A cape town can hardly be a bad town. That’s a given. But this Cape Town didn’t quite measure up to the gospel everybody had been singing. That gospel was all sopranos and falsettos, none of the bass. Sand on end, ocean front delicacies, bars and brunches. Everybody seemed to eat the disparities right up and digest them just fine. Every waiter black, every owner white. The most prominent hint at inequality, as far as tourism was concerned, was crime. I received my first cautioning from two police who were flabbergasted that I was walking alone a spittle outside of Bo-Kaap, one of the most touristy places far and wide: “go back down and keep walking if somebody starts talking to you.” And at the hostel they pointed out those emptier downtown alleys you should avoid, left and right of the main streets. I stayed at that place on and off over the course of three months and there was one break in for each month. Harmless, non-violent break ins, unlike the ones South Africans would tell you about, usually first-hand accounts. One was just in the making one night when I accompanied River, the receptionist/son, on the way out. It took me three moments to realize why he was so tense and rude in escorting some guy off the porch: that guy had hopped the wall and was trying to petty-steal some things by reaching through a barred window. They had a sign on the other side of that window to not leave belongings lying around near it.