Cape Town Ramblings and Factoids

Trying to fit Cape Town into any overall pattern is very difficult. The guide on our wine tour said Cape Town is unlike any other South African city and is more like a European city. Since he was born in S. Africa, is retired from being an insurance executive and lived most of his life in Johannesburg, I’ll take his word for it. We only saw the Cape Town area and loved it, despite its obvious problems, such as poverty, lack of adequate housing and crime.

Cape Town is the most cosmopolitan of South African cities. First the Dutch colonized the area. They brought in French Huguenot settlers who established the wine industry. People from India were brought in as indentured servants. The British ruled here starting in 1795. Apartheid was set up by whites in an independent South Africa in 1948. Now, of course, black African people are finally getting to run their own country.

Having seen all the major port cities of the world, I would say Cape Town ranks as the second most beautiful, behind only Rio. Others in the top 5 would be San Francisco, Vancouver, B.C., and Hong Kong, with Hong Kong probably the most beautiful at night. New York rates its own special category, both beautiful and ugly at the same time. Cape Town has done a great job limiting development to the lower slopes of the mountains surrounding the city. Otherwise, there would be tons of ugly high-rises covering the hills. (This picture shows the "tablecloth" on Table Mountain.)

Cape Town must have the cleanest air of any major city. (Cape Town has 4 million people. South Africa has about 50 million.) The prevailing winds blow all the air pollution out to sea. Reportedly, nearby whales have a high incidence of lung cancer. Just kidding!

South Africa has had four winners of the Nobel Peace Prize. (See photo of 4 statues.) Of course there was Nelson Mandela (1993) and Desmond Tutu (1984). Also winning it with Mandela was De Klerk, the South African president who compromised with Mandela and worked out an agreement for black South Africans to get the vote. The fourth winner was in 1960 -- Albert Luthuli, who was head of the African National Congress Party before Nelson Mandela, and in that role fought against apartheid. (Over the years, some 97 individuals and 23 organizations have won this prize.)

The food in Cape Town was great, both the sea food and the South African game. There is a cape salmon that is delicious; it’s a white fish. The wine in South Africa is said to be great; I can’t remember drinking any. In fact, I can’t remember much about South Africa …..

The road system is good, although traffic is a problem at rush hour. A couple of major freeways are in the city. For some reason, unlike India and Vietnam, the poorer people don’t ride motorbikes. Saw none of them. This is surprising, since the public transport system is not good. Even in the one squatter camp we visited, a few of the people had beater cars and kept them in ramshackle garages next to their ramshackle houses. Gas is about $4 a gallon.

South Africa ranks very high in the GINI income inequality scale (Social scientists have a scale for everything.) -- second in the world behind Brazil. The scale ranks countries from 0 to 1, with 1 being complete inequality (one guy owns everything) and 0 being complete equality. South Africa’s score is .58. The U.S. score is .45 and trending toward greater inequality (although national health care is expected to reverse that trend.) Most European countries and Japan are in the .3 to .4 range. The countries with the most equality are the Scandinavian ones, ranking in the .2 to .3 range. ANYBODY STILL AWAKE OUT THERE? Outside the downtown area and in the local beach areas, there are scores of multimillion-dollar homes and condos in a lot of gated communities. Farther out are the townships and shack housing for the poor. The GNP per capita for South Africa is almost $10,000, a good number for Africa, but 43 percent of South Africans are living on less than $2 U.S. per day, according to the United Nations.

The percentage of people with HIV/AIDS in South Africa is about 18 percent of the population between the ages of 15 and 49. That’s one of the major reasons life expectancy in South Africa is only 52, about 25 years less than in the U.S.

Cape Town has the only nuclear power plant in the whole continent of Africa. Much of South Africa’s power comes from coal; it has sizable reserves.

The large big game parks in South Africa are in the north part of the country, about a 14-hour drive or 2-hour flight from Cape Town. There is also said to be a luxury, old-style classic train that runs from Pretoria in the north to Cape Town. Big game (elephants and lions) used to roam in the Cape Town area, but they were all killed in the 1800s. The government is trying to reintroduce the zebra and some similar animals in some of the Cape Town park areas.

The shopping in Cape Town is good for African crafts, although many are brought in from other African countries, and they are not cheap. Nothing in Cape Town is cheap.

Geraniums originated in Cape Town and spread to the rest of the world a couple of centuries ago.

When people glance at a world map, they tend to think the tip of Africa and the tip of South America are at the same latitude. In fact, South America extends much farther south -- to about 56 degrees of latitude -- while Cape Town is at about 34 degrees latitude. (As a comparison, Salem is at 45 degrees north latitude.) So Cape Town’s climate is more like that of central or southern California. Yet there are penguin colonies at coastal parks just outside the city, and we saw penguins on Robben Island. (Thanks to our friend Alex for sharing her penguin picture, which we missed.) The water is cold at Cape Town.

Cape Town harbor must have the most seals of any major harbor; they are everywhere.

The president of South Africa has 4 wives and 20 children. That’s probably why he approved Viagra as an official sponsor of the World Cup. That last sentence was to see if you were still paying attention.