Allow me to ‘fess up to a particular prejudice: I’ve always avoided backpackers like the plague (or more pertinently, like amoebic dysentery). I’ve managed to travel around the world without once laying my head down in a dormitory.
I’ve stayed in temples, in grimy B&Bs, in huts and in no-star hotels but I’ve dodged anywhere frequented by “travellers” with rucksacks, matted hair and tall tales about overland trips and climbing Kili in flip-flops. So it was with not a little trepidation that I set off for The Backpack in Cape Town.
I also have a slight prejudice against Cape Town — not all of it, just those earnest hippy-dippy types the city seems to produce so many of, the type who say things like “shoo hey, be one with the mountain!” and who smile pityingly at Jo’burgers because, like, we don’t have the ocean and like, we have that hectic crime problem (neatly forgetting that in the less picturesque parts of their city, the rape and murder rates are among the highest in the world).
Needless to say, I arrived at The Backpack in less than buoyant spirits, expecting to spend the night in a flea-bitten dorm after a hurried wash in an ablution block.
The upside of prejudices is that when they are shattered, it’s a lovely surprise. I was considerably cheered when I learned that this is a “boutique” backpackers and that I had a private en suite room (thank you, Lord!), which was small but utterly charming.
There are dorms, but they’re mostly four-bed rooms that come with fresh linen (and hot water bottles in winter). An en suite luxury dorm bed will set you back R200 a night and a single en suite room costs R400, making this the ultimate credit-crunch way to travel. There’s a great café on the premises that dishes up the renowned Safari Breakfast: ostrich steak on potato wedges and a fried egg on top served with a tomato cocktail (vodka optional). Or you could play it safe and have coffee and fruit salad, as I did.
Backpacking is not just for young people, says Lee Harris, co-owner of The Backpack. She points out a guest in her 50s, who chooses to stay at The Backpack because she is travelling solo and doesn’t want to end up sitting alone in an anonymous hotel room every night. “The culture of backpackers is more open and friendly and that’s why once people have done it they’ll never stay in a hotel again.”
But what really sets The Backpack apart is its emphasis on ethical tourism. From the minute you pay a R20 key deposit (and learn that if you don’t ask for it back when you leave, the money will go to buying skipping ropes for kids in Heideveld) to the containers set out to collect batteries for recycling, this is a place that is serious about sustainable tourism. It is Fair Trade in Tourism accredited (FTTSA), which means that its staff enjoy fair wages and working conditions, it has environmentally sound practices and ensures that local communities derive some benefit from tourism.
The hostel supports community activist Mario van Niekerk, who runs a soccer and life-skills programme in the drug and gang-afflicted areas of Heideveld and provides 5 000 meals a week to kids in need. “He’s an exceptional human being,” says Toni Shina, The Backpack’s co-owner. Staff collect soccer boots from guests, clothes donated by departing guests are sold at The Love Project shop and guests are encouraged to knit blankets as part of the “Stitch ‘n Bitch” project. Backpackers can volunteer to work for six weeks with local kids (but only if they produce a police clearance certificate), doing everything from teaching science to listening to children read.
Daddy Long Legs
A few blocks away is the Daddy Long Legs Art Hotel in Long Street, a small, super-cool establishment that also prides itself on being Fair Trade accredited. As Jozi-ites we were somewhat horrified when the staff told us it was fine to park in the street outside the hotel. They eventually managed to pry us and our luggage away from the car, promising it would all be OK. Up a few steep flights of stairs and we were in room 10, aka “far from home”, decorated with panoramic wallpaper and blinds for that feeling of being lost in the Karoo, with koppies, barbed-wire fences and dusty expanses of nothing at all.
(Take a 3-D tour of the room online www.daddylonglegs.co.za/HotelGallery/Gal4.html.) Our guide apologises for the makeshift keyring: guests keep nicking the fancy designer ones, apparently overcome by the irresistible souvenir combination of the legend “Daddy Long Legs, Cape Town” on one side and “Far from Home” on the other. Each of the 13 rooms was designed by an artist, poet, photographer, designer or musician, who were given free rein to interpret the space any way they chose.
The rooms are small — but still bigger than the average European hotel room — so two people in the room at the same time means a certain amount of coordination of movement is necessary. There’s a hanging rail for clothes, a great shower and really cute toiletries in the bathroom (as well as free condoms).
If you’re planning a night out on the tiles in Long Street then this is the place to stay: it’s a conveniently short distance to stagger home for the intoxicated (and in the morning you can wander over to the masala dosa restaurant down the block, or compound your hangover by venturing into the pounding sound that is the African Music Store downstairs).
Daddy Long Legs actively collects donations from guests to fund the 4×4 Ambulance Project in Bulungula in the Eastern Cape, an area where patients often cannot access hospitals because of bad roads and long distances.
The next morning we were pleasantly surprised to find the car unscathed and exactly where we left it, being presided over by a smiling traffic warden with a hand-held electronic gizmo, who asked us for the princely sum of R12.
Luxury fair trade
Spier is living proof that fair trade tourism is big business. It was the first luxury hotel in South Africa to be FTTSA-accredited and is recognised as one of the world’s top 12 responsible tourism destinations.
Its emphasis on the triple bottom line recognises that success can no longer be measured only in financial terms, but includes environmental and social progress as well. It’s an approach that has paid dividends, not just in attracting tourists who want to spend their travel budgets ethically but also in ensuring the long-term sustainability of the enterprise.
People are at the heart of Spier’s fair trade approach, which guarantees that staff benefit from training and development, that they are paid wages 40% to 100% above the government minimum, that sound workplace HIV policies are in place and that supplies are sourced from local emerging businesses. Its 10-year plan is to create 700 new local jobs by transforming its supply chain.
But above all Spier is acutely aware of climate change and the threat it poses to the survival of the tourism industry. It practises the Three Rs — recycling, reducing consumption and re-using resources where possible – and has set the ambitious goal of having a zero carbon footprint by 2017, as well as zero waste solids and zero waste water.
Despite — or perhaps because of — these noble ideals, Spier remains a slick and sophisticated four-star operation offering something for everyone, from spa treatments to waterside picnics in tranquil surroundings. The stables are excellent and an early morning gallop through the surrounding vlei reveals reed beds filled with flocks of red bishops, forming a cacophonous blanket of black and bright red against an emerald backdrop. The future is here and it is definitely green.
It’s a long and scenic drive worth dawdling over, down the coast to Stanford, Gansbaai and the Grootbos Nature Reserve. Overlooking Walker Bay, this reserve boasts its own Big Five but there are no lions or elephant to be seen here. The Marine Big Five, which includes southern right whales, African penguins and great white sharks can, however, be found just over the dunes. Grootbos is a world-renowned flora biodiversity hotspot, with outstanding fynbos and some of the world’s last surviving milkwood forests.
Luxurious indulgence is the key word at the reserve’s Forest Lodge where each suite has its own deck, fireplace, outdoor shower and sumptuous en suite bathroom.
Dinner is five gourmet courses served in the main dining room with grace and good humour by superb staff. Bennett Msweli, our wine waiter, told us he started out as a porter at the lodge, but is now attending a wine course in Camps Bay and studying through Unisa.
“Our focus is to get people to move on in life,” says Tertius Lutzeyr, manager of the lodge. It’s an ethos that doesn’t just apply to lodge staff. The Grootbos Foundation, a non-profit section 21 company, runs a range of environmental and social development projects including Green Futures, a project that provides experiential training for unemployed young people on fynbos landscaping, horticulture and eco-tourism. Each year the project trains 12 people between the ages of 19 and 29 from the surrounding communities.
“We also focus on life skills, we have English language classes, computer lessons and help students get their driver’s licences,” says Lutzeyr. “People who graduate from our project don’t struggle to find jobs,” he says proudly. “In fact, we have employers coming to us trying to recruit our graduates.”
The lodge also runs a Growing the Future project, aimed at young women with children who haven’t been able to pursue a career or education. They plan to grow organic fruit and vegetables to be sold to the lodge and customers in the Masakhane township, as well as providing donations of fresh produce to the soup kitchen in Gansbaai.
Guests from overseas are given a social responsibility tour of the reserve and neighbouring communities and, to offset their carbon emissions, each guest has a tree planted and is provided with the GPS coordinates so they can watch it grow by logging on to a site like Google Earth.
For many tourists a visit to Grootbos is the beginning of a lifelong relationship. Lutzeyr tells of a German couple who lost their son in the 2004 tsunami. After visiting Grootbos they decided the most fitting tribute they could make would be to invest in someone else’s son and spent R45 000 on sponsoring a year’s tuition for a local young man to attend the Green Futures course.