaustion corroborated the matter.

The next morning we ambled over to the Blue Dog for breakfast where we met up with Juan, a former student of mine who also happened to be visiting NYC for the long weekend. Eighteen years after his sixth grade year we spent together at Yokosuka Middle School, and his intelligent charm and good nature continue timeless...even if he checked me on whether or not I was carrying my "flood book"...which I was, by the way...and he was carrying his, too! So my nieces had the chance to meet him, and we had a fantastic visit, and then he bestowed upon me my next "flood book." And truly this became a highlight of a three-day caper in NYC. 

Juan with his current book and me with my next one, thanks to Juan.

After breakfast, the nieces and I purchased a subway card to share--and reload as needed--and headed to the High Line for a wee trek on the elevated freight rail line, now public park, on our way to the 9/11 Memorial. 

Nieces in a moment of repose.

Then we lunched at the Fraunces Tavern, a location which played a prominent role during the American Revolution, once serving as headquarters for George Washington and also as a venue for peace negotiations with the British. Sticky Toffee Pudding--we split it amongst the four of us, okay--topped off a most delectable meal. 

From there, we headed back to the subway because I needed to return to our hotel for my luggage so I could move on to my next hotel at JFK, the designated meeting place for Pam and me. Even though they would be spending more time in NYC, the nieces accompanied me back to the hotel, and thus we embarked on one more rather unanticipated adventure together--on the subway this time--one that played out with a villain and a hero and four women in rather uncomfortable circumstances for a brief amount of time. After the villain was dispatched, the four of us chatted with the hero until our chosen stop in Times Square. He is a chef at Maison Pickle, and we would be happy for you to show it some love should you find yourself in Manhattan.

My own NYC venture, though, concluded at the TWA Hotel, situated pretty much adjacent to one of the runways at JFK. Mostly because it was an operating terminal back in the day...like when I was eleven and my family flew into JFK from Denver because we were moving to New Jersey because my dad had transferred to the Manhattan office for work. And we all stared in amazement at the TWA terminal as we passed by in the airport shuttle bus because it didn't look like other airline terminals. It still doesn't--not like other airport terminals or other airport hotels...now that it's one of those.

On the roof of the TWA Hotel where there is a pool, a bar, and viewing decks.

Pam and I spent the night at the TWA Hotel, paid mega bucks for COVID-19 tests in Terminal 5 that were processed in an on-site lab and would still be valid after hours of flying to the other side of the planet, and then decamped for Cape Town, South Africa.