Cape Town & Echo

We were up at 7am. We’d had a really good nights sleep which was good because a stressful day was lying ahead as today we were making our first trip into Cape Town in our own and in our own car.
Just getting into Cape Town is a serious business, it is surrounded on all sides by townships. Places where the poorest of the black community are placed or end up and houses spring up from wood and corrugated tin and electricity is stolen from nearby lampposts and threaded through the communities. To top it off the townships are massive covering whole areas each having at least one gang that dominate the area. These are serious gangland areas to be avoided at all costs by any white person and most other black people. Basically your only getting in or out alive or unhurt if you live in the area.
The bad thing is every major road runs through at least one township, the trick is to know not to come off that road except at certain points.
We left the caravan just after 9am and it was an 85 mile trip along the N2 all the way into Cape Town. Our destination today was the Echo Store to see if we could get awning sidewalls and a carbon fibre rod for our awning roof. We had checked our route twice over to make sure we knew which junction to come off at to be sure.
10 miles from the city centre the landscape changed from open grasslands and fields to what looked like a war zone with refugee camps as far as the eye could see. Wooden buildings made from pallets and corrugated tin each with a homemade electricity pole standing nearby with tens of wires hanging from it leading to different houses.
This scene went from the roadside on both sides to the horizon and beyond. There were no concrete roads or paths, just mud and bricks and no bins, they had made there own refuse dump at the side of the road with rubbish blowing everywhere. There’s no street lights, no street names, if you found yourself inside one of these townships you could be lost for days. You may aswell parachute into the Amazon and try and find your way out. Your chances of survival are about the same.
This area was Marshal Plains, number 2 in the world of no go zones. Number 1 is the other side of the city. Cape Flats.
The traffic was now stop start as we encountered traffic light after traffic light each one a crossroads and 2 of the roads would lead us down a very bad path. We continued on and the nearer to our destination we got the more rubbish there was at the side of the road and more and more black guys were just standing around at the roadsides wanting for the ripe opportunity. Now at every traffic light there was a warning sign saying “ smash and grab”.
I tried my best not to stop moving and leave enough space all around to perform some kind of emergency manoeuvre if needed.
Finally we came to our junction, the junction after Marshal plains and as we exited the slip road the houses stopped and industrial buildings started to appear and after a couple of turns we had found the echo store.
A guy opened the reception door and shook hands with us and we told him what we wanted and then the day started going downhill.
To start with the Echo showroom wasn’t really a showroom. It was more of a service centre for echo caravans and only stocked replaceable parts like spring catches, suspension and jockey wheels. It only got worse when we told the guy what we wanted for the awning and he didn’t have a clue what we were talking about even though we were standing under one showing him. Then we asked him how much a new jockey wheel was and he said he’d email us a price. Even though it was sitting there on the floor and we wanted to buy one. Then we asked him how much the awning walls were and he said he’d email that to us.
I’m not expecting to hear from him atall and now we’re stuck trying to find second hand awning walls because we can’t get new ones.
Our next stop was 200ft down the road to AXL off-road where they didn’t have a jockey wheel but they did have plastic nut covers that have come off of our trailer so we brought those and they told us to go to Safari 4x4 world just 8 miles away. I checked to see where that was and went there.
Once again no jockey wheel but we did get some guy lines and pegs and they told us to try the midas store around the corner so we jumped in the car drove around the corner and within 2 minutes we were in black land.
Yes, it is that simple and that quick to drive over an invisible line and end up where you shouldn’t and we had done just that and now we had to turn around.
Your gut tells you to turn up a side street, make a U turn and come back out but you can’t do that here. That side street could lead you into gangland so I kept driving and as a break in the traffic came towards me I handbrake turned in the middle of the road doing a lovely screech. Now we were going back the way we came.
Still moving I set the Sat Nav and followed it to the edge of the N2 and just before we joined it we stopped at the lights. The N2 was left and Mitchel plains was straight over.
We turned left picked up the N2 and then picked the middle lane driving away from the edges of the road and keeping enough distance from other cars not to get boxed in. I’d totally had enough of Cape Town, I’d had enough of having to worry about what turn I’d have to make and wether that turning would get us in trouble.
Heading back to camp it was hot and the sun just seemed to be burning through the windscreen even though the aircon was on and being frustrated I missed the turning for the coastal route and had to drive the whole way back on the motorway.
We got back to camp at 4pm and as tomorrow is a public holiday people were already arriving by there droves.
I started the Braai at 5pm and by 6:30pm we had done dinner and by 7:30pm I was ready to go in and watch tv but people were still pouring in. At 8pm we had a tent pitch up right behind us and at 8:30pm we had 2 tents and a caravan pitch up right next to us. They were setting up until 9:45pm but the tent behind us didn’t light there Braai until 9:30pm.
At 10pm kids were still shooting past on there bikes in the dark and I was dreading the night but at 10:15pm all of the noise had stopped. It was crazy but nice and I hoped it stayed like that all night.Lue lisää