Well, we've been here for just over a day now, and Cape Town is quite a place. As you may have guessed, from Heather's message, its huge! 4.3 million people makes it by far the biggest city we've seen, not counting London, which was really just a short stopover.
I guess not surprisingly, that means there is a lot to pack in. Given all the tour pamphlets and conversations with folks in our hostel, and the extremely friendly folks at the Cape Town Tourism office (the one run by the city, not a private tour agency or anything) we need the full week here just to take everything in. I've never seen a city so geared towards tourism before, (though maybe if I visited San Francisco as a tourist I might think differently) but thankfully we are here in the off season so the place isn't swamped by tourists like some of our Eastern Europe destinations.
But I digress. The point here is that there is a lot to do, let alone just take in the vibe of the city and understand how this whole complex culture fits together. One thing that may or may not bridge this is the very popular "Township Tours" Upon first glance, this made both Heather and my skins crawl. At some level, it sounds like parts of the townships have been made into some sort of twisted disneyland: "Look, this is how poor people live." But a number of the tours also seem to promote the tours as a way to support and help people by showing service projects that help people break out of the cycle of poverty. But its still just creepy. After some talks with folks in the tourist office, we're actually considering going on one, one that seems to be the least cheezy. We'll see how it goes and report back here of course.
In the mean time, we're trying to adjust to the huge shift from a bunch of little countries and little cities that are celebrating their independence and cultural homogeny. Czech people living in the Czech Republic, and the Slovakians with their own Slovakia. Here we're in the complete reverse situation. Its pretty wild. We know we're white and there are pleanty of white folks around, but we don't know if we stick out because we don't talk with the distinctly British-like South African accent, or if we fit right in with our pale northern european background. Maybe we just blend in because there are so many different cultures and people here, and most people don't pay attention and/or care. It blows away any concept that America has of diversity.
One interesting fact. Since moving from summer to winter overnight, our sunset has gotten about 2 hours earlier. We have arrived to a clear blue winter in South Africa. I'll admit to being completely overwhelmed by the size of the city compared to the small cobble-stoned, walkable old towns we'd grown accustomed to.
We've settled into a charming backpacker's lodge on the outskirts of town, near the waterfront and are preparing to move to a more centrally located one tomorrow. Cheaper with more options for food... that's our hope. We rode the hop-on-hop-off topless tour today, so are a little better oriented than we were yesterday.
We have about a week of self-guided touristing before our African overland trip begins. Tomorrow, we hope to visit Robben Island, where Nelson Mandela was imprisoned for 17 of 28 years. Later this week, Climb Table mountain and be sporty on the Cape of Good Hope (weather permitting)...This weekend, we plan to head to the winelands.