I last left off looking for a bus to Cape Town.
Luckily, the next morning I overheard a Swedish girl frantically calling car rental companies saying she needed to go to Cape Town today, immediately, Qha. Qha is a Xhosa word pronounced with a click from the upper palate meaning done, finished, end of story. It´s one of those words like Scheisse 隨便 sui2bian4 or mañana that is always better than expressing the same thing in your own language, and once you hear it is instantly overused.
So I met Frida (the Swede) at 10 and we started off to Cape Town at 12 PM, and drove and drove until we arrived in Cape Town at 12 AM. Driving in South Africa is strange because the road rules are quite different. First of all so many people drive way faster than they should, overtake at ¨funny¨ times, like when there´s a semi in the other lane and in general exude a pompous demeanor, especially if their car is a Mercedes or something posch. The roads are predominantly 2 lane both ways with shoulders, so slower traffic pulls to the shoulder to allow faster cars to pass. Then, when you pass another car, you put on your hazards to signal thanks, to which the person passed may reply with a friendly flash of the lights.
All of this, including driving on the left hand side of the road was new to me, but after 12 hours driving, passing about 5 wrecks outside of our destination we finally arrived in Cape Town, the city I´d heard so much about. It failed to fail my expectations. The city sits at the confluence(?) of the Indian and Atlantic currents. It´s enclosed by table mountain to the East, a flat-topped, grey mountain with intermittent mist and clouds, the so-called tabletop, falling over its precipice and ocean to the West. The Cape region is home to a unique type of vegetation called fynbos, which only occurs in small pockets on the tip of southwest South Africa. The town is large by African standards, cosmopolitan, cheap but full of panache, and covered in beaches, hot people, vineyards and a beautiful climate. In short, I arrived to late and left too early.
Alas, there´s more to tell...
...But I can´t talk anymore about that, I´m currently in Argentina.
I left one great city for another, from Cape Town to Buenos Aires.
Buenos Aires is big, and European and Latin American. It´s full of Cafes, parks, dog shit, museums, pollution, hot people, clubs, salsa dancing and Young Urban Argentine Professionals, oh and a horde of tourists, and long-term ¨localists¨ living in trendy neighbourhoods looking to improve their Spanish and get a taste of authentic Argenitine culture by landing an Argentine lover.
I can´t say that I blame them.
Buenos Aires goes out and stays out later than basically any other city in the world. Cities in Spain may come close, but somehow fall short probably because their standard of living is triple BAs. People take naps here around 9 or 10 and then think about going out at 1 AM. You can be chatting with your friends, drinking wine til´ 3 AM and then decide, let´s go out and party. It´s unsurpassed.
I stayed for about 10 days, visiting sites, meeting people, but in general was stuck in a fit of indecision of wanting to do so much, see sites, go to museums, learn harmonica, practice tennis, dance salsa daily, buy books, learn Tango, learn Spanish, watch Nalbandian play, go to a soccer game, make Argentine friends, go to clubs, sleep. After being in ¨the bush¨ for so long, large cities with so much to offer are overwhelming.
About 5 days ago I was narrowing down options to secure a 2 month lease on an apartment in Buenos Aires, complete with kitchen and Spanish speaking roommates. I went to a Cafe with a British lady I´d met at my hostel. We talked of our plans, and I told her I was going to give Patagonia a miss. She said it´d be a shame and I agreed. Later that day we booked 2 bus tickets to Puerto Madryn in Western Argentina. I thought I was done with travel for a while, tired of long bus rides, daily uncertainty, constant vagrancy. I was wrong. I went south to see whales, penguins, ¨Swiss style ski towns¨ and more British (they´re everywhere).
