All Things Cape Town, Volume I

Having conquered the wineries, we headed down to the Cape of Good Hope, with a stop to see penguins along the way. We arrived just in time to watch a storm arrive across the Atlantic, which put a damper on our plans to hike. With the clouds and rain swirling around us, it was easy to imagine how ships could run afoul of the sheer cliffs and rocky coast. As we were heading to a hotel, we just happened to pass Steenberg wineries, which was the vineyard that produced some of the wine we served at our wedding. Clearly, we had to stop, and clearly, we had to buy more wine than we could carry.
Gail is a master gardener, and so the next morning, we went to Kirstenbosch, Cape Town's botanical gardens, and went on a two and a half tour. Natty loved it. He couldn't fathom why I thought a nearly three hour tour was a lot of tour. But it was a gorgeous day and the flowers were lovely. That afternoon, we took a tour over to Robben Island, a maximum security prison for political prisoners during apartheid. The ride over gives you a sense of how formidible the ocean is, as the ferry crashes through the swells, and how terrifying it must have been for the prisoners. They managed to continue the struggle even while incarcerated, educating each other and even the guards. The tours are led by former prisoners, and it's a powerful reminder of how very, very recent apartheid was. Walking through the empty halls and into the open cells is a chilling experience.
(The pictures are out of order).

Prison blocks
The guard tower
Rations: Even in the prisons with no whites, apartheid persisted.


Mandela's cell

The site of Mandela's garden, where he hid the manuscripts for his book, A Long Walk to Freedom
Our guide




The quarry where they worked and held secret classes

Ostrich!



Look, we still like each other even after weeks of being together every moment.

View from Cape Point


Our guide at the botanical gardens

King Protea, the national flower. It's bigger than my head.

Contrasts: Townships to Wineries

We loved Franschoek so much the first time, we decided to take Gail back there. By 9:30 in the morning, we had made our way to our first winery. It was a lovely day, driving through the mountains and tasting plenty of wine. The contrast between the township tour and the wineries was a stark reminder of the disparities here.

Durban Township Tour

On Tuesday, Gail (Natty’s mom) and I went on a township tour to KwaMashu. We went with a new local business that is collaboration between two young guys, one of whom grew up in the township, and they work to bring the township to life in a meaningful way. What was surprising was not necessarily the extreme poverty, but the class distinctions that exist even within the township, with small pockets of new wealth emerging out of the sea of government mandated homes and cobbled together tin shacks. We were also taken aback by how positively the man who grew up there described the developments since 1994. To us, the lack of infrastructure and resources gave the place an aura of hopelessness, but to him, the five hundred new subsidized homes, the new shopping center, the new soccer field and the improved transportation represented a world of difference and an unbounded hope for the future.

The townships were built in a way that deliberately kept black people away from the economic opportunities of the city centers. From the 1950s onward, people were required to carry passbooks with them that carried a stamp of approval from a white employer before entering a white area. Today, the distance of the townships from the cities continues to place an undue burden on people of color. Despite this, some of the burgeoning black middle class has chosen to stay in their townships because of community bonds, preferring to be a part of township life rather than relocating to a traditionally white area or one of the luxurious new developments sprouting up around the city.

A waterfall, hidden at the edge of the township.
This is where Mandela cast his first vote.
A group of kids waiting to visit the house of John Dube, one of the original ANC leaders.



The green house sometimes serves as a market and shebeen (tavern with homemade beer).
Informal shacks, often occupied by immigrants, especially from Zimbabwe.
Gandhi's home in Durban, where he lived for 21 years.
The view from Gandhi's settlement, and site of a primary school he ran.