Barbed Wire and Avo Toast

In Woodstock, Cape Town, local, eco-friendly, and progressive businesses are displacing a multi-racial community that has survived apartheid. What is a conscientious tourist to do?

The story begins with avocado on toast. Except here — in Woodstock, Cape Town — no one calls it that. You order avocado; the waiter translates: “avo, coming up.”

So we’re sitting in this trendy cafe — all the cafes here are trendy — sipping our lattes, nibbling our avo toast, leafing through issues of The South African Artist. A trio of chic thirty-somethings sits at the adjacent table. The group is mixed-race and mixed-outfit — a stylish headscarf next to the latest flower print — but these are superficial differences, pleasant touches of local color subordinated to the tableau’s overarching theme: sophistication.

We have arrived — at South Africa’s Hipster Central.

After breakfast, we head towards our next destination: a street-art tour. We have an hour to kill, so we amble along Alberts Road — Woodstock’s trendiest street. I’ve never experienced such a density of bespoke furniture stores. Certainly not of locked bespoke furniture stores. It’s 11 AM on a Friday, but every door seems to be barred and padlocked.