backtosa.com

Just when I am starting to settle in to life in Barcelona, enjoying the sunny days and excellent coffee, the cafe culture and the eccentricities of a place dedicated to the Good Life, I hear that I am missing out on two of my favourite things in the Mother City.

The ride medicine
My girlfriend of three years, Liz, and I have, for the last couple of occasions, started giving each other “action” presents. Clapping her hands and squeaking in delicious terror, she took us abseiling off Table Mountain for my birthday.

If you go down to the farm today …

Have you ever seen piglets running around in suburban Cape Town or heard the sound of frogs at night, and wondered if you need to change your meds?

The Farm, at Erf 81, Military Road, Tamboerskloof, is a refuge for man and beast in the heart of the City Bowl. Youngsters take refuge there and live within the community and alongside animals in a way that seldom happens in an orphanage.

Karin Miller is back with more gorgeous, eccentric and playfully confronting work. In this exhibition she opens a new discussion about sexuality and gender too.

From April 22 at Focus Contemporary’s new gallery at 67 Loop Street, Cape Town, tel: +27 21 4225996

So you're from South Africa and you think you've seen it all? Tired of the same old touristy pursuits, on the lookout for something truly unique, something that stands apart from the crowd?

By Tudor Caradoc-Davies

Jazz, jazz, jazz! The mere word makes you think of free-riding soul singers and masterful musicians who allow their instruments free reign in finding, riffing and unleashing the unscripted, unfettered rhythms busting to break out of them. Coltrane, Miles Davis, Fats Waller… No sheet music, little structure, pure feeling. Instead of monkey-see monkey-do rote learning the idea of your education is that you embark on a DIY exploration of the sounds that suit you right then and right there, wherever and whenever that might be.

Leaving Shelley Beach: 1623km since we left Cape Town

After a wonderful long walk on Shelley beach, which we had almost to ourselves, we drove up to Durban to dig up and sort through my past a little. Verdict: Not quite as grand or exotic as we thought (Durban or my past).

Regarding Durban, so much has changed and not much of it good. But that is progress, I guess.

Total distance: 673km

This took us 9,5 hours! We had expected to fly through the old Transkei in about 6 hours (this was also the day I called myself the Maggie Thatcher of Road Trips). One mistake was to do the maths using 120km/h as average speed. Mistake number 2 (one is never enough) was leaving at 10.45am. My note to self for next time: Leave early and don’t expect to drive faster than 100km (often you will be going way slower than that).

Knysna is one of those must-see small towns in SA and a fairly obvious place to stop a (short) while. It is famous for the local oysters, stunning scenery and laidback way of life.

The Pink Loeries are also becoming quite an event to visit the town for. It is the 10th anniversary this year and we were assured that the festival is becoming one of the premier gay festivals in SA, especially for the ladies (Knysna seems to be crawling with ladies in sensible shoes, by the way).

After three fantastic years in Cape Town we are about to set off again in search of adventure.

We are heading to Costa Rica for the month of March to do a TEFL course and after that we hope to set out our stall in Barcelona as conversational English teachers for the rest of the year.

We will be publishing info about our travels and experiences of TEFL and teaching on our sister site www.LeavingSA.com.