We have just finished three days in Cape Town and three days is definitely not enough. Cape Town was a revelation. It is easy to see why so many of our friends who have visited here have told us that it is a great place to visit. Granted that our three days consisted of a Hop On Hop Off (HOHO) bus ride to get a feel for the city itself, a day spent exploring the Cape peninsula, and a day in the wine areas of Stellenbosch and Franschhoek. We did not have a lot of time to wander the city itself; however, we understand that it pretty safe - taking the usual precautions and staying out of the dicey areas.

Our first day was like taking a bite of some new, exotic food and wanting more, but they had already run out of it and you have to wait a while for seconds… Cape Town is definitely a place we want to return to, but it’s a long way from Florida and when we do return, if not by cruise ship, it will be for a more extended stay.

 

On arrival it was pretty cloudy and overcast. You could not see the top of Table Mountain. It was covered by the "tablecloth."

This is what we had for the next two days!

I couldn't resist this rainbow . It appeared immediately after a short misty rain shower.

Do not get the idea that Cape Town is like a European city. It is definitely a place that warrants more time, but it is also a place that is struggling to maintain its gains over the past two decades and to move forward from a less-than-optimal past. The shadow of Apartheid still hangs over some areas and one cannot ignore the several million people still living in “townships” just beyond the city core. A sense of awareness and caution accompanies any foray into the city as one would in any new environment.

OK that said, our first day was relatively easy. We and another couple that we had become friendly with on the ship opted for the HOHO as an easy way to become familiar with the city and spot likely places to return for further investigation. We have found that using a HOHO in a new city (where they have them) is a great way to get familiar in a hurry. The HOHO in Cape Town wound through the downtown area and out to some of the more touristy beaches just outside of town. We were awed by the beauty of the countryside and the ruggedness of Table Mountain.

Table Mountain is everywhere you look in Cape Town – except of course out to sea. The city is lodged in a “bowl” at the foot of the mountain and it seems that everything revolves around whether the mountain is “out” or not – similar to Mt. Rainer in Washington outside of Seattle. Table Mountain is often shrouded in clouds, fog and mist. These days, especially if there is a wind – and there is almost always some wind – the cable car does not run and you can only get about halfway up to the lower cable car station. In the morning when we started our journey, it was overcast and cloudy. The cable car was not running, but the HOHO still went up to the viewing station and the views were spectacular. We can only imagine what it must be like from the top of the mountain. We also found that the individual cable cars rotate 360° as they rise or fall so you get a sweeping panoramic view of everything. We really want to return, if only to experience that ride!

 

A view of Robben Island from the V & A Waterfront. It is about 6 miles offshore.

View from the lower cable car station during our HOHO tour.

View of Clifton Beaches.

Another neat location right downtown on the waterfront is the V &A Harbor Development. This is the Victoria and Alfred Mall, Museums, Aquarium, and other exhibits. Yes, another monument to the virgin queen, but not to her consort, but her son, Alfred (not Albert). The son visited Cape Town as a young naval officer and thought so much of it that he spent significant time here. The developers named the project after him to honor that early commitment. The V & A consists of a multitude of shops, high-end and for us regular folks, restaurants, including as branch of Nobu, the iconic Japanese restaurant, and even more construction and historic landmarks. You could easily spend a day or two exploring the place.

After our HOHO tour, which lasted about two hours, we opted for a light lunch downtown; however, it was Saturday of Easter weekend and a lot of places were closed. We would up in an Irish pub just off the main street and had a remarkably good fish and chips lunch, complete with adult beverages for an astonishingly low price. Yes, we do like Cape Town… After lunch our friends went back to the ship and we decided to explore and possibly engage in a little retail therapy. Nothing really came of that except that we saw a lot of handmade craft items and after a while everything began to look alike.

The second day we had a semi-private tour of the Cape Peninsula. I say “semi-private” because we had contracted with a tour company that uses eight passenger minivans and we would up with ourselves and five others. They were all oil company geologists and technicians who were working in Angola for an Italian company, so three of them were Italian and it made for an interesting and fun group.

We left the city and headed south toward Table Mountain National Park. This park encompasses the entirety of the southern cape peninsula. Along the way we stopped for a photo op at Clifton Beach and another at Hout Bay Marina. The wind at Clifton was fierce! The beaches are beautiful, but the wind makes it interesting to enjoy them. Our driver/guide, Ebrahim, told us that the water is so cold that you go in as a man and come out as a boy…

 

Clifton Beaches. Notice the tree on the right and how the wind has shaped it.

The scenery is spectacular everywhere we go. We have had four stops in South Africa and this is one of the most in-depth, but everywhere we have been we have commented on how beautiful the country is. If they can overcome their social issues, they will, I believe, become the next big thing in tourist meccas.

At Hout Bay we had an opportunity to take a short boat ride to see the fur seals on an island in the bay, but we declined because we were all anxious to get to the point before the crowds – this is Easter Sunday! As we drove down the highway and through the mountains, we went via the scenic Chapman’s Peak drive. This is a winding highway that lays in among the rocks and crevices that form the western shoreline of the peninsula. Unfortunately, we could not stop for pictures at some of the more interesting underpass and roadway supporting structures. As a Transportation Engineer, I marveled at how they built this road. The following three pictures are views from the lookout on Chapman's Peak drive.

As we approached the park entrance, we saw that the line was already beginning to back up. It took us almost a half-hour to creep up to the toll gate. Once in, however, it was fairly smooth driving to get to the point. We made our first stop at the Cape Point Lighthouse. We could drive up to within about a half-mile of the base of the lighthouse and then take the funicular railway up to the base of the lighthouse itself. From there, we had to climb 120 steps (I counted them) to get to the lighthouse and the lookout. From the lighthouse one can see both the Indian Ocean and the Atlantic Ocean. The two oceans do not meet at this point, but at a point further east called Cape Agulhas. Cape Point and the Cape Peninsula are actually surrounded by the Atlantic Ocean. False Bay on the east side of the cape point is so named because early mariners coming from India and China thought that as they rounded that point, they were headed north only to founder on the rocks and often perish.

 

View from the lighthouse down to the upper funicular station.

Mile marker at the lighthouse.

View from the bottom of the 120 steps to the lighthouse.

After the lighthouse, we worked our way further west to the Cape of Good Hope, the southwesterly-most point on the African continent. We thought Clifton Beach was windy – HA! The wind on this little spit of rocky land seemed like it would cut you in half – and this is only the end of summer beginning of autumn down here. I can’t imagine what it must be like in winter.

As we were leaving the park to go to lunch, we saw that the entry queue had lengthened to over a mile and traffic was spilled out from the park entrance road onto the main highway for over a quarter-mile. Later in the day we saw some folks back on the ship that had been in that line and they never got to get in! They waited in line for over an hour and when their driver told them it might be another hour, they bagged it and found other sights to see in the area.

After lunch in Simonstown on the eastern shore of the peninsula, we went to the Boulders Penguin Reserve. This is a protected park area for the African Penguin. An interesting species, this little gentleman. Their call sounds exactly like a donkey braying. They used to be called Jackass Penguins, but the PC Police have apparently found their way to South Africa and they were renamed. Actually, there are several species of penguins that have this distinctive braying call, so the ones that are found here were renamed the African Penguin as a way of identifying their habitat. Whatever you want to call them they are too cute for words. We were fortunate to see several as they were in various stages of molting. Several others had chicks that were being fed and weaned by the mothers, but most of them were just being penguins.

We made a final stop at the Steenberg Winery, but by that time it was almost six in the evening and we were wiped. So we made it short and headed back to the ship to rest up for our next day of real wine tasting.

The third and last day in Cape Town we had a tour of some of the cape’s famous wine farms (we would call them vineyards in the U.S. but here the vineyard is part of the farm, so the whole thing is called a wine farm). We began in Stellenbosch and would up in Franschhoek. Our companions this day were a young couple from Brazil – very nice, very accommodating, and very much in love… We knew it would be another good time.

Our first stop was at Ernie Els Winery – yes, that’s Ernie Els, the Golf Pro. We discovered that he is making some very good juice as well. Actually, it’s his winemaker, but we believe he would not put his name on anything that is not good quality. As an aside, because of some family issues with his son, Ben, he has founded the Els Autism Center in West Palm Beach and moved there to help his family and others that may be in need of these services. We did not discover this until we were back on the ship and read the small pamphlet that was included in the six-pack we bought to bring back with us. here are some views at Ernie Els Winery:

The other two wineries that we visited were Waterford Wine Estate in Stellenbosch and La Motte Winery in Franschhoek. They had some nice wines, but nothing that we just had to have – especially when we found out that both could be obtained in the states.

Our lunch stop was in Franschhoek, a smaller winery area, but very nice. We ate at a sidewalk café and again were impressed with the quality and quantity of food for such low prices. In general we were very impressed with all of the wine country we saw. The scenery is too magnificent for mere words. The wine farms are so well kept and the tasting rooms – at least the ones we saw and entered – put most of what we have seen in California to shame. They have spent a lot of money on these tasting venues at the farms in the belief that to sell their wine, people must come and taste. It works!

On the way back from Franschhoek, we made a short stop to see the prison at Groot Drakenstein where Nelson Mandela spent the final year of his confinement. Actually, we saw three prisons during our stay in Cape Town: Robben Island; the prison in Cape Town where he lived for nine years, whose name now escapes me, where he was transferred after 17 years on Robben Island; Groot Drakenstein. We did not make it to Robben Island, but that is a destination for the next time we are in Cape Town.

Back to the ship in time to watch us sail out of Cape Town Harbor and run the pictures of our tours and walks through our mind as we left… We now begin the final leg of our around the world cruise: Cape Town to Fort Lauderdale. Stay tuned for some final updates and the next post in this blog will have a map and other info about that leg.