Grahamstown Favorites

Favorite thing: Grahamstown is in a warm hollow amidst the hills of the Eastern Cape. The city that has acquired many names over the years; ‘City of Saints’ due to over 40 places of worship, the most notable of which is the magnificent St George’s Cathedral; ‘City of Schools’ for its fine educational establishments such as the famous Rhodes University and ‘City of Settlers’ due to the many frontier wars fought with the Xhosa tribes people. The Xhosas suffered a terrible self-imposed fate when their 14 year old prophetess ‘Nongqause’ urged her people to burn their crops and kill all their cattle and in return they would be free of the white settlers. Their deliverance never came and thousands of Xhosa’s died of starvation.

In the early 1800’s Grahamstown was a thriving bustling city of ivory traders, big game hunters and soldiers thronging the streets. Today the streets still hum with activity but only during the June/July Arts Festival when it comes alive with artistes, markets stalls, performers and visitors. The most bizarre thing you might see in Grahamstown outside festival time is the pre-historic Coelacanth, a fish caught off the east coast of Africa thought to be extinct for more than 80 million years!