Koornhoop Manor Guest House is a quaint bed-and-breakfast that s a short walk to Observatory s main

Koornhoop Manor Guest House is a quaint bed-and-breakfast that s a short walk to Observatory s main street and a 10-minute train ride to central Cape Town. Singles about $54, doubles about $36 per person. koornhoop.co.za
At Boulders Beach Lodge , African penguins regularly waddle into the lobby of this charming beach side lodge in Simons Town. A train into Cape Town takes a full hour, but the views are breathtaking. Singles about $75, doubles about $55 per person. bouldersbeachlodge.com
It was already airline tickets to australia late afternoon when I arrived in Observatory, but the inner-city neighborhood in Cape Town, South Africa, was only just waking airline tickets to australia up, it seemed. A single young woman with a backpack skateboarded down the otherwise airline tickets to australia empty main street, and as the sun began to set over Table Mountain, a few bars played thumping airline tickets to australia house music through still-locked doors.
White people tend to go for rock; black guys go for kwaito, rap and jazz, answered store owner Lionel Jordan. Kwaito, he added, is dance music with African vocal samples. Jordan and his friends, however, mostly play classic rock.
Bordered by two oceans and one mountain range, Cape Town is a rare city that abuts actual wilderness. On the eastern side of town, the warm Indian Ocean crashes into the continent, sending a salty spray across the coastal highway. On the western side, the cold Atlantic periodically airline tickets to australia tosses unlucky ships onto the rocky shore. For people on the outskirts of town, baboon break-ins are a perennial problem, and in at least one southern suburb, penguins regularly waddle into hotel lobbies, looking for handouts.
But as I ran through six lanes of traffic to escape an overzealous panhandler one day, I realized that the real dangers of Cape Town are of the typical urban variety. I won t rob you if you just give me some money, the panhandler yelled as I trotted back to my hotel.
I shouldn t have been that surprised. airline tickets to australia Cape Town is, after all, still recovering from the scars of apartheid including economic airline tickets to australia inequality and an unemployment rate of almost 50 percent among young adults. In fact, it was only 50 years ago that the South African government declared the city center to be for whites airline tickets to australia only and began forcibly removing blacks and mixed-race people from their homes.
Although most of Cape Town quickly succumbed to segregation, apartheid s enforcers somehow overlooked at least two inner-city neighborhoods: Observatory and Woodstock. In recent years, these multicultural enclaves have led the city s renaissance attracting artists and other creative types from all over the world.
I found the surrounding airline tickets to australia neighborhood, however, to be decidedly less friendly. Many homes hunkered behind tall concrete walls topped with razor wire. Prominently placed placards named the security company that protected each property, complete with illustrations airline tickets to australia of a revolver s business end.
As I snapped a picture of a placard for a particularly festive-sounding security company (Shock-o-loza), a curly-haired twenty-something stopped to assure me that Observatory isn t as dangerous as it looks.
The next morning, my boyfriend and I drove to Woodstock, a trendy neighborhood in the heart of Cape Town. Once a sparsely populated industrial area, Woodstock has become the epicenter of Cape Town s emerging design industry. Foodies soon followed, starting a popular gourmet market and a smattering of high-profile restaurants.
As we neared the market, airline tickets to australia at the Old Biscuit Mill, several young men trotted after our car, offering parking spaces and car-guarding service airline tickets to australia for the equivalent of a few dollars. Suckers, we let one flag us down and ended up parking nearly a mile away from the market. That, however, gave us the chance to appreciate the striking contrast between the world outside the mill and the scene inside.
Outside: A yellow airline tickets to australia Yugo rusted on blocks. Inside: A shiny Mini Cooper displayed hip T-shirts. Outside: Barefoot children airline tickets to australia hustled tourists. Inside: Well-heeled teens picked through designer clothes. No one stood guard at the Biscuit Mill gates, but some invisible barrier stopped these very different worlds from colliding.
We headed to our last stop on our tour of Cape Town neighborhoods airline tickets to australia a small brick church that stands as a monument to one of the most shameful moments in Cape Town s history: the destruction of District Six.
I will never forget the day they bulldozed our house, said Noor Ebrahim, perched on a stool in the museum, one of the few District Six structures that the apartheid government left standing. A trio of young women paid rapt attention as Ebrahim told stories about growing up in the multiethnic neighborhood. Christmas, he said, was his favorite time of year, because he loved tailing the choirs that paraded through the streets.
We all celebrated Christmas, not just the Christians, said Ebrahim, a Muslim. I prayed with the Hindu community, the Jewish community, the African community, and there was nothing wrong [with it]. All my friends, they put on a fez and went with me to my mosque. That s what made District Six such a great place, he said.
That thriving multiculturalism spooked the nascent apartheid government, which declared the area a slum and razed it in the 1970s, relocating airline tickets to australia the neighborhood s 60,000 residents to suburbs or, more often, actual slums on the outskirts of town. All that remains are a few dozen street signs, which hang, chandelier-like, from the church s ceiling.