South Africa Days 4-8: Thoughts On Cape Town

As amazing as my safari was, nothing can top my experience in Cape Town! I completely fell in love with the city as a tourist, urban planner, history enthusiast, pedestrian, and explorer. Cape Town has something for everyone!

I think one of the best ways to describe Cape Town is as a hipster city. It really reminds me of a mix between San Francisco and Rio de Janiero. I say Rio mostly because of the Camps Bay area combined with the lush, mountainous scenery. It really is an artsy city that fosters creativity, social entrepreneurship, good music, and amazing food. I have quite a lot to say about this place I love from my short time there, and I'll start with my view of the city as an urban aficionado.

Now please excuse me while I geek out for a moment :)

My Nerdy Urban Analysis of Cape Town's Social Fabric
I believe Cape Town does a good job of integrating social interaction with the urban fabric and architecture of the place. Not only does Cape Town have wonderful pedestrian malls and small business incubators which encourage the physical and social movement of people throughout the city, but it also has less functional and more artistic methods of getting both locals and tourists to interact with public space. For instance, at a handful of strategic locations around town, the City encourages photos to be taken and uploaded to social media with picture frames that you can interact with which frame Table Mountain, the defining geographic feature of the city. And each "frame" has the hashtag #LoveCapeTown noted on it for you to use if you do choose to upload your pictures to social media. What a cute and fun marketing campaign for the city!

Cape Town also has wonderful signage and clearly marked trails and walkways. My favorite was this 5 km boardwalk around the Victoria and Albert Waterfront. It showcases the natural and manmade beauties of the area, both historical and modern. It even leads right up to the World Cup stadium. What a great way to get both locals and visitors to interact with the cultural capital located at the waterfront!

On top of the wonderful interactive infrastructure I experienced in Cape Town, my absolute favorite place at the V&A Waterfront was the Market on the Wharf, a beautiful example of adaptive reuse. It is a food market comprised of a few dozen small food vendors within an old warehouse building. It reminded me a lot of the Grand Central Market in downtown Los Angeles, but with a lot more of a hipster feel to it. Really, it is what the Grand Central Market is slowly becoming with the gentrification of DTLA. There was also a cute crafts market in another old warehouse building just south of the Market on the Wharf which was a treasure trove full of small locally sourced goods. I love supporting local artists and businesses! Their products were all high quality, unique, and quite affordable. Being in this part of Cape Town just warmed my soul!

Not too far from the V&A Waterfront is the historic center of Cape Town. There the city was built around the existing historic buildings such as the Castle of Good Hope which is the oldest existing colonial building in the country. It stands as the oldest example of a Dutch East India Company fort and was originally built on the coastline before land reclamation projects added land to the city. While this and other historical buildings in the city center represent a complicated, heavy past, they have been so wonderfully integrated into the current state of the city. There is a lot of historic architecture juxtaposed with the modern buildings along with everything in between. And one of my favorite features is how the city has made a bold effort to become pedestrian friendly and promote multi-modal transportation. This is not something I was expecting to find when I arrived. I was so pleasantly surprised by the abundance of pedestrian malls, dedicated bike and bus lanes, and quaint roads often lined with stretches of old stone curb and gutters, and sometimes even cute brick pavers. It really added to the character of the town and definitely contributed to how I fell in love with it so quickly.

You can see the old stone curb and gutters on the left side of this cycle track. I thought this was the coolest thing!

Of course, Cape Town is more than just the downtown area. In the entire metropolitan area, there are nearly 4 million residents. I think one of the most beautiful things about Cape Town is that it encompasses both the historic downtown area I was able to experience along with a large variety of different communities. There really is something for everyone in Cape Town. It has a little bit of everything. There are places to go on safaris not too far away, and only a couple hours away is the famous Dyer Island and Shark Alley commonly featured on Shark Week where I went cage diving with the great whites. I was not able to visit the Winelands, but I hear that region is supposed to be extremely fantastic to experience. The Camps Bay area was also a really fun place to be. It kind of reminded me of the Copacabana neighborhood in Rio. And of course, any trip to Cape Town is not complete without a visit to the cape itself! Visiting the Cape was just a dream. It really blasts you with all of nature's power and beauty from the scenery to the wildlife present. All of that is integrated with the history of Cape Point, complete with the historic lighthouse that has guided many a ships around the horn of Africa. Isn't it crazy to think Mageallan, among other great historic figures, had sailed past that point? And the Cape of Good Hope itself is one of the most beautiful places I have ever experienced in nature. You can truly feel the power of the ocean, of nature itself, and maybe even the presence of God in that place if you listen.

In the few short days I was in the city, it's crazy to think that I experienced so much, yet there is so much I was not able to try. I think the only way to resolve that is to return one day. Stay tuned to hear about my adventures in Cape Town next!