The 106 to Ludwig’s Garden.
The mundane often provides a real eye-opener. It shouldn’t be overlooked as an opportunity to improve one’s perception of our surroundings.
The current lofty R26.05 per litre we are paying for petrol changed my wife and me into MyCiti-bus users. The unexpected upside is an altered view.
The fuel increase is only half the motivation for the transit to public transport, though. Of late, our little VW has become a proper family-pool vehicle, and the competition for this sweet ride is sometimes really fierce. Hence, my better half and I are now frequent travellers on the City of Cape’s MyCiti Integrated Rapid Transit system. I know. It’s a real mouthful.
The IRT is the most expensive project the city has ever undertaken, and it has virtually improved the lives of thousands of Capetonians overnight. Any commuter in the Mother City knows the town’s traffic is at best a daily three-hour grind, or worse, a nightmare of energy-sapping frustration and life-endangering interaction with energetic taxi drivers.
Therefore, the blue-bus option has been celebrated widely. It’s cheap, clean, reasonably reliable, and relatively safe.
Our usual MyCiti route, the Camps Bay 106, meanders from close to our tiny Camps Bay rental apartment, to the impressive-sounding Ludwig’s Garden bus stop, down on Kloof Street.
The 106 is a delight. The trip starts with the initial undulating two-block hike to the boarding stop that wakes the quads beautifully. The city designed the bus stops for wheel-chair access, so one slides across from the lowered curb and onto the low vehicle, more than stepping up and onto it.
If you last rode South African buses in the 70s, when puny, coloured tickets were torn or clipped, you are in for a surprise. None of the old business of tossing ten cents in a little wooden bowl on a pedestal at the driver’s seat either.
You simply flash an IRT debit card at a small screen, expectantly greet the unresponsive driver and hope he doesn’t stomp on the loud pedal before you reach a seat. Impressively, off-peak saver periods set us back only a measly R7.90 per person to Kloof Street.
Late afternoon one-o-sixes are cramped when there is little regard for the amptelike load limit of 25 standing and 25 sitting passengers. This regulation does not include surfboards.
A proper, cosmopolitan mix of smartly-dressed domestic workers, young foreign-looking surfer dudes with their blond groupies, and passionate mountain bike riders — hugging their muddy steeds, greats you. Brothers from over our northern borders are tall and quiet. Everyone is on their mobile phone.
Men give their seats to standing women, and the mood is optimistic. Jovial even. Our trusty blunt-nosed vehicle ascents the impressive inclines, the diesel engine protesting a bit against the max load. The automatic gearbox frantically hunts between the gears. Its oil must be cooking.
The scenic route rewards the observant non-cell phone user with incredible vistas of a setting sun over the Atlantic. There is a thin fogbank boiling on the horizon, but it’s far off still, and the sky is big and clear for the moment. Was that a whale sighting?
Cresting Kloof Nek, the city’s compact bowl beckons the load of uninterested travellers.
The petrol price united us for a short ride, and the noisy confines and mountain views bonded an unlikely group, leaving one richer.