Hello Again, Cape Town

Nothing welcomes you back to Cape Town like that first glimpse of Table Mountain.

You’ll be slumped in the back of an Uber after a long trip, ready for bed, booze or both and suddenly there she’ll be. This grand and prehistoric table, ever set for incredible eats and endless adventure.

After two years of being grounded by the plague, Table Mountain’s iconic flat top and guard of Lion’s Head and Devil’s Peak are a sight for sore eyes. The Mother City is only two hours from Windhoek as the crow flies but, after everything, it feels like alighting on another planet.

To travel is more of a privilege than it has ever been.

The increase in protocol, the PCR tests and masked plane rides steal some of the joy of setting off and dull the sense of escape but Cape Town’s sights and sounds return it with the promise of great food, friendly people and your fancy of festivity.

As I’m shuttled towards the City Bowl on the inevitable N2, I chat to my Uber driver about how things are going in “The New Normal.” Like Namibia, South Africa battled the scourge of Covid-19 with a series of rolling, necessary but undeniably devastating lockdowns.

Restaurants, nightclubs and bars were shuttered. Stay at home orders were strictly enforced, tourism evaporated into thin, threatening air and people did what they could to survive.

To hear South Africa’s story is to hear much of our own and, as my Uber driver and I compare international notes, we reach the present day where – after immense loss of life, vaccine drives and in the thick of summer – things actually feel okay.

“Cape Town is back!” he says, agreeing with me as I test the phrase as a means of all-encompassing description.

Over the next week, I realise that my Uber driver isn’t prone to exaggeration.

Minus masks which many people still wear in malls and indoors in public places, Cape Town is almost everything it used to be.

The V&A Waterfront is absolutely teeming with tourists spilling out of bars and restaurants, their array of accents reminding me that all around the world people survived, set out and are trying to thrive.

One night, when an electricity issue knocks power out around the city, it seems as though the whole world descends on the Waterfront. The Cape Wheel turns, filled with the smiling, shining faces of people making the best of the city, the power cuts and whatever waits in the wings.

For a moment, even though I am masked, a little anxious and still finding my feet, the pandemic recedes. And the travel writer I have mournfully tucked away for the worst part of two years starts composing the kind of lighter-hearted stories she’s felt too guilty to even think about.

(More of those in writings to come.)

I grew up in Cape Town.

I went to boarding school at Rustenburg Girls’ High School in Rondebosch, then spent four years at the University of Cape Town at the foot of Table Mountain, when not bunking lectures in favour of lazy days at the beach.

Cape Town, like Windhoek, is home and I’m happy to report that it’s okay.

Table Mountain is as glorious as ever.

The winelands are a wealth of social distance and of the delicious.

The people, God bless them, are rallying and resilient.

And you, Starved Traveller, should you ever set sail, are welcome.

Martha Mukaiwa is a columnist and writer based in Windhoek, Namibia in-between spirited sojourns around the world. Her narrative nonfiction, personal essays, travel writing and short stories have appeared in #JournalistsToo, Iowa Magazine, Travel Africa, Quartz, Fields & Stations, Holiday, The Africa Report, Truthdig, Matador Network, Africa is a Country, The Namibian & The Kalahari Review. Martha is an honorary writing fellow at the University of Iowa. Read more at marthamukaiwa.com.