Bo-Kaap

If there’s any one area that best symbolises South Africa’s reinvention of itself as the Rainbow Nation, it must surely be Cape Town’s Bo-Kaap – for colour, at least, rather than ethnic diversity.

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Sitting in the shadow of Signal Hill, in an area broadly termed the City Bowl, the Muslim enclave whose name translates as ‘Top Cape’ is an indirect legacy of Dutch immigrants using slave labour to help develop their fledgling colony. Known as Cape Malays, these slaves were shipped over from Malaysia, Indonesia, India, Sri Lanka and various African countries during the 16th and 17th centuries. Often highly skilled in crafts, they were considered too useful for employment in the fields and were instead bought by Burghers in town, then housed in slave lodges here, in Bo-Kaap.