Cape Town

David and I just loved Cape Town and the surrounding area - if we were to live in South Africa this would definitely be the region we'd choose. I've been trying to think why we loved it so much and I guess it's a combination of the history, the bright houses of the Bo-kaap area, the cosmopolitan city centre, the beaches within easy reach, the harbour area - I don't know, lot's of things, but it felt alive and safe to us! We stayed at a hostel called Penthouse on Long which was perfectly located right in the middle of Long Street, so just a short walking distance away from the action both day and night. People were under the illusion that if we were on Long Street we'd be kept awake with the noise but this was not the case at all, we were occasionally awoken by late night revellers returning to the hostel, but this was just the same as in any other hostel.

We spent a week in Cape Town so here's a run down of the highlights:

Day 1 - We went to a football match!

Oh yes, we went to see the Kaiser Chiefs play Ajax Cape Town at Newlands Stadium. The website informed us that tickets for the match could be purchased from a Shoprite supermarket so on our first morning we hurried off to buy our tickets only to discover that they were sold out!! Not prepared to give up that easily David decided to revisit the website and found that he could buy the tickets online, hurray, except we had to collect the tickets from…yes you've guessed it, Shoprite.

We caught the train to the match, later finding out that the line was notorious for muggings, but we were absolutely fine! The station was just a short walk away from the stadium but there was no need to ask for directions we simply followed the crowd. It was at this point that we were first exposed to the Vu Vu Zela - a plastic trumpet that every second person is blowing. The noise is simply deafening!

Before the match we obviously had to pick a team to support so David explained the history of both sides. In a nutshell the Kaiser Chiefs are a home-grown team with Soweto roots whilst Ajax Cape Town are a feeder club for the Dutch Ajax team. For me it was a no brainer Kaiser Chiefs were my team, as they were David's and, so it appeared, 90% of the crowd.

The football match was very exciting with a 3-0 victory to the Kaiser Chiefs. David clearly enjoyed himself as he kept shouting 'Wow, this is end to end football!' Watching the supporters is equally as entertaining as the football as they all dance an awful lot.

Day 2 - A spot of sightseeing

Cape Town has a lot to offer a tourist and what has become evident over the last couple of days is that it is both easy to navigate and walk around.

Our first destination was Bo-Kaap, the Muslim area of Cape Town famous for its steep, narrow streets and colourfully painted houses. We visited the Bo-Kaap museum which is housed in one of the oldest buildings in the area.The museum documents the history of the Cape Malay quarter and how many of the inhabitants are descendents of either convicts or slaves brought here by the Dutch from Indonesia and Malaysia in the 17th and 18th centuries. Most inhabitants were Muslim in this area and Islam became known as the religion of resistance in Cape Town thus attracting many other converts. Bo-kaap still exists today as it was the only area in Cape Town identified as a 'coloured' neighbourhood during apartheid.

Our final destination for the day was the 'Slave Lodge' where government slaves lodged during the time of slavery. We learned from this museum that Cape Town was essentially built by slave labour. At that time the whites didn't want to upset the local Xhosa people as they needed their local knowledge but at the same time they needed labour to develop the city. The solution was to use slave labour and so, in terrible inhumane conditions, they were shipped in from Indonesia, India, Madagascar, Malaysia and Mozambique to name but a few. Some of the slaves were sold whilst many became government slaves. A slave was recognisable as they weren't allowed to wear shoes and wore either conical hats or scarves. In fact between 1711 and 1795 slaves outnumbered free colonists in Cape Town.

Day 3 - District 6

The District 6 museum is run by a fabulous guy called Joe who invited us to join him whilst he gave a talk to some local school children who were visiting the museum. Joe lived in District 6 as a child and told us of the wonderful childhood he had in this cosmopolitan area where people of all different races and religions co-existed in harmony.

In 1966 with the advent of apartheid the government declared District 6 a 'white's only' area under the Group Areas Act. So between 1968 and 1982 more than 60,000 people were forced out of their homes to the Cape Flats Township located 25 km outside of the city. A letter would arrive advising you of the change in status of the area, informing you that you had to leave your property and offering you an insultingly low sum of money for your house, way below the market price for such properties.

To prevent people returning to the area the houses were destroyed once they had been vacated. It is now a huge green area with the occasional religious building dotted here and there. International outcry against Apartheid was already strong during this period so the government did not want to cause any more interest by destroying religious buildings. They actually hoped that a lack of congregation would simply force these places to close - but they were wrong! The sense of community spirit was so strong that many people made the long journey back to District 6 on religious days and so these buildings survived.

The move to the townships had an enormous negative impact on family life. Men had to leave the home earlier for the long commute into town, money had to be found to pay for this journey and many women had to join the workforce too. As a consequence children were increasingly being left to fend for themselves and so, looking for a surrogate family, gangs started to form and then the trouble began.

The ground floor of the museum is covered by a massive street map and former residents have marked on where they used to live.

Day 4 - V & A Waterfront

We were supposed to be going to Robben Island today but due to inclement weather it was cancelled so instead we visited Koopmans-de Vet House and the V&A Waterfront.

The Koopmans-de Vet house museum is a real house in the centre of Cape Town which has been decorated to provide an example of how a wealthy Cape family would have lived 200 years ago.

After the museum we wandered down to the Victoria and Alfred Waterfront. Like Liverpool this is a redevelopment of the harbour and docklands area. As you can see from the photos the area is a hive of activity and a really nice place to hang out for a few hours. We went to the cinema whilst there to see 'District 9' a South African sci-fi film based in Johannesburg. We were particularly interested in this film as it was inspired by the events that took place in District 6 during the Apartheid years, where we'd been just yesterday!

The most interesting thing about today was the drive back to the hostel. Unusually for us we got a taxi home as the weather was blooming awful! We had a lovely female driver who, as we sat in rush hour traffic jams, told us about her life story. She is one of 2 girls born to a white Irish father and a coloured woman of slave descent. Her sister was born with the white skin of her father whereas she had the darker skin of her mother. She grew up during the apartheid years and accepted that her father would be stopped and asked for his pass wherever they went. She also accepted that they could not do things as a 'family' as her father and sister had to sit in white areas and go through 'whites only' doors whereas she and her mother had to go to the 'coloureds' area. She is such a lovely lady and doesn't seem at all bitter about the hand life dealt her - even about things like her sister receiving an education whilst she was not welcome at the school because of the colour of her skin! On the other hand her father is still very bitter to this day and her sister was so angry that she left South Africa at the first opportunity and does not intend to return.

Day 5 - The Cape Peninsula Tour

Today we went on a tour which took us to:

- Hout Bay

- Muizenburg with its colourful beach huts where a world record was broken at the weekend when 101 surfers riding a wave simultaneously.

- Boulders with it's colony of (smelly) South African or jackass penguins - so called because they make a braying sound not dissimilar to that of a donkey.

- Cape Point National Park where we cycled to our lunch stop. I think some of the others mistook the ride for a race and went hurtling off in a competitive manner, in particular the sexagenarian of the group who clearly felt he had something to prove! David and I on the other hand tootled along taking photos and generally enjoying the view!

- Cape Point, where we walked up to the now redundant lighthouse and then back down and along the coast to the Cape of Good Hope.

Day 6 - Table Mountain and Mike and Yvonne

Today we visited the famous Table Mountain! We got there at 8.30am a good call when we saw how many people were queuing when we came down again. Unfortunately whilst the skies were blue over Cape Town low cloud was lingering over the mountain when we arrived, in fact we couldn't see where the cable car ended as it just disappeared into the clouds. We climbed into the cable car with approximately 50 other people most of them Japanese and when the cable car started revolving, designed to give everyone equal access to the wonderful views, they got very excited and started cheering - it was so funny! As expected when we arrived at the summit we were engulfed in mist. We walked around a bit but when there was no improvement we decided to call it a day - the minute we made this decision there was an instantaneous clearing of the cloud and there stood Cape Town in all its glory.

We spent the afternoon and evening with Mike and Yvonne, family friends of David. We had such a good time with them - we sat in the garden chatting over a glass of white wine until the sun went down and then moved inside for some fantastic home cooked food.

Day 6 - Robben Island

Today we successfully visited Robben Island. We arrived early enough to get a really good rooftop seat for the journey over to the island and as we were sitting in port we were able to watch the seals bobbing in and out of the water. The boat ride over to the island took about 25 minutes and we got a good view of the town and the prison as we arrived. The island was first used to house a few criminals, mental patients and lepers but in the 1960's it was turned into a maximum security island for political prisoners and continued as such until 1991.

On arrival at the island we were directed onto waiting buses, but boy did we pick the wrong bus, firstly it took the driver ages to work out how to use the disabled lift and then, on the island tour, the bus broke down. We had to wait for another bus to arrive to take us to the prison and we were getting more and more agitated as our time was rapidly diminishing. Our feelings were mirrored by our guide who, on our arrival at the prison, did not hide how angry he was at us for being late and chuntered about the fact we were here to see the prison not the surroundings - here here!

The guides are all ex prisoners and our guide had been an arms distributor for Umkhanta we Sizwe (Spear of the Nation) the guerrilla branch of the ANC, prior to his arrest. He showed us a group cell which would've accommodated 60 prisoners. When he was first imprisoned he slept on the floor with 2 blankets but eventually they were given iron bunk beds. The beds were introduced as a result of a prison inspection brought about by complaints from Nelson Mandela's family. The men were also initially subjected to cold showers but through hunger strikes they managed to bring about change and warm water was introduced.

After the group cells we were quickly marched round to Section B where the more 'dangerous' prisoners were kept in single cells including people such as Mandela, Zuma (current president), Sisulu and Mbeki.

Contact with the outside world was limited for the prisoners and they could receive and send just two letters a year. Beatings, hard physical labour in the lime quarry, prolonged solitary confinement and insufficient food, bedding and clothing were endured by the prisoners for many years. This really was a horrible place but as mentioned above hunger strikes, legal action and international pressure eventually brought better conditions for them. We were even told how the prison became an informal university behind bars, with prisoners tutoring their warders - many of the prisoners in Section B were highly educated men.

I enjoyed the short time we had on Robben Island but I think the tour was too quick and did not allow the visitor enough time to understand the full horror and history of the island.

Day 7 - Groot Constantia Vineyard

On our final day in South Africa and indeed on this leg of our world tour, Mike and Yvonne very kindly took us out for the day. We started with a cellar tour and wine tasting session at Groot Constantia the oldest wine estate in South Africa. Unfortunately our wine tasting session was cut short by the premature arrival of 2 coaches one containing Japanese tourists and the other Chinese. As these 2 nationalities notoriously do not get on our guide was quick to gather her new tour group together and lead them off in the opposite direction. The most famous customer of Groot Constantia was Napoleon who ordered 15 bottles of their sweet wine whenever he was in the area.

For lunch we stopped at Hout Bay and had some traditional fish and chips out of the box, an ideal way to acclimatise ourselves to our imminent return to the UK.

We then spent a very enjoyable afternoon chatting and driving around the Cape. We would like to thank Mike and Yvonne very much for their hospitality whilst we were in Cape Town and David would like to apologise for the car window incident though he didn't touch anything - honestly!

So to coin a famous Disney phrase:

'That's all Folks!'

For now anyway….