OutUK correspondent Rex Wockner visited South Africa earlier this year
checking it as a gay holiday destination which offers a whole lot more than Mykonos or
Key West.
DAY 6Monday was the Townships outing. I set off with guide Ibrahim, a British woman and two Dutch women on a Legend Tours excursion to the neighbourhoods where many blacks and "coloureds" (mixed-race) live in a complete mix of homes from the neat and suburban to the shantytown.There is still great poverty in South Africa. In Western Cape province, where Cape Town is, there's a Third World country just outside of the First World city. Many of these Townships were created by the forced relocations of the apartheid era, which ended officially only in 1994. For the most part, the townships were not pretty, but I didn't see anything worse than I've seen in Tijuana and/or on the west and south sides of Chicago. We got out of the van and walked around in one black township with a black guide we picked up once we got there. We didn't feel threatened. However, later, in a "coloured" township, Ibrahim refused to let us get out and walk, saying gang activity made that township very dangerous. We visited a pottery factory, a recycling centre where women make hats from old plastic bags, and also the very impressive District Six Museum, a definitive historical record of apartheid from a non-white perspective. | |
| I recommend the townships tour and consider the District Six Museum a not-to-be-missed stop. It wouldn't be right to come to Cape Town for the first time and just hit the beautiful beaches, the snazzy gay clubs, the wine route, the Cape of Good Hope and all the rest. You really must see how the majority of people live and also learn something about South Africa's unconscionable recent past. |  At the District Six Museum. Photo by Rex Wockner |
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Back in the First World, I dined at the Victoria Junction Hotel with representatives of the Pink Map,
the Gay & Lesbian Association of Cape Town Tourism Industries & Commerce, the Mother City Queer Projects,
Gay & Lesbian Films, and the Cape Gay Guide. At one point in our conversations,
the colourful Nodi Murphy of the Gay & Lesbian Films organization, shouted, "The
only fucking reason this fucking country ever got rid of apartheid is that it was
BAD FOR BUSINESS!" Later, two relatively conservative white friends of mine in
Johannesburg, admitted, "Well, it's true."
However whatever the reasons it came about, South Africa did get rid of apartheid, and today it feels like the rainbow society they are trying to build may be starting to exist. However, crime, AIDS and unemployment present extremely serious challenges. DAY 7Tuesday, and we visited the largest and glitziest shopping mall I've ever set foot in, I went to a fancy casino where I lost 400 rand (£17.50), and drove along the amazing Cape Riviera to the gay nude beach at Sandy Bay, about half an hour out of town. The townships seemed a million miles away, even though, in reality, they were just over this or that hill somewhere.Dinner was back in the gay De Waterkant district with Henry and Alistair from the tourist office. Afterwards, they took us to see the legendary drag duo Mince (Keiron Legacy and Lili Slaptsilli) who put on the best show of that genre I've ever seen. They are still performing after all these years. DAY 8 - JOHANNESBURG: HIDDEN CHARMSWednesday, eight days after arriving in Cape Town, I hopped an SAA flight to Johannesburg to visit my friend Martin and his partner Nico. Jo'burg is not Cape Town. It's not particularly pretty, many of the central parts of the city are quite dangerous, and many people who own things worth stealing have huge walls, often with electrified fencing on top, around their suburban homes. Martin and Nico have been burgled seven times.There are, however, several pockets of pleasantness outside of the city core. A few blocks of walkable streets here and there, big fancy shopping centres and malls, a snazzy casino and entertainment complex (where we saw a well-done dance and stage show called African Footprints). My friends seem to like Jo'burg, as do many residents who know where to go, and who to hang out with, to have a good time. For strolling and sidewalk cafes, I recommend the trendy neighbourhood of Melville, where I had a tasty lunch with Gavin Hayward, editor of Exit, South Africa's only gay newspaper, and Daniel Somerville, former editor of the now-defunct national gay glossy, OutRight. We spent most of the evening checking out the gay clubs in the area. There's a block of gay bars, all owned by the same businessman, at the intersection of Henri and Juta streets in the relatively safe Braamfontein neighbourhood. Look for The Vault's big neon sign on the sign of the leisure complex. After an hour or so, we decided to be more adventurous, drove through a dangerous part of town to a slightly less dangerous part of town, and entered the gay club The Factory. To be allowed in, you must remove either your shirt or your pants. The cover charge is 30 rand (£1.50) if you enter naked, 40 rand (£2) otherwise. We took off our shirts, and turned out to be the only ones partially clothed. In the UK, the Fire Inspector would probably close this joint down in a second as there were numerous passageways and winding, cramped stairwells from which no quick escape would be possible. The patrons seemed to be having a very good time nevertheless. If you find yourself in Johannesburg for any length of time, I suggest outings to Pretoria, the legislative capital (a 45-minute drive); the De Wildt Cheetah Station (a 90-minute drive) or even the awesome Drakensberg Mountains (a four-hour drive).
Of course, you could always just stay put in Cape Town - one of the most beautiful cities in the world and,
at the moment, the cheapest place I've ever been apart from Nicaragua under the Sandinistas. You could quite
easily have the time of your life for under 50 pounds a day - including hotel, meals, drinks, and everything else. I
can't think of anywhere else in the First World where that would be even remotely possible.
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