“You stopping off in Johannesburg?” asked the Singapore Airlines stewardess. “No, I am getting off in Cape Town,” I replied. “Good,” she responded. “Better. Safer.”
Clearly a woman of few words, she captured the essence of what makes Africa travel so different from everywhere else – that even within the same country, places are as different as night and day, so imagine that characteristic scaled across a continent of 56 countries and 1.8 billion people.
Where you have a market like South Africa that “behaves more like the West” to a market like Nigeria where even with a population of 220 million, the real addressable market for travel is just a few million to a destination like Rwanda that is being likened to the “Singapore of Africa” and which is following its north star of high value, low impact tourism – that is what makes Africa so fascinating and interesting to entrepreneurs and of course to travellers.
It takes some adjusting to, life in Cape Town, for an urban rat like me from Singapore.
Imagine waking up to this view every morning.
I am staying in a villa in which I could easily fit six, maybe 10, of my Singapore apartment. It’s the kind of home you imagine James Bond living in – never alone, of course. Five storeys, right on the cliff, overlooking the sea where the master bedroom on the top floor sprawls and blends with the view, and it comes with two elevators – for the first three days, I think I did 10,000 steps a day trying to find my way around the place.
It’s managed by In Residence by Pieter Brudyn, whose company manages uber luxury villas around the world. It comes with housekeeping and a private chef. “Just tell him what you want to eat and he’ll whip it up,” said Pieter.
I am good at many things, but domestic stuff is not one of them. Anyway, one evening Chef Jason whipped up an amazing dinner. We started with yellowfin sashimi, followed by a grilled local fish, Kobeljou. Jason said this fish can hunt without seeing – it works on vibration in rough waters – but clearly it can get hunted itself without knowing. Well, it tasted really good. For dessert, he whipped up a light, frothy mango panna cotta.
“People are preferring lighter meals these days,” said Pieter, when I spoke to him about how luxury traveller preferences are changing. “They are more health-conscious. They are also travelling in bigger groups and staying longer.”
Well, Obsidian’s location on Kloof Road is perfect for health nuts. Nearby is the infamous Biskop Steps, a very steep flight of steps, which locals apparently use to firm up their butts, I am told. Let me tell you, climbing Biskop can literally take your breath away.
Speaking of butts, I am pleased to report that WiT Africa made history by showing the audience that of a speaker (on screen), while said speaker was on stage. Stephan Ekbergh, co-founder of Innovation City, was interviewing Kristian Schmidt, award-winning photographer, about the short movies he has made as well as the insanely beautiful photos he has captured in the wild – and cheekily, froze the movie during the critical moment.
Schmidt, who grew up surrounded by art, celebrity and theatre folks, given his stepmother was Ingrid Bergman, did not miss a beat, and continued talking about the inspiration behind his photos and how for one of his best-selling shots which features a woman dancing with a whale shark, he had to find a model who could breathe for six minutes underwater.
Photo credit: Kristian Schmidt
WiT Africa will also go down in history as the first to have a dog on stage. Diesel, a Bernese mountain dog, shared the stage with his owner, Andy Hedley, managing director of Travelstart, Albert Fernando, CEO of Travel Wings and Bayo Adedeji, Group CEO of Nigeria-based OTA Wakanow, during the local OTA panel.
When Diesel got bored.
Andy, who used to be a sheep farmer on the Scottish highlands for 20 years before he got into the travel industry, is obviously good with animals – because Diesel was the best-behaved dog I’ve ever known. He just sat there quietly at Andy’s feet and when the conversation got boring (for him, I must stress), he rolled over and slept.
Meanwhile, back at the villa, watching the sunset one evening, Ekbergh commented, “Did you know that during sunsets, lithium is emitted in the atmosphere and that’s really calming for us?”
And did you know too that in Cape Town, you can also catch a sunset in a glass of wine, and drink it?
I could get used to this life very easily.
