Shorelines (10 page)

At Saldanha Bay we checked into a self-catering spot for mice that offered ‘generous duck frontage’. As we packed our nine million pieces of luggage into the tiny space, three dark-eyed ducks came waddling up for a scratch on the head. And maybe something from one of our tucker boxes. They blinked happily in that mindless smiley-beaky way that ducks have. I closed the sliding door on them. They began pecking insistently on the glass and then, to really get our attention, commenced to crap all over the show.

Jules and I had been room-trapped by possums in Tasmania, a brown hyena in Botswana and a crazed (I still think it was rabid) cat in Springbok. Three small ducks were not going to get the better of us. I went off to Management and requested their removal. Done.

We drove up to the top of a hill overlooking Saldanha Bay, where we encountered a man smoking the largest dagga spliff in the world. It looked like a giant steaming carrot wrapped in the day’s newspaper headlines and it seemed to make the bearer very happy as he weaved across the tracks of the Great Sishen – Saldanha Railway Line.

Saldanha Bay was first famous for its lovely guano, stashed on Mad Goose Island nearby. In the 1830s, Mad Goose Island was a blur of activity as the guano hunters bustled about, shovelling shit for a living.

The mainland settlement used to be a motley pile of impoverished fishermen’s shacks. Then the fishing industry discovered the bounty of the Benguela Current and the town grew. The South African Navy built a base there and, after drinking water was piped in from the Berg River, an exporting harbour was developed. And the millionaires’ yachts began arriving in the bay, on wings of craven canvas.

By lunchtime we were ensconced at The Slipway Restaurant down by the jetties. The dress code said “no overalls”, but you could smell the wealth as the moguls puttered in on skiffs from their ocean-going palaces to come and mingle with the common folk. Feeling pretty Greekish, we drank beer and ate a medley of snoek, hake, calamari and garlic mussels while Abba sang ‘Mamma Mia’.

We dozed off in the sun as beady-eyed gulls kept a watch over us. Then there was a slight commotion inside. A couple in their seventies lurched out of the restaurant as pissed as fowls. Their table heaved with empty wine bottles. She was on a collision course with a wall when her grinning partner – red face, mariner’s cap at jaunty angle – grabbed her elbow and steered her straight.

“Let me tell you something, buddy,” she roared at the old guy. “They won’t forget us here in a hurry.” Oh, please let that be us in 20 years’ time, we prayed.

Feeling reckless after a great session at the seafood trough, we headed off for a place called Tieties Bay, just for the drive. But we got sidetracked by a sign to Jacobs Bay. Wanna go there? I asked. Jules nodded and off we went.

We drove around a corner and found a colony of white mansions on the left. To the right was a perfect little bay, with five tiny fishing boats bobbing in the water like bathtub toys. A restaurant nestled into the rocks on the other side of the bay, dangerously close to the waterline. We went in. Perhaps there was
ouzo
on offer. Inside, we heard sales talk from the bar:

“Now onto that you add the commission, and the final figure you’re looking at is …” There was a table packed with brochures and what looked like completed deeds of sale. Jules picked up one of the flyers:

“Beachfront Properties. We sell: Pristine Properties, Development, Apartments, Homes, Plots with stunning beachfront views in all coastal regions of South Africa.”

“Let’s run away,” I muttered to my wife.

“Can I help you?” A large man with slate-grey eyes and a big aura approached.

“Are you the manager?” was all I could muster.

“No, I’m the owner. Wynand Odendaal’s the name.”

We explained ourselves. Couple on the road, writing a book on the coast, just arrived out of the blue, yadda yadda. Wynand Odendaal, clearly on a marketing high, expansively showed us around his restaurant and the clump of chalets outside at the back.

“Here’s the chapel. And here are my cards.” One said he was the CEO of Beachfront Properties. The other identified him as the pastor of Select Ministries. Pastor Odendaal had a big fish inside the restaurant, signing an offer to purchase the property for a lot of money. He told us how he’d made a killing here, but it was just another day at the office for him.

“In my church, I teach people how to make money God’s way,” he said. “In Jeremiah, it says ‘Come not with money. Come with faith and anointing.’ That’s what I do. You never use your own money – that’s the overemotional thing to do. Use the bank’s money. If they commit themselves to your project, you know it’s going to work.”

How had he become so successful, we wanted to know.

“Because I was once poor,” he said. “I own a Mercedes-Benz sports car but I’m not sentimental about it. If one of my missionaries wants to use it, he can. You know, the more I give, the more I get. It’s a nightmare,” he laughed.

What made him choose to go coastal?

“God spoke to me. He said Buy Beachfront.”

I have never been able to hide my emotions. My craggy old face is an open book. So the good pastor spotted my disbelief instantly, and in turn displayed just a small degree of ‘irk’.

“I know God’s voice.” And who were we, really, to argue? We were the people down there in the diesel
bakkie
, he was the guy in the big German car.

Why, we wanted to know, did so many people own second houses by the sea? Houses they hardly ever lived in?

“When the Saambou group collapsed at the Millennium, a lot of Afrikaners lost faith in banking,” said Wynand. “They put their money into property instead. Coastal property.” So these sad little manicured-yet-unpeopled seaside villages along the West Coast were all sound investments. We obviously had so much to learn.

As we drove off, Jules observed:

“In the old days of St Helena Bay, the rich whites lived up on the hill and the poor coloured fishermen lived next to the sea. Now it’s the other way around.”

There was no one to sell us tickets at the entrance to the Cape Columbine Nature Reserve, except for a stuffed penguin lurking on the desk inside the office, staring out at the Atlantic with glazed eyes. At the lighthouse we met up with a Mr Piet Steyn of the Somerset West Photo Club. We took him to our stuffed office penguin and he was delighted.

The next day (still no ducks in sight) we went to a resort called Club Mykonos for lunch and ran away in terror from the crowds and the prices and the uninterested waitresses. We stopped off at a wonderful spot called the West Coast Deli Shop and loaded up on oriental snacks, chilli-bite biltong and Mrs Ticklemouse’s chocolate crunch.

Our afternoon was spent driving through the glorious West Coast National Park. Thank God for this place up here, a piece of natural beauty preserved among the insane sprawl of uninhabited holiday mansions of Langebaan. More than 70 000 birds flew down to this lagoon from Russia every year, we were told. In fact, when we stopped at the Geelbek Information Centre in the park, two Russian women were wandering about inside, utterly entranced by the displays. Chewing on more Ticklemouse products, we proceeded to Kraal Bay, where the 117 000-year-old Footprints of Eve had been discovered. Two ancient beach bunnies draped on nearby rocks told us we could find the original footprints in the Cape Town Museum. So off we went …

August 1997, the French Quarter, New Orleans, Louisiana, USA. Hurricane Season in The Big Easy. It has been a night to remember. Early dinner on the balcony of the Café Royal (corner of St Peter and Royal): for me it’s Creole Barbecued Duck, served with red-pepper jelly and smoked-sausage jambalaya. Here, check out the menu. Might I suggest the Creole
File
Gumbo with red beans?

Down to the clubs on Bourbon (locals just call it ‘The Street’) for a little Zydeco swamp music, some blues and a peepshow along the way: “Topless! Bottomless! See ’em as God made ’em, folks!” yells the sidewalk barker outside Big Daddy’s Bar. A drive out to the legendary Tipitina’s to see the Neville Brothers singing those sweet Louisiana jailbird songs of our youth. One for the road back in the Quarter at the Old Absinthe House Bar where the ever-lovely, smiling Sunshine Corrigan dishes out late-night daiquiris, cigars and advice to the lonely and the lovelorn.

And now we’re chatting quietly in the enclosed garden of the Audubon Cottages in Dauphin Street among the banana trees. Soft rain is sifting down through the leaves, the jovial madness of the French Quarter is but a murmur beyond these walls as we sit, my friends and I, at peace with the world.

Eight long years later, I sensed the same wild street magic as I looked down from the balcony of a crazy backpacker establishment in Long Street, Cape Town. Could this be Bourbon Street Extension?

We blew into Cape Town from the West Coast on Monday 10 October (World Egg Day), feeling a little ragged around the edges. Sixteen intense days on the road and here we were at a BP Express filling-station convenience store outside Bloubergstrand, clutching Wild Bean cappuccinos, blueberry muffins and
biscotti
in celebration. The staff behind the counter were so chatty we thought they’d swallowed Ecstasy tablets for breakfast.

“Welcome to Cape Town,” our counter lady said. “And you must visit [insert forgettable name of venue here], they’ve got Real Animals! Lions! Cheetahs! And you can pat them, too!”

We blinked in alarm. Thanks, we will.

Caffeine drip in place, we drove into the City Bowl, causing at least 10 traffic incidents that would have occasioned major road rage back home in Johannesburg. The Capetonians were calm and forgiving. They didn’t lift that middle finger. No rotten penguin egg was tossed in anger.

We found our way to 255 Long Street, to an upstairs affair called Carnival Court. I had booked us into this establishment to get the feel of backpacker travel and of the legendary magic mile in general. At the top of a nearly vertical flight of stairs sat young Ntombi, who told us where to park our
bakkie
safely away from the little prying fingers of the street children.

Out on the street, we met the guardian of the block. The soft-spoken, lean Shamiel (Sam) Samson was a former Navy man and he looked the part.

“Welcome to my place,” he said earnestly. “There is no crime on my block. I sort things out myself.”

What about the infamous street children, we wanted to know.

“They’re like my kids,” he said. “And I see all the people on the street as my customers.”

Reassured, we commenced to drag our luggage up the stairs to our room. On the way, a young German backpacker mistook me for the manager and asked me some questions I couldn’t answer. Room No. 3 looked out over an alley, a barbed-wire rooftop (an anti-street-kid measure) and a slice of Long Street. The clean room was equipped with basic bed, desk, chair and cupboard. We lay back on the bed and observed the evocative shapes of the stains on the walls. I could see Antarctica and Greenland. Jules found Tristan de Cunha and the Azores.

“And if I close my left eye and turn my head slightly … there! I can see some of the Philippines,” she added. I hauled her up off the bed to go exploring the caverns of Carnival Court.

On our floor there was a
foosball
table, a multilingual library of tattered backpacker literature (take one, leave one), the Zanzi Bar, where tattooed youngsters played pool beside an old fireplace, and photographs of street children on the walls everywhere. The best feature of Carnival Court, the spot that took me right back to the Café Royal in New Orleans, was the filigreed metal balcony, which ran almost the full length of the block. From here, in good company and with something cold to hand, you could view Long Street in all its colour and intensity.

Charl Henning, the young night manager, was the guy who allowed us into Carnival Court. They did not usually take bookings from South Africans, but because of our writing mission they let us stay.

“This place used to be a bordello,” he said. “Our first backpacker customers four years ago were Japanese hippies who were into trance and pot. Then there was a Malaysian who slipped sleeping potions into everyone’s drinks and rifled through their rooms while they lay passed out. But there’s not much of a crusty element at Carnival Court any more, although some people still come in and try to book a room by the hour.”

Hookers and hustlers. That was the reputation of Long Street for as long as I can remember. I used to come play here in the clubs back in the 1980s, when the street was dark and dodgy and you rubbed shoulders with sailors and prostitutes.

“That’s changed,” said Charl. “Backpackers, bookshops and breakfast places have arrived.”

Angela Church, an attractive 22-year-old serving drinks at the Zanzi Bar, was a bit of a Sunshine Corrigan – a neighbourhood connoisseur.

“Long Street is a wild card,” she said. “All kinds of people walk down this street. I often see a guy who dresses up in 17
^th
-century clothes, complete with ruffled shirt and velvet coat. There’s another fellow who comes around here who is amazingly well read but is homeless.”