Whether you want to meet South Africans in their homes, a taste of the Xhosa culture, photograph the most willing subjects in the world (South African kids) or buy crafts as mementos of your trip, Khayelitsha township in Cape Town is the perfect place.
There's only one township in South Africa that can claim to have been the subject of a Bizet operatic adaptation: Khayelitsha, near Cape Town.
And when you're motoring down Baden Powell Drive (the R310) in Cape Town and you come into view of a great sea of shacks on the right, just slow down for a minute and feel the throb of one of South Africa's most vibrant townships.
It would, however, be a safer and far more rewarding to sign on for a formal township tour of Khayelitsha ('new home' in isiXhosa), for a taste of day-to-day community life.
Experience township life and stay at one of these places
- Kopanong Bed & Breakfast - +27 21 361 2084
- Malebo's Bed and Breakfast - +27 21 361 2391
Join a township tour with one of these operators
- Khayelitsha Travel +27 73 766 2078 (Loyiso) or +27 83 527 6214 (Mvuyisi)
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- Look Out Hill is a great place to start your tour of Khayelitsha
- Guided Township Tours
- Social tourism volunteer opportunities
- Khayelitsha Craft Market
- Department of Coffee
- Khayelitsha Travel tours
- Khayelitsha Mall
- Cape Town Film Studios
Built in the early 1980s on the Cape Flats about 20 minutes' drive from the Cape Town CBD, Khayelitsha is a bustling mix of township 'box houses' and makeshift shacklands that regularly fall prey to wildfires and flooding, as the notorious Cape storms lash the coastline.
The township, which houses more than 500 000 people, came sharply into world focus in the mid-2000s when U-Carmen e-Khayelitsha, based on Bizet's opera Carmen, was filmed here.
U-Carmen won the prestigious Golden Bear for Best Film award at the 2005 Berlin International Film Festival and shone later at the Cannes Film Festival. This innovative, passionate isiXhosa interpretation of the famous opera had Khayelitsha's sprawl for a backdrop. Even the star of the show, Pauline Malefane, was a 'home girl' from Khayelitsha.
It has since been the backdrop in Hollywood films like Safe House and Dredd.
