As I spent the following days visiting the beautiful sights of Cape Town, I was amazed at how segregated the city was. In many parts of town, there were no more black people than I would see walking through the streets of Rhode Island. Yet driving from the shiny, modern city back to the conference center, we passed acres of shanty town. I was reminded of the spectrum of poverty that one sees traveling to the world’s lowest income countries. In Cape Town the poor were wearing shoes. The shanty houses had innumerable small satellite dishes dotting the roofs. Instead of beggars on the street corners, there were people selling small items like stickers to cars at each intersection.
I hiked to the top of Table Mountain with a friend, a challenging trail that required nearly vertical ascent at times. The summit provided stunning views of the city and beyond, and even has a coffee shop with a buffet and wifi lounge. On the way down, we took the gondola, which slowly spun around and around for a spectacular ride, although it made me dizzy. I visited the waterfront, where a troupe of dancers in animal skins with painted faces entertained children and world class seafood restaurants lined the quays. I even took an Uber that cost me the equivalent of almost $100 USD, just so I could climb to the peak of the cliffs overlooking the Cape of Good Hope, and see the Indian and Pacific oceans crashing together. Overall, I was left with the sense that I could have stayed in Cape Town for weeks longer and still had much more to see and do. But only 3 days after arriving, I was boarding a plane for “Jo-burg” (I never heard a South African call it Johannesburg), heading for a very different place, Addis Ababa, Ethiopia.
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