Cape Town: First World to Third World

The first thing you drive through when going from the airport to downtown Cape Town is the townships. You immediately feel like you are in a third-world area, but as soon as you come closer to the city, you notice that there is also an extensive first-world area here. I came to Cape Town as the first stop on my class trip to South Africa. I was studying environment and development. As part of the environment portion of the trip, we visited Kirstenbosch Botanical Gardens, Boulder’s Beach, and Table Mountain. As part of the development portion of the trip, we visited several of the townships and volunteered at crèches and high schools.

Quick Tips:

Best Way To Get Around:

We traveled around the city using a reputable taxi company and minibus service.

The Deco Lodge definitely stands out in the area, as it is painted purple. The Lodge is a hostel with a capacity of 34, so our group of 25 took up most of it. The rooms were a little crowded, which slept five and barely had room for our luggage closed, much less open all at the same time in the morning. Having a small room did not really matter in the end, as there was a large common area with a pool table and a porch with a salt-water swimming pool outside to hang out.

During our stay, we ate breakfast and most dinners at the Lodge prepared by them. Breakfast was mostly the same every morning, with parfaits, crepes (pancakes in South Africa), and toast. One morning we also had muffins as something we could take away because the morning before someone had not been able to eat breakfast due to the shower line. Dinners varied from fish to meatloaf. They were also very accommodating for the vegetarians and vegan in our group. There was always a vegetarian alternative, and in the morning, they substituted soymilk for the yogurt in the parfait for the vegan.

The neighborhood the Deco Lodge is located in is a little sketchy, but you were definitely safe in the Lodge, as it was surrounded by a wall and you needed a code for the gate. We were only allowed to go as far as the corner store and the KFC. Even at the corner store we were constantly asked to participate in black market currency exchange, but overall, we felt safe.

To get to Robben Island, you must board a ferry from a dock near the Red Clock Tower in the Waterfront area of Cape Town. The building you go through to board the ferry has a small apartheid museum.

The ferry ride is about half an hour long and sometimes can be pretty rough. The outside decks become full and crowded fast, as the majority of the space for passengers is on the bottom level inside. If you do end up standing outside, be ready for a windy and wet ride. I suggest riding inside on the way there in order to see the short movie on Robben Island. If you want to experience the ride outside, do it on the way back, as the movie does not show then. The movie mostly gives the information you will probably hear on your tour on the island, but it does give a better pre-1900 history than you are likely to hear on the tour.

Once on the island, you are corralled into buses or are part of a group that goes into the maximum-security prison first. I ended up on one of the historical buses that once carried the guards around the island. It was not very comfortable considering we had to squish three people per row. The bus tour takes you to many of the sites on the island, but you only get to see them from inside the bus. One of the stops was at the house used as a solitary prison for some man, who I did not catch the name of because I was too busy watching the penguin by the bus. Other stops included the village, where the guards once lived and now occupied by those working on Robben Island, and the limestone quarry, where Nelson Mandela and others worked during part of their time in prison.

The bus tour ended at the maximum-security prison, where we met our prison tour guide. Currently, all tours are given by ex-political prisoners who were held here for various anti-apartheid actions, such as being a member of the banned group, the African National Congress (ANC). The tour inside the prison was rather short, with a quick stop in front of Nelson Mandela’s cell and a stop inside a large cell that held up to 100 sleeping on the floor at one time.

After the tour, you are released from prison and walk back to the ferry dock. Before boarding the ferry, you can stop at the bookshop, but I found it very disappointing that it did not carry Nelson Mandela’s Long Walk to Freedom.

The Waterfront area is located on the ocean coast, as you may expect from the name. Here you will find shopping malls, places to eat, and local bands to watch.

The shopping is not much different than what you see in an American shopping mall, and in fact, there are many stores one might recognize, including an Apple computer store. There are, however, many South African souvenir shops, but most items are very overpriced and the items can be found cheaper at actual tourist attractions.

I found the Waterfront a nice area to walk around without being bugged by beggars, like you have to deal with at the Green Market. I also enjoyed stopping and listening to the local bands playing at night. Most bands are selling their CDs for around 100 Rand (about US$20), which is pretty much the price you will pay for a CD anywhere in South Africa.

There are plenty of places to eat here. You can get fish-and-chips, burgers, Italian gelato, and even KFC. There are also some African restaurants, as well as South Africa’s oldest brewery, Mitchell’s Waterfront Brewery.

The Waterfront is also the place to catch the ferry to Robben Island. The dock and small Apartheid Museum are located near the Leaning Red Clock Tower, the lean of which measures the size of a cell phone. Near the ferry dock you can sometimes see Cape fur seals.

The Green Square Market officially closes at 5pm, but many of the vendors start packing up much early and are ready to leave by 5pm. We arrived at 4pm, and most were packing up and were done packing up by 4:30pm. The small amount we did see was interesting; however, we later learned that many of the products were actually crafted outside of South Africa in other sub-Saharan African countries. Thus, this is not the place to look if you want something truly South African.

Many of the stands had jewelry from bracelets to necklaces and elaborate dangling earrings. Some of the stands had wooden crafts, including elephant and rhino bookends. My favorite items were the small malachite animals. I ended up with a penguin, one to match my penguin I bought in Argentina.

Although it is a great place to shop and haggle, it is not very safe. Someone was robbed and a knife was drawn when we were leaving. You also have to put up with children beggars that will follow you throughout the market. We had been told not to give them money because there are many that are glue sniffers. Also, you would be mobbed by the others if you gave to one.

Kirstenbosch National Botanical Gardens is the largest of South Africa’s eight National Botanical Gardens run by the South African Biodiversity Institute. Kirstenbosch was established in 1913 with the purpose of conserving South Africa’s native flora. It is open every day of the year from 8am to 6pm April to August and 8am to 7pm September to March. The garden is located on the eastern slopes of Table Mountain and has hiking trails up the mountain.

The garden is expansive, and one could easily spend days exploring it and continuously finding new things. Unfortunately, due to our class’s schedule, we only had a few hours to explore. What little I did see of the garden I found to be amazing. I loved the garden just for the fact that they were outdoors and not inside a greenhouse, like so many botanical gardens I have seen in the United States.

The garden is divided into different themes, such as proteas, annuals, cycads, fragrance plants, and, my favorite, useful plants. I thought it was cool to see the different uses of plants that were first used by the native South Africans. Some of the uses include making dyes, making tea, curing stomach ailments, and relieving headaches.

While at Kirstenbosch, we had lunch at the Tearoom. There we enjoyed our first pots of Rooibos tea since arriving in South Africa. I also enjoyed a delicious large salad. The staff here was great and easily handled our group of 25, something that we saw nowhere else during our stay in South Africa.

Going to Boulders Beach, where a colony of African Penguins live, was definitely the highlight of my time in Cape Town. For the 2 months prior to my trip, I had been researching endangered and vulnerable penguin species for my class research project, so to actually see one of the species I had been reading about was amazing.

The African penguins are listed as vulnerable in the Red List of Threatened Species. The African penguin has colonies along the coasts and nearby islands of South Africa and Namibia, one of the colonies being at Boulders Beach and another one at Robben Island. In the past, this species was threatened by human disturbance and the harvesting of guano for fertilizer and their eggs for food. More recently they have been threatened by oil spills.

At Boulder’s Beach you can walk on a boardwalk through the colony. Along the walkway you can see the penguins nesting in the bush, some with eggs or chicks. The route ends at Foxy Beach, where you can watch the penguins go out on their foraging trips and return. Also, during our visit we watched the adult penguins attempt to keep a chick that did not have its waterproof wings from going into the water. The chick did go in a little before they go it to turn around and dragged it back to the dry beach, but the chick no longer moved, and he was either unconscious or died. It was kind of sad to see, but it was interesting to see how the non-parental adults tried to keep him from going in the water.

A little bit down the coastline is the actual Boulder’s Beach, where you can go swimming. There are some penguins in this area, and if you're lucky (or some may consider it unlucky), you will end up with one swimming near you. Do not get too close to the penguins, though, as they will bite, causing serious injury. One of my classmates had one lunge at her when she was walking down the steps, and was almost bit in the behind.

The top of Table Mountain can be accessed via the Table Mountain Cableway or by hiking. Due to the somewhat windy conditions on the day of our visit, we only had the option of riding the Cableway. In fact, in the morning it was too windy for the Cableway to even run, but the wind luckily died down enough for us to go in the afternoon. It is a good idea to bring a windbreaker/raincoat to the top, as it can be windy and wet, especially when the clouds come in. I used a one that folds into its pocket.

I believe that the cableway ride to the top of Table Mountain (and back down, too) is the most unique in the world. First you enter into the circular car along with about 50 other people. Once all crammed together, you further cram in, in order to keep away from the sides. You must move away from the sides, as the floor rotates, while the sides do not. As you ride up the mountain, you slowly go around in a circle and are able to see the view from several different angles.

The view from the top of Table Mountain can be spectacular when the sky is clear. When we first got to the top, we were able to look out over the city of Cape Town and False Bay. We were even able to find Robben Island out in the distance. However, not long after we got to the top, the clouds rolled in, and we were literally in the clouds. At one point, the visibility was less than a few feet, and one of the things that came to my mind was, "Where did the mountain go?" Because we were in the clouds, the ride back down was amazing, with us slowly coming out of the clouds and being able to look back and see the mountain in the clouds.

We found our way to the gift shop in the clouds. The gift shop did not carry much interest, but it did have a Kodak photo station where you could put your digital images onto a CD. Unfortunately, they were out of CDs, and some in our group were really in need of freeing up memory on their camera. There is also a restaurant next to the gift shop.

There are also some hiking trails on top of the mountain that some of my classmates went on. They are all easy hikes. The three are the Dassie Walk (15 minutes), the Agama Walk (30 minutes), and the Klipspringer Walk (45 minutes). From what I heard, the Agama was the best, allowing you to see the view from all sides of the mountain.