Anyway, our destination was the little fishing village of Paternoster. Edith DellApa, a friend of our family from Boulder, had sent us an article from the New York Times travel section, all about this cool little B&B in Paternoster. The place is called "Ah!", and it was wonderful. Here's their website: http://www.capestay.co.za/ahguesthouse/ So, even though we couldn't get a room there, we were able to book a table for dinner, which was really special. There were 14 of us, and the chef Arnold and his partner, an ex-actress from Johanesburg, are fabulous hosts. They serve everyone together at a long farm table, next to a beautiful wood-burning hearth. The kitchen is right there in the open, which gives it a great homey feeling. The meal was fantastic, the wine divine, and we had great convesation with the other couples there for dinner (they have room for 6 at the inn, but take a few extras each night just for dinner). Anyway, we'll surely go back there, as it is only 90 minutes from Cape Town.
Contrasts and More Contrasts
On the way back on Sunday, we went to a quaint old town called "Darling." And it was just that. We felt that we were in some dutch rural village. Darling was one of the first settled areas by the Dutch. Since the late 1600s, the ranches in and around Darling were grazing cattle and providing meat and butter for the ships passing the Cape of Good Hope, en route to the Far East. That is over 300 years of farming on these hills, farmed by people with the name Duckitt (our new street is named after him), and Van Wegstyn, etc. Here is a link to a web-site fun by the Darling tourism board, so you can get a sense for how this area is portrayed: http://www.darlingtourism.co.za/
We stopped at the local museum, which had a great display of old farming implements, butter churns, lace and other everyday objects. Again, we thought we were in rural Holland! Especially with the green hills surrounding us, with sheep roaming about --ok,that felt more like Ireland. Ironically, we didn't see one image of a black or coloured face in the entire museum. As if those faces did not exist in Darling...
After a Darling buffet lunch at a place called the "Marmalade Cat," with quilts and pottery and handmade sweaters for sale, we set off to head back to Cape Town. As I'm known to do, I wanted to take the backroads, get a different sense of the layout of the land. Well, in about 15 minutes we came across another town, which had an entirely different feel. Not quaint at all. Rather, seemed like an urban housing project plopped down in the middle of quaint, rural Ireland/Holland. Densely packed apartments, colorful clotheslines streaming from every window --this was the most color we had seen, making up for the lack of wildflowers. Coloured and black faces everywhere. Shacks and shanties and muddy alleys. And Alex and Maya in the back saying, "Should we be here?" "Did we make a wrong turn?"
Then, as we left town, we came into this industrial zone, with one factory after another stretching for a few miles. It was kind of eerie, because since it was Sunday, there was not a sole around. These huge factories behind fences, empty. But now the picture made more sense. Housing for black and coloured laborors up the road, to work in these factories. A totally separate reality from the bucolic scenes of the Darling farmlands.
Snapped-us right out of our little European fantasy voyage. And come to think about it, we felt very comfy in Darling; it seemed so familiar and "prosperous" and "safe." The inequality was all hidden from us. And then as we drove through the factory zone, twice, (OK, my fault. I was playing navigator while Naomi was driving, and I must have missed a turn or two, so we ended up doing a huge 20-minute circle, and then saying, "look another Chinese factory, with the same sign as the other one..." ooops!) the feeling of discomfort which is generated by the inequality harshly staring you in the face, came back.
Contrasts. South Africa is rich in lots of things; contrasts is definitely one of them.
Blog ya later!
Seth./.
