Profile
Blog
Photos
Videos
Wow, I can't believe it's already time for the Cape Town blog! We had heard from numerous people that Cape Town is the most beautiful city in the world and were really looking forward to seeing Table Mountain and the harbor area. Unfortunately, the first two and a half days were typically cold and rainy so we thought we were never going to see the beautiful sights! Of course, we figured out ways to keep ourselves busy anyway! On our first full day we wandered down to the waterfront area where there are lots of markets, souvenir shops and a giant mall. Simon was thrilled to discover that a movie at the theater in the mall only cost the equivalent of US$4 so there was no question in his mind that we would be going to a movie (or two!). We hid from the rain and watched "The Dark Night"-the latest Batman movie. Wow-it definitely isn't a kid-friendly cartoony version. It was scary!
Now I have to take over writing this as Amy did write a blog over the weekend but unfortunately it didn't post and she lost it all, the above is all she had saved. So I am sorry it has taken a while to get this up and online but as you might expect as soon as we got back to the US we were thrown in the deep end with me going to work the (technically) the day we got back into Sarasota and of course Amy having to get ready for school but I will talk about that later. Time to finish off Cape Town!
So our first full day in cape town we ended up mainly walking around the city and checking out some shops and the waterfront area which is very nice. To be honest Cape Town reminded me of Wellington (where I grew up) a lot. Cape Town is a city surrounded by mountains and water, the only difference is that there is a larger flat area for downtown. We also found the building where you catch the boat to Robben Island, where Nelson Mandela was incarcerated for 17 years. We didn't go to the island as the ferry was closed due to bad weather but we did explore the inside which had a photo history of Mandela. After exploring we went back to the hostel and organized a few things for the rest of our visit.
On Friday, day 2, we rented a car so we could drive around Cape Town and go to the Cape of Good Hope in Table Mountain National Park. We drive around the bays to get there and the weather was still dodgy so there was a lot of nice surf to watch at all the little beaches and coves. The mountain was still covered in cloud so we couldn't see them. The drive was nice; it took a few hours to get to Cape Point. On the way we stopped at Fish Hoek (not a spelling mistake) where there is a large Penguin colony that comes up for the winters. It was fun to watch them walk around and jump in the water and try and get out of the water. Oh I forgot to mention that our camera broke the day we got to Cape Town, basically it is 4 years old and it just stopped working, luckily it happened then and not anytime before. So our pictures of Cape Town were taken from the phone that Ali gave me (Thank you so much!!!!) and a underwater camera (of which Amy was so embarrassed when I would whip out that huge bulky thing to take a photo of something not underwater.
On the drive to Cape Point we saw lots of baboons and even an Ostrich. The Cape is not the southernmost point of Africa, but it is the southwestern most point of Africa. We choose to walk up to the point and old lighthouse rather than take the funicular transport. It had a great view and you could kind of see where the oceans might meet as in some places there were white waves out where there are no rocks, most likely from the two ocean currents crashing into each other. Then we walked to the new lighthouse which is right at the point. The made a new lighthouse as they found the old lighthouse was surrounded in clouds half the year, thus making it ineffective. On the walk back to the car we saw a couple of whales swimming around; unfortunately they were too far away to tell what type of whales they were. When then drive to the Cape of Good hope, there wasn't much there, just a view so we moved on.
On the drive down the coast towards Stellenbosch (the winery area) we came across several whales playing in the water near the coastline. Whales visit False Bay usually in the winter where they may bread or give birth, most of the whales are Right whales (they are called Right whales as they were the right whales to hunt back in the 1800s as they float when they are killed and all their body parts can be used in some way or form, kind of sick I think). On the drive to Stellenbosch we went by some massive (where maybe 3 million people live) townships in the Cape flat area. All they are a tiny square houses, about 5 by 5 meters in size, made of whatever was lying around, usually aluminium or plastic roofing. All the houses are next to each other with some narrow walkways which are kind of streets. We learnt that the populations of these Townships increased drastically in the 1990s as a promise was made of free houses for anyone who lives in one by the government. Unfortunately this did not happen, and we were told that the realistic goal is by 2015 to have these houses built. On a side comment there are definitely three classes of people in Cape Town, the whites, the blacks, and the coloureds (who came from Asia as slaves a longtime ago).
In Stellenbosch we went to a couple of wineries, unfortunately I had to spit as I was driving, but Amy was lucky. We were shocked as to how cheap it all was, just over a dollar to try 5 different wines, bottles of wine started from $3. At the first place they had a cheetah area where you could touch them for a fee. But you could see them very close up for free. The next place we went to was a Brandy tasting place. The welcome drink they give you was awesome but the ones we tried were not. We tried a 10 and 20 year old Brandy. Then we had to get the car back to Cape Town before 5pm. In Stellenbosch there were at least a couple of hundred wineries to visit, the cricket team that I belong to in Sarasota will have a great time next year when they tour there. We finished the night with a great meal at Nandos!!!
Day 3 we stayed in the hostel and we watched NZ kill Australia in rugby so I was so happy as NZ had lost their last 2 games. After that we had decided to hike Table Mountain as the cable car was closed and we just like hiking. We got a taxi from the city to the main access road to the cable car. We did this as everyone was telling us different times as to how long it would take us, the last one we heard was 3.5 hours to get to the top and 2 hours down. We were a little intimidated as the path is straight up, Table Mountain is just over 1000 meters high (so like 3333 feet), the city center is at an evaluation of 20 meters maybe. I am proud to say that it took us 70 minutes and we passed 14 people on the way up and no one passed us!!!
By the time we got to the top the clouds had disappeared, finally and for the first time on our trip. It was a beautiful view of the city, but it was really cold at the top. We walked around for 30 minutes and had some food then hiked down. Going down was much harder than going up and only took 10 minutes less than going up. Basically the hike is going up a couple thousand steps that are of irregular shape. We felt sorry for one lady as we passed her on the way up and when we were going down we saw her about 15 minutes of our time from the top. She had probably spent 3 hours to get that far. We walked all the way down into the city and our hostel and put our feet up for a nice rest!!
On the 3rd to last day of our trip we went shark cage diving!! We were picked up at 5:30am and the drive was 2 hours to the most famous town in the world for viewing great whites, ummmmm Gansbaai. They gave us a little breakfast and a rundown of the day. There were about 20 of us and we were going on a 36 foot boat. The harbor we put out of was tiny and could only be accessed at high tide as it was surrounded by rocks. We went out toward an island where a colony of seals lived and anchored down. The sea was very rough, maybe rolling swells of 10-15 feet, so of course people were sea sick. In fact as soon as we got there he took us to the top viewing deck and explained that this is the best place to be if you feel sick and do not vomit in the onboard toilet, but unfortunately some women already had as Amy found out when she tried to flush and it came back up. Because it was so rough there were probably about 5 people who did nothing at all or didn't see anything at all as they were sick over the side of the boat the whole time or sleeping. One guy was so sick that he thought he was having a heart attack and wanted a helicopter to come pick him up, I thought that he had never been sea sick before. When we got back an ambulance actually meet him and checked him out and nothing was wrong, it was just sea sickness. Probably another 5 people did get sick but still went in the cage. Maybe 10 of us didn't get sick. To be honest I was feeling pretty rough after 2 hours, but luckily I got into the cage then and forgot about all the sickness. Amy felt basically like me.
But now let's talk about the sharks. The guys were chumming right from the start and we waited maybe 45 minutes before a shark came. The guide told us all about them and what type of sharks are out there. The shark was about 2 meters long and just went for the bait and then took off. Then 5 people at a time went into the cage with only a wetsuit and mask (and of course a camera). The cage was about 2.5 meters deep so you could push yourself down and look at stuff. A few sharks came every now and then ranging from 2-3 meters in length, so mostly juveniles he said. Amy and I waited until the end to get in the water. The water was freezing and the cage was tied up to the side of the boat so of course it was hard to hang on as the cage moved with the boat and you often moved with the water. We waited about 15 minutes before we a shark came and then we had tons of action. They would yell at us and we would dive under the water and you would see the shark swim in and go for the bait. It was pretty awesome seeing them. The last shark that came while we were in the cage came back for several hits of the bait and even swam into the side of the cage while it was struggling to take the bait, so it came within a few feet of us. It was really exciting. I took a couple of photos with the camera but who knows how they will turn out. Unfortunately the guy made Amy and I get out and just after another shark came and hung around for 5 minutes until it finally got the bait, this shark also banged into the cage and actually scraped one of the guys in the cage. We went back in around midday and I was glad to be on firm ground. We went back for lunch and we were suppose to watch the video but the guy who was doing it said it was too rough so he gave up filming before all the sharks showed up. Then on the way back into town the guy took us to Hermanus and we saw a few more Right whales playing near the coastline, like only 50 feet out. We got back to the hostel by 6pm and relaxed.
Monday we walked around the city and checked out the markets and bought a few presents as well as a nice oil painting for us that is rather big. We went to the castle of Cape Town that has been around for 400 years as sailors realized that Cape Town was such a great location for a rest point for the shipping routes. We got a free tour of the inside and dungeons. The Dutch, French, British, and the funnily named alliance between the French and Scottish occupied the castle at various times. We also watched them shot the guns at noon and reenact the formal procedure for this. Then that afternoon we went to another movie and continued to shop for goodies!
Our last full day on the trip and we didn't leave until about 8pm in the evening.So we packed and moved our stuff out of the room and then went for a walk around Parliament gardens and actually ended up going into the Museum of South Africa for a few hours. It was nice and of course had a lot of history on culture and the people as well as the prehistoric animals. Strangely there were large areas of nothing within the Museum, but it only cost $2 to get into. Then we had a few final looks to spend the small amount of money that we had and back to the hostel to wait for our ride to the airport.
The flight to London was an overnight 12 hour flight and it was pretty good as was had an empty seat next to us and the flight was pretty full. We probably got 5 hours of sleep. We were on time and there were no problems. Once we got off we said that we were going to miss non-American airlines as they treat you so nicely and give you so much on these flights and they were all on time!!! Oh sorry one was delayed by 30 minutes due to a Typhoon hitting Hong Kong while we were landing. Then we checked in for our next flight to Houston and that of course was delayed, but not by much. This flight was about 10 hours and we didn't really sleep. Then we had a 3 hour wait at Houston and got our final flight to Tampa, only 2 hours long. Our friend Warren meet us at the airport and drove us home. Of course we were really tired by the time we got home and I had had nightmares about getting home and seeing cockroaches or some form of bug all over the place as no one had been in there for a couple of months but too our surprise Warren and Kathrine had been there earlier that day and put food in the fridge and cleaned and bought us flowers, it was so nice!!!! We stayed up and unpacked and finally went to bed by 1:30am.
I woke up around 6am but stayed in bed till 8am. The first day back we had to get Amy a driver's license and registration for the car and cell phones for us. I then went to work and was there by 2pm.
We are happy to be home and we couldn't believe how big our apartment seemed, and how nice too!! We were gone 62 days and for those of you who want to know we spent $4,000 each on all airfares (22 flights) and averaged $60 a day per person for all spending, including an all inclusive 12 day tour of India and Nepal.
- comments