I won't be able to be much help in general, but can at least say that you'd have no issues buying a bike in Cape Town.
My only recommendation (others may disagree) would be to go for reliability if you're planning to arrive, jump on it and head for the hills. That doesn't necessarily mean new, or expensive. I'm personally planning to ship my bike to the start point of my trip but only because I'm really familiar with it and am comfortable maintaining/repairing it - I also know what the condition of all the components are.
There's a South African adventure riding site called Wild Dog that might be good to get on to talk tech and find out where the good dealers and second-hand networkds in Cape Town can be found.
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