Live it! Love it!

The colorful billboards at the fully refurbished Cape Town International Airport bring passengers a peaceful and harmonious message of love in this bright and lively city "Live it! Love it!". Welcome to you all and forget immediately the 13-hour joined flights and your heavy eyelids. Instead, try to open up your senses to the soft breeze blown promise of this new travel experience sold by the perfectly packaged marketing messages on the facility walls. A quick look outside shows immediately that at least the colors are not wrong on the billboard: clear blue morning sky and 26° C that enliven the South African world at our feet.

To experience Cape Town is to love it, they say. Ok, so let's drive around, still tired from the long hours of flight, but totally enthusiastic about this new frontier from the first stoplight: women walk slowly under the morning sun, dressed in colorful attire and with goods carefully perched on their heads. There is life all along the road that runs along the Cape Town "Flats", with children wearing their school uniforms, men selling all kinds of trinkets (from newspapers to garbage bags), football teams running barefoot, cricket supporters gathered in the middle of a tired field and red dust veiling all activities and surrounding misery. The driving is respectful and slow - nobody honks, with shiny black SUVs pulling up next to the most battered cars of unidentifiable brands - there is mixity on every corner.

On Sunday, the streets are mostly empty, here and there the occasional security or police officer stops to chat with the road workers, while Government avenue is full of tourists strolling in the shade, admiring the all-white official buildings with city guides in their hands, from the slave museum to the National Library, the biggest in the country. Birds and squirrels chirp and hop from one tree to the other, while exotic plants and flowers unveil their names and origins in the Company's garden, a true example of successful conversion.

As the first day in the city draws to an end, you take in the urban shapes and colors against the majestic backdrop of surrounding Table Mountain, and you think "Live it! Love it!".

Credits: TheDaydreamer