I'm aware of Cython and RPython. RPython is super cool but it isn't really a general purpose programming language. Cython is superficially similar to what I want, but it's always put me off; not sure why off the top of my head. I do love Go, however. :)

Cython is basically C in Python syntax with some convenience features.

Unless you know C it's not always worth using. Without doing any "C stuff" (i.e. just writing Python and compiling with Cython) you get about a 50% speedup in tight loops; sometimes that's good enough, other times it's not.

To go any faster than that, you basically need to start writing C code, using the CPython API, using Cython's badly under-documented features for doing so.

Learning C to the point where you get Cython is pretty easy. C is much easier to pick up rather than the HUGE C++. Here is a video you can watch in an afternoon that would give you the general gist and covers the basics quickly. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KJgsSFOSQv0

For me Cython truly shines when interfacing to C++.

I hear you on Go. I am a Python dev at work and love Python, have dug into PEP8 and understood the tradeoffs for the sake of simplicity. Now after years of not touching Go I go back to it and it feels soooo familiar. It truly feels like a compliment to any serious Python developer to find Go. Now I got two goto languages for prototyping.