Entries from July 2010

2010

Moody Table Mountain

Not all is ever smooth and peachy with Cape Town’s weather. Table Mountain acts as an incredible torturer of skies, focusing the impact of conflicting air masses and unleashing strange downdrafts and pouring rains unto the city it dwarfs.

Below is an example. Approaching from the south and stuck in slow-moving traffic, we had ample time to marvel the mountain’s magnificent impact on every aspect of the city’s mood.

Posted at 12:39 AM in On the road: & Photoblogs: & South Africa: 6 Comments » Toggle display • Reply

1 - Marie says:

« I love these pictures, #4 especially - but the last two very much as well: not something one often sees, captured. I like the traffic and container component. »
Date of comment: 2010-07-26 13:44 • Reply
1.1 - Vince answers:

« Containers always remind me of the ocean and faraway ports... »
Date of comment: 2010-08-02 02:03 • Reply
2 - Guy says:

« Hi Vince,

Sorry to be so pedantic, but your approach to Table Mountain was from the East. But, then I suppose you are a deep sea diver, where the most important directions are up and down!

We hope that you are well and enjoying the Terrace, Vlam and El Gatto. »
Date of comment: 2010-07-31 12:25 • Reply
2.1 - Vince answers:

« Oops. I stand corrected. It’s awful how bad my sense of directions remains around Cape Town even after so much time spent there... You are right about the diver in me, however the pilot is ashamed...

We are well and missing you both. »
Date of comment: 2010-08-02 02:05 • Reply
3 - Cape Accommodation says:

« Stunning pics! I love the 1st one! Absolutely gorgeous. Cape Town is such a beautiful city . »
Date of comment: 2010-08-05 03:22 • Reply
3.1 - Vince answers:

« Hi Cape Accomodations,

I normally do not allow comments from non photography-related commercial web sites even if my spam catcher misses them, but in this case I’ll make an exception because if more people visit South Africa, it ultimately serves the greater good - and because Cape Town is indeed a beautiful city.

Cheers! »
Date of comment: 2010-08-05 10:30 • Reply

2010

Beyond False Bay, penguins and pristine waters

Back in January this year, when the Southern Cross was still filling our South African nightly skies and the FIFA World Cup was no more than a distant future thrill, we took the trusted Kombi for a drive around False Bay. Leaving Cape Town behind, we crossed the Cape Flats, zipped through Somerset West and wound our way along the edge of Cape Hangklip towards Betty’s Bay.

The ocean was just delightfully turquoise and the sky streaked by rare cumulus. As always when exploring South Africa, we saw our share of wildlife. From the top of a hill, I spotted a great white shark cruising near a rocky shore, less than half a mile from a beach where surfers paddled through wave sets.

Then in Betty’s Bay we visited yet another South African penguin colony, less idyllic than the one in Boulder’s Bay, but as prolific and definitely smellier. I haven’t yet gotten over my surprise of mingling with the comical birds in a temperate environment. With my eyes half-closed, I could almost pretend that the sun-bleached and guano-covered rocks were in fact ice and snow. There was something odd to the scene, as if a giant blunder had been done at the Creation level and a drop of arctic life had splashed into African heat.

But the penguins seemed well-adjusted and happy, and despite relative tourist activity and the clicking of cameras, they just didn’t mind our presence and did what penguins do best: mostly nothing.

Read 66 Square Feet for a more extensive post about the drive.

Posted at 2:31 PM in On the road: & Photoblogs: & South Africa: 2 Comments » Toggle display • Reply

2010

Brooklyn rooftop picnics

The terrace is beautiful and lush, but its 66 square feet don’t allow for much movement or lookout. At dinner, crossing my legs is a challenge and the Japanese grass keeps tickling my back. So once in a while we climb to the roof and picnic there, among satellite dishes, skylights and chimneys, with the wind in our face and the lifeless old windows of the hospital building for our only top neighbors.

The cat comes and joins us after a little coaxing. This is his kingdom and at first, he is reluctant to share it. We sit facing the Orient, spread one kikoi as a seat and another for a table, and we eat our feast watching the sky and the planes and the rising stars. To the west, the New York Harbour basin shines in the vanishing light and we can see ferries dance back and forth between Manhattan and the islands.

The Battery Tunnel building immortalized in Men in Black stands strongly in the center stage, brightly lit and massive. In the background and to the left, a short Lady Liberty tiredly lifts her flame into a world of overwhelming obstacles to her stance.

Not for a minute are we allowed to forget where we are as the invisible BQE highway sends a continuous low-pitch roaring towards us, major player in what we call the New York hum, the ever-present surrounding noise typical of large cities and whose absence strikes us as so incredibly wonderful when we get to such heavenly places as the Namib Desert or Table Mountain.

A few feet behind us is the Farm. Marie’s new horticultural effort has rapidly grown from modest experimental proportions to a full-fledged potager and we are watching with fascinated anticipation as our vegetables grow hurriedly in the summer heat.

Eventually, when night has fallen and our wine dried up, the plates empty and all stomachs content, we squeeze back down the trap door and into the welcoming light of our apartment. The cat follows from the outside, rounding the terrace and glancing nonchalantly at the street below, and he comes into the room with the manners of a king returning from the Crusades, victorious, hungry and tired, and after assessing the fleeting possibility of more food donations, he chooses a sleeping spot for the night and settles in.

Posted at 12:10 AM in New York: & Photoblogs: 5 Comments » Toggle display • Reply

2010

The FIFA World Cup ends on a flop

If anyone wants to know what I think, bad football was played today in Jo’Burg, between two teams that did not show World Cup final flare. Nothing impressive, no brilliant moves, an incredible number of bad kicks and missed opportunities, too much pushing, pulling and falling, too much acting, too much pretending, and very questionable arbitration.

I’d say the referee did a pitiful job at controlling the field and preventing fouls, and showed poor judgment first handing out a mere yellow card for a foot smacked right into a chest and later a brutal red one for a fault that did not even really show contact when replayed in slow motion, but which changed the outcome of the match.

Like in a cheap video game, Spain won after close to 120 minutes of poor gameplay, that’s all. Shame. Yawn.

Posted at 5:23 PM in Schtroumpfissime: & South Africa: 5 Comments » Toggle display • Reply

1 - dinahmow says:

« Spain certainly displayed none of the fancy footwork that upset Germany.
And the Dutch coach(?) taking off his medal as he walked down the steps was shabby. »
Date of comment: 2010-07-11 19:17 • Reply
1.1 - Vince answers:

« He must be best friends with the French coach. »
Date of comment: 2010-07-12 10:02 • Reply
2 - Sigrid says:

« I liked the referee, he looked straight out of a Langelot book, don’t you think?
What I will remember of this match is the slow motion of the kick in the chest. You saw all the air go out as the body was then flung backwards. I thought: « Oh MY GOD! Cracked or broken ribs, maybe punctured lungs, this man is in for a world of pain! »
I watch unbelieving when two minutes later the player was back on the field. The amount of abuse these bodies take is unbelievable. »
Date of comment: 2010-07-12 08:39 • Reply
2.1 - Vincent answers:

« Well, there were bad guys in Langelot too...

I’m not news-hunting but I happened to see an MSN title this morning that read: « Thrilling World Cup Final. » Hello, Mr. journalist? Anybody home? »
Date of comment: 2010-07-12 10:01 • Reply
3 - Sigrid says:

« Colonel Moriol! Un peu jeune mais sinon c’est tout à fait ça, stern mais avec une étincelle au fond de l’oeil. (And ultimately a bad guy) (Langelot agent secret, à bord du M. de Tourville? does it still ring bells?) »
Date of comment: 2010-07-12 15:59 • Reply

2010

Picnic on 3rd Beach, Clifton, Cape Town

In a little over 24 hours, the eyes of the world will focus on a single football, as an estimated* half a billion fans watch the FIFA World Cup final live from even the most remote corners of Earth. No broadcast event on the planet manages to capture the interest of so many people simultaneously.

I personally think that FIFA is too large a beast, probably rotten by corruption and in the simple business of making sheer profit. If as little as 5 percent of the advertising time it sells to major sponsors for what must be astronomical sums was instead given to charity organizations with an international scope - or, why not, to those serving the continent in which the Cup is being played - then some real good could come from the event. It should be the duty of any highly successful enterprise to give back to society, as much for a balance in operations and avoidance of the capital sin of greed as for simple and effective self-promotion purposes, and I believe that FIFA could shine better at this.

In any case, South Africa has been receiving more worldwide attention in the last few weeks than ever before, and that should be a good thing. The country will now have appeared in the awareness of many who previously ignored it and stands to gain from exposure and the success of a brilliantly hosted Cup.

But there is so much more to South Africa than frantic crowds in a stadium pulsating to the sound of vuvuzelas. It would be a terrible mistake for any World Cup spectator to so limit their exploration of a newly discovered country. I hope that those who attended in person will have gone off the beaten path and sampled the less traveled roads and beaches. I hope they will have strolled and walked and hiked. I hope they will have smelled the flowers and tasted the sea salt, and enjoyed wonderful food and superb wine. I hope they will have taken in the crisp light and absorbed the peace.

And for those who visited through a TV set, may their imagination and curiosity be tickled into picking up a South African novel, watching another documentary, Googling the origin of a word or even, why not, toying with the idea of a call to the travel agent.

South Africa is a land of extremes, and while not everything is rosy and pretty down there, I know of very few places anywhere on the globe that will fill the traveler with such a sense of wonder and amazement.

Here are a few snapshots of a wonderful family picnic on 3rd Beach in Clifton, the same beach that saw Marie and I drinking Champagne on a memorable afternoon two years ago. It has a sweet spot in our hearts, of course, but truly is a beautiful enclave of sand and ocean, nestled at the foot of Lion’s Head, a few minutes from the heart of Cape Town.

Now let the game be fair and may the best team win.

* Half a billion is a very conservative figure taking into account the recent admission by FIFA that their previous numbers may have been largely overestimated.

Posted at 1:46 PM in Photoblogs: & South Africa: 4 Comments » Toggle display • Reply

2010

4th of July come and gone

I’m not one to celebrate nor appreciate National and Independence days much, whether a 4th of July, a 14th or a 1st. While people drink and party, I tend to ponder. It is so easy to raise a flag high and forget the atrocities that have led us where we are. I do not feel that ancient blood baths are anything worth celebrating, especially when they are actually being perpetrated all over again on some distant land. If anything, a day of mourning and remembrance would be more appropriate. To feel sorry for a necessary evil and convince ourselves we have grown. But have we?

This 4th of July was equal to itself. I worked most of the week-end and had to deal with drunks and fights. The fights were fueled by ideology conflict, intolerance and latent racism. If a country’s national holiday meant anything serious, one would think that the masses would find something more intelligent to do than get trashed.

And was I in France, I wouldn’t look forward any more to the upcoming 14th of July, for exactly the same reasons.

In any case, a walk along the Brooklyn Promenade with Marie was uneventful and I managed to get a nice-ish shot of our Manhattan skyline from the new park in Brooklyn. Peace to all.

Posted at 12:42 PM in + Panoramas: & New York: & Photoblogs: 3 Comments » Toggle display • Reply

1 - Karen says:

« If you have some free time, you should read Howard Zinn’s « A People’s History of the United States: 1492 to Present ».

(From the publisher’s website): « Known for its lively, clear prose as well as its scholarly research, A People’s History is the only volume to tell America’s story from the point of view of -- and in the words of -- America’s women, factory workers, African-Americans, Native Americans, the working poor, and immigrant laborers. As historian Howard Zinn shows, many of our country’s greatest battles -- the fights for a fair wage, an eight-hour workday, child-labor laws, health and safety standards, universal suffrage, women’s rights, racial equality -- were carried out at the grassroots level, against bloody resistance. »

Terrific book and a real eye-opener. »
Date of comment: 2010-07-07 13:37 • Reply
2 - frank@nycgarden says:

« As I drove back to NYC on July 4th, at 9:45pm, two friends and I discussed how no one ever complains about the toxic clouds that decend on our communities after the fireworks. We were passing through just one of those clouds somewhere on I 684 -which spurred the conversation.

It begins in childhood. Fireworks dazzle. The effect is too powerful to pass off. It’s a candied indoctrination. Who could feel sorry when all that color is exploding overhead. It’s the color of victory anyhow, and victory promotes itself. What nation laments those lost on the other side? And how could that nation promote warfare in the wake of such lamentation?

I can’t seem to celebrate the American revolution, which was a revolution over taxation. It has little to ennoble it, but to complain that taxes were « oppressive. » That’s an Englishman’s oppression, I suppose. I’d rather celebrate the end of the American Civil War. »
Date of comment: 2010-07-07 14:10 • Reply
3 - Vince says:

« Hi guys,

Thanks for two very insightful comments, it’s a nice change to actually have something serious to discuss around here...

I am not much of a History fan and generally prefer to look from the present onward, but the topic of that book sounds interesting indeed, Karen, I will look it up.

Frank, An Englishman’s oppression must necessarily be accompanied with food boiled in mint. Seriously, I like fireworks when they are not associated with a flag or brand. Which is rarely. Toxic cloud, yes, but so infinitely small compared to air traffic, smokers, 4WD monsters and BP spills... »
Date of comment: 2010-07-08 22:50 • Reply

2010

And New York sizzles...

While temperatures creep up and the Big Apple slowly fries under an unrelenting sun, the mercury having just busted a cruel 100°F (38°C) mark, it is sweet and a bit surreal to remember that last year, those were the brutal conditions we faced in Namibia and South Africa’s Kgalagadi National Park.

More recently though, but just as hard to believe, we were having drinks on a Cape Town beach with loved ones and friends, celebrating the impending Cape Argus Cycle Tour - and despite the season and location, summer nights were chilly and Marie had wrapped herself in a Grand Cafe blanket. This is the irony of the weather. It’s never what you want it to be.

Posted at 1:54 PM in New York: & South Africa: No comments yet » Post one!

2010

An afternoon on the Cape of Good Hope

South of Cape Town, all the way down the Cape Peninsula, part of the Table Mountain National Park and next to Cape Point, is the famous Cape of Good Hope, southernmost part of the peninsula and often (falsely) labeled as the bottom tip of Africa.

First rounded in 1488 by Portuguese explorer Bartolomeu Dias, the cape was initially named Cape of Storms and certainly has claimed its share of wrecks. Just a mile offshore, the warm Agulhas current coming down from the Indian Ocean clashes violently with its cold counterpart the Benguela as it heads up the western coast of Africa to a foggy rendez-vous with the Namib Desert.

Some tales claim that the legendary ghost ship Flying Dutchman was doomed to eternally sail the ocean while attempting to round the Cape into Table Bay. When looking out to sea from such harsh, desolate shores, it isn’t hard to imagine the sailors fighting against mother nature’s fury in the darkest of nights, the wind hauling through torn sails and waves crashing down on decks with maddening strength.

Yet on a sunny afternoon, as we walked down from the Cape Point parking lot with our picnic, leaving the crowds behind and entering a world of high cliffs and sandy perfection, peace was all around and soon inside of us, too. The many wooden stairs leading down to a secluded little bay just east of Cape Maclear are steep and high enough to deter most tourists and we found ourselves just about alone once we got to the bottom.

The wind was blowing steadily and we first sought shelter from the sun in the shadow of one of the great stone walls. Swimming is reputedly dangerous in the area, with strong undertows and ripping currents lurking in very cold water, but we wet our feet and walked the length of the beach before picnicking in the shade.

This is the magic of Cape Town. Less than an hour away from the city, in all directions, exist many oasis of pure, undiluted beauty, where one can be alone and feel like the real world has disappeared beyond a horizon of a thousand years of tranquility.

There are very few places in the world that carry as much romantic symbolism as the Cape of Good Hope. Standing there and looking out into the ocean is a bit like staring into the future and the past simultaneously.

There is nothing beyond but empty space and while at your back sits the hungriest, hottest and most tortured continent on the planet, the ocean in front seems to be calling for a truce, for a fresh start, offering a level playing field in which all men can measure themselves by the only value worth governing the world: courage.