Victoria's Voyage

Most introductions out of the way from the night before, Monday was the big one. Our first activity as a tour group. I’ve had my eye on Contiki’s Cape, Safari and Falls trip for quite some time, so to finally be here is super exciting. And our first full day together kicked off to a fantastic start…

Our first stop after breakfast was – naturally – Table Mountain. Or not. It is particularly cold and windy in Cape Town at the moment, which sadly meant the cable cars up this iconic mound weren’t running. Whilst this was obviously a big blow, the day wasn’t completely lost.

Our city tour was instead brought forward, which took us to places I’d had yet to explore. The majority was seen through a coach window, but we did have a couple of walking stops. The first was the Company Gardens, a large park with a lot of history, most notably relating to slave labour. Whilst on foot we learned all about the origins of Cape Town, dating right back to when the Portugese first discovered South Africa as a whole before leading onto the settling of the Dutch and the ultimate colonisation by the British.

Most fascinating was probably seeing all the remaining evidence of the blatant racism and class hiarachy the natives experienced back then. Our first real taste of this was an old Government building next to the park, which had two benches outside. One was labelled for whites, and the other non-whites. A sobering reminder of all this country has been through and how far they have come since. On a slightly more positive note, we also saw a couple of Egyptian geese just going about their day in the park.

From here, after a much more expansive history fix than noted in this post, it was onto a more modern, highly sought-after area of the city made famous on Instagram – Bo Kaap – which translates simply to ‘Above Cape’. I wish I’d been wearing a nicer outfit for the photos, as I had dressed for the mountains, but the experience was great all the same with every colour of the rainbow represented. Balmory perhaps…?

During my time here so far, I have found that Cape Town as a whole feels more like the UK than anywhere else I’ve been in the world, and consequently I feel completely comfortable and at home here. But the touristy waterfront area I’ve aclimatised to does give a slightly false sense of ordinary South African life, as was made clear to us when we next visited local Township, Langa.

Our tour guide around this area, Booja, was so full of life, cracking genuinely funny jokes between his extensive knowledge of local history and the town he calls home. Whilst it was sad to see his people are living so far below the poverty line – so much so that they are building from shipping containers and spare iron to beat the 30 year wait for housing – it was also humbling to see how much they are prospering as a community.

Langa was first established in 1923, and now stretches for 3 square miles accommodating thousands of residents. It was fascinating not only to see how they were living, but also how much segregation affected their day-to-day lives. Each resident would have a Dompas (ID card) that indicated their race classification and therefore which areas they were and weren’t allowed to enter.

Despite all of this though, the overwhelming attitude amongst the locals was one of universal positivity. Everyone greets each other as friends, even if strangers before the encounter, and members of the community each have their own uniquely valuable roles, such as education, beer brewing or gas supplies. These people are living and working hard for a better life, and I can only admire every single effort and good word they have shared.

A unique little experience we had during this tour was the sampling of ‘sheep head’ from a local vendor with years of experience in the business. The muscle meat and tongue weren’t too dissimilar to the rest of a lamb, but everyone except for Booja steered clear of the eye. He meanwhile chomped it down gleefully, his grin showing off his one gold-capped tooth in all its glory.

To make up for missing Table Mountain, we were instead driven up neighbouring Signal Hill for views over the city and the ocean. Our time up here was actually glorious, the sun finally showing her face. The views too were absolutely beautiful against the dazzling blue of the surrounding skies.

All that was left to do at this point was enjoy some free time around the waterfront. The majority of the group would be joining a cooking class at 6pm, but this could not be further from up my street. Instead, I headed to an Irish bar and likely disappointed the entire country by ordering a staple dish of Bangers and Mash… Before the group headed off though, most of us took to a local cocktail bar called Cause and Effect with some of the most creative cocktails I’ve probably ever seen. Above was my choice – made with spiced rum and aptly named ‘The Rocket’.

Despite the Table Mountain blow, it has been another pretty special day for sure, and so the adventure continues…