In South Africa, a glimpse of the New World

Around Africa Scott MacMillan's six-month road trip nears its end in Cape Town.

A view of Cape Town from Table Mountain. Scott MacMillan for The National

When I crossed the Senegal River last October under a darkened sky in a creaking wooden motorboat, I noted that something felt different on the other side. It was a cultural fault line. The north bank of the river, in Mauritania, marks the final frontier of the Arab world as one heads south down the Atlantic coast of Africa. Across the river's inky water in Senegal, West African rhythms blare from unseen speakers even as the hour approaches midnight. The crackly music sings that you're now entering sub-Saharan Africa. The melody is infectious at first, with chaos and dirt and noise all sweet like sugary tea.

The months have flown by since, the squiggle on the map extending south, with lines becoming fuzzier along the way. It's hard to say when that world was left behind, but at some point on the journey south, the surroundings have again changed drastically. Some say the divide is marked by a cattle fence running across northern Namibia, but it hits me hardest near the end of a 20-hour bus ride from Windhoek, Namibia, to Cape Town, the final stretch of a six-month overland journey from Madrid.

Time was I'd be horrified at the thought of spending 20 hours on a bus, but no longer. The ride is smooth and the operators have seen fit, remarkably, to assign no more than one person per seat. There's also an ample selection of packaged goodies from petrol station convenience stores along the way.

Approaching Cape Town, we pass through the suburbs of Paarl and Stellenbosch, the heart of Cape wine country. Sycamores line the streets here, and there's a flatness and neatness to the towns that seem overly familiar. Such is the comfort level of South Africa for the average tourist that many who come down overland from the Mediterranean imagine it's like coming back to Europe. This is my first visit to South Africa, and I look out the window and I see something else.

It's in the street signs, the pavements, the parallel parking, the churches, the squat one- and two-storey brick buildings, the dry cleaners and Chinese takeaways - all of which more resembles suburban New England than any part of Europe I know. I even spot a white picket fence.

It makes sense, for this is, in a manner of speaking, the New World. In the minds of 17th-century settlers of Cape Colony, the whites probably saw themselves praying at the altar of progress in contrast to the native Africans who still worshipped their ancestors. People don't see things that way anymore, thankfully - and if they do, they tend not to say it too loudly - but these towns still give off a sense that those who laid the first cobblestones were not just trying to build new roads but a whole new society.

Luke and I sleep in a friend's flat on the north slope of Table Mountain, the rock that dominates the Cape Town skyline. Quietly exuberant from having made it here intact, we cross the city centre by foot to the Victoria and Alfred Waterfront, a redeveloped harbour area brimming with hot dogs, milkshakes and soft-serve ice cream. My first impression of the city is that it seems surprisingly quiet and small.

There is another side to the story, for Cape Town is a city of 3.5 million, many of whom still live in townships built by the apartheid government in areas designated for non-whites, far from the city centre. Many of these districts, though not all, are still shanty towns, crowding right up to the highway that runs down the rugged coast of Cape Peninsula.

After spending so much time on the road, we decide the comforts of Cape Town are worth a serious investment of time. We realise we'll actually save money by renting, for one month, a two-bedroom apartment, splitting the costs five ways - Luke, Rob, myself and the two Finns we met in Namibia, Sami and Hanna. The one sleeping on the sofa is still living several notches up from most of the accommodation we've had in Africa.

So every day this month, we wake up in that apartment and look up at the face of Table Mountain. We talk about climbing it, then resolve to continue the discussion the next day. Rob also says that if I find myself a motorcycle helmet, he'll drive me on the back of his bike down to the Cape of Good Hope (which is not, contrary to widespread belief, Africa's southernmost point) where I intend to toss some special objects into the sea to mark the end of my Africa journey. I've yet to take him up on that, but I don't know why. I'm not sure if it's lassitude or resistance to drawing the curtain on this journey.

Scott MacMillan is blogging about his journey on his website, www.wanderingsavage.com. Relive all of his past columns at Around Africa.