It was our last full day in Africa today. We had nothing planned other than riding the Hop On, Hop Off bus and doing the free downtown walk. So we enjoyed a later wake-up and leisurely breakfast before walking down to the bus stop to catch our ride.
It was the perfect day to ride the bus as the sun was shining and there was a cool breeze. We sat up top and enjoyed the familiar scenery from a new vantage point from the topless second level of the bus. We had beautiful views of the promenade and the waves crashing on the shore. It was beautiful and relaxing.
As we rode we learned various tidbit of information. We learned that the phrase “Women and children first” came from Cape Agulhas when a military ship hit a rock and began sinking. One of the officers organized the the crew and passengers to abandon ship. He made sure that women and children were the first on the lifeboats. Not a single one of them was lost.
I learned that the San people were hunter/gatherers while the Khoi were farmers. As much as I had learned about these two tribes, that fact had escaped me until today.
Down at the harbor there was a spire with a ball on it. Much like our ball drop on New Year’s Eve in NYC, here the ball drops every day precisely at noon. Why? Well, back in explorer times, the navigator onboard ship used the ball drop to sync the time. In order to calculate longitude, you have to know the correct time. The ball drop facilitated that.
I also learned that the water in Camps Bay is warmer in the winter than in the summer. Strange. This is because the summer wind blows the warmer water of the bay back into the ocean allowing the cooler water near shore to rise up to the top.
As we were riding, I did spot something disturbing. During our time here, we did see many homeless. They tended to sleep on the promenade. Today I saw a homeless man stop by a trash can that had a paper cup sitting next to it. He picked up the cup, grabbed something out of it and ate it. Now, I’m not stupid. I know for the homeless this is a matter of survival. You get food wherever you can find it. You can’t afford to be picky at all. It was just a startling reminder. It made me so sad.
We didn’t ride this particular bus for very long though, just until we hit the waterfront area. This was where we picked up the walking tour. The tour was free but we had to wait a little bit for it to start. It gave me a chance to enjoy another cappuccino:-)
We had two young men taking us on the tour. One was a trainee whose real job was Customer Service with Quantas. He was very good at guiding, informative and entertaining. The real guide was good, just not quite as personable. They both knew their stuff which was good.
As we walked, we saw the Old Town House which served as a watch house, a senate, and a main city hall until the Cape Town City Hall was opened. It was a beautifully preserved building, its facade pale yellow with white trim. It was fenced off so you couldn’t get near it. Since it is now a museum, hopefully there was some way to get inside.
Cape Town has a LONG history of the slave trade. We explored that portion of downtown next. Greenmarket Square was the heart of the slave trade in Cape Town. The square was built in 1696 when a burgher watch house was constructed here. A burgher watch house is basically a police station. The burgher house itself was replaced in 1755 by a much fancier building built in the Rococo style. It housed the Burgher Senate or town council until the new City Hall was built in 1905.
Over the years Greenmarket Square has been a vegetable market, a slave market, and currently a flea market. We did briefly browse the stalls here. In the center of the square was an old pump that was used to bring water up from the underground river that runs beneath the city. Slaves used the pump to get water to take back to their masters’ house. During Apartheid, Greenmarket Square was the scene of political protests.
In 1989 protesters staged a sit-in and the police retaliated with tear gas and water canons which were new. The water in the canons had purple dye so that the police could identify people who had been protesting. However, protesters commandeered one of the canons and sprayed the police with purple water. So that backfired. The next day graffiti sprang up saying “The Purple Shall Govern.” Eleven days days later 30,000 protesters marched through the city with no police intervention at all.
We walked a bit further and came to St. George’s Cathedral. This is the Anglican cathedral in Cape Town. It has been a focal point for protests and prayers for human rights. Desmond Tutu was the archbishop here from 1986 to 1996. It is said that in September of 1986 that he hammered on the door of the church and demanded to be made South Africa’s first black archbishop. He got his wish. He led a protest from the cathedral to City Hall where he proclaimed, “We are the Rainbow People!” He went on to be awarded the Nobel Peace Prize.
Another icon on St. George Street is the Slave Tree. We had to admire it from across the street as there was a tour group at its location. The tree is actually gone but there is a marker that denotes its location. Oral traditions tells us that slaves were auctioned off under that tree. I believe they were also punished there for “misbehaving.” When the city widened the street in 1950, they cut the tree down.
The Slave Tree was in the median of the street. Near it was a piece of the Berlin Wall which was interesting to see here. It had graffiti on it but not German graffiti. Most of it was South African graffiti which was a shame.
Near both the Slave Tree and the Berlin Wall chunk, we explored the square that was the memorial to the slave market. In fact this area WAS the old slave market. It was a simple memorial with black granite blocks of differing heights. Some had the names of slaves engraved on them. These names incorporated where they came from into their name such as Leonora van Madagascar. Other blocks had the names of slave ships. Others had the name of the port where the slaves had come from. It was simple but well thought out.
I found it interesting when our two guides informed us that people would go to the nearby church and then come out and attend the slave auction. That just boggled my mind. How you can call yourself a Christian and then go buy and sell your fellow human being or beat them and treat them like animals? It just…well….I just don’t understand it.
Just across the street from the Slave Market Memorial was the old slave lodge. I believe now it is a museum. Built in 1679, it held slaves for the Dutch East India Company which was the largest single slaveholder in the country. It was a stark building with paint peeling from its bland exterior walls. I can only imagine how awful it was back it the days of its original use.
It is interesting to note that while Cape Town had this thriving slave market, the slaves were not local tribes people. In fact the Dutch were prohibited from enslaving the Khoi and the San people. Instead, they brought 63,000 slaves before 1808 from East Africa, Madagascar, India, and Indonesia. It was the largest cultural mix of any slave society.
Amid the history of this district was the juxtaposition of the modern. A beautifully well-maintained historic building housed a KFC on the ground floor. I had to shake my head.
A bit further down we came across a building that housed the “best bakery” in Cape Town according to our guides. It’s called Charley’s Bakery and it is in another beautifully restored building. The exterior of it maintained the flourishes it originally boasted as well as cute paintings of surfing cakes and futbol playing cookies. The exterior was charming.
Inside we learned the history of the bakery which, by the way, has its own TV series called “Charley’s Cake Angels.” We saw the film vans outside and clothing hanging on racks for the “stars” to wear. They weren’t filming when we went inside though.
The original Charley was a 16 year old boy who lived in a small town. He was looking for work and found a job in a bakery with a master German baker. He swept floors, made puff pastry, and washed dishes. Once he proved himself reliable, he graduated to cakes. A beautiful woman came into the bakery one day and he fell in love. They ended up moving to Cape Town and having two beautiful daughters
They had several thriving food businesses in Cape Town. People stood in line for their quiches and eggs Benedict. Their business grew so large that they couldn’t manage it all. So they sold and started a “small” bakery. Their daughters joined them in this endeavor. It, like their other businesses, flourished. Then in 2012 Charley became ill and died. However, his family still continues his mission to create magic in the form of food. I enjoyed the story and the ambiance of the place. It was too difficult to decide what to buy so we left with empty hands. Other people in our group bought cake though.
A short walk from Charly’s brought us to City Hall where a statue of Nelson Mandel stands on a balcony, This is where he made his famous speech after his release from prison. The statue was quite life-like. I could imagine him standing there and talking to the people of South Africa as they crowded into the Grand Parade area adjoining City Hall. Table Mountain made an impressive backdrop for the building.
One of the last historic buildings we saw was the District Six Museum. It’s the history the place encompasses that is important, not the building. This museum documents what happened to the impoverished community of 55,000 mostly colored people. In 1966 it was declared a White Group Area and homes were bulldozed. All that was left were churches and mosques. The people living here were forced to move out which I have talked about before. A few of the original residents now live here again after intense negotiations. They want to develop a low-cost housing area in the district. However, much of District Six remains empty land.
As we made our way back to the Hop On, Hop Off station, we walked through a thriving flower market. Talk about beautiful flowers! We saw all manner of proteas in bloom. We even saw the king protea which is the country’s flower. What an amazing profusion of colors and smells enveloped us as we ambled through! It was a delightful way to end a fascinating city walk.
We made it back to the station with enough time to buy sandwiches and chips before hopping on the bus. We managed to get seats in front on the top level. It had a windshield which kept the wind from blowing our food away. We were on the Red Line which would finish the loop we had started this morning and take us back to the hotel. Originally we had thought about taking it back to the V & A Waterfront and trying out the milkshake place Abe had told us about but I decided it wasn’t worth redoing the entire bus ride. It would have been 90 minutes of riding the bus over the same route we had just taken. So we just rode it back to our hotel stop.
After finishing our sandwiches, we moved to seats further back so we could enjoy the cool breeze of the day. As we drove we enjoyed the scenery downtown. I saw once again the Bridge to Nowhere. It still went nowhere! Originally it wasn’t suppose to be a bridge but an overpass. They constructed both sides at the same time but somebody made a mistake. The sides were not going to meet up! So they just left it as it was, hanging in space. Now the homeless like to sleep beneath it.
As we drove we enjoyed the lovely Cape Dutch architecture. Then we arrived at the stop at Table Mountain. Of course most people got off here. We didn’t need to since we had already been to the top. While we waited for travelers to hop on, we enjoyed the majestic view of the famous mountain. It was impressive. Our drive took us around to the far side of the promenade. The wind here was wicked. It blew in from the ocean and then bounced off of the tall buildings. The pricey areas are where the wind is less fierce. There aren’t too many places on this stretch where the wind doesn’t blow you around.
The views, however, were spectacular. Not much beats looking at green, rocky mountains, vivid blue water, and white sand. We also had phenomenal views of the Twelve Apostles. The bus ride was worth it just for the scenery. There is just something mesmerizing about watching waves pounding on the shore.
All too soon, we were back to our stop and we hopped off and made our way up to the hotel once again. By now it had become a familiar path. In the room we started packing for the trip home tomorrow night. Although we had time tomorrow and Abe and OAT had arranged for us to have a late checkout at 7 PM, we still wanted to have most of it done.
I showered in a rush to beat load shedding. Then we made our way down to the bar for our last Happy Hour. While we were gone, Abe brought gifts to our room. He had gotten me a cheetah T-shirt and Doug a leopard T-shirt. He knew those were our favorite animals. And we just learned on this trip that if you have made 20 or more trips with OAT, the TL is suppose to give you a gift. Personally I didn’t think they should have to but I do love my T-shirt. Abe did great. I was just sorry that we had missed him. He also emailed and told us that our ride to the airport would meet us in the lobby at 7. It was five hours before our flight but that was okay. Hopefully we could get checked in and spend the time in the lounge.
We haven’t decided exactly what we will do tomorrow. We might check out some of the museums we haven’t been to or just take a walk on the promenade. I’m good with either although just chilling sounds really good. We have been going pretty strong for 40 days. I’m tired. But tomorrow I’ll be heading home to Sam, Leia, and my own bed 🙂
Tales from the Trail 