There's no parking in Cape Town

So I was in Cape Town yestersday for an interview. This was my third trip to the Mother City.

My first trip was back in '95, almost a year into the new South Africa, and my grandmother took my cousin and I to meet our extended family in Elsie's River (or something like that).
For the very first time in my life, got the chance to run around in the cold and salty waters of the Atlantic Ocean (it was in June by the way), hooked up a serious collection of sea shells, and a whole lotta sea water. I'm still not too sure what the fascination is around bringing back (i.e. into the mainland) sea water. But I think it's supposed to bring people some sort of luck. At least that's what most Black people think...

Anyway, my second visit was last year in April. Was more of a business thing. I went for about a week. Luckily I was now old enough to truly appreciate the beauty that is Cape Town.

Damn!

I totally love Cape Town. I love the people there, the food, the beautiful women, the chilled out nightlife, I don't know I just totally love the atmosphere around Capetonians.

I love the laid back culture the people of Cape Town have. For some reason when you're there you just don't see people rushing all over the place. People don't bump while destracted by the confines imposed by the concept of time.

There seems to be an understanding among the people that they all seem to follow in perfect synch to one another. The pedestrians don't have to wait at the pedestrian robot for the green light. For some reason speeding isn't really a priority to Capetonians.

Turns out parking is also not much of a priority. I spoke to a coupl of people (literally 2), about migrating from the busy Jozi life to the more toned down Cape Town state of mind.

And they both said the same thing. They both said the cost of living as more or less the same and accomodates most peoples' pockets. But two thing will always remain a factor in living and working in Cape Town...
1. Property is expensive.
2. There's no parking in Cape Town.

Basically that means, you can sorta afford a decent place, but when it comes to buying car, you might wanna think long and hard about where you're gonna park it. Becase - as I came to notice during my leasurely strolls - there really isn't much parking in the city of Cape Town.

There are actually parking attendants who walk around with a meter thingy around their necks. What they do is, when you wann a park your car, they will gladly assist you with your blind-spot checks and slow reversing, then afterwards, they take down your number plate, punch it into that wonderful piece of machinery, then you can merrily go about you day.

When you return, after however many hours (or minutes, if you're from Jo'burg), he punches in your time, and a nice little receipt pops out and you give him the money stated on the paper. Which is usually close to around R30 (acoording to my sources) for an 8 hour parking spot.

So a large percentage of people who don't have parking allocated to them in their places of employment prefer using public modes of transport and leaving their cars behind.

Why?

Well, it's simple really, parking is damn hard to find, and when you do finally find a place to park, you end up paying a lot.

Either that, or there's just no parking in Cape Town.

Do I still wanna go live there? Hell yeah, but not now. After they rethink their public parking strategy.