Cape Town: Sleep

TO / FROM THE AIRPORT Way 2 Go Shuttle Service 011-27/21-934-4651, way2go.co.za Door-to-door shuttle van to/from Cape Town International Airport that runs 24 hours. Drivers will meet you with a signboard in the international terminal near the rental-car kiosk if you reserve ahead, or in the domestic terminal at the Way 2 Go kiosk. Online prebooking advised. Rates for a one-way trip from airport to your hotel anywhere in the city center or back to the airport are $18 for one person, $20 for two. GETTING AROUND TAXIS Minibus Taxis White minibus taxis are a cheap way to travel major city roads, but they're not for the squeamish. The taxis can be cramped, noisy, and sometimes shabby, but they're fast--sometimes hair-raisingly so. They don't make official stops; board anywhere you can flag one down, and shout when you want to get off. Purchase tickets onboard. Note: These are not a safe option outside the city center and Atlantic Seaboard. About 40¢ to points within the city center. Marine Taxis 011-27/21-434-0434, marinetaxis.co.za Most reliable 24-hour taxi service in Cape Town, with a fleet of new cars. Call for pickup. Cash only. Fares start at 33¢, plus $1.80 per kilometer for up to seven in a minivan, four in a sedan. BUS Hop On--Hop Off Sightseeing Cape Town Bus 011-27/21-511-1784, hyltonross.co.za Open-air double-decker buses with a guide's commentary that make routine stops at major attractions only, like Table Mountain cableway, the V&A Waterfront, and the Cape Town Tourism Office. Hop on and off wherever you like. Note: Buses make stops at each sight every half hour in summer, about every hour in winter. Pay as you board; you can even pay with a credit card on the bus. Passes valid for one day. $15 for City and Mini Peninsula Tours, $26 for a combo pass. CAR Avis, 011-27/21-934-0330, avis.co.za Tempest Car Hire, 011-27/11-396-1080, tempestcarhire.co.za With so much to see beyond the city limits, it's helpful to have your own wheels. Try Avis for best all-around selection and service, or Tempest for low-priced, no-frills cars. Expect to pay about $39/day, including insurance, for a manual vehicle without A/C or radio, and from $64/day for an automatic. Note: People drive on the left side of the road. South African roads are well-marked and well-maintained, but be aware of speeders. WHAT'S GOING ON AROUND TOWN At newsstands Cape Times, 70¢; Cape Argus, 60¢, tonight.co.za; Cape Etc. magazine, $2.50 Tune in Cape Talk, 567 mw (talk radio with entertainment updates) TOURS Footsteps to Freedom City Walk 011-27/21-465-2032, footstepstofreedom.co.za The complete story of Cape Town and its people. Three-hour guided walk incorporates many historic sites, like the Grand Parade, Company's Garden, and St. George's Cathedral, and covers early trading, slavery, apartheid, freedom, and urban regeneration. Departs from the Visitor Information Centre at the corner of Castle St. and Burg St. at 10:30 a.m. Mon.--Sat. $16, includes visit to District Six Museum. Cape Care Route 011-27/21-448-3117, tourcapers.co.za Community tours by minivan that focus on uplifting social, economic, and environmental programs. Participants can rspeak directly with people working on projects. Run by Faizal Gangat, who won Best S.A. Tour Guide Award in 2004--2005 from the Tourist Guide Registration Office. Township walking tours also available. Reservations essential. $75 per person for a full-day tour. Daytrippers 011-27/21-511-4766, daytrippers.co.za A 14-year-old adventure-tour company with a stellar safety record. Day tours include hiking, biking, and picnicking on Cape Point and Peninsula, cycling through the Winelands, and even kloofing down Suicide Gorge. Kloofing is an exhilarating and uniquely South African sport where you hike along a gorge and then jump into pools from varying heights. $57--$90, includes equipment and lunch. NUMBERS TO KNOW   Emergency Services 107 or 112 from cell phone   Mountain Rescue Services 011-27/21-948-9900   Telephone Directory Assistance 1023   Tourism Info 011-27/21-462-4260   Computicket Ticket booking service for most events, 011-27/83-915-8000, computicket.com   Mr. Delivery Wide range of food deliveries from local restaurants; Cape Town: 011-27/21-423-4177, the suburban coastal neighborhood of Sea Point: 011-27/21-439-9916, mrdelivery.com For local calls, drop the international access number (011), the country code (27) and the city code (21). All local numbers have seven digits. For cell numbers (those beginning with prefixes 74-, 82-, 83-,or 84-), add a 0 before the prefix.

Annalisa Brooks from Laurel, Md. correctly solved our Dream Trips photo scramble and won the grand prize: dinner for two at a restaurant in New York City with two BT editors and a personalized photo scramble. When you arrange the tiles correctly, Annalisa's Dream Trip is revealed! Here's how it works:   Click and drag a photo tile to move it   If you move a tile into the correct space, it "locks" in place   Store tiles in the work area below   Place one tile on top of another, and they automatically switch places   Solve the puzzle, and the Dream Trips destination will be revealed   Need help? Click the "Hint" button. The puzzle may look easy--you rearrange the tiles until the image is correct--but it's harder than you think. And, check out our archive of Dream Trip stories from previous years, listed below. Angkor Wat Antarctica Galápagos Islands Graceland Grand Canyon Great Barrier Reef Great Wall of China The Pyramids Red Square Stonehenge Victoria Falls Sydney Opera House Taj Mahal Tour de France

GENERAL New Orleans Tourism Everything you need to know about visiting NOLA today French Quarter The essential guide to NOLA's famous neighborhood FESTIVALS New Orleans Jazz & Heritage Festival Apr. 28-30, May 5-7, 2006Tickets, schedule, and info French Quarter Festival Apr. 21-23, 2006 250 hours of free entertainment ACCOMMODATIONS The Olivier House Hotel (French Quarter) 828 Toulouse St., 504/525-8456 Le Richelieu (French Quarter) 1234 Chartres St., 800/535-9653, 504/529-2492 ATTRACTIONS New Orleans Harrah's Casino (CBD) 8 Canal St., 504/533-6000 New Orleans Museum of Art (Mid City) 1 Collins Dibole Circle, 504/488-2631 Audubon Zoo (Garden District) 6500 Magazine St., 504/581-4629 Wed.- Sun, 10 A.M.- 4 P.M. Admission: Adults $12, seniors $9, children $7 RESTAURANTS Bayona (French Quarter) 430 Dauphine St., 504/525-4455 Brennan's (French Quarter) 417 Royal St., 504/525-9711 Café du Monde (French Quarter) 800 Decatur St., 504/581-2914 Central Market (French Quarter) 923 Decatur St., 504/523-1620 Commander's Palace (Garden District) 1403 Washington Ave., 504/899-8221 Domilese's (Uptown) 5240 Annunciation St., 504/899-9126 Fiorella's (French Quarter) 8 Canal St., 504/533-6000 Galatoire's (French Quarter) 209 Bourbon St., 504/525-2021 Herbsaint (CBD) 701 St. Charles Ave., 504/524-4114 Liuzza's by the Tracks (Mid-City) 1518 N. Lopez, 504/943-8667 K-Paul's Louisiana Kitchen (French Quarter) 416 Charters St., 504/524-7394 Napoleon House Bar & Café (French Quarter) 500 Chartres St., 504/524-9752 Verti Marte (French Quarter) 1201 Royale St., 504/525-4767 VOLUNTEER Katrina Krewe New Orleans Habitat for Humanity

Someone had the genius idea to station a brass band at the baggage carousel. "When the Saints Come Marching In" played, and spontaneous struts and toe-tapping broke out all around. It was my first time back to New Orleans since Hurricane Katrina, and my very first Mardi Gras. The party was in full swing and I hadn't even left the airport. I honestly didn't know what to expect from my visit and found myself caught up in the city's collective exhale--its first real good time since all hell was unleashed last August. I spent a good chunk of my stay trying to keep up with the parades and politics, and walking around with spice-stained fingers from too many sidewalk crawfish boils. Mostly I hung out with friends, and friends of friends, all of whom had evacuated but returned to be a part of the rebuilding, and because of the magic. Really. "Blame it on the voodoo," they said. "We just can't stay away." Plus, no other city compared to home. Houston was too big, Austin too clean, and Atlanta too far away. Rolling up their sleeves was the natural thing to do. NOLA's easy living has been replaced by a new, palpable sense of ownership of the city, and it seemed like everyone I met in the days leading up to Fat Tuesday, including two guys in matching suits made out of blue FEMA tarps, thanked me for visiting and being a part of the celebration. Tourism is the answer Mardi Gras may have been New Orleans's post-Katrina coming-out party, but what now? Before the levees broke, tourism was the city's top industry, accounting for 40 percent of its local economy. It not only makes good business sense for the city to do everything in its power to attract tourists again, it's the key to the city's survival. The good news, as far as tourists are concerned, is that the city is mostly back to normal--at least as normal as NOLA ever was. There's still a significant amount of devastation in some residential neighborhoods, but most of the places and sights that tourists would want to visit are open. While only half of the residents have returned (about 200,000 people), evidence of a hiring frenzy is everywhere. Businesses are reopening every day. Planes to New Orleans are full. And tickets to the Jazz Fest (Apr. 28-30, May 5-7) are flying out the door. Robust crowds are also expected for the French Quarter Festival (Apr. 21-23), one of the largest free music festival in the U.S. The neighborhoods, in brief The most iconic and scenic neighborhood in the city, the historic French Quarter, is just as enchanting as it's always been, thanks to its comparatively high elevation--just five feet above sea level. The mostly residential neighborhoods closest to the Mississippi River--Garden District, Uptown, CBD, Warehouse District, and the Marigny, known collectively with the French Quarter as the "Sliver by the River"--fared pretty well thanks to a natural levee. Sure, some homes in the Sliver still have rescue-worker graffiti, a few traffic lights are on the fritz, and only a handful of restaurants are open after 7 P.M., but every day there are new signs of progress. Gentilly, Lake View, and even the Upper and Lower Ninth Wards are slowly returning to life, one house at a time. But chances are, as a tourist, you wouldn't go there anyway, unless you wanted to see the devastation. Where to stay Almost half of the city's hotels, inns, and guesthouses are open for business, with the majority clustered downtown in and around the French Quarter. And many combine affordability and charm. For example, doubles at The Olivier Hotel, an 1839 Creole Greek Revival town house with antiques and a lush courtyard, start at $135 but have been known to go for less than $100. There are currently 27,800 available rooms in New Orleans; some of them have been given professional scrub-downs since displaced locals moved out three months ago, while others are being fully upgraded and refurbished. How to get around and what to do One huge benefit to staying in the pedestrian-friendly French Quarter: You don't need to rent a car. Streetcars on the Canal and Riverfront lines are running, and they're free. (The St. Charles line will be operational by the end of the year.) You can walk to Harrah's Casino or hop a streetcar to the inviting New Orleans Museum of Art and its sculpture garden, which reopened to the public on March 3. And the impressive Audubon Zoo is accessible by a free river shuttle, which departs from the bottom of Canal Street. The award-winning 120-year-old zoo, whose hands-on general curator, Dan Maloney, and 11 other staff members looked after the animals and weathered Katrina while holed up in the reptile house, is a marvel of nature and wildlife education, not to mention good place to enjoy some shade. Last month, it returned to its Wed.-Sun. schedule. The zoo is even moving forward with its new rhino-petting and giraffe-feeding programs, as well as an insectarium. Where to eat New Orleans's appetite has returned, too. Everything you remember from previous visits is being served again--blackened beef tenders in debris sauce at Paul Prudhomme's restaurant, K-Paul's Louisiana Kitchen; fried chicken at Fiorella's; smoky seafood gumbo at Liuzza's by the Tracks; oyster po' boys from Domilese's; muffulettas (giant Italian meat and cheese sandwiches laced with green olive spread) from Central Market; and barbecue ribs from the Verti Marte. Acclaimed local chef Susan Spicer is working overtime at the helm of her wonderful restaurants Bayona and Herbsaint, churning out creations like cashew butter, pepper jelly, and duck sandwiches, and the city's most famous old-school restaurant, Galatoire's, is now taking orders. Its sibling, Brennan's, will reopen at the end of the month, and Commander's Palace starts taking reservations in late June. Today, the mayor's office estimates there are some 10,000 available restaurant jobs, which means when it comes to dining out, some patience is required. Lines can be long and service is slow, but when was it not? Where to volunteer To be fair, New Orleans still needs a lot help in a lot of areas, especially with trash clean-up. If you want to get involved, contact Katrina Krewe, founded last fall by local women who got tired of waiting for short-staffed city officials to take care of things. Volunteers meet Wednesday and Saturday mornings at 9 A.M. to rake and bag debris. Check the website (cleanno.org) for details. You can also lend a hand with Habitat for Humanity, which has gutted and cleaned out more than 1,000 homes in the wake of the storm. Although the organization recently announced that it has enough volunteers for the construction of 81 new homes slated for Musicians' Village, a project conceived by Harry Connick Jr. and Branford Marsalis to provide housing for the city's newly homeless jazz, blues, and Dixieland musicians, there are new initiatives on deck (habitat-nola.org). Of course, you could also give your time to any one of the many individuals or families who are busy working on their homes. Just knock. The success of New Orleans's recovery is also now measured in occupancy rates, ticket sales, and po' boy wrappers. Booking a room at Le Richelieu, sipping a Pimm's Cup at Napoleon House, and shopping on Magazine Street are the very best things we can do for the city. So go--swing a hammer, play for a weekend, or both. Let the tourists come marching in.