Cape Town

One quick correction - in my last entry, I mentioned that about 150,000 people had attended the Durban beach Fan Parks. I stand corrected. The beach Fan Parks had 256,000 fans enjoying the World Cup Final!! In fact, they turned away about 88,000 fans (they had to watch the games at 2 non-beach fan parks).

We arrived in Cape Town on Tuesday afternoon - what a spectacularly beautiful city.

Yesterday, because of weather conditions we were not able to visit either Robben Island nor Table Mountain. Instead, we spent time in the City Centre and discovered some family history. Cape Town has a very rich cultural history particularly due to the influence of the Malay people - my paternal grandmother is Malay. The Malays were people that were brought to South Africa as slaves. My great-great-grandfather was brought here as a slave to work as a stonemason. In fact, the turrets on the Castle in Cape Town was constructed by him and others. I also discovered that the family name is inscribed on a memorial in the Slave Lodge (a museum dedicated to South Africa's slaves trade conducted by the Dutch East India Company). A very emotional day for me.

Today, we took a drive that is one of the most spectacular that I have ever done. We drove to Cape Point, where the currents of the Indian and Atlantic Oceans meet. i magine driving along the edge of a sheer cliff with the ocean roaring below. Spectacularly beautiful!! I just wonder what took me so long to come back to SA and to discover Cape Town and the surrounding country.

Just a quick note on driving. As you know, South Africans drive on the left side of the road. So when driving the biggest challenge is in remembering which way to look for oncoming traffic. So far I've only had two close calls. i attribute this to the fact that my father taught me to drive when I was 11 - I used to drive him around the Black township (during Apartheid, Blacks, Coloured and Indians were restricted to specific areas) when he went on house calls to visit patients.