Change In Plans

Greetings from Llandudno, Cape Town.  We flew down from Windhoek yesterday afternoon.  

After having so many great experiences in Namibia, our departure was a bit frustrating and complicated: it took an hour to return the car, with some unspecified assessment for “sand blast damage;” the flight was delayed then undelayed then they put us on a slightly scary “backup” plane; general chaos in slow motion.  

My favorite moment was when the Hertz guy looked at me gravely, and said, “Have you been driving in sandy areas?”  It is almost like returning a rental in Minneapolis in January, and having them ask whether the car was exposed to cold temperatures.

Although we had always planned to return to the Llandudno house at the end of the week, India booked two interim nights in a fishing village about an hour north of Cape Town.  The beach house, called the White House, was recently featured in a popular magazine, and the village, called Yzerfontein (pronounced AZER-fon-tane), has become trendy in property development circles.

Tallulah was very disappointed to find out that Mr. Obama would not be at the White House when we arrived.  The rest of us were a little disappointed to find that the White House was really designed for photo shoots, and not for a family to stay in.  Everything was photogenically beautiful, like a Ralph Lauren beachwear advertisement, but there were no comfortable spaces.  Literally every surface in the building (as well as the exterior and trim) was white.  The kids’ room was in the basement, and the master bedroom was on the second floor.  When the owner greeted us with the keys, Tallulah was carrying an open bottle of orange soda.  All of the adults awkwardly foresaw a potential “orange on white” disaster.

More important, the house was in an unoccupied retirement village, with weird and garish (and empty) places surrounding it on three sides.  The fourth side did have a beautiful view of the sand dunes and the ocean.  Because we were at the southern edge of the currently developed part, there was a paved road and  street lights leading off to nowhere in the dunes further south.  The whole thing reminded me of a Bergman movie, with metaphors for death and purity all around us.

As the rain poured down on us this morning, we made the executive decision to retreat to Cape Town a day early.  We could have stayed, I guess, but the desolation and bad weather, and the strangely uncomfortable house were enough to send us home.  We need to wash some clothes anyway.

So, we are back in the same house in Llandudno.  The waves are huge, so Zola and I are going down to boogie board.  Our kids were reunited with all of the stuff that we stored here, so it was like a late January Christmas.  We are happy to be back in a home, instead of the succession of tents and lodges that we have lived in for the last three weeks.  We are particularly glad that it is this particular, familiar, comfortable, Llandudno home.

PostScript- the waves were amazing, and Zola and I had a great time with our friend Paul.  The rip tide was strong, and complicated, so I was glad that Zola stayed in close to the beach.  Holidays are clearly over: we basically had the beach to ourselves.