Africa is the world's most varied continent: a place with 53 countries, 2,000 languages and a geography that veers from glaciers to deserts to nine of the world's 20 fastest-growing cities.
Inside that tropical tapestry, South Africa — Nelson Mandela's Rainbow Nation — is its most multicolored country.
True, the suburbs of Cape Town are a lesson in how segregated different communities can be. But at its best the city offers a relaxed blend of African ethnicity and culture — and nowhere does that harmony look, or sound, better than at the summer concerts in Kirstenbosch National Botanical Garden.
The gardens, spread over 89 acres (36 ha), were established in 1913 on the old farm of southern Africa's chief British...