Capetown, South Africa

    I knew from reading and from friends, that Capetown is a spectacularly beautiful city.  The reports were not exaggerated.   The waterfront, with Table Mountain as the backdrop was the view from our hotel.   Bonnie, Sharon and I arrived a day in advance and enjoyed meandering around the waterfront before being joined by the rest of our group.

   Our group consisted of 12 people; two delightful 12 year old grandchildren to folks in their 70's.   Bonnie, Susan, and Beber all know each other through their labor arbitration professional group.  The rest of us were spouses, siblings, cousins and friends of those three.   Guiding us through South Africa were Lanz von Horsten and his fiance, Kristen.   I had already seen some of Lanz's photographic images in South African guidebooks and a bird calendar.

Two more harbor views.

Our introductory evening consisted of dinner at The African Cafe.   In a two hundred year old building, where the treads on the stairs showed all the usage of this once warehouse structure, we were seated in a room with a large square table, big enough for 14 of us.  Dinner was served family style with dozens of typical African dishes.   It was a terrific meal, fun setting, the staff was gracious and included some singing and dancing after they finished serving.   This woman painted designs on the faces of the two twelve year-olds.  Then  Lanz asked if any one else was willing.  Naturally I stepped forward, not one to miss out on these opportunities.

The African Cafe



Statues of Albert Luthuli, Bishop Desmond Tutu, FW de Klerk, and Nelson Mandela pay tribute to these four South African winners of the Nobel Peace Prize and the work they did to end apartheid.

    As beautiful as the city is, there is another side.  One day our travels took us to several sites that speak to a past that included slavery, apartheid, and continuing economic scarcity for a huge block of African people.  We visited one of the shanty towns and Robben Island.  We also visited the colorful area where the Malay or Muslim former slaves settled.

Mix of home made shanties and newer government housing

     The government is replacing the shanty town structures with more modern housing. Progress has been slow . The positive side may be that they have not bulldozed the camps, displacing people, and erecting mass, high rise complexes which other countries have utilized. By building new houses as they slowly clear shacks as people get their new homes, they have retained the sense of community. The negative side is that the shanty towns are still huge, the unemployment issues are incredible, and new shanties are going up at a rate of 300 per day. Why all the new shanties? People from other countries of Africa are moving here in large numbers. These shanty towns are a sad reminder of the colonial and later apartheid eras.

      In the shanty town we visited the Philani Development Centre and Craft Shop. This program, a non-profit endeavor, provides children with nutrition and health care and a means for women to earn a living making crafts.

 





     Robben Island is a large, flat topped island sitting within sight of Capetown.  It housed all kinds of prisoners, but the ones best known are the political prisoners.  For 18 years, Nelson Mandela lived in a tiny cell here, worked in the quarry with hand tools, and ate a less than adequate diet.   Diets were not great for any prisoner, but there were three distinct diets; one for white prisoners, one for colored (the South African term for people of mixed) and Indians) and African.  The African diet consisted of mostly corn meal porridge, an occasional vegetable thrown in, and once a day a small piece of meat, usually gristle.  The Colored diet had an added piece of bread and butter so it wasn't much better.

It was a rainy, windy day when we visited Robben Island.  The boat trip
encountered large swells, making it miserable for many on board. 
Somehow the grey weather seemed fitting for such a solemn place.

These are the furnishing supplied to Nelson Mandela and other prisoners.

     The Bo-Kaap neighborhood  was settled by Cape Muslims when slavery ended.   Brought here from Indonesia, Sri Lanka and India by the Dutch East India Company, they created a community on this hill where their mosque was located.     In celebration or perhaps as a reaction to the time when they were granted few liberties, they painted the houses in bright, lively colors.  The tradition remains.    We only had a few moments here, but I could have spent a lot of time photographing this colorful neighborhood.

  








  A trip to Capetown is not complete without a tram ride to the top of Table Mountain. The views are spectacular. While the mountain looks flat on top from the city, it is actually quite a jumble of steep rocks at the top. It was my introduction to dassies, a rodent not unlike the marmots in the Rockies and Sierras.
  

Dubai

A small water taxi is used to transport pedestrians across Dubai "creek."

    Emirates Airlines and  Dubai was our means of getting to South Africa.  The airlines to fly us; Dubai to give us a break in horrendously long air flights.   Coming and going, we spent two nights each in that city and despite the heat and humidity, managed to enjoy ourselves, and see some of this ultra modern city with touches of the traditional Arab culture.
     I am combining the two stays, separated by over two weeks, into the same blog.   The first two days we did some exploring, a city tour, and got acquainted enough to have an itinerary for the second visit.  Neither time did we acclimatize to the weather.  We knew it would be hot, and we expected three digit temps.  What we did not envision was humidity.   My cousin Sharon lived in Tucson for 30 some years and figured she could handle 112-115.  Instead, we all felt overcome by the heat.  Our eye glasses steamed up so we could not see the moment we left an air conditioned building, and despite drinking copious amounts of water, our journey to the souk left us all flushed, exhausted, and ready for naps in an air conditioned hotel.   
     So, our main activities were early in the day and in the evenings, or in air conditioned situations.  We rode the little water taxis across the "creek" which has good sized cargo boats. We wandered through the souk.  We had dinner on a traditional dhow in the evening, we took the elevator 124 floors up in the world's tallest building, we walked through the Plexiglas tunnel in the delightful aquarium, we enjoyed Persian food, and we spent several hours in the huge mall which includes skating rinks, the aquarium, high end stores, lots of restaurants, and an outdoor fountain.   The best part was simply sitting and people watching.

Dubai is a city of old and new, with the new predominating.

     Dubai is an international city.   Only 10% of its inhabitants are native born.  An immensely wealthy country, workers are brought in from around the world.  The workers stay for 10 months, return home for two, and then return to the United Emirates.   Their families stay at home.   It is not an easy way to live, but the wages and benefits make it alluring to people from countries like Pakistan, India, Philippines, Sri Lanka, China, Morocco, Egypt, Tunisia, sub-Saharan Africa,  and others.   English is commonly spoken, often the unifying language for such a disparate population.
     The tradition of hospitality has been relayed to the foreign workers. Taxi cab drivers, store clerks, servers in restaurants, to  the general public as we walked about, were unfailingly helpful, courteous, and charming.

Night view of Burj Khalifa from the 124th floor, looking up at the portion above.  This is the world's tallest building.  The observation deck at the 124th floor is as high as the public is allowed.  As you can see, there is a lot more above that point.

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This is the night view of the city from the observation deck of the Burj Khalifa.  The building close to the center is a major high rise although it looks dwarfed from our height.

                                       
                                                
                                                     This is the model of Burj Khalifa, in the lobby
                                                                before entering the fast elevator up.

     Dubai's current wealth relates to oil.  Within this decade that resource will run out.  The current Sheik and his father foresaw this eventuality and began moving Dubai towards a future in tourism, finance and international trade.  There is new building going on everywhere and high rises are innovative in their architecture.Amenities for tourists and international business men are everywhere.
           The next set of images are in and from the souk, or traditional market area.   The gentleman is measuring saffron for us.  The empty Styrofoam cups held a wonderful concoction he shared with us.  Arab culture includes the hospitality of sharing beverages such as tea with customers or guests.   This drink was a smoothie of avocado, camels milk, sugar and spices.  It was delicious and made our purchase all the more memorable.

I found the souk less traditional than the souks I experienced in Morocco but it was still enjoyable.

Traditional style dhows take visitors on evening dinner cruises along the "creek."

                                      

Display in an old fort which holds an excellent small museum.

            The images below are from inside the mall, an ultra-modern establishment that serves as an entertainment center as well as a place for upscale shopping.  A large food court and many restaurants, an ice skating rink, and incredible aquarium with a walk through Plexiglas tunnel, an upscale, Arabian Nights themed area and then the modern shopping area are all enclosed.   The elevators to the Burj Khalifa are within the mall and directly outside are fountains, set to music, which go off regularly in the evening hours and rival anything Las Vegas offers in the way of orchestrated fountains.

Within the mall is an area utilizing traditional Arabic architecture.  This is not the major shopping area of the mall, but clearly an area for quiet enjoyment and photo opportunities.

Countdown to Africa

All my bags are packed,
I'm ready to go.
I'm standing here.......

In reality the bags are half packed.  This afternoon I am going to spray my clothes with mosquito repellant, a type that lasts through 6 washings, in preparation for entering malarial areas on the safari.    But everything is selected, laid out and ready to go into two small bags.  One is carry on size, but will be checked due to the carry on limitations of carryon on Emeriates Airlines.   The other will be my photo daypack.   If that is overloaded with electronics, some will go in the photo vest I plan to wear onto the plane.  

Chris will drive us to the San Francisco airport on Saturday.   We are packed for three climates; very hot Dubai, cool and wet Cape Province and dry game safari areas which will be nippy in the mornings but shirt sleeve weather mid-day.  Won't be as nippy as my early morning starts in Yellowstone so I should handle this part fine.

This is a big adventure.  A couple of days in Dubai, then on to Capetown, South Africa.   We will spend some time in Cape Province, and then head to a couple of private reserves which border Kruger National Park.   I am traveling with my two second cousins, Bonnie and Sharon, and a group put together by a professional associate of Bonnie's.  There are 12 of us, and Bonnie knows most of them.   I hope to update my blog as I travel so keep an eye here for stories of our adventure.