Knitmedic

Cape Town in Photos

Published by Atia on Tuesday, December 05, 2006 at 9:00 pm

I think our Cape Town trip is best summarised in pictures, as I am totally worn out after 2 weeks of being on call nearly every other day.

Boy in Langa township - on the township tour, we encountered local people going about their daily lives, shopping, washing clothes, working etc. This little boy stood outside our car window and just looked at us speculatively, probably finding us as unusual a sight as we found him and his surroundings.

Memorial dedicated to the Guguletu Seven, activists that were killed during the struggle against apartheid. Yet another example of the shocking recent history of South Africa which I only really became aware of on this trip.

An example of the brightly painted houses in the Bo-Kaap district of Cape Town, traditionally a Cape Malay, or Muslim area.

Even the side of the road is beautiful. We stopped on the way to Simonstown at this beautiful spot for a few minutes. Most of the road by the coast is flanked on one side by mountains and on the other by sandy beaches and the sea.

Boulders Bay African penguin colony, near Simonstown. It was a gorgeous day, and it was quite surreal to see so many tiny cartoon-like penguins basking in the sun, almost perfectly still, while we watched from afar. At another spot, we took photos literally face to face with a penguin.

Butterfly in Kirstenbosch Gardens, the first botanical gardens to gain UNESCO World Heritage status.

Ferns in Kirstenbosch garden

Posted by Atia

5 Comments:

1. warm as toast said...
   1:51 pm
   wow it's far more stunning than I realised.. did you take all those photos? They're beautiful
   Atia said...
   4:54 pm
   Yes my own photos! I was very proud of them - no photoshopping required :D
   ecowarrioress said...
   11:59 pm
   hey those fotos are really wow mashallah. I kinda rolled my eyes when i read abt the 'township tour' - sounds relaly commercial and insensitive and hoity toity, dyu know what i mean? Ooh lets go on a bus and take pictures of how the less fortunate live, like looking at people as theyre animals in a cage at a zoo. BUT i know, all tourism is essentially like that and i guess u become more aware and educated...You cant really stay away from it, i mean, i bought che guevara stuff from cuba and stayed 'overnight with the nomads in egypt' but u still feel like a fool for doing it.
   I love the colours of the houses btw. sorry this post isnt meant to be harsh :)
   Atia said...
   1:53 pm
   yes I know what you mean Eco, it is kind of like that, and if it was safe to go there any other way then we probably would have but it's not unfortunately. In fact just read about two lots of tourists that got robbed at gunpoint in one of the townships we went to!
   
   I still think that if you're a tourist in Cape Town and you don't see the townships, you only really know how the priveleged 5% of people in south africa live.
   Anonymous said...
   10:05 pm
   Hey salaams!
   
   I met you last wednesday at knit club, one of the sisters mentioned u had a blog so I thought id check it out!
   
   Im the one that fell in love with those pink gloves u knitted :p
   
   Im planing to take a visit down to our local wool shop tomorrow and find some nice things to buy and make.
   
   Will let you know how it goes :)

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