cities — Page 4

Capetown- the San Francisco of the South

February 23, 2010 By Danny

I don’t know if its called the San Francisco of the Southern Hemisphere, but if it isn’t and the name catches on, well you heard it here first. The winelands are close by. There is a famous prison in the bay. The vibe is cosmopolitan. The coast is wonderful but without a wetsuit you might find yourself a bit cold. Cape Town has the world’s largest population of Great White Sharks, followed by the waters off shore of San Fran. I suppose the biggest difference, on the surface anyway, is that San Francisco is dotted by huge hills whereas Cape Town is divided by a huge mountain. But, that’s just the surface I’m talking about.

Cape Town was founded when Portuguese sailors 400 years ago were looking to go east and found Table Mountain instead. Eventually the need was realized for a couple of lighthouses on the point (the first one was too high and always shrouded in fog) and a permanent settlement was established, complete with wine courtesy of the Dutch. The need for cheap labor lead to slave imports (from Angola, Madagascar, and Asia) which is a large part of the reason Cape Town is so cosmopolitan today. Much of its own history, like that of the entire country, has been shaped by events in Europe as Capetown slipped from the Portuguese to the Dutch and then to the British.

The city is beautiful to look at but it is not without its blemishes. During Apartheid the government, as the story goes, couldn’t have things be so cosmopolitan and so they took to demolishing one of the most vibrant parts of the city, District 6. (If you’ve seen the movie District 9, currently up for best picture at the Oscars, you might notice some similarities.) Naturally District 6 was a poor area but it was a mixed area for coloreds, (that means mixed race here) blacks, Jews, whites, and you get the picture. With this area knocked out, as it still is today, people were force ably removed to the other side of the mountain where many continue to reside today in squatters camps and shanty towns. The glitz and glamor of the coastline condos to these camps could not be in greater contrast.

After spending a good day hiking up Table Mountain to look down on the city below, we realized the city does have a lot on offer: diving just offshore, hiking all over the place, and enjoying the best of waterfront nightlife. There are plenty of museums to keep you busy and it is has a real, walkable, downtown area which is not something we’ve seen since Buenos Aires. Between the funky boutiques lining Long Street and the Green Market Craft Square, the downtown is a nice mix of Africa and funky cosmopolitan. This town may remind me of San Fransisco, but while in SF I’ve never seen baboons or watch as street performers dance and sing zulu war songs while sipping my cheap, local wine.

It takes two to tango

October 16, 2009 By Jillian

Our whirlwind adventure in Uruguay ended at 21:31 as the boat pulled away from the dock, but honestly I don’t know when to “start” our Argentine adventure, it certainly didn’t begin on the bumpy boat ride at 21:31. If there is one country we’ve been looking forward to to the most in South America, it has been Argentina. Tango, yerba mate, chocolate and Patagonia, every time we opened the guidebook to Argentina we found another “must do”. Really our adventure started the first time we opened the guidebook and fell in love with our idea of the country.

We had very high expectations of Buenos Aires, but then again, who wouldn’t? Joined by Danny’s parents for a week of beef, tango and shopping, we were excited to finally be there. Called the “Paris of South America”, it truthfully neither feels like Paris or South America. Buenos Aires has it’s own distinct character. You can’t put a finger on it, but it doesn’t feel like Paris, Rome, Madrid or London and yet it feels very European. And then again, you can close your eyes and feel the rhythm and feel only the Latin America. If you go expecting Paris or South America you’ll be disappointed. Buenos Aires is Buenos Aires.

Modern and yet traditional, the city seems to function in a grey area. Grand European architecture sweeps through the older neighborhoods and yet a few blocks away a modern minimalist high rise towers over the old port. Delicious and enormous cuts of steak and yet no sidewalk cafes to be seen. One of the oldest subway systems in the world, still running wooden cars, and modern “art”-chitecture like the women’s bridge. Colorful indigenous patterns and well heeled socialites. At times it felt like being on the streets of Montmartre in Paris; artists, musicians, puppeteers and incredible markets enticing you to spend the day with them while the next moment you’re on a train car with a very vibrant salesman selling gym socks, gum, hooks for the bathroom and toilet paper. It was an incredible confusion of old and new, of European and American cultures clashing together to form this place called “Good Airs.”

So it wasn’t Europe and it wasn’t South America, which in the end was very good. Danny’s mom and I spent countless hours perusing the markets, buying way more than we had space for, but feeling like every purchase was a bargain and very “worth it”. We taste tested the ice cream shops and decided that Volta had better texture but Freddo’s had better flavors. We walked from end to end probably half a dozen times, even getting caught in a never ending thunderstorm before giving up on staying dry and hoofing it back to the apartment. It was a week of delicious food, incredible wine, great shopping, and oh yea some very interesting attempts at Spanish.

Watching the requisite Tango show, which truthfully I was very excited about, I couldn’t help but be intrigued by the dance. Sexy and passionate like meringue or samba and yet so crisp and precise, Argentine Tango is all about the tension. In the span of one song, the dancers fight, they play and they make love. Maybe the dance is more than just a symbol of the city. Maybe the city itself is a tango, a dance of passionate tension.

Why Rio Won

October 5, 2009 By Danny

Sorry Chicago, you guys should try for the WINTER Olympics…..leave the summer Olympics to the beaches and palm trees of Rio…one of the most stunning cities we have ever laid eyes on.

The biggest problem with Rio was that it is a City…and a city is a place where people live in order to go to work and go about their daily lives. We don’t work and our lives are far from normal…hence cities aren’t usually so enticing to us. In Panama City we saw the canal, in Bogota we hung out with Couchsurfers, and in Lima we took some time from our hectic travel schedule to get visas for Bolivia and Brazil. Here in Rio though, we found one of the most amazing cities in the world.

I think the best way to describe Rio is that it is what you would get if you bulldozed Miami and put New York City along the banks of Biscayne Bay. An eclectic mix beachgoers, business people, cross dressers and travelers, it is the first place I was able to wear shorts and not feel like someone had written the word tourist across my back. Nestled amongst beautiful bays, stunning beaches, and rainforest covered hills, Rio really is the closest thing we’ll ever have to the oxymoron of a city built in paradise.

And it was raining.

We had one day of nice weather and would have loved to hit the beach, but that day happened to be Yom Kippur so we were obliged to pass. The rest of the time we wandered downtown and through hilltop communities. We ate the street food (meat on a stick continues to be the best value) and even attempted a [free] museum in Portuguese. Really though, we spent three days wandering around.

We also managed to meet up with some local Couchsurfers who took us out for a wonderful night on the town. One didn’t get out of class until 10pm and the other had class even earlier the next morning, but that didn’t stop us from closing the place down and getting back to the hostel around 2am.

I would move here tomorrow if only they didn’t speak Portuguese. Sure, the weather right now isn’t so great…but it is spring here right now so its only fair.

Me Encanta Bogota

July 16, 2009 By Jillian

Today is our last day in Bogota, on the one hand we can’t believe we’ve stayed here almost a week and on the other we wish we could spend a few more days. We’ve really enjoyed Bogota, it is a modern city with public transportation, parks, cafes and plenty to do.
Perhaps we’re enamored because its so different than Central America, or because we have great CS hosts, but either way its been a great start to South America. I can honestly say that its the first city we’ve been to since March where I could see myself living.

There’s been a lot to do here, we’ve hit a lot of museums but the one worth highlighting is the Museo de Oro (Gold Museum). An incredible collection of Pre-Columbian gold objects, the museum is really a masterpiece. Collections of religious and ritual items, corporal decorations, and an incredible statue depicting a religious procession thought to have inspired the story of El Dorado, the legend of the golden king whom the conquistadors sought for but never found. Even more amazing than the shear number of objects were the intricate designs made in gold. The miniature offerings for the Gods, often depictions of daily life from objects in the home to humans, were breathtaking. We even found a mini hammock, which unfortunately we could not add to our ever growing hammock collection.

Bogota doesn’t lack for the strange and bizarre either. Outside of Bogota we stumbled upon another of the supposed “seven” wonders of the world, the Salt Cathedral. Now you may ask yourself- what is a salt cathedral. Well… it’s actually a cathedral carved into a huge salt deposit 200m underground. What else would you do with a big hole in the ground, right? While it was neat to be in an entire complex created of salt, it was a bit strange. I’ll let the pictures tell the rest of the story, but it is worth noting that the tour guide admitted to us that it had fallen to the “eighth” wonder of the world. No surprise really.

Living here in Bogota for a week has been wonderful. The air is generally crisp like a perfect fall or spring day, chicken buses of Central America have been replaced by a modern bus system, and the terrain and vibrant city life remind us of San Fransisco without the ocean, complete with a traveling Andy Warhol exhibit. What a great start to South America!

Capetown- the San Francisco of the South

It takes two to tango

Why Rio Won

Me Encanta Bogota

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