Cape Town Tour Part 1

Sorry for the delay in posting! I finally have internet access here at Stellenbosch. Internet use is quite different here than I am used to at UBC, I have to pay by the mb so it's much different. As such, I'm going to be quite choosy with posting my photos. So for today I'll show a few pictures from my Cape Town tour.

On Saturday, the International Office provided us international students with a free tour of Cape Town to give us a chance to get to know the greater area. While I am working during my time here in SA, I'm considered an "Affliate International Student" at the university so I have essentially all the benefits as a regular international student without the hassle of going to class.

So despite my jet lag (or perhaps because of it?) Saturday morning I was at the office ready to go at 9 am. We drove out of Stellenbosch, through Kayamandi which is Stellenbosch's township, or shanty town. Unfortunately I didn't have my camera out in time, so I wasn't able to catch photos. I did get shots of the Cape Flats which I'll show next post.

From Stellenbosch, we drove straight to Cape Town (about a half hour to the outskirts I would say). Our first stop was at the Company Gardens. These are the original gardens from when Cape Town was used predominantly as a produce stand for the Dutch East India Company. They still have some of the original fruit trees as well. There are also lots of beautiful historic buildings.

 Here is a view of the gardens. One of the amazing things about Cape Town is Table Mountain which you can see the edge of in the background. The mountains in this part of South Africa are especially rugged; Cape Town only really climbs a third of the way at most up the mountain. Quite different looking for the tree covered mountains we have on the west coast!

Here is the National Library of South Africa. The Company Gardens are surrounded by older Cape Dutch style buildings.

Following the Gardens, we went up to Signal Hill, the lower part of Table Mountain.

The view of Cape Town from here is incredible! Unfortunately Table Mountain was a bit cloud covered so you can't see its distinctive flat top.

And the view from the other side out onto the Atlantic Ocean. Below us is Camps Bay which has beautiful white sand beaches. Apparently its quite trendy among the celebrities too.

Anyways, I shall go but I"ll write later this week with part two of the tour.