As always, the images and any videos in this posting are best viewed on the web page. View the complete set of blog posts here.
The following image was taken from the sliding door of our stateroom.
Bob: I was on my own again today, and there was an excursion planned – “South Africa’s ‘Mother City” — Explore proudly multicultural Cape Town, in which diverse traditions, cuisine, and landscapes collide. Travel through Cape Town by motor coach to get oriented in the “Mother City.” In the heart of the city, you will have the chance to get out and enjoy a stroll through the Company’s Garden. With historic buildings, museums, places of worship, and an art gallery, the garden is home to South Africa’s oldest cultivated pear tree and a rose garden built in 1929. Stroll past the Houses of Parliament, an inner sanctum of South African politics dating back to 1885, and the South African Jewish Museum, opened by Nelson Mandela in 2000. Then, visit the famed Victoria & Alfred Waterfront, where you will have free time to explore independently.“
During the tour, we drove through the downtown area, then visited the Slave Lodge, walked through Company’s Garden, and drove to the waterfront next to the Atlantic Ocean.
The first thing we saw downtown was a statue of Bartolomeu Dias, the first European to actually round the southern tip of Africa. The next building was the city hall, a very impressive structure. It has a statue of Nelson Mandela on one of the balconies. We also had a great view of the Parliament building, which was also very impressive. It was a clear, blue sky day, and the views of Table Mountain were fantastic.
During the drive, we learned that Cape Town has reclaimed significant land from the ocean, roughly 480 acres, with future plans for more. In the mid-19th century, the British made several attempts to turn the Cape Colony into a penal settlement for criminals. These attempts were strongly opposed by local residents, and the convicts were redirected to Australia.
We then exited the bus and took a walking tour. The first visit was to the Slave Lodge. It was built in 1679 by the Dutch East India Company to house enslaved people brought to the Cape Colony to work for the company. The structure initially accommodated up to 500 slaves, who lived in overcrowded and horrific conditions. The individuals housed in the lodge came from regions including East Africa, Madagascar, India, and Southeast Asia. They worked in agriculture, construction, and domestic service.
We realize there is significant content within the blog to date regarding African slavery. While that may be unsettling to some, the story of our trip would be incomplete without documenting it. One of our key takeaways from this trip is how prevalent, impactful, and destructive slavery has been throughout this entire continent and indeed the whole world.
Controversially, outside the Slave Lodge and near the Houses of Parliament, there is a statue of Jan Smuts, an Afrikaner general and politician who supported South Africa’s self-governance while remaining in the British Commonwealth, as well as racial segregation. He served as prime minister twice, and when his party was defeated in 1948, the National Party came into power and implemented apartheid policies, and fought for total independence from Britain. The statue was intended to honor his political leadership. However, the juxtaposition with the Slave Lodge—a building historically associated with Dutch colonial enslavement—has made it part of a highly contested heritage space. Today, many view Smuts’s legacy as deeply problematic due to his government’s implementation of policies that disenfranchised Black South Africans and laid the early groundwork for institutionalized segregation.
Ironically, about 30 meters from the Slave Lodge and Smuts’ statue is St. George’s Cathedral, where Desmond Tutu preached and is interred. From the internet: “Desmond Tutu, the first black archbishop of South Africa, led numerous marches and campaigns for the formal end of apartheid from the front steps of St George’s Cathedral. It was a common meeting point for all activists of all races, as well as women’s rights groups who were part of the resistance to apartheid laws and the struggle for social justice, equality, and human rights.” The first image of the church is from the internet. I took the second image of the foundation stone for the church, which was laid in 1901 (the church is being renovated, hence the fence and barbed wire).
Such an odd juxtaposition, seeing the slave lodge, a statue of a racist and controversial leader, and a church of hope with such an inspirational leader so tightly grouped.
We then toured the Company Garden, which is the oldest garden in South Africa. It was originally built by the Dutch East India Company in 1652, and today it is a public park and a botanical garden. There were statues, flora, and fauna throughout.
The geese are Egyptian and very cool-looking (sadly, no ferel chickens here). The park also had a scurry of albino squirrels, a first for me (see, there I go again with animal group name knowledge).
The pear tree in the next set of photos is the oldest cultivated fruit tree in South Africa. Planted around 1652–1655 during the time of Jan van Riebeeck, it is a living relic of the early Dutch settlement.
In the next set, the first image is a huge Rubber tree, the second is a magnolia, and the third is a wild banana. The fourth and fifth images are of very healthy hibiscus.
My fellow cruisers on the walk loved the Snake plants, second and third images, as they are hardy, low-maintenance houseplants known for their striking, upright sword-like leaves, requiring very little watering and preferring dry, arid conditions (many have them at home and are optimistic they will survive the 4-month trip).
The park had the Delville Wood and Artillery Memorials as well as excellent views of Table Mountain.
After leaving the Company Garden, we drove along the Atlantic Ocean. The views were terrific on such a clear day. The first image is of a great cloud formation on top of “Lion’s Head”.
I left the tour at the Victoria Mall and walked down the coast to find lunch. It remained a gorgeous day, and there was a walkway adjacent to the ocean. I hiked about 3 miles down and back, finding a nice turkey sandwich, but it was really all about the fantastic blue views.
Bob had a wonderful experience in Cape Town and, fortunately, did not get sick and was able to participate in the tours we had planned. I contracted the ship’s GI virus and was required to be in medical isolation in our room during our two days in port. I was really disappointed because Cape Town was one of my most-anticipated stops on the cruise, and I missed it all. Being sick when you are away from home is hard, and even harder in a different culture. When I started feeling better and wanted to eat some mild food, I was disappointed to learn that the ship’s kitchen didn’t have soda crackers, and room service refused to give me scrambled eggs without medical clearance from the doctor! (The nurse told me later that it was because the chef puts milk in scrambled eggs.) At departure, in-person immigration processing was performed on the ship. It was a comedy of errors trying to get a straight answer from Guest Services as to how I could do that because I was not allowed to leave the stateroom. Ultimately, a purser came to my room, picked up my passport, and handled the processing for me. The only time I was actually able to see the city and Table Mountain was as we were leaving port! It was one of the prettiest destinations thus far on the trip.
Enrichment – The Prelude to Apartheid—A Crime Against Humanity.” Discover the many events in South African history that contributed to the implementation of Apartheid – Robin Binckes
Robin is a new speaker, and he lived in South Africa during the Apartheid era. His talk detailed the prelude to that era. South Africa was initially inhabited by the Khoe and San tribes. The area has always had a black majority population. In the 1490s, both Diaz and da Gama rounded the Cape of Good Hope. The Dutch settled first, establishing a stock port, followed by Dutch calvinist farmers, who eventually became the “Boers”. Britain seized control of South Africa from the Dutch through a combination of military intervention during the Napoleonic Wars, diplomatic treaties, and subsequent territorial wars against the Dutch settlers (Boers). The UK actively encouraged the migration of its white citizens to South Africa. The Boers resisted the British and subsequently started the Great Migration to find land outside of British rule. This led to multiple wars with both indigenous tribes, as the Boers seized their land and brutally forced them out, and the British, who ultimately prevailed over the Boers. In addition, most Boers were Calvinist and believed they were the chosen people, and blacks were lesser humans. A minority right-wing faction of the Boers gained power in the South African government during the 1930s and 1940s. Known as the National Party, they ruled the country between 1948 and 1994 and institutionalized “Apartism” which became Apartheid.
Robin lived through the early years of the era. He stressed that the conflict was not only black vs white but also Boer against British whites. He told stories from his youth, illuminating the idea of Afrikaners vs the British antagonism. He told a personal story about an unfair interaction where his brother spat on a black man, who was then unfairly convicted of abuse after he confronted the boy. Robin believes that much of the white conflict is no longer present, but of course, the black vs. white conflict still exists.
End of Post.