Touring Cape Town
Table mountainn dominates the city cycling in from the airport.
A rotating cable car ascends into "the tablecloth" covering Table Mountain.
A parasail takes off from Lion's Head, looking south towards the Cape.
It is a great feeling to begin our bike ride along the east side of Africa. Having visited South Africa before, and also parts of East and North Africa, and having lived in Liberia for those 2 years almost 30 years ago, I am almost giddy about having the chance to cycle part of the continent. How will our experience differ from South America? Will there be as much variety in culture as we travel from country to country? How will the land lay? Will David find food without meat to eat? Who will we meet and what will our relationships be? What will my questions be?
Cape Town and its environs are in a stunning location. The city encircles Table Mountain, Devil’s Peak, Lion’s Head and Signal Hill with the Atlantic Ocean as a backdrop. I imagine there are few places one can be in this city without having some kind of view. David and I did a Sunday hike up and around this natural beauty getting a great view of the area. (Funny, but we ran into a couple from Chile on the hike. What fun to transport ourselves for a bit back to that continent in our conversation with them. We are still hoping to run into people from Argentina so we can change our 92 Argentine pesos [about $25]. Banks don’t want them.
Table Mountain at dawn from the Victoria & Albert waterfront.
We ended up staying in Cape Town a little longer than we had planned. Glenda, a friend of ours from Sacramento, was to meet us in Cape Town and bike with us for two weeks. Her plane was delayed several days because of the Icelandic volcano. Then she had to cancel her flight altogether because of continued delays and upcoming work commitments. Hopefully she’ll be able to meet us again in a month in Durban.
We took advantage of our extended stay to visit some of the museums. Interestingly enough, though we didn’t plan it that way, they mostly embodied stories of oppression. We visited the well done Holocaust Museum, which included ties to the policy of Apartheid and shared stories from the mostly Lithuanian Jews who emigrated here after WWII. We also visited the Slavery Museum. Cape Town and much of the early industries in South Africa were built on the backs of slave labor imported from, to name a few, India, Indonesia, Malaysia, Madagascar, and West and East Africa, most predominantly Mozambique. The locals could not be convinced to give up their way of life and work for the gain of the Europeans.
Oppression of many of the descendants of slavery was described in another museum we visited, the District Six Museum, which told the story of Cape Town’s policy towards them (the coloureds) during Apartheid. In the 1960′s their neighborhood, District Six, was declared a “Whites Only” area and 60,000 people were uprooted and bulldozed to the new “Coloured Area” called Cape Flats. Never being given adequate housing this area has morphed into a gigantic shanty-town with all the problems concentrated urban poverty can bring, drugs, violence, disease, lack of quality education. District Six today is mostly a wide green space as its former owners are taking the city to court and not much has been built there.
The Slavery Museum also housed an exhibit on Nelson Mandela who is one of my heroes. His uplifting and almost reverent story of his part in South Africa’s struggle for freedom also included a panel describing his mistakes while in office as the 1st black president of South Africa. I wonder if Mandela himself might have pushed for this piece to be included to remind people (including me) he is not a god. We also toured Robben Island where he had spent 18 of his 27 years in prison for treason. His crime, in a nutshell, was to call for “One man (person), one vote.”
All of these museums encapsulated for me the hope that is in South Africa, that in looking at their history honestly, in looking at their problems honestly, understanding who they are as a united people, South Africans can take charge of their future and work to solve some difficult problems. In my very small glimpse of life here 10 years ago, compared with my glimpse today things seem to have improved. The once exclusive and very white Waterfront shopping and eating area shows a much more integrated affluence. It was a much more interesting place for me to wander in this time.
Dutch colonial architecture in the historic Bo-Kaap district.
This grand old mansion is now the Big Blue Backpacker's hostel.
Street performers at the V & A waterfront.
Nobel Peace prize winners; Lutuli, Tutu, de Klerk & Mandela
Nelson Mandela's cell on Robben Island where he spent 18 of his 27 years of imprisonment.
Former prisoner Sipho was our guide on the Robben Island tour.
"Pink Mink", a Protea flower.
