Table Mountain is flanked by two iconic collaborators:
to the left is Devil’s Peak, and to the right, Lion’s Head.
If you look at Devil’s Peak from the foot of Lion’s Head, you will see the form of a woman lying in the mountain. And once you see her, you will never stop seeing her.
She’s lying on her back, her dreadlocks flowing into Table Bay at Salt River. She has just given birth, and the baby lies peacefully at her feet, forming the left slope of Table Mountain’s table top. The woman’s head and breast are the two peaks of Devil’s Peak. Take your time to find her, because it changes everything about the city once you see her.
This image is the reason Cape Town is called The Mother City. She is a maternal city, with all the contradictions and power and vulnerabilities of a new mother, having just brought life into the world. Emboldened. Blue. Majestic. Uncertain.
The thing is, that to see the Mother, you need someone to show it to you. And it is in that sharing of knowledge, that the key to this city lies.
Cape Town is a city divided along numerous, deep social, political and geographic lines. And to overcome these barriers, created by apartheid and colonial empire, and hardwired into our psyches, Capetonians need to be sharing with each other across the boundaries. And the Mother is one of the best places to start. Because once you see her, you start to understand that all the resources we need to make this city the place we want it to be, all those resources are right in front of us. You just need someone to help you see them.
You as a visitor to Cape Town are fortunate. You have an opportunity, more than most of us as locals, to get the bird’s eye view of the city, to see it above and beyond our issues. And so to make that journey a deep one, Coffeebeans created a range of tours in Cape Town that make it possible for us to share this city with you, from many angles, across the lines, and between the binaries.
