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Postcard From Cape Town
My roots in Cape Town go quite far back. My great-grandparents settled here almost a hundred years ago and founded a company called Tiger Oats. I still eat their oatmeal for breakfast most mornings and say an inward prayer of thanks that they ended up here. I don’t think I could live in any other city.
Cape Town is the perfect size — about four million
people — and it’s so beautiful that it still takes me by
surprise. It’s got a mild, Mediterranean climate, and barely 20 minutes from the city center there are there are vineyards, cycling and hiking trails, horse riding, scuba diving, and Table Mountain National Park.
Sometimes, on my days off, I’ll cycle up one of the trails. There are points in the park from where you can look east and west and see the two vast oceans that flank the African continent: the Atlantic and the Indian. It’s Cape Town’s position between them that’s the key to its extraordinary character.
It was the Dutch who first established a settlement here. They planted vineyards and vegetable gardens to supply fresh food to ships sailing between Europe and the Dutch East Indies.
So many cultures have found their way here over the last four hundred years and Cape Town today reflects something of each of them: European, Malay, Indonesian, Chinese, Indian, Bantu African, Khoi-San. To this day, fish sellers come down the cobbled streets of the Cape Malay neighborhoods blowing a cow horn to let people know the catch is in.
Cape Town’s blend of traditions shows up in all sorts of ways: from the phenomenal colors of the houses, to the the different restaurants, and the tolerant, laid back vibe that the city is famous for. Joburg is the financial powerhouse of South Africa, but Cape Town is the soul of the rainbow nation: relaxed, welcoming, and diverse.
A PASSION FOR AFRICA: About Richard Coke
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