Middle-aged flash packers

Camps Bay is a suburb of Capetown, just 15 minutes drive from downtown. It was a toss-up between staying in Camps Bay and the V and A waterfront. We preferred the accommodation in CB so here we are. At first, we thought we’d made a mistake staying here because there was a mix-up with our booking which took 45 minutes to sort out. When you’ve been travelling for 24hours this isn’t much fun, but it got sorted out and now we’ve found our bearings, it’s definitely the right decision.

Our first night’s dinner was at the Beach House in Camp’s Bay. Before I get to the delights of our meal, let me introduce to The Fear.

The Fear plays a big part in South African life and it had me it’s grip before we even got here. Tales of muggings, people being tied up and tortured in their homes and all sorts of other horrors happening literally everywhere, all the time, were relayed to me. As a result, I am now a walking version of Fort Knox. My tiny, cross-body handbag contains the bare minimum required for survival. No jewellery of any note (not that I have much), and anything of value is either in the safe or buried in the bowels of my suitcase, never to be found again.

After getting the nod from Dickson, the concierge, it was decided that it was okay to walk into town. Like a highly trained ninja, I was aware of everyone around me. Which was no-one. Nobody walks anywhere here if they can avoid it. They are either terrified or incredibly lazy. Probably both..When you get into your car, it locks immediately, which is quite annoying as unless you synchronise your movements perfectly, whoever gets in first has to fumble about for ages looking for the lock de-activator in order to let the other one in, by which time they have been mugged and murdered by the crazed psycho who was hanging around waiting for this very opportunity.

Having made it safely to Camps Bay, we relaxed and celebrated our safe arrival with beer and empanadas at The Beach House.

The Beach House is a lively and very pleasant bar/restaurant with a nice vibe. The staff are lovely but seemed to struggle a bit to understand what it was we wanted, so we compromised and enjoyed what they chose to bring us.

And now for getting home. Naturally walking home in the dark is a big, fat no-no. So after fiddling about unsuccessfully with the useless Uber app (S did this on his phone outside on the street sending me into paroxysms of Fear.) we walked home.

I can now inform you that my application to join the Olympic speed walking team has been unconditionally accepted and Steve has strained his foot keeping up with me.

But we got home safely. Me 1, Fear 0.