Cape Town 1 (4-29)

After 27 hours of traveling—overnight bus, ten hours in Windhoek, and flight, I arrived in Cape Town. Unfortunately, the trip got off to an unsettling start when I was waiting for the bus in Oshakati. I was sitting on a bench at a table reading, and some young men came from behind me and grabbled the Kindle out of my hands and also grabbed my purse strap and tried to pull it over my head. Fortunately, the latter didn’t work, as I held onto the purse and they gave up. About fifteen minutes before this happened two young women joined me at the table. My small backpack was on the table, and they told me I should put it down, meaning off the table. They indicated with their heads that some young men to the side were looking at the backpack. Later they said they had moved to my table because they had heard the young men talking about my backpack and wanted to warn me. I was very thankful for that, as the computer is in that backpack. The thieves or whoever they sold the Kindle to immediately got busy ordering books and free one-month trial subscriptions that would then be billed to me. So the first thing I did in Cape Town was contact Amazon about the theft. They were able to deregister the Kindle, stop the subscriptions, and refund the gift certificate credit and credit card charges that were used to pay for their purchases. I was glad that process was relatively easy. After recovering from the shock of the experience, I thought about how this is the first time anything like that has happened to me in all my years of traveling and living in six countries. With that perspective, it was a minor inconvenience.

Since I didn’t have a lot of energy on Thursday, I planned a fairly easy day. After a slow start, I walked to the bus stop and took the Hop on-Hop off city sightseeing bus. The buses are double decker. There are three main routes around the city and the peninsula, and a side route for wine tasting. A ticket is good for the whole day, and you can go change bus routes and go many places; so that was a good deal. Along with the ride, there is a commentary about the sights you can listen to with the provided earplugs. It is in about ten languages. Since the bus stop is a fifteen-minute walk from the guesthouse, it was a perfect way to get around.

When the bus stopped at the water front, I hopped off and went to the Two Oceans Aquarium. As I entered, I noticed that penguin feeding was in twenty minutes; so I headed there first to wait for that and had plenty of time to observe the penguins, which was fun. Before feeding them, the man talked about the penguins, which was quite interesting. They are an endangered species. While feeding them, they track how much each penguin eats and check their health. The penguins are identified by the spot patterns on their chest, as they are all different. 

Some of the penguins were fed by hand; others were thrown fish to catch and eat on their own.

Highlights—things that were new to me—in the rest of the aquarium were shark egg cases, abalone, and giant spider crabs. I also enjoyed the fish and coral, as always. On the way up the ramp, there were signs about plastic pollution in the oceans. 11 billion tons of plastic are dumped into the oceans every year. I learned about gyres, huge whirlpools where the plastic accumulates. There are five of these around the world.

On the bus I learned about free—tips only—walking tours in historical area of the city and decided to take one at 2:00. I ended out in the District 6 group, which was perfect because I wanted to go to the District 6/Apartheid Museum. Taking the tour was a great introduction to the museum and made the museum experience much more meaningful. The guide was fantastic. On the way to the district, we stopped at City Hall, where Nelson Mandela made his first speech the night he was released from prison. District 6 is the district of the city from which 60.000 people were removed in 1966 for apartheid. It had been a mixed neighborhood in which everyone got along very well, but they wanted it to be a district for white people only; so the black African people and the colored Malay people were forced to move to other segregated parts of the city. Their homes were razed.

St. Marks’ Church, also known as the stubborn church, had been a church for the Malay people. The government offered to take it down and rebuild it in their new neighborhood and give them 2 and then 4 million rand, but they refused to accept both offers. So the church remains and is now in the middle of a university that was built around it and the Malay congregants are bused to it every week.

The guide told us the story behind the graffiti paintings on some of the buildings. One has 60, 70, 80, and 90 with pictures inside the numbers depicting the situation during those decades. This is on a building next to an open space that is a site for protests. Although it has been there for a few years, it is illegal and will soon be covered with white paint. 

Another is a painting the four South African Nobel Peace Prize winners. 

There is also a building-high woman carrying a baby on her back while she protests.

  

The District 6 museum is in a former church. Its purpose is to remember the old district and what happened to its residents fifty years ago. There are banners with pictures and with signatures of former residents. 

One exhibit is suitcases filled to remind people that that is all some residents could take out with them. The walls are full of photos of former residents. It reminded me of a Holocaust museum, as its purpose is similar--remembrance of bad things that were done to people. 

One of the last buildings the guide pointed out was Charly’s Bakery, a bakery famous for cakes and cupcakes. So, after visiting the museum, I had to return to the bakery for a treat. I selected a slice of cheesecake, which I brought back to the guesthouse to eat with tea. It was a delicious evening treat.

Friday I took the sightseeing bus again to go to Kirstenbosch, the National Botanical Garden. On the way to the bus stop, I had my first sighting of one of the mountains. I had just studied an aerial view map in the office that made the central mountain, Table Mountain, stand out clearly for me. It was not at all visible on Thursday; so I hadn’t realized that the city is built around the mountain.

While waiting for the bus, I met a couple from Durban and hopped on the same bus to continue chatting with them. As we rode, there were more glimpses of the mountains. Then I switched to the peninsula route to the garden which goes around the mountains, which were emerging from the clouds, a process I always enjoy observing. 

It took over an hour on the buses to reach the gardens. I hadn’t realized that they are at a higher elevation. Since the elevation is higher and it was cloudy and windy, it was rather cool at the gardens. I walked around for three hours. Since the mountains are the background, I was glad they had become visible.

Highlights of the garden: The tree canopy walkway. 

Proteas, most of which were either finished blooming or were almost ready to bloom, but some were in bloom. 

Silver trees, which are only found on Table Mountain and in the garden. 

And other pretty plants and flowers.

When I was walking under one tree, a woman called out for me to look up. My first thought was a tree snake, as I’d just read about these snakes that live in the trees. But it was a pair of owls. She lives nearby and visits the garden often; so she knew that these owls are usually in that tree.

After the garden, I hopped on the bus again, welcoming the sitting time inside the bus. The couple I had chatted with had said I should stop at Hout Bay and have fish and chips. So I did. It was a 35-minute drive from the garden. By that time, the wind had picked up and it was cool. There wasn’t much to see at the bay other than a lot of fishing boats. But I did eat, choosing fried calamari and chips along with hot chocolate. It was the best calamari I’ve had, as it practically melted in my mouth. 

The ride back to my bus stop took another 35 minutes. Luckily, the sun was out and the view of the mountains inland 

and the coast were stunning, making a lovely finish to the day.