Monday - Africa Day One

Today we got up around 7:30. Coffee, showers, walked out to get the rental car. We drove the car back to the house where Romeo, the blog-ubiquitous cabbie, was already waiting to take us into town. Overview from Rondebosch: Cape Town University, Newlands cricket stadium, all sides of Table Mountain, parliament, up through Bo-kaap to the Noon Gun restaurant, ending at the District 6 Museum. Joe gave us the 4-minute history of District 6 and we then showed ourselves through the museum. The space was formerly a church – now home to thousands of pictures and stories volunteered from the families that were forcibly moved out of District 6 and relocated into areas of the country that were far less desirable for a variety of reasons. These areas were not part of existing communities, not near community churches, not close to employment, and not supported in any healthy ways. People were re-located based on their government classification of race.
The early part of the day was a brief look into South Africa’s past. The way things used to be. We walked though a community of colors. People who are black, Indian, white, mixed and other all seem equally at home in District 6. Although, thinking back, perhaps the balance of which races seemed to have stronger representations in those people working, cleaning, relaxing, eating, driving or riding public transit may have shown part of the ongoing differences in groups of people.
After a midday break back at Bunny’s flat, we headed out to eat at Moyo in Stellenbosch. Moyo is a restaurant in the Speir winery, with a craft village, park, and a cheetah that welcomes petting. You arrive and are escorted along a rocky path through and into mid-canopy tables at the restaurant. Pinotage to start, is there anything else? After settling into drinks and the ambiance, we were invited to continue our tour into the woodland tents where an eight section buffet was set up. The food at each section was customized. Choose your animals, vegetables, sauces, starches. March with plates back to mid-canopy – trying not to take stray staircases to other mid-tree tables – eat more, drink more and back to the woodland buffet for a plate of dessert. The food, the experience, was wonderful. It was African enchantment.