Goodhope Plaza

Goodhope Plaza

Monday, August 4, 2014

From Goodhope to Good Hope

FROM GOODHOPE TO GOOD HOPE

            We finally got the chance to visit Cape Town in late May, during school vacation. For Peace Corps volunteers from throughout southern Africa, Cape Town is seen as the ultimate R&R destination: a mix of the Mediterranean and California perched on the southwest coast of Africa. It did not disappoint us.

            We stayed five nights at an inn in an upscale residential neighborhood close to one of the beaches. We took many walks along the ocean front promenades, joined by local joggers and bicyclists. It was not beach weather as such. The winter rainy season had begun, with daytime highs not getting above the 60’s F.

            To explore Cape Town, we used on-and-off double decker tour buses. You find versions of the same bus in major cities in Europe. Patrons pay a set fare for the day and amble along a meandering circular route, getting on and off as you choose. Each passenger gets a set of head phones to listen to the commentary about the various sites. There are two separate routes in and around Cape Town, and we explored each.

            There are so many highlights to Cape Town it is difficult to know where to begin. We visited the Kirsenbosch Botanical Gardens, one of the greatest in the world. The Cape area of South Africa is home to the smallest floral kingdom in the world, with the highest diversity of plant species. Why is that? Because the region hosts a Mediterranean climate (warm dry summers, cool wet winters) and because it is surrounded (and thus isolated) by arid climates, including the Kalahari Desert, which has the opposite rainfall cycle: dry winters with any rain coming in the summer.  The gardens showcased the many indigenous plants: proteas, cycads (a kind of prehistoric palm plant), bird of paradise flowers, and flowering heath bushes. We learned that even the workhorse geranium flower is native to the Cape floral kingdom.
 
Stephanie at Kirstenbosch on the back side of Table Mountain
            We rode up to the base of Table Mountain, the stunning flat-topped steep ridge that serves as a backdrop to central Cape Town. There is a cable car for trips to the top, but the weather was too bad on the day we visited. We later explored the downtown, including the old stone fortification that dates back to the days of the original Dutch settlers in the seventeenth century. We ate at some great restaurants: Italian, Thai, Lebanese, you name it: Cape Town has it.
 
A couple of country folks from Goodhope visiting the original Good Hope
            One day, we joined an excursion out to the Cape of Good Hope, a spectacular hour’s drive south of the city. There, we took the obligatory photos at the southwest corner of Africa as we enjoyed all of the indigenous vegetation in the surrounding nature preserve. From there, we drove to a beach hosting – believe it or not – penguins. Hundreds of penguins long ago migrated from Antarctica and decided not to leave. They are every bit as cute in person as they are on film.
 
Penguins on the beach near Cape of Good Hope. It's not Antarctica, but it's not warm either.
            As if that weren’t enough, our drive continued on to Stellenbosch, an old inland town and the center of South Africa’s thriving wine industry. It is also a college town: Stellenbosch University sits there. Today it is also a tourist magnet, with quaint old Cape Dutch buildings, fancy shops, gourmet restaurants and, yes, lots of wine. After lunch, we toured one of the many wineries out in the countryside: Zevenwacht.

            For some tourists, a trip to Cape Town would not be complete without a voyage out to Robben Island, the location of the prison that housed Nelson Mandela for more than 20 years. It took us three tries to get there. One day the ferries were booked, another day the ferries were cancelled due to bad weather. On the third day we succeeded, although it was cold and windy and the boat trip was rocky. Still, the experience was unforgettable. Our tour guide was a former political prisoner who had served his sentence with Nelson Mandela. We learned that African political prisoners at Robben Island did not get a winter coat. Only the “colored” (mixed race and Indian) prisoners received such a garment.
 
View of Table Mountain from the boat to Robben Island

 
Nelson Mandela's fellow prisoner describing life on Robben Island
          
We hope to return to the Cape Town area in November on our way home after we complete our service in Botswana.

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