About a month ago we left Mauritius for South Africa, spending about three weeks in Cape Town. I have always wanted to visit this country and it didn’t disappoint. Other than jagged overnight sleep in the airport we didn’t see much of Johannesburg. Just as well.
We arrived in Cape Town on a bright morning and, after buying bus cards and the necessary electric plug adapter – a strange-looking plug with three large thick cylindrical prongs – we took the bus to City Center.
View of City Center and harbor area from Lion’s Head.The view from our first of three hotels we stayed at: A soup kitchen. This city has quite a few displaced people. Some sleep in certain areas of town where there are permitted to set up tents or makeshift shacks. Others just sleep rough in the corners of the less busy streets, with cardboard for a bed and plastic for a sheet.
This first guest house was pretty well run. Given the sketchy neighborhood, that was a good thing. The house manager gave us a fistful of keys and an earful of instructions and how and where to use them. We felt pretty safe.The two photos above are of the City hall. Top: Looking Northwest up Darling Street. Signal Hill in the back ground. Bottom: Nelson Mandela statue signifying at the building’s front entrance.Table Mountain as seen from The Company’s Garden Park, the “company” being the East India Company. The first seeds were planted here in 1652, making this the oldest garden in the country. They also boast the “oldest cultivated pear tree in South Africa (circa 1652)”. – WikipediaBusiness downtown, Adderly Street (not quite City Center) is a very modern, upscale part of town. Notice the Art Deco white building.Leaving downtown via Long Street takes us through some rough neighborhoods. Crime is pretty bad here, sometimes even in the day. When I took this photo I just wanted a view up one of the side streets as our bus went up Long Street. It wasn’t until later that I noticed the details in the foreground.The Castle of Good Hope once guarded the city’s shore. It no longer does. For two reasons. 1. Cannons and fortress walls are, of course, hopelessly out of date. 2. The coast has receded over a kilometer away thanks to land reclamation in the 1930’s and 1940’s.Next three photos: City harborClock Tower and Fish Market. Sea Lions are pretty common here, especially in the evening.Sea Point: Contrast between old and new. The Ritz Hotel is no longer in business. Locals told me that they could not compete with the newer businesses closer to the Waterfront.Green Point Park, a great place to connect with the locals and the wildlife. Photos of this will be in the next post.Lion’s Head as seen from Green Point Park. Almost always this view would include hang gliders coming off the mountain. Somehow I managed to have a shot with none.Another view of Table Mountain, this time from Sea Point. The lower shoulder of Signal Hill is the nearer mountain.One of the best features of this city is the miles-long promenade. From here we were able to see all kinds of birds as well as dolphins.A lot of shipping, obviously, goes around the Cape. My telephoto makes it seem like the ship is close to the shore. It wasn’t.Also seen from the promenade, thanks to the telephoto, is Robbens Island, where Nelson Mandela was imprisoned for many years.Kayaks ready to rent out.These last two photos are of Camps Bay Beach. The mountains are named The Twelve Apostles.Another view of the beach. It is often very crowded, being easily accessible from the city. Not having a car, we really appreciated the excellent bus system in this city.
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