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Cape Town
22 12 05  14  12
-------- And a Weekend To Spare
I had the opportunity to spend a weekend in Cape Town early November. The weather couldn't have been better, as it was spring, and the opportunity one not to be missed. For anyone wanting to enjoy the African continent, Cape Town is probably a very good choice. It is a modern, safe city, with very rich history, spectacular landscape, and a sense for the finer things in life: great wineries, and good cuisine. It doesn't get better than that. Read more for details on city attractions that must not be missed.
City Center
It may be worthwhile to wake up early and walk around town to see the landmark buildings. Most of them are situated within a 10 minute walk of each other. The Catholic, and Anglican Cathedrals, Parliament and City Hall Buildings, Slave Lodge, SA Art Museum, and the Library are all close to the Company Gardens area. I walked around very early in the day 6am, had my breakfast in downtown, before moving towards the Castle of Good Hope, which is across the City Hall and the transportation terminal.
Castle of Good Hope
Originally built by the Dutch Trading Company that colonized the island, later occupied by the Brittish. It holds within its walls the military history of South Africa. The fortifications are fairly modern, but the museums that you will find inside will show you a window into the life of the castle's occupants, as well as go over the military conflicts that helped shape one of the most diverse countries in the world. Worth your visit.
Table Mountain
This very peculiar flat mountain just climbs right up out of Cape Town more than 3,000 ft up into the air. Everywhere you stand in Cape Town you notice the unusual formation, and it is almost impossible to resist the urge to climb it.
Had I had the extra day and a sturdy pair of hiking boots with me I would have dedicated the time to climb it on foot. There are unique plants in the mountain not found anywhere else in the world. And the views that you get from the top could only feel better if you where working hard to gain them, step by step finding an even better one.
However, without the luxury of a day of hiking, you can always climb up through the rotating cable car (gondola) for around $20 USD (round trip taxi from town is around $20 USD also).
At the top, having saved most of the time and effort of climbing, you can walk around a 20min circuit or a 2 hour circuit (hiking boots recommended on the longer walk), admiring a 360 degree view of the city, nearby beaches, and the whole Table Mountain National Park (which includes the Cape Point that I visited the next day). You can have lunch at the top on the restaurant, or stock up on overpriced souvenirs before descending.
The Waterfront
If you are looking for any type of culinary delicacy, this area may be the one you want to visit. Full of nice restaurants where to have an enjoyable dinner or where to have a cafe and a snack while you wait for your ferry to Reuben Island.
It has the typical assortment of street merchants, mimes, street musicians, and crowds expected in a revitalized Waterfront area that most mayor coastal cities enjoy today.
There is an adjacent covered shopping center (Clock Tower) with a very capable tourist information center from which you can book winery tours, safaris, and hotel accomodations. There is also a photo shop where you can get 1 hour film development and CD burning, and there is a well stocked Biltong shop where you can get South African dried meat (similar to jerky but by a slightly different process) from animals you ussually don't get at home (eat while in South Africa, as I do not think it will pass through US Customs).
Reuben Island
I was surprised by the value I got out of the three hour tour (not cheap, it is around $35 USD and advance reservations are recommended). The island itself appears to be a symbol of the apartheid years suffered by South Africans. For me, most of the value comes from a history buff tour guide that explains the history of the island in context with the political situation that was happening in South Africa in the late Twentieth Century. It also provides a very enlightening guide inside the prison by an ex-political prisoner. (The one I had, had been accused of terrorism for creating an armed militant branch of the ANC - something that the US legal system would support as long as there are no plans to topple the government, but legal systems in most other countries would still prosecute it.)
Neither the prison conditions, nor the forced labor impressed me at all: there are other countries have worse prison systems than what was Reuben Island. Nor the concept of political prisoner impresses me either: Cuba publicly accepts they do have prisoners in jails just for exercising their Freedom of Speech with anti-government statements and campaigns (which is not guaranteed by every country).
It does however, exposes how a group of people conducted their fight for national freedom (racial and political) from within very uncomfortable, very restricted conditions. Most other groups would have given up. The determination and tenacity of their actions to educate themselves, to communicate their ideas to their fellow South Africans, and to expose the nastiness of the legalized Racial Discrimination to the rest of the world was more admirable than all of the efforts made by Martin Luther King and their fellow Americans to gain Racial Equality and assure respect for Human Rights.
Cape Point and The Cape of Good Hope
While Spaniards where trying to reach India and China by circumnavigating the World, the Portuguese where trying to keep themselves to the only certain known direction to reach them: Traveling East. If it wasn't because of those pesky people in the Ottoman Empire (my respects to them -- they helped my country grow into what it is today by forcing its discovery, colonization, and industrialization -- with the added benefit of sending a bunch of stubborn people who wanted to move forward no matter what hardships where imposed by the Crown - it was God's wish after all), the Europeans would have continued their direct approach at walking (or carting) all the way to India and China by land. But then again, it was Westerns Europe fault, as they where the ones who committed the treachery of sacking Constantinople and setting it as an easy target for the Ottoman Empire. You see, it is never as simple as it sounds.
Cape Town and the area around it has a tremendous significance on the History of the World. While the Spanish Crown and other European powers found new riches and new lands to exploit on the New World, they still needed to acquire the goods that they where used to receive from the Far East.
Expeditions to circumnavigate Africa proved an arduous endeavor. For starters it is a fairly long trip. Had I been the European powers, I have had just united forces with fellow Europeans and marched towards the Ottoman Empire, and opened a route to the Far East. But then again, if we judge the coordination and enforcement powers they have on the UN Security Council today, we can't expect too much coordination. And if we go farther back in time, we face fact that they where so greedy during the Crusades that they even disbanded before reaching the objective, preffering to keep the conquered riches rather than doing greater good.
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