Camps Bay, Natural Perfection meets Earthly Decadence

Greeted by a hypnotic saxophone, whose melody creates a mirage like trance which accentuates the beauty of Camps Bay Beach in Cape Town, South Africa. The beach is the zenith of African decadence, nestled between one of the Seven Wonders of the World, Table Mountain and the majestic Atlantic Ocean.

It’s an Eden for many, the piercing blue ocean which is calm yet volatile intensified by the snow colored beach, an oxymoron of sorts. The sound of the waves acts as the percussion to the seducing saxophone.

A myriad of restaurants lines the shore. Camps bay is unique to Africa, from the salt saturated air, to the unpredictable weather that only a mammoth mountain and grandiose ocean can concoct. The ice-cold breeze under the blazing African sun is unfamiliar yet refreshing.

The slew of extravagant cars mixed with the backdrop of the regal Table Mountain creates an ever changing picturesque image. Locals and tourist mingle on the sun-kissed beach; enthralled in the trance of the saxophone playing.

As the African sun begins to set, the saxophone’s melody slowly begins to fade and is replaced by the audible roar of the crashing waves onto the shore, the snow-colored sand begins to turn to a rusty looking shade…the once calm breeze becomes too strong to bear, a force to be reckoned with. The grains of sand being flung across the beach have a dart-like quality and sting when they come in contact with flesh. The ocean and the mountain seem to be working in havoc like unison to hand the visitors to the beach their eviction notice.


The saxophone player becomes starkly clear with the end of his hypnotic melody that earlier entranced all of us on the beach …His once eclectic looking clothes, seem less like a fashion statement to ones of desperation. The holes were not strategically placed and the rips were not thoughtfully made to mimic the Capetonian bohemian style. His socks were mismatched out of necessity not a statement of vanity. His saxophone case was not vintage out of nostalgia for the past but because of the grim reality of his present. The case for his ethereal instrument also doubled as a place for donations.

It becomes harshly clear that it is not the weather that makes Camps Bay a place of polar opposites.