Molo!  Last Saturday there was a new norwegian girl who arrived in Cape Town through Ed and Heather’s organization (so happy I’m norwegian these days, haha!). Her name is Amalie and she is 19 years old and is traveling alone as well. She will be volunteering at another orphanage, but I will get to see her on the weekends – I’m very excited about her being around 🙂 I decided to bring Alex and Amalie on a bit of sightseeing for them as well as for me. We walked to a place I hadn’t been before, called Bo-Kaap, or above the Cape.  Bo-Kaap is about a 15 minute walk from Ashanti Lodge, so it’s quite central in Cape Town. About 300 years ago when Dutch settlers came to Cape Town, they brought slaves with them from Indonesia and other countries in that area. The slaves settled in Bo-Kaap and that’s how the area came about. The area is probably most famous for its bright and colourful houses! Just how cool and fun of a place doesn’t this look? The area is far from affluent and rich, but these colours must bring some joy to people’s lives. How great wouldn’t it be to live in an area with such brightly coloured houses – I would walk out my door and smile every day.

Can you ever paint your house grey or white after seeing this? 

The sun setting over Bo-Kaap

We just had a nice stroll around the area in the hot Cape Town sun! Poor Amalie had just come from a 18 hour flight and then this weird girl Anna drags her to see all these strange colourful houses.. No time to lose when you’re in Cape Town and when you’re around with me, you’ll quickly learn I love exploring.

After our visit to Bo-Kaap we went to a market called the Greenmarket Square – more on that later!