The trouble with Cape Town (especially in summer)
Cape Town is an awesome place, it really is. Table Mountain (with a choice between a long queue for the cable car or a tiring slog on foot to get to the top). Robben Island (once home to Nelson Mandela, now a boring tour you have to do because everyone back home will ask about it). Pretty beaches (only marginally contaminated with sewage). Fantastic summer weather (because all the rain is saved up for winter, when it never stops). The picturesque winelands of Stellenbosch and Franshoek just a short drive away (where snobby wine experts are standard equipment). Decent nightlife (if you’re down with repetitive techno music). Awesome views (if you can shoulder your way through the crowds of fellow tourists). Nice people (mostly, just avoid the handful of crazy homeless people). Good shopping (if usually a little pricey and snobbish).
And a surfeit of beautiful people.
Camps Bay beach as seen from Table Mountain. Take that, island paradise tourist destinations.
In fact, Cape Town has by far the largest density of beautiful people you’ll find anywhere in South Africa – and it isn’t all that far behind places like Monaco. We can’t tell you which is the chicken and which the egg, but the city is jam-packed with modelling agencies. To these agencies stream every long-legged, statuesque, chisel-cheeked female under 25 born anywhere in sub-Saharan Africa. And it’s not just the women either. Cape Town has a high population of gay men and – again, we don’t know whether this is cause or effect – there is a large population of pretty boys also.
This all makes for a rather nice afternoon out, just sitting at a pavement cafe watching the pretties parade past in their designer sunglasses and tight tops. It stops being pleasant approximately eight seconds after you disrobe on the beach and realise all the locals are starring at your flab. Yes, you are indeed the only person in sight with a body-fat percentage measurable without advanced laboratory equipment. Yes, everyone else is indeed sporting gravity-defying breasts over a washboard stomach. You may go to the gym three times a week and be pretty proud of your progress, but in this company you are a freak of nature.
The problem, as a friend of ours once remarked, is that nobody in Cape Town has eaten anything with a discernible fat content since 1983. Capetonians aren’t healthy, they’re obsessive. They exercise and diet continuously. They have all the nips and tucks and implants and spray-on tans that money can buy. We highly suspect (but can not prove) that there is a thriving black market in steroids. Basically, there is no possible way that you, a visitor, can compete. Except if you hail from the French Riviera yourself, or if you happen to be some kind of improbably low-maintenance supermodel.
The Clifton 4th beach in Cape Town. Notice any ugly people? That's because there aren't any. Photo by Warren Rohner with some rights reserved.
It only gets worse if you try to hide your shame by rushing into the water. The average sea temperature in the Cape Town region is around 16 degrees Celsius (61 Fahrenheit if you are metrically challenged), and on the Atlantic Ocean side it’s a lot colder than that. An unprepared man will suffer genital shrinkage that may well be permanent, an unprepared woman will shriek like a banshee, and unsightly gooseflesh is guaranteed for all sexes.
If you go to Cape Town, invest in baggy but hip clothing. Go for a nice stroll on the beach by all means, but remove nothing more than your shoes – and that only if you have well-groomed feet. Think carefully before exposing any skin that isn’t on your hands or face. Alternatively, invest in some hypnosis to shore up your self confidence and prepare to ignore the pointing and whispering and giggling. It’s not that all the pretty Capetonians are mean, it’s just that they’ve never seen anybody without perfect muscle definition.
