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We've had a jam packed past couple of days, out and about finally getting to see some of Cape Town and its surrounds. We bought a 2 day pass for the bright red double decker sightseeing city bus. In all my travels around the world, I've only ever done this bus once before, in Madrid. We headed out early the first day to jump on the express bus up to Table Mountain where we got the cable car to the top. Needless to say, it is quite high up and in the actual cable car, the floor moves around in a 360 degree circuit so everyone gets a view but mum's legs were a little wobbly when she got to the top (fear of heights and all that jazz). At the top, you get wonderful views of Cape Town and down the coast. Also many signs and posters around explaining different things, including the cloud cover phenomena that covers the mountain - they call it a tablecloth which is quite appropriate.
Mum had a sugar fix of fairy floss (cotton candy for those Americans) so she could stomach the trip down (or that was her excuse anyway) and on the bus we jumped again. It took us down the mountain and around down to the coastal road to the town of Camps Bay which has a beautiful white beach and is where all the beautiful people hang out. One thing about the water here in Cape Town, it is colder during the summer months (can get down to 9 degrees) because the wind blows the warmer water away and the cold water at the bottom rises. Add that to the possibility of Great White Sharks, I don't understand why anyone would swim here. We stopped and had some lunch and then off again, this time into the city centre. Checked out some more markets, organised a hire car (or so we thought) and took a quick walk through the Company Gardens before heading out to the District 6 Museum only to find out that it was closed when we tried to get off the bus.
District 6 is an area in Cape Town where the former government did a forced removal of the whole community (approx 50,000 people of all races) and then razed all the houses, shops - everything. There was such a huge outcry over what they did, nothing every really got rebuilt out here. It is a big wasteland which in itself is a memorial to what happened. So we stayed on the bus and did the loop again back around to the V&A Waterfront where we walked back to the hostel.
Yesterday we headed out on the blue route of the bus, first stop Kirstenbosch Botanical Gardens which were beautiful and in such an incredible setting too. This land, along with a lot of other land in the area used to be owned by Cecil Rhodes and when he died he left very specific instructions for what the land was to be used for. He also had something to do with the Rhodes Scholar which was something we learnt from the bus commentary. The gardens were set in the shadows of the mountain and just very dramatic scenery along with beautiful gardens. You could really spend all day here but unfortunately we didn't have that much time.
Next stop, we got off at Imizamo Yethu, a township where you could do a tour. It wasn't the best tour but we didn't pay that much for it. This township is lucky in a way in that an Irish foundation is at work here and they are building proper housing slowly to replace the shacks they live in. Just up the road was the Original T-Bag Design shop. How imaginative is this - they take old used tea bags, empty them, iron them, paint them in different designs and then stick them to things to make different items like coasters, candle holders, tea pot stands, wall hangings, etc. They then lacquer them and finish them off. Just incredible and very eye catching. They now employ 15 local people and they showed a great video of how this has changed some of their lives. We of course couldn't leave empty handed and helped them out by buying some stuff!! We headed to Hout Bay, a small fishing village where we had Fish & Chips for lunch before watching some sea lions at play in the harbor.
Back to the hostel to await our pickup so we could collect our hire car that we had arranged. It doesn't turn up so I call them. They can't find a record of our booking, they'll call me back. Call back, someone will be there in 10 minutes. They turn up and take us to a different car hire place they have off loaded our booking too. 2 hours later we leave with no car. Basically, they wouldn't give us the same deal as we booked with the other agent and we got fed up and told them to stuff it. They wanted us to sign a contract with a R14,000 excess (which is about $2000). It should have been R4500. Lesson learnt - stick with the big name car companies!! We couldn't arrange anything else as everything was closed so we went back to the hostel to sort our bags out and then went for a drink (much needed) with Rohen, someone we met at the hostel.
This morning, got up early and managed to book a car with Budget that we could pick up at 9am. We did so with no problems and after heading back to pack the car up, we were able to leave around 10am, only 2hrs later than we had wanted to. We headed towards the Cape of Good Hope, driving the coastal route including Chapman's Peak which is a toll road that hugs the coast and has magnificent views. First stop was Boulders Beach which is known for its African Penguin colony. Most of them are molting at the moment so are hanging out on the beach or under the trees, looking like they have had funny haircuts. Down to the Cape where mum took one look at the hike up to the Cape Point lighthouse and just looked at me. I said we could get the funicular up which we did. It was at the top here that we spotted our first Southern Right Whale hanging about in the bay below. He was so close to the shore, just a shame we weren't closer. Good view through the binoculars though. After wandering around, we headed down and drove out to the Cape of Good Hope, the most south westerly point on the African continent. We saw 2 more whales, baboons, ostriches and elands along with a lot of tourists. You should have seen them hanging around the sign at the Cape - they were like animals themselves trying to get photos!!
Time to head off so we could make our way to Stellenbosch, our stop for the night. We looked at the map, figured out which road to take and luckily it was the right one with one small detour on the way that was well signposted. On the way, we passed Khayelitsha, a huge township that when you look, all you can see is tin shacks - it made mum thankful for the house we have back home!!
We arrived safely in Stellenbosch which is a winery town so you can guess what we will be doing tomorrow. We're staying in a B&B tonight, staying clear of the hostels here because it is also very much a university town and the hostels are pretty much about partying!! We went out and had dinner up the road and the portions were huge. Mum ordered the Hunters Grill which was meant to be 4 lamb chops & sausage. She was expecting 4 small ones, they were massive - needless to say when mum gets home after this trip she won't want her first meal to be red meat!!
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