Cape Town

At the edge of the Atlantic Ocean, Cape Town is a gorgeous city with a tough history. A cable car ride to the summit of Table Mountain enabled us to have a stunning view of the rocky cliffs, the irridescent blue sea and the new stadium built for the World Cup soccer event. Our first stop was Robben Island, a penal colony where over six thousand political prisoners were held between 1963 and 1991. Although Nelson Mandela is its most renowned prisoner, there are many others with stories to tell. The guides at Robben Island are men who were incarcerated during apartheid. Their children under sixteen years of age were not allowed to visit, so many did not see their kids grow up. The prisoners toiled in the blinding sunlight of the limestone quarry under the watchful eyes of their sadistic guards. Our guide thanked the United Nations and all those who did not turn their backs on South Africans, but supported their struggle for freedom. By keeping them in their sights, the world made sure that they were not isolated.

We continued to the District Six Museum where we learned about the destruction of a community and its music and arts. In 1966 during Botha's regime as minister of community development, District Six was declared an area for whites only. Over a period of fifteen years, 60,000 people were uprooted and moved to an area called Cape Flats. Nearby was the Jewish Museum that was built adjacent to the oldest temple in South Africa. We learned about Nadine Gordimer's writing, William Kentridge's art and Helen Suzman's role as a lone white voice in the fight for black African rights. We marveled at the recreation of a shtetl that seemed to have an echo of our grandparents.

The Xhosa Tribe inhabits many of the townships on the outskirts of Cape Town. We viewed acres of tin shacks with outhouses out back. We visited Langa Township where activist Amy Biehl was murdered, Guguletu Township where seven boys were shot in their schoolyard and Khayelitsha Township where we met Vivian Zilo who runs Iliso Care Society. Vivian has a soup kitchen that feeds 300 people one hot meal each day, a sustainable vegetable garden, a day care center that is free for parents out looking for jobs, a youth group that includes a soccer team and encourages youngsters to volunteer in Iliso's programs and five bunks so she can shelter aids orphans. Her home is immaculate as were the children inside. Their faces were full of smiles and their manners were good. Vivian says that her work is a drop in the ocean, but it is visibly important work. The soup kitchen lets Vivian and her staff take the pulse of the community, her home is a safe house and she finds foster homes for the orphans within a few months.

In the morning, we took a boat to Seal Island in Hout Bay where thousands of seals were barking, yelping and waddling in the water. There were so many seals that the rocks they were lounging on looked furry. There are lots of shipwrecks dating from the days of the explorers. We made our way down the coast to The Cape of Good Hope, at the very tip of Africa where the Atlantic and Indian Oceans converge. These were perilous waters for Portuguese explorers Bartolomeu Dias and Vasco da Gama in the 1400's. Their discovery was beneficial to Europe as it opened the whole world to the East. We could feel the strong winds and see the clash of the currents. A fabled surfing spot, Dungeons, is close by. We observed African penguins in the Indian Ocean and collected sea glass and anemone.

Our Wineland tour took us to the university town of Stellenbosch as well as the Franschhoek and Paarl regions. Here the gold and orange tinges of early fall were evident against the jagged peak backdrop. Some wineries have thatched roofs on their manor houses that hearken back to their Dutch heritage. We particularly liked Meerlust's 2003 Pinot Noir and our lunch at La Ferme in Franschhoek Village. In the evenings, we looked forward to meandering around Victoria Wharf in Cape Town, a city that gave us some sobering context for our trip.