Cape Town and Table Mountain

Cape Town is a very large (population 3.75 million) and cosmopolitan city with an affluent tourist and business sector. The city surrounds the base of Table Mountain and has a long beach front with a nice harbor area. Lots of hotels, lots of restaurants, lots of tourists, and lots of traffic. After a year in Namibia, the crowds, congestion and traffic was a little disconcerting. Many of the roads were very narrow with cars parking on both sides making it particular hard for large vehicles and trucks to maneuver which caused long backups. We were glad that we had a year of driving on the left-side of the road under our belts before driving in Cape Town. We opted to use a hop-on, hop-off double decked tourist bus to get around.

  

The harbor area has a Ferris wheel, the upscale Victoria & Alfred shopping mall, restaurants, and souvenir shops. We took a short cruise through the harbor. We had wanted to visit Robben Island where Nelson Mandela and other apartheid foes had been imprisoned but it turned out we didn't have the proper identification documents with us and it was fully booked by the time we were able to return. So, that was a disappointment.

The Harbor with Signal Mountain in the Background (Lion's Head is on the left)

Antarctic Research Vessel that was Docked in the Harbor 

Victoria and Alfred Shopping Mall

Of course, the big attraction is Table Mountain. The mountain looms 3,600 feet over the city and the top is accessed with cable cars. The views were fantastic as the sky was perfectly clear with no wind. The downside was that the temperature was really hot (39 degrees Celsius). Lots of unique plants on the top.

Table Mountain Framed in the Background

 

View of Robben Island

View of Camps Bay

Looking Down from the Cable Car

We also took a sunset drive to the top of Signal Hill. In some ways, the views were better here than at Table Mountain as you were closer to the city and could more easily identify landmarks and buildings.

Table Mountain and Lion's Head

On our last day, we took a wider loop around the outer edges of the city and visited the botanical gardens. They had an interesting curving "canopy" bridge that took you through the tree tops.

Quiver Tree

Welwitschia Mirabilis

 Also passed by the poorer informal townships where many of the local blacks live. Cape Town did a very good job at hiding the poverty from the primary tourist areas. However, this gave the city a somewhat segregated feel as all you typically saw were white tourists with blacks working in basic service and manual labor jobs. The city appears to have a large income inequality gap.