Ten Reasons Why Cape Town is Better Than Loughborough Even if There's Really No Comparison

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WORDS Tom Herbert

I didn’t know what to expect when I first arrived in Cape Town. I had never been this far south of the equator before, and my only visit to Africa was a day trip to Morocco around 2006ish. Friends had been and were quick to tell me how great it is; how beautiful and how awe-inspiring this place can be. Of course, there were the warnings, the bad side of life in a country where democracy has only existed for 20 years, and people hastened to add that with my loud mouth it wouldn’t be too long before I would find myself in trouble. Aside from a lost camera and some missing dignity, however, Cape Town has been more than welcoming and more than worth her status as The Mother City. Warm and hospitable, she has taken me under her matriarchal wing with aplomb, greeting me with wonderful weather and an amazingly convivial atmosphere.

The sunset outside of what has been my home in Heathfield for the past three months. Photo: Daniel Risse

It’s far too easy to heap praise upon praise, and I know for a fact that thousands of other volunteers, visitors and tourists would be saying exactly the same thing as I have just said. Instead, I would rather make a comparison with my home town of Loughborough, Leicestershire’s biggest town and so hilariously prosaic and predictable as to make a comparison like this almost redundant. If you’re not from the UK chances are you won’t have heard of Loughborough, and I think that says it all really.

You might, at this point, think, ‘Why only ten points, dear Thomas, if your hometown is so pedestrian?’, but this article would go on for far too long if I were to list every way in which Cape Town eclipses Loughborough, so we’ll do this as a condensed list, an essential ten reasons; a quick, and shallow, summation of what I’ve learned in my three months out here.

1. For a start, Cape Town is so much easier to spell. This may seem like a rather petty point but you have to remember that I’m English and we do LOVE a good moan. Loughborough is pronounced ‘Luff-brah’, which is a rather odd way of pronouncing two syllables that are spelt the same, don’t you think? Cape Town, on the other hand? Well, it’s pretty self-explanatory really.
2. The view. Every morning in Cape Town I have woken up to fantastic views and have come home to fantastic sunsets, the mountains surrounding the city providing an awe-inspiring backdrop against what often is the bluest blue I have ever seen. Even when it’s raining it still impresses me. In Loughborough, however, you’ll be lucky if you ever see the sun, hidden as it is behind grey banality. It’s rather like Birmingham in this regard, but without the appeal.
3. Capetonians are some of the most welcoming and some of the friendliest people I have ever met (and not to forget some of the loudest). Granted not everyone is as welcoming as this, but they’re in the minority and you would get this all over the world. Come to Loughborough as a visitor and you’re more than likely to bump into someone who once thought they knew what a smile may have looked like at one stage in their paltry life.
4. The weather; enough said. England just cannot compare on any level.
5. 

   Cape Town by night, from Lion’s Head. Photo: Daniel Risse

   Braais, in wonderful weather. The closest you will get to this in Loughborough is a wet and miserable barbeque round your mate’s house with too much-charcoaled chicken and an inevitable hangover the next day.

6. The beach is a train ride away; Loughborough is in the middle of England. To be stuck in the middle of a country not renowned for its beaches can be rather depressing, to say the least.
7. The Winelands in Cape Town are simply stunning. Constantia, Stellenbosch and Franschhoek are dripping in beauty. The closest Loughborough has to this is the off-licence up the road, dripping in cheap booze and BOGOF Pringles.
8. The nature in Cape Town is on another level. Where else can you see sharks, penguins and whales in the same country? Even the stray dogs that refuse to move for vehicles are more exciting and more hilarious than they are back in the UK. In Loughborough, on the other hand? Well, I’ve got an overweight cat if that helps?
9. Cape Town is home to two professional football teams, two professional rugby teams, and one professional cricket team. Loughborough? Well, the university’s 1st XV plays in the third tier of English rugby, and there’s a non-league football team. Oh and something to do with a tennis tournament that represents the LOWEST rung of the men’s professional ladder and the development circuit for the women’s, and the national cricket academy (two things that I have never heard of before. Ever). There’s not much else really, apart from the fact that there was a professional football team which dissolved over 100 years ago. Not doing itself any favours, is it?
10. The food, and especially biltong – all meat and two carbs and not many vegetables. I absolutely love it. Dried meat in Loughborough, however, is more likely to be found in the bin than anywhere else, and you’re more likely to find horse in your burger than you are to ride one.

And so this is it. Ten reasons why I don’t want to return home and ten reasons why I will be catching the next flight back here (as soon as I can source some money from somewhere, of course). Cape Town my love, I’ll be back soon. Keep me in your heart for a while. I know you’ll be in mine.

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