CapeTown: The City

Our first time in Africa and still it was difficult to assume that we were in an African country. South Africa and particularly CapeTown, and particularly the bussiness city center were the congress and our hotel were located, are completely different to the image that we all have from Africa: poor black people suffering indescribable misfortunes. South Africa seemed to be a developing country similar to, let's say, Mexico (amongst those that I´ve known...) or something like this: great social imbalance but look like everything is getting better little by little. The point about South Africa is that the social imbalance split the society into two clear population groups: whites and blacks (or coloured people as a result of a number of mixtures, indians, thai, blacks, whites...). Needless to say that whites still control the economical and hence, the real political power while poor people is basically black people. By wandering the streets and watching at the people and the great amount of shanty towns (occupied by poor black people) and elegant and luxury houses (owned by whites), I thought of the historical injustice suffered by blacks in their own country. South African blacks are, for me, a good example of dignity and resistance against violence and discrimination. Their principles of non-violence (defended every now and then by Mr. Mandela) hindered the possibility of working it out before, like it should have been done, using their social strength to bring the racist government down and throw oppressive whites out of the country and back to the place (certain European countries) they should have never left. But if finally happened. Freedom was conquered and yet with that imbalance, South Africa is now a free country with surprising advance legal issues like the legal marriage between gays and lesbians (that is total and absolute equality of rights between heterosexual and homosexual couples, including adoption) like in very few other countries (Norway, Belgium, Netherlands, Spain, Canada and some USA states). I suppose that the lack of freedom for a long time encourage now the new society to run for freedom and equality in all aspects. The city itself is beautiful because of the impressive surroundings and beautiful sea. The African and European culture are mixed in the streets, the food, the speaking...By the way, extremely hard to understand South African speaking English: they have a dialect which will soon become a new language...They have a rich variety of foods, meats from game and exotic animals, a lot of fish, wine, fruits, vegetables...but they include a lot of spices...not the Spanish way really. But we enjoyed trying crocodile meat and having new and exotic experiences. We also has time for some tourism and visited a penguin reserve, a botanic garden and Cape Point which is a promontory at the south-east corner of the Cape Peninsula: a mountainous and very scenic landform that runs north-south for about thirty kilometres at the extreme southwestern tip of the African continent (this has been taken from Wikipedia). But actually the view from there is breathtaking. It was a pity that it was not summer down there: the beaches are also incredible. We have reasons to return again...