Tours in Cape Town

Looking back over the past four weeks of the world cup and Cape Town’s participation in it all I can really say is “WELL DONE”.

Cape Town is known as the sleepy hollow of South Africa and it took us a while to get going. Building the stadium started late due to arguments as to where the stadium should be built.  The ground used was not zoned for a stadium, the place where the stadium is built is far from the people and as most Capetonians know there is no public transport into the area.

Eventually after a lot of in fighting and public opposition the way was opened for the stadium construction  to begin.  It took the contractors three years of blood sweat and tears to get the stadium built and in the process of building it they had to contend with  theft of materials from the site,  strikes over all sorts of issues ranging from wages to transport to the stadium. With all the problems they had to contend with it is a miracle that the stadium was completed on time.  Cape Town got the job done much  to the chagrine of those who wanted us to fail.

The stadium was not the only project on the go,  the other major project was the  airport  which had to be reconstructed and enlarged to handle all the traffic we were expecting.

Just weeks before the world cup there were still building works going on but although Cape Town is known as being  laid back we got all the major projects completed, unfortunately not within budget but on time.

As many of our roads were not up to standard  they  had to be widened and resurfaced to allow for the additional traffic volumes we were expecting. Together with the upgrades the new BRT system buslanes also had to be built to allow the new My Citi buses to be introduced between the airport and the city and between the city to the stadium.

The introduction of this new transport system upset the minibus taxi industry  who threatened strikes and road blockages if it were not discontinued. The city went ahead and fortunately no problems surfaced during the world cup.

The Koeberg Interchange before construction started  only needed one car to have an accident on it during the morning rush hour to upset the whole of Cape Town for the rest of the day. This problem has not yet been resolved but when it is finally completed in the next year or two traffic flow should be  a lot better with all the blockages and problem areas removed.

The portions of the bridge  that were completed and opened to traffic during the world cup worked pretty well, but mainly due to a lot of traffic being taken off the roads with school kids on holiday.

A lot more traffic was taken off the roads on match days with the roads around the Cape Town stadium being closed  and people being forced to use the public transport that was available. Many people and I am one of them had last been on a suburban train 30 odd years ago so it was a new experience for many of them as well as for me.  I was impressed at how well the trains linked up with the other public transport services to get fans to the matches and back.

On match days the trains were pretty full and people were squashed together like sardines but nobody seemed to mind as the “gees”  of  the world cup had everyone so excited that a little discomfort did not matter.

I am sure that if the  level of security  that has been evident on the trains during the world cup can be  maintained   the public will once again use the trains and buses once the world cup is finally over.

Trains however suffer from a number of problems inflicted on them by the locals.  The township cable thieves  think nothing of stealing kilometres of live electrical cable overnight and causing mayhem on the trains the following morning.  If a train is forced to a halt by power cables being stolen the commuters often set fire to them causing even more problems and delays  than the missing cables are doing.

When the trains grind to a halt many people are forced to find alternative transport on  buses  and  minibus taxis to get to work.  There are rumours  making their rounds that the taxi operators  are behind the cable theft, as when the trains don’t run they get more business.

Another small  mishap during the during the World Cup  was when the  private security force  who were supposed to be guarding the Cape Town stadium walked off the job just hours before a game over a dispute about wages forcing the police to take over and do the job.

The mentality of people who think that actions like this are going to be looked at favourably slay me. The security company was duly fired and all the guards losts their jobs. One of the guards who went on strike had only been employed for two weeks.

Cape Town had another small  security  incident when  a British fan managed to sneak into the Brits dressing room after the game. Investigations showed that this incident was a set up by the press so that they could denegrate the security at the stadium. A reporter is facing charges for the incident.

Luckily there were no major snarlups such as happened in Durban before the German Spain semi- final game when aircraft full to the brim with german fans were forced to turn around as the airport had been blocked by private plains and they could not land.

Although Cape Town stadium had the fan sneaking into the dressing room of the Brits,  Durban had someone sneak through their security and make his way onto the field.  His moment of glory did not last long as he was unceremoniously removed from the field to find himself in hot water with the authorities.

Away from the stadium   there were a number of incidents of overcrowding at the Grand parade fanpark when the Bafana team was still in the finals but after they were ushered out of the competition  interest waned and crowds were easily controlled.

One other incident of note occurred and that was that duplicate tickets were sold for row “M” in the Cape Town stadium causing minor mayhem on the night.   Whether the tickets were issued in error or reproduced by dishonest ticket touts I cannot say, but somehow people got into the stadium on tickets that they should not have had.  Fortunately the problem did not disrupt the games  and everything went off smoothly.

As you can see Cape Town had an almost perfect world cup and showed the world what we can do when given the chance to do so.

For those of you who were scared to come to Cape Town because of false reporting in the world’s press we would love to welcome you now.

I and my colleagues in the tourism arena would love to show you around our beautiful city.

To find out more about tours that are available visit my website at Http://www.turtlesa.com and pick a tour or two from the list of tours available.  I guarantee that you will enjoy them even more now that the crowds have gone.

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