First Days in Cape Town

Before we start, a warning: I'm going to run out of creative adjectives.

During my first few days in Cape Town, I have found it to be: STUNNINGLY beautiful, confusing, complex, charming, difficult, exciting and really fascinating.

 

Buitensingel Street, on my way to go grocery shopping, Table Mountain in the background.

The beauty of the place hits you immediately. Table Mountain and Signal Hill serve as a backdrop for the city and it sits right on the Atlantic Ocean. The City Centre (where we are living) is filled with colonial-type architecture, old mosques, tons of museums, and we live right in front of a gorgeous park called Company Gardens, which was founded in 1652 by the Dutch East India Company.

Overlooking Downtown and the Bay from up on Table Mountain.

More of Cape Town from Table Mountain.

 Table Mountain from up close (at the very top is a sky gondola that you can take to the very top.)

Company Gardens, right outside our apartment building with Table Mountain in the background. The building is a museum, I think.

 Company Gardens is filled with beautiful gates & architecture.

These little guys are all over the Gardens.  It is a type of Ibis, not sure which.

Cape Town reminds me of several places:  Vancouver (the mountains, all the little shops), New Orleans (the buildings, the iron railings everywhere, the very active nightlife), New York City (the hustle and bustle of downtown with its Central Terminal and street vendors), San Salvador (the palm trees, the architecture, the friendliness of its people, and sadly, the tremendous disparity between the haves and the have-nots.)

A very New Orleans feel ...

Too bad it was such a cloudy day, because the colors of the buildings are really vibrant.

Lots of charming little side streets ...

A small, old mosque surrounded by modern buildings.

The Italian Consulate, right around the corner from our apartment.

But despite reminding me of other places, it is its own, very unique place and has a feel all its own. The mix between cultures is particularly interesting: Dutch & Afrikaans, mixed with English, mixed with many different Black cultures (of course South African, but also immigrants from other African nations), Indian, Muslim, etc. I feel very at home -- oddly, I look a lot like many of the people who call themselves "Cape Colourdes" (it feels so wrong to use the term "coloured", but that is how people identify themselves here -- Black, White and Coloured) they are a mix of all these different cultures mixing for hundreds of years. But it is very strange to be in a place where there is very little Latin American or Spanish influence, I feel like I'm a bit of a cultural island. I guess I'll have to try and see if there are some Latino people around -- I'd at least like to practice my Spanish!

More of Long Street ...

A popular backpacker's spot on Long Street.

So anyhoo, those are some first observations. I guess right now what I feel most is curiosity, to keep exploring and discovering new places, meeting more people and learning more about Cape Town's history.