Cape Town & Environs    

Saturday–Tuesday September 29–October 2, 2012

From Grootbos we drove back the way we had come, until we got to Bot River, where we turned onto highway N2 for Capetown. (green line on the map). Our hotel is the flag pin. An aerial view of that area is to the right.

Our first full day was spent on a Cape Town tour which took in the Table Mountain National Park. It shows on the map above.

Our first stop was the Rhodes Memorial, above the attractive campus of the University of Cape Town. Both are near the tree pin on the map below.

Next, we drove south to Simon’s Town, the naval port of South Africa. It’s an attractive spot, and has a sectioned off beach with penguins. We’re at the yellow pin on the map, the Boulders penguin colony.

The beach is beautiful, and the temperature was 68F/20C. The penguins didn’t object to the warmth. Interestingly, this colony has only been here since 1983. There are restrictions on commercial fishing in the bay, which may benefit the penguins.

Our next stop was down by the Cape of Good Hope, where we saw baboons and ostriches on the beach.

Next, we went to the Cape of Good Hope itself and, after lunch, climbed up to the lighthouse at the nearby Cape Point. It’s a very popular climb!

Then we went back to the city, driving up the western side of the peninsula on the beautiful Chapman’s Peak Drive via Hout Bay and the Twelve Apostles.

The next morning we went up toward Table Mountain and into the Bo Kaap neighborhood—an Islamic section of the city—with its colorful houses (yellow pin on the map).

Then we stopped at the magnificent Kirstenbosch National Botanic Garden (tree pin on the map). Time for a few last photographs of flowers and of the setting itself!

We then visited a nice winery at Costantia where we had lunch.

Dutch influence is also seen in the center of the city, around The Company’s Garden.

We never made it to the top of Table Mountain—after a few days of cloudy weather, the line for the cable way was really a long one. The station at the top of the mountain is at the highest point, on the right side. We went to Lion’s Head Peak instead, where we got this photo and had nice views without the line.

The next day, we visited the District Six Museum, not far from The Company Garden. The apartheid regime forcibly relocated 60,000 residents from the area in the 1970s. The area was to be redeveloped, but a lot of it stands empty today. Take a look on the map, satellite view. 


On our last night, a tourist asked his waiter about an entree on the menu—warthog. The waiter said to think of it as pork. Here’s a warthog.

Here are a couple more photos showing what a beautiful city Cape Town is.

Near the airport, we saw an eye–catching residential area known as Khayelitsha

South Africa has had four winners of the Nobel Peace Prize (there is a nice monument to them near the V&A wharf). One of them is Desmond Tutu, the archbishop emeritus of Cape Town. In St. George’s Cathedral, where we saw a life–size display of a typical house in an area such as Khayelitsha. There is also a poem displayed inside the cathedral.

The archbishop chairs the first session by Ingrid De Kok


The Truth and Reconciliation Commission.

April 1996. East London, South Africa


On the first day

after a few hours of testimony

the Archbishop wept.

He put his grey head

on the long table

of papers and protocols

and he wept.


The national

and international cameramen

filmed his weeping,

his misted glasses,

his sobbing shoulders,

the call for a recess.


It doesn’t matter what you thought

of the Archbishop before or after,

of the settlement, the commission,

or what the anthropologists flying in

from less studied crimes and sorrows

said about the discourse,

or how many doctorates,

books, and installations followed,

or even if you think this poem

simplifies, lionizes

romanticizes, mystifies.


There was a long table, starched purple vestment

and after a few hours of testimony,

the Archbishop, chair of the commission,

laid down his head, and wept.


That’s how it began.

Going home via London: we flew 11,362 miles/18,285 kilometers. It took a long time. But that is price to pay to visit such an incredible area of the world.

Upon arrival in Cape Town, we went right to the port and looked at all of the ships. It is a beautiful city.

Next—San Francisco via Heathrow