Guests will be picked up at their accommodation in Cape Town by a qualified tour guide/driver at 9 a.m. and drive for approximately 20 minutes to one of the city’s oldest townships known to the locals as Langa (meaning ‘Sun’ in Xhosa). The township is named after a very respected chief Langalibalele, who was a renowned rainmaker who spent time in jail on Robben Island in 1873. Upon your arrival in this township, your driver will introduce you to the local site tour guide. The site guide will accompany you on a short walking tour (0.5 miles or less than a kilometer), affording opportunities to interact with locals.
The walking portion will start at Gugasthebe, where various non-profit organisations teach skills to the local youth. You will visit what used to be a detention centre during apartheid, before proceeding to the local shebeen or tavern. Here you will learn how the local beer, Umqombothi, is brewed, and enjoy a beer tasting with locals. This will be followed by a visit to the municipal beer hall. Thereafter, you will visit the township’s entrepreneurial business women who prepare barbecue (braai) meat on the streets of Langa, old and new hostels to see the transformations done by the government in order to better residents’ living conditions, an area crèche, and a newer housing development. In Langa market, you will spend a few minutes with a traditional doctor, or Sangoma (optional). The walking township tour will end at the public library.
From there you will proceed in the vehicle with your tour guide/driver to explore other places of interest around the township and head to a second township called Gugulethu. Gugulethu comes from Xhosa name ‘igugu lethu’ meaning ‘our pride’. Then take a drive to the area’s attractions and stop for lunch at the Mzoli meat place (at your own expense). Here you will have an opportunity to eat and drink with the locals. At the end of the tour you will be dropped off at your hotel at approximately 15:00 p.m.
