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East of the northern and southern suburbs, among the industrial smokestacks and the windswept Cape Flats, reaching well beyond the airport, is Cape Town's largest residential quartier, taking in the coloured districts, African townships and shantytown squatter camps.
The Cape Flats are exactly that: flat, barren and populous, exclusively inhabited by Africans and coloured in separate areas, with the M5 acting as a dividing line between it and the southern suburbs.
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Questa foto di Langa Township è offerta da TripAdvisor.
The African townships were historically set up as dormitories to provide labour for white Cape Town, not as places to build a life, which is why they had no facilities and no real hub.
The men-only hostels, another apartheid relic, are at the root of many of the area's social problems. During the 1950s, the government set out a blueprint to turn the tide of Africans flooding into Cape Town.
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No African was permitted to settle permanently in the Cape west of a line near the Fish River, the old frontier over 1.000 km from Cape Town; women were entirely banned from seeking work in Cape Town and men prohibited from bringing their wives to join them.
By 1970 there were ten men for every woman in Langa.
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In the end, apartheid failed to prevent the influx of work-seekers desperate to come to Cape Town. Where people couldn't find legal accomodation they set up squatter camps of makeshift iron, cardboard and plastic sheeting.
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During the 1970s and 1980s, the government attempted to demolish these and destroy anything left inside, but no sooner had the police left than camps reappeared, and they are now a permanent feature of the Cape Flats.
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One of the best known of all South Africa's squatter camps is Crossroads, whose inhabitants suffered campaign of harassment that included killings by apartheid collaborators and police, and continuous attempts to bulldoze it out of existence.
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Through sheer determination and desperation its residents hung on, eventually winning the right to stay.
Today, the government is making attempts to improve conditions in the shantytowns by introducing electricity, running water and sanitation, as well as buildings tiny brick houses to replace the shacks.
Questa foto di Langa Township è offerta da TripAdvisor.
Langa is the oldest and most central township, lying just east of the white suburb of Pinelands and north of the N2.
In this relentlessly grey place, without the tiniest patch of green relief, you'll find women selling sheep and goat's heads, alongside state-of-the-art public phone bureaus run by enterprising township businessmen from inside recycled cargo containers.
Families live in fairly smart suburban houses while, not far away, there are former men-only hostels where as many as three families share one room.
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TOWNSHIP TOURS AND HOMESTAYS
Several projects are under way to encourage tourists into the townships but, as a high proportion of Cape Town's nearly two thousand annual murders take place here, the recommended way to visit is on one of the tours organised by two special companies: The Andulela Tours and The Bonani Our Pride.
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All of these tours are operated by residents of the Cape Flats, or in cooperation with local communities, and emphasize face-to-face encounters with ordinary people.
They include visits to shebeens, nightclubs and a township restaurant, chats with residents of squatter camps and the Langa hostels, and meetings with traditional healers and music makers, township artists and craftworkers.
Questa foto di Langa Township è offerta da TripAdvisor.
Some tours also take in "sites of political struggle", where significant events in the fight against apartheid occurred.
If you want to really get under the skin of the townships, there's no better way than staying in one of the townships B & B, which offer pleasant, friendly and safe accomodation.
For more information, ask to me through my blog in the comment's box.
Questa foto di Langa Township è offerta da TripAdvisor.
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