Museums, movies, and more meals

A visit to Cape Town is like a visit to Vancouver, B.C. on a sunny day. The city center is nestled between the mountains and the ocean, the waterfront wharf has both commercial and pleasure boats, and at one end of town there is a several mile long beach walk with condos on one side and the sea on the other.

We arrived in Cape Town midday on Saturday and, after settling into our waterfront hotel (which is lovely but is smack in the middle of a very touristy mall), we spent the afternoon exploring the city center. Although it was a holiday weekend and the streets were mostly empty, we enjoyed not only the beautiful Cape Dutch style buildings but also a large African crafts market. Later in the afternoon, we explored the Company Gardens, which were established by the Dutch East India Company in the second half of the 17^th Century to supply fresh fruits to vessels making the trip around the Cape to India and back to Europe. Needing a bathroom break, we began looking for a place to have tea. As we started looking, we stumbled on the Lord Nelson Hotel where the doorman, dressed in uniform complete with top hat, asked if we had come for tea. Quite by accident, we had arrived just in time for high tea. While our lack of reservation earned us place on the terrace (charming if a bit chilly), we enjoyed the watercress sandwiches (white bread, with crusts cut off, of course), the smoked salmon (with requisite sour cream and capers), fresh raspberries, raisin scones and homemade jam, and assorted pastries, our favorite of which were the miniature chocolate éclairs. Africa? Yes, but a world away from East Africa.

The next morning we woke up to typical Seattle weather: cool, overcast, and a little drizzly. With uncharacteristic early morning enthusiasm, we dug out our fleeces and raincoats for a walk along the beachfront. Although we managed to detour through a particularly unattractive construction zone, we eventually found the walkway and enjoyed a blustery walk along the rugged Atlantic coast. Eventually finding our way back to the hotel, we enjoyed one of our favorite breakfast buffets: highlights the three kinds of yogurt (Greek, Bulgarian, and plain), a wide array of fresh fruit, and the scrambled eggs and smoked salmon. We then retired to our room for the ultimate luxury: the after-breakfast nap under fluffy down comforters.

We had booked a tour to Robben Island for that afternoon, but when we arrived at the dock we discovered that the tour had been cancelled because of the rough seas. Although disappointed, we regrouped quickly: we purchased some wine and cheese and took it to our room where, for only about the fourth time in four months, we turned on our TV, and much to our delight, we hit upon The Daily Show with John Stewart. Next on our relaxed-day agenda was another great movie, Venus. To cap off our day, we had planned to go for fish chowder for dinner, but the restaurant was closed for a private function, and for reasons that we don’t quite understand, in the harbor side mall, no other restaurant actually had soup on the menu. After dinner, Mimi’s mother and stepfather arrived to join us to travel to Namibia after we finish with the presentations in South Africa.

Monday was museum day. We began the day at the District 6 Museum, which is a tribute to and a gathering place for the “Cape Coloured” a designated racial group who were forced to move from their city center homes when the area was razed and reclassified for whites only. The museum’s power comes from the fact that it tells the stories of ordinary individuals who were living ordinary lives before they were forced to move. One particularly telling story came from a man who trained homing pigeons. After he moved, he kept his pigeons at home for a few months. When he felt that they had become accustomed to their new home, he let them go. However, they didn’t return. But, when he went back to the District 6 area; although his home was gone, he found the pigeons where the house had been. No matter how long he stayed in the new location, the pigeons kept returning to District 6. As a result, he suggested that the museum be built, not only for visitors to learn about Cape Town’s history but also for former residents to gather to reminisce and commiserate.

We then moved on to a very different museum: the Gold of Africa Museum. Our guide, originally from Cameroon, was a great storyteller, telling us not only about the history of the artifacts in the museum but also about the culture of the peoples who created them. We ended the day with yet the Bo Kaap museum, in the Cape Malay area. After viewing the museum, our guide took us into the streets in the Bo Kaap area to see the brightly-painted houses and to stuff us with sweet meats, most of which we learned are neither sweet nor meat.

While Monday was museum day, Tuesday was nature day. We drove south along the Cape Peninsula, first along the cold Atlantic side to the Cape of Good Hope and then up the Indian Ocean side to see the African penguins. The weather was spectacular, sunny and almost warm, and the scenery was breathtaking.

We started out passing through small fishing villages, then traveled along a rugged coast line, the turquoise water decorated with swirls of white foam.

By mid afternoon, we reached Cape Point, the southernmost point in Africa and the point where the Indian and Atlantic Oceans meet.

As we climbed to the viewpoint, clouds came in covering and then uncovering the jagged tops of the mountains. Our guide not only explained the area’s history, flora and fauna, and geography, but also provided us with some interesting trivia. Did you know, for example, that while each of an ostrich’s eyes weighs 40 grams, its brain weighs only 30 grams?

We ended the day with a stop to see the African penguins, which established nests just south of Simon’s Town in the mid 1980s. The penguins had formerly been known as Jackass Penguins, which was not a comment on their intelligence or personality, but came from the fact that when they are trying to attract a mate, they bray like a donkey. There are now about 3000 penguins living just outside of town, and they seem to be oblivious to the hundreds of tourists who come to see them each day. As a result, we were able to watch one couple mate (apparently, the braying worked): afterwards, the male stood next to the female with his flipper resting gently on her back. For more on the penguins, please feel free to ask us to email you our several hundred pictures.

We wish we could tell you that we had another trip planned for tomorrow, but we don’t. Although Ellen and Sandy will spend the next three days seeing more of the Cape Town area, we head back to work: on Wednesday and Thursday we will be presenting a workshop for attorneys and on Friday we have one for magistrates. Our only consolation is that there is no doubt that this is a city that we will return to, if not during the next couple of months, sometime in the near future.