Kirstenbosch Botanical Gardens

Kirstenbosch is a very large garden that is dedicated to plants that are native to South African. Not a lot was in bloom but it was still very interesting because we had a tour given by a volunteer who was a real "plant nut". Some of the most interesting plants were the cycads or "dinosaur" plants, ones that have not evolved since the age of the dinosaurs. Some are the only known examples of the plant: there are no more left in the wild. There is even an illegal business dealing in some of the endangered species.

The guide also gave us more views of the immigration problem in SA. Her view is that there are a lot of immigrants coming in from the north who are more motivated than locals and are getting jobs, even if they are just parking lot guards. This leads to resentment, xenophobia and recently some riots targeting immigrants from Zimbabwe, Zambia, etc. She also talked about the problem of trying to find a way to return some of the land taken by European settlers to native tribes. Many problems. It's as complicated as the US situation with American Indian tribes.

When we were in Cederberg I had a talk with the B&B owner about making prickly pear jam since there were so many prickly pear cactus around. Turns out they are invasive species originating from the US or Mexico. We don't always think about the invasive spacies that we have exported to other countries but another one that is also a problem in Britain is the Grey Squiril.

Yes, our little friends were all over the gardens in Cape Town. Families were feeding them like it was a fun thing to get them to come up and eat out of their hand.

In the afternoon we went to the Jewish Museum and the SA National Gallery. The Jewish museum told the history of Jews in SA starting in the 1800's. Many came from eastern Europe. Some got involved in diamond mines and started a little company called DeBeers.

The National Gallery had two great exhibits. One was the work of a woman who started drawing Africans in their tribal costumes. Many had beautiful beaded capes and outfits and were reminiscent of some of the beautiful costumes of American Indians from the great plains. They also had samples of the amazing beadwork. Now the beadwork tradition is carried on making trinkets for tourist; some are impressive, but not the beautiful art shown in the exhibit. We were at the museum at closing. It is a huge old mansion and at closing the guard follows the last visitors (us in this case) around sliding huge oak pocket doors closed in each room. We got the message very quickly and made our exit.