First time visitors to Cape Town are often surprised by the
airport's cramped quarters. The city is, after all, South Africa's
biggest draw. New arrivals on the way to their snug downtown
hotels are also frequently nonplussed by the slanting corrugated
shacks in the grim townships that define the Cape Flats. Apartheid's
legacy is still a Cape Town reality.
Like all cities in the country, it's a place where blacks and
whites still reside conspicuously apart. The economically challenged
residents, however, make up the majority of the city's complaisant
population, and their humble abodes are as much a part of this
ebullient place as the tourist magnets Table Mountain and the
Victoria and Alfred Waterfront.
I came to Cape Town to find just what it is that makes it so
unlike the rest of the country. I would meet that something
in its tenants. Like any truly great city, Cape Town is defined
by its residents, blacks and whites alike, even the so-named
“coloreds”, referring to those individuals of color
who did not fit tidily into apartheid's ugly roster. At places
like the cozy Waterfront and mirthful Greenmarket Square, I
found all the colors bleeding into one. And once under the locals'
affable spell and the city's allure, I, like most tourists,
didn't spare much of a thought for the squalor of the Cape Flats.
Cape Town, or Kaapstad, is South Africa's oldest settlement
yet its tenuous-though-relaxed racial harmony and ambitious
multi-million rand development projects keep the metropolis
fresh. One of the most saga- cious ideas the city has ever seen
was turning the cobblestones of the central Greenmarket Square
into a happy arts and crafts hunting ground in 1983.
“This is the best view in Cape Town,” says an Old
Town House guard as he opens the balcony doors overlooking the
square. “Used to be a parking lot. Can you imagine?”
he continues. “But now this place gives the city a focal
point.”
Created in 1710 as a farmers' market, the calm of the shaded
space exemplifies the new South Africa. And all around the periphery
the heart of the business district pulses and cafes and pubs
are alive with chatter.
While all roads lead to Greenmarket Square, all eyes look upon
the awesome, the inspiring, the majestic Table Mountain which
rises like a 1,000-metre high curtain. A hike or cable car ride
to the top is simply a pilgrimage. The vistas from the summit
are unrivaled, as are the 1,470 flowering plant species that
thrive here. On a clear day, it seems the entire sweep of Cape
Peninsula is visible. From the heights, I imagined taking wing
above the area penned in below by the mountain and by Lion's
Head and Signal Hill, an area fittingly called City Bowl.
Coming back down to earth by more realistic means, I found
the City Bowl full of cherries. The vibrant lengths of Loop,
Strand, Kloof, Buiten-single, Darling, and Wale Streets spin
a seductive web of places to eat, shops full of keepsakes, and
numerous galleries celebrating local artists. A stroll around
bric-a-brac Church and Long Streets seemed positively European,
and art stores such as the African Image look, well, out of
Africa. With its Colonial facades and historical ambience, Long
Street is also travel agency and backpacker alley, true signs
that Cape Town is a place to be.
“We had a 10th anniversary bash just last night,”
says Karin, manager of the Backpack hostel from behind her weary
eyes. “We were the first place in town geared to backpackers.
And now look at the number of hostels.” It isn't simply
good business which makes her smile. “It's just great
to have people here,” she notes.
In fact, the city's entire hotel industry is currently enjoying
unparalle-led prosperity. The venerable Mount Nelson Hotel,
for instance, recently expanded upon its British-style wings,
which date to 1899. Other places, such as the V & A Waterfront's
luxurious Cape Grace, are springing up from the ground.
Since Queen Victoria's second son Prince Alfred initiated construction
of a breakwater in 1860, Cape Town's harbor has not ceased to
be a working waterfront. The prince could never have envisioned
the bounty of tourists who soak up the sumptuous views of Table
Mountain from the docks, or the wide-eyed wonder of children
fixedly bemused by a merry lunchtime sing-a-long at the open-air
amphitheatre.
In keeping with the Cape Dutch and Colonial architectural lines
on which the city was built, the V & A Waterfront's modernity
tastefully retains that flavor. As Cape Town's hottest spot,
the harbor build up is perhaps the city's biggest ever development
gamble if for no other reason than the fact that its 240 shops,
11 cinemas (including an IMAX), myriad restaurants, and cafes
are geared to tourists. That equates to a whole lot of rand
betting on continued economic and political stability.
Despite the visitor pitch, however, the Waterfront is spirited,
educational even: at the Two Oceans Aquarium, children of all
ages encounter creatures from the region's big blue; and from
these docks the Robben Island ferry takes people to the infamous
jail that was home for thousands of political prisoners including
Nelson Mandela for 18 of his 27 years behind bars.\
With all its modern energy, Cape Town retains its distinct
history with pride, preserved in excellent museums and historical
districts. The colourful Bo-Kaap residential area is home to
Cape Muslims, also called Cape Malays, whose ancestors arrived
from Indonesia and India in the shackles of slavery. The Bo-Kaap
Museum on nearby Wale Street provides a glimpse into their 19th-century
lifestyles. At the Cape Town Holocaust Centre on Hatfield Street,
the only one of its kind in all Africa, the recent opening of
an adjacent Jewish Museum and the refurbishment of the Old Synagogue
has people talking.
“It's a celebration of freedom,” says one of the
lady volunteers at the desk. “We [Cape Town Jews] see
the histories of Nazism and Apartheid tied together. Our pasts
have too many ugly parallels.”
Cape Town is simply the most precious gem in this southern
African land known for its diamonds.
“Living in Cape Town feeds my soul like no other place
I've been to in the world,” says Les Aupiais, a local
writer and television presenter. “I like to break out
of my own suburb and go 'on holiday' in my own city.”
Her verve is met all over this town in the pearly white smiles
of passersby, energetic joggers along Sea Point's beach-town-like
promenade, a flower seller's bouquets before the grand and British-faced
City Hall, and a guide's zest for his work at the star-shaped
Castle of Good Hope, South Africa's oldest building dating to
1666.
But if the city itself should leave the visitor want- ing for
more, day trips beyond its limits to the botanic gardens of
Kirstenbosch, the verdant slopes of the Winelands, or down the
beckoning curl of Cape Peninsula to Cape Point and the Cape
of Good Hope are as equally full of promise and wonder, undoubtedly
to remain indelibly in the memory bank of travel experiences.
The only bad part of a visit to Cape Town is bidd- ing it farewell.
Heading back to the airport for a departure that arrived too
soon took me again past the Cape Flats and the stark reality
that I have it pretty good. But there is beauty within the townships'
ugly shells, some of which I smiled at on the Strand and bought
flowers from at the Grand Parade.
