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Because I’m busy writing about, well, lots of things, I’ve not yet been able to document my bat encounter at the Kalk Bay Caves. However, if you want to see some good pics (sorry, the bats were camera shy but good lord, do I actually still have muscle definition in my arms???) and Pierre from TreasureAfrica’s write up, check out this link.
I jogged past my first crime scene in Cape Town on Tuesday.
Around 8 a.m., I was running on Beach Road (the main thoroughfare hugging the coastline) near Clifton. Clifton is a well-to-do neighborhood north of where I’m staying in Camps Bay. And by well-to-do, I mean ’superstars own second homes here’ well-to-do.
Unfortunately, many of these superstars might be rich enough to buy $2 million dollar apartments, but they’re not rich enough to buy coveted garage parking space. Thus, many residents and short-term holiday makers are forced to park their porsches on the street (you know where this is going, don’t you?)
This particular resident owned a shiny, less than a year old, midnight blue BMW. Unfortunately for him, on this morning, it was sitting propped up on bricks, missing its tires. The owners had recently discovered it, and were looking at the car grimly with a security guard. I clucked in disapproval and kept on running, trying to remember if I’d ever seen a car sans tires before, or if it was just one of those Hollywood movie images that transposed itself into my brain and made me think I had actually witnessed it in real life.
On my return pass, I became aware of some shattered glass on the ground, possibly from the headlight. The rest of the car looked undamaged. However, when I saw the trunk, my brows furrowed in confusion, for a huge, gaping hole had been made in it. About a foot in diameter, it looked as if someone had taken a large ax and hacked through, and then pulled back the metal. I assumed that whomever had done this was looking for goodies stashed ’safely away in the boot’.
However, when I returned home, Ben told me about a recent spate of thieves hacking open BMWs to steal wheels. Apparently, that is where the special wrench is kept to remove the super-pricey tires and rims. Who knew?
My question is this: Beach Road is a busy road. All hours of the night busy. Kinda like, well, the Kloof Road that they mention in the article linked above. How the hell did a group of people manage to hack a hole in metal, put a car up on bricks, and steal a full set of tires and rims????
