Cape Town Diaries

¹ The heavens declare the glory of God;
the skies proclaim the work of his hands.
² Day after day they pour forth speech;
night after night they reveal knowledge.
³ They have no speech, they use no words;
no sound is heard from them.
⁴ Yet their voice^[b] goes out into all the earth,
their words to the ends of the world.
                           -Psalm 19:1-4a

South Africa the Beautiful

We are frequently told that “South Africa is a beautiful country, but not the best country because it has too much crime.”  After living here for several months and visiting Cape Town in the Western Cape in January, I can agree with that statement.  We have experienced both petty crime and now amazing natural beauty.  The Western Cape was a pleasant break from Durban; it is very similar to California in weather and geography.  There are beautiful beaches, mountains, and vineyards.

Victoria & Alfred Waterfront (named after the 19^th century British monarchs) has a busy port as well as many high-end shops and restaurants.

Camps Bay, an up-scale beach town, is bordered by the mountain side called the 12 Apostles.

Table Mountain is the feature of Cape Town that has made the city famous world-wide.

Franschhoek (Afrikaans for “French Corner”) is home to many wineries beginning in the 1600s when the French Huguenots settled there.  Tastings average $2.50 for 6 wines and some come with cheese pairing as well. 

 Scene along the N1/R45 Wine Route.  The vineyard area is very similar in landscape and weather to the Napa Valley.

Cango Caves in Oudtshoorn.  We took the 1.5 hour Adventure Tour and climbed vertically and horizontally through small crevices.  Funny story: in 2007, after repeated requests that she not to crawl through the caves, an obese tourist from Durban was allowed through (after threatening legal action) and became stuck in the cave for over 10 hours, trapping over 20 tourists behind her, including a diabetic who needed insulin and a couple children with asthma.  Emergency services used climbing gear and paraffin wax to extricate her.

Oudtshoorn Wildlife Ranch.  We were able to see big-game animals up close (in enclosures that would never pass American safety inspections), watch crocodile feedings, and play with cheetah cubs.

Scene along the N2/R310 Garden Route.  Ironically, this drive reminded us of the words to America the Beautiful.  Do you see the ‘spacious skies,’ ‘purple mountains,’ and ‘amber waves of grain’? 

Shantytowns.  We have never seen shacks as expansive and dense as those surrounding Cape Town.  They extended for miles, seemingly without end.  Electricity is supplied by makeshift wires criss-crossing over the shacks, connected to utility poles on the side of the road; in the absence of parks, people use the side of the freeway (with traffic streaking past at 80 miles per hour) as their exercise and recreation area – for jogging, soccer games, etc.

Chapman’s Peak Drive, a 9km route, is a picturesque mountain road with multiple switchbacks and scenic vistas along the Atlantic Coast, reminiscent of California’s Pacific Coast Highway.

The Cape Good Hope was previously considered the most southern point of Africa until the Europeans realized they were wrong. (It is now known to be Cape Agulhas, which is 150 kilometers southeast.) It is the legendary home of the Flying Dutchman, a ghost ship that was doomed to sail the seas forever.

Dias Beach was one of our favorite places on the trip.  Secluded between the headlands of Cape Point and the Cape of Good Hope, its only access is by a steep stairway that descends from the trail connecting the two points.

Boulders Penguin Colony.  The colony comprises of 3000 African penguins, the only penguin species to inhabit Africa; it all started with 2 pairs in 1982.  (Fortunately – or unfortunately depending on how you look at it – our parents were not so successful.)

Robben’s Island is where Nelson Mandela was imprisoned for the majority of his 27 year sentence.  We went on a tour guided by a former political prisoner who spent 8 years there.  Although he was a black man, he made special mention of the many women, Asians and whites who opposed apartheid and were also imprisoned.  It has become increasingly common, we have noticed, for people to remember ‘the struggle’ against apartheid as a battle fought and won primarily by black South African men.

Kirstenbosch Botanical Gardens, located at the foot of Table Mountain, features plants unique to the area.  Of the 6 plant kingdoms, the Cape is the only region with its own floristic kingdom.

South African Fact:

From the tour of Robben’s Island, we learned that during the apartheid era, people were not classified as being a certain color until they received their identification papers at the police department when they turned 16 years old.  For people whose race was not obvious, such as certain Asians or ‘coloureds,’ they would do the ‘pencil test’ or the ‘lip test.’  If a pencil could remain stuck in their hair, or their upper lip was above a certain thickness, they could be classified as black.  Maybe I would have been considered black during this time: a pencil can definitely get stuck in my hair and my upper lip is fairly thick.