SOUTH AFRICA - Cape Town

AFRICA

We’ve had a perfect start to our Honeymoon in Cape Town. The western buffet breakfast at the Ritz Hotel was very nice and the view of the sunrise over the pool was even better. From the entrance the buffet is ahead of you complete with an open grill for a cook to make your fresh eggs (which were the best we’ve ever had) and to the right of the entrance is a large dining room with about 80 tables set and mirrors on the back wall to bounce beautiful sunlight around the room. To the left of the entrance is the breakfast area with about 30 tables set and positioned to bathe in the sun as it rises. We sat eating our breakfast as the sun peeped through umbrellas next to the pool and over the outdoor wicker tables and lounge chairs. The sun sparkled off the freshly hosed pavement by one of the grounds cleaners.  

Our view of Lion's Head from the room

The view from the room in Cape Town is stunning.  Lion’s Head is to the left of our room and we’re two minutes walk to the beach front on our right.  Not many people swim in the ocean due to the kelp (seaweed) that floats on its surface, and sharks migrate from the South Pole in the winter.

On the way to the V&A Waterfront Dan checked his iphone and the temperature said 15 degrees which was by far the warmest 15 degrees we’ve ever felt. We picked up some supplies from the pharmacy for Ev’s cold and discovered that after our proud achievement in finding a universal electricity plug, it only goes into Australian sockets. Idiots! We had a nice stroll to the V&A Waterfront where we caught the red line bus for the city tour through the town’s centre and up to Table Mountain.

V&A Waterfront with Table Mountain in the background

The city layout of the tourist section is very similar to Melbourne with new infrastructure everywhere for the World Cup and the weather is like Melbourne’s as well, although it hasn’t been as cool as predicted.

 

View of Cape Town from Table Mountain

District 6 rubble

Driving past the grounds where District 6 rubble remained was a reminder of the segregation that happened in 1948. As settlers arrived, colonies of mixed races lived together, but a new law was introduced where whites, coloured races (migrants) and blacks were made to start their own societies and the government demolished all housing in this district and rebuilt housing estates for the migrant townships outside of the city centre. All citizens were each given identification tags and if races were seen together they were jailed or even killed. Whites were considered superior and blacks were basically forgotten and not educated, even though they made up 70% of the South African population. Of the entire population today, 80% of citizens live in a township and 10% live in shanty’s which are small shacks built of corrugated iron, wood, bricks or whatever can be found. Government grants are now available to all citizens seeking to purchase their own home and they are subsidized 40% of the total cost. Some people live in the small crowded shanty shacks for 3 years or more until the grant is made available and they can pay for their house. These days most black South Africans are illiterate therefore many are laborours or servants, however statistics are changing with new Government Education Schemes and education facilities being made available to everyone. In 1994 black people were allowed to vote for the first time. The number of AIDS diagnoses is also decreasing with education amongst the youth, but it is still a major problem for South Africa. 288 babies are born HIV+ every year. It was and still is common in some societies for girls as young as 13 to be sexually active and having children to prove to her future husband she is capable of bearing his child. A change in society norms has meant that young men are losing respect for their elders who have more than one wife and condoms are more widely accepted to control the AIDS epidemic. The city tour was a very eye opening experience for us to the poverty that exists in Cape Town, one of South Africa’s tourist hot spots. Enough Social Work stats for now...

Cape Town’s Aquarium is huge with various fish and shark tanks and frog and penguin farms.  We were stamped upon entry with a ‘magical stamp’ of a crab that illuminates in blue light, so cool.

Me! It's all about Me!!

Lunch was at the V&A Waterfront with a lovely view of Table Mountain followed by Caramel nut and biscuit Haaggen Daas ice.

V&A Waterfront

And finally, another beautiful sunset display from our hotel room. What an amazing day. 

So day one, Ev took a total of 600 photos (as expected) but we will be culling this down, won’t we? Tomorrow we go on a tour down to Cape Point, the most Southern point of Africa and we have booked ourselves in for shark diving on Friday. Yes, both of us. Danial is excited, Ev is terrified.

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