My Cape Town

Autumn in the Hex Valley

Last Sunday, as we sat under the stars sipping local wine and eating spatchcocked chicken off the braai, a cloud tipped up and over the mountain and suddenly, it seemed, winter was here.  But rather as in England where a glorious warm weekend in March will bring the tulips into bloom and the birds start building nests and the public at large expose enthusiastic acres of wobbling blue flesh, the cold snap didn't last.  Just a few days later and we are once more basking under blue skies.  There is a definite chill in the air in the evenings, but after a long, hot, dry summer it is rather refreshing.

Winter in Cape Town is often referred to as 'the secret season'.  "Why should that be, Daisy?"  I hear you ask.  Well, for one, the coachloads of tourists that are such a familiar sight in the summer months are, blissfully, nowhere to be seen. How can I best explain it? Whereas summer is the front row at a loud sweaty rock concert, winter is an armchair in a laid-back jazz cafe in a side street.

While summer is, admittedly, a fabulous time to be in Cape Town it is also a time of congested roads, burning sun, whistling winds and general elbow-in-the-face when trying to get the best table in the restaurant (or, indeed, any table at all in the posher restaurants).  Those in the know often eye with glee the rather gentler, more refined months of the year.

After just a couple of days of rain, Cape Town has shaken off its summer dust and is once more gloriously green.  Dotted around are the few avenues of deciduous trees the leaves of which are slowly turning gold and red, stunning autumn colours which will last well into June.  Many more exotic trees such as hibiscus and frangipani seem undaunted by the cooler air and are vivid with blooms, while fruit such as papaya, melons, pineapples, satsumas and avocados overflow from the supermarket shelves.

Due to the vivacious relationship between ocean currents and our atmosphere, the rain, when it comes, sticks pretty much to the Cape peninsula and the Garden Route.  A short hop on a plane inland lies a variety of game reserves (many of them non-malarial) for which winter is the dry

Brandy cellar ripe for exploring

season.  The sparser winter bush greatly enhances the visibility of the game, and with water scarce this is a chance to witness first hand the survival of the fittest, nature at its wildest.  The days are still warm and sunny and the cool, crisp evenings are spent around roaring camp fires.

For us in Cape Town there will of course be days when the rain pours down but this, after all, is a nation which has perfected the art of fire, a nation of leather sofas, gourmet food and fabulous local wines.  On the rare occasions where the rain should last all day, there are exotic spa treatments, armchair cinemas and lessons in the fine art of whisky-tasting.  As often as not, the skies are blue, the air warm but fresh and most enticing of all, the prices rock-bottom.  This is a time of decadence, and who doesn't like a bit of that every now and again?

Daisy

daisy@capeconcierge.co.za

www.capeconcierge.co.za

Special Offer: Decadence Divine

Indulge yourself with a week in two fabulously upmarket hotels. Spend three nights in the heart of Cape Town ensconced in a luxury room at the Mount Nelson followed by three nights at Le Quartier Francais in the heart of Franschhoek, the gourmet food and wine capital of South Africa.

As The Independent described it, the Mount Nelson, ‘reclining elegantly at the foot of Table Mountain, is Cape Town’s grande dame.  Far from being stuffy and traditional, it’s a soothing oasis in nine acres of lush, well-tended gardens’. 

For more information, contact me at daisy@capeconcierge.co.za .

Carmen in Xhosa

"Fiery diva" Pauline Malefane as Carmen

“GRIM,” “GRITTY,” “VIBRANT,” “VIOLENT,” “TOUGH,” “POOR,” “SHABBY,” “CRIME-STRICKEN,” say the mass media. Black South African townships most starkly express the dreams and fears of a post-apartheid South Africa. “Still, probably less than 5 percent of South African white people have been to a township,” says U-Carmen e-Khayelitsha’s director Mark Dornford-May. “People say you’ll get shot, get killed. Nonsense.” U-Carmen e-Khayelitsha, awarded the Golden Bear at the 2005 Berlinale, sings, dances, loves, fights, flirts and teases its way through this black-majority African dreamscape and sends it to operatic heights.

Setting the 19th-century opera Carmen in the high-octane contemporary illegal beer halls, cigarette factories, drug smuggling gangs and police academies of the one-million-strong township of Khayelitsha and translating its libretto into the Xhosa language “seemed mad at the time — it still seems mad now,” says Dornford-May.  Four years ago, Dornford-May and musical director Charles Hazelwood recruited 40 members from across South Africa — many of whom had never appeared on stage or screen or even been to the theater — after 2,000 auditions of Christian hymns, Zulu war songs, Italian arias and Frank Sinatra.  They formed an extremely talented lyric theater company called Dimpho Di Kopane, or DDK (“combined talents” in SeSotho).  With fiery diva Pauline Malefane as Carmen charging across the screen, always on the knife’s edge of survival, one is swept into DDK’s brilliant fusion of African culture and the most stylized European art form.  The clicks of the Xhosa tongue, the dance rhythms of stomps, shimmies and swaying all make this hybrid musically and visually unforgettable.

When cinema fanatic Themba Grammery, who lives in the Alex township outside Johannesburg, heard on the radio that U-Carmen had won the Berlin prize, he presumed that it would open at the Ster-Kinekor cinema chain for R35 a ticket ($6).  Given the prohibitively high price and the distance and cost of traveling to suburban cinemas in white areas, he thought he would need to wait eight months until U-Carmen came out on video.  But, turning distribution on its head in an unprecedented bold move, producer Spier Films opened U-Carmen first in South Africa’s townships for R10 ($1.65) per ticket and then, after one month, in the Ster-Kinekor theaters.  “If the industry is to survive we have to create films black people can relate to and screen them in places where they live,” Dornford-May said.  But Khayelitsha, with one million people, has no cinema.  Spier Films, under Lucinda Englehart’s lead, transformed Khayelitsha’s Oliver Tambo Community Hall into a“township cinema” complete with popcorn and DVD projection and hosted a gala premiere of 700 black, white, Indian and mixed-race glitterati.  This was unthinkable before the past 10 years of post-apartheid democracy.  The gala became a surprise homecoming as the closing helicopter shot of the film reveals the hall filled with 1,000 extras from Khayelitsha, amplifying the community connection.

U-Carmen is striking a deeply personal nerve for many audience members.  One man traveled every day to see the film since it opened — an hour each way by combo taxi.  Themba Grammery says, “I went the first night in Alex with my two sisters and we danced in the aisles.  U-Carmen made me feel very proud. Pauline Malefane is brilliant.” “I see this country’s going places,” added Mjiko Vulindlu, a Xhosa singer, “seeing such amazing young talent.”  Sheila Lapinsky, an antiapartheid activist who was banned by the government, was astonished after a screening in Khayelitsha.  “I wept through the whole thing.  The tears came with the beauty of those voices.  The reality of township life is not easy.  It is rough.  But I had goose bumps.  I just thought, 'This is Africa, and you can’t take Africa away from us.”

Cheap Flights

From Europe:

For those coming from Paris, a return flight to Cape Town via Johannesburg is being offered at only €399 (before taxes).

From Frankfurt, the return flight (non-stop on the outbound leg and via Johannesburg on its return) is €504 (before taxes).

See www.flysaa.com for more details

Upcoming Events

QUEEN AT THE BALLET
30 April - 15 May
Back by popular demand! Cape Town City Ballet's smash hit returns to Cape Town.  Revel in the music of Queen as you marvel at the beauty and athleticism of the CTCB dancers, performing Sean Bovim's inventive choreography.

WATERFRONT WINE FESTIVAL
3 - 6 May
And with more than 350 wines to taste, this festival provides a dream time for lovers of fine wines and exquisite cheeses.

PRINCE ALBERT OLIVE FOOD AND WINE FESTIVAL
6 - 7 May
Lots of exciting and varied activities, walks, tours and competitions, plenty of food demonstrations and tastings and evening entertainment from stories to cabaret to dancing.

CAPE GOURMET FESTIVAL
6 - 22 May
A fortnight of feasting as Cape Town's finest eateries swing open their doors and set decadent gourmet menus, paired with Laborie wines, to get the tastebuds tingling. 

AVRIL LAVIGNE LIVE IN CONCERT
18 May
The Canadian songstrel hits the Cape for one night on her world tour. 

RED BULL BWA (BIG WAVE AFRICA) 2005
22 May - 12 June
A 20 day surfing spectacle, when renowned international and local big wave surfers converge on Hout Bay to ride waves in excess of 15' (5 metres).

THE PINK LOERIE CARNIVAL
26 - 29 May
Knysna turns pink for this annual festival.  With live shows, art displays and a carnival atmosphere, Knysna celebrates the freedom embedded in the South African constitution.

GARDEN ROUTE GOURMET FESTIVAL
16 - 18 June
Good food & wine on the Garden Route.

CROSS KAROO EXTREME TRIATHLON CHALLENGE
16 June - 16 July
Run 88kms from Durban to Pietermaritzburg, Mountain Bike 2200 kms to Paarl, and Canoe 208 kms along the Berg River to Velddrif on the Atlantic Coast. Yikes.

TULBAGH CELEBRATES CHRISTMAS IN WINTER
25 - 26 June
Christmas lights, Christmas Dinners, wine tasting, gluwein, beer gardens, sport bars, art & crafts exhibitions, stalls...

1st NATIONAL FESTIVAL OF GOLF
11 - 17 July
An exceptional opportunity for golf enthusiasts from around the country - and the world - to play the game on some of South Africa's finest golf courses.  On offer will be coaching, competitions and an exhibition village, as well as entertainments and a gala dinner.

BERG RIVER CANOE MARATHON
12 - 16 July
202 kilometres over 4 days  - South Africa's longest and toughest canoe race, from the Paarl winelands to the Velddrif Coast: an area rich in history and scenic beauty.

CHICAGO - THE MUSICAL
19 July - 11 September
It's RAZZLE DAZZLE time!!!  The recipient of Tony, Oliver, Grammy and Oscar Awards, CHICAGO- the Musical is finally coming to South Africa. 

POSTBERG RESERVE OPENS FOR FLOWER GAZING
1 August 2005 - 30 September
An hour's drive from Cape Town along the West Coast lies a floral paradise. This spectacular display of nature in the 30 000 hectares of the West Coast National Park is only open for August and September.

TRI NATIONS RUGBY (SOUTH AFRICA V NEW ZEALAND)
6 August
The Springboks take on the All Blacks in this classic clash at Newlands.
 
CAPE TOWN FASHION WEEK 2005
10 - 13 August
Fifty top designers from South Africa and the rest of the continent showcase their top work in this glamorous and glitzy high profile fashion event in the International Convention Centre.

CLANWILLIAM WILDFLOWER SHOW
25 - 31 August
The Clanwilliam district boasts a large variety of wildflowers due to the tremendous differences in the topography (Cederberg Karoo, Sandveld and wetlands). Each year about 350 flower species from 32 families are exhibited at the show.

DARLING WILDFLOWER SHOW
6 - 18 September
The Darling Wildflower Society has held a show virtually every year since its inception in 1917.

STELLENBOSCH FESTIVAL
23 September - 1 October
The old university town of Stellenbosch comes alive with festivities as it incorporates three large festivals - Music and Art, Simon van der Stel and Food and Wine - into one big community festival.
 
HERMANUS WHALE FESTIVAL
24 September - 2 October
an entertainment-packed festival in the town with the best land-based whale watching in the world.

SAA CAPE TOWN FLOWER SHOW
6 - 9 October
Africa's first truly international flower show - a chance to sample the breadth of the African floricultural industry in world-class facilities.