Sawubona – OR hello in Zulu!
Sorry for not posting sooner but internet access has been sketchy here
and this is the best I can do.
FINALLY got here after leaving STL @ 11:55 AM on Wednesday,
the 28th, and arriving at the Cape Town airport on Thursday, the 29th
@ 10:30 PM – which was 2:30 PM your time on Thursday. Egads, what a long flight. We did make a stop in Dakar Senegal after
about 7 hours of flight time to refuel (good idea) and replenish supplies. We were on an Airbus 340-300 which holds
about 250 people and I think they said we had 220 on board so the flight was
almost full. A lot of people deplaned in
Dakar which was great giving us more room to stretch out for the final leg of
the journey – about another 7.5 hours. I
did, however, meet some interesting people on the plane so that helped a lot to
pass the time. We picked up a car – a
Chevy Cruze – at the airport and headed to the apartment in Muizenberg (about 45 minutes) and finally
got to bed at 2:00 AM after showers all around.
Urszula, Heinz and Max are all seasoned travelers so they make things
easy as far as car rentals, phone rentals, etc. Heinz did a superb job of driving . People drive on the left side of the road
here which makes it interesting even crossing the street.
Got up on Friday, the 30th, and headed out. Weather here is beautiful with bright sun,
75-80 degrees and a lovely ocean breeze.
Urszula says that it is more beautiful than Hawaii. We wandered through Muizenberg and went
through Fish Hoek, St. James and Simon’s Town which are all small towns along
the coast of False Bay which leads into the Indian Ocean.
We stopped in Simon’s Town at Boulder Beach to see the
penguin colony that is estimated to have 3000 penguins. They are only about 18 – 24 inches tall but it
is so fun to watch them waddle about on the beach. Who would have thought I would get to see
such a spectacle – WOW!
Heading to the Cape of Good Hope and Cape Point we pulled
over on the side of the road and were handed a brochure about “Dealing with Baboons”
which frequent the highway in the area as well as in the nature preserve at the
Cape. At the bottom of the paper there
is a Baboon Reporting HotLine to call to report people who are feeding the
baboons (071 588 6540). These people
will be fined 3000 Rand (approx.. $375USD) if they are caught. Never have I ever seen a Baboon Hot Line—I
think I laughed about that most of the afternoon.
Got to Cape Point where there is a lighthouse and trip to
the top on a funicular (sort of a cog train) and we walked back down in about
10 minutes. Cape Point and Cape of Good
Hope is where the Atlantic and Indian Oceans meet and are in extreme tip of
South Africa. While in the park we saw
many baboons along the road and in the road.
Ostriches along the road made Heinz say “nobody told me
about this.” (I think we did but he
wasn’t listening). We had dinner of fish
and chips in Simon’s Town on way home.
We had hake (some sort of fish) and chips (French fries) for 50 Rands
which is little over $6 USD. Simon’s Town has great architecture with many
Victorian style buildings.
Headed back to the apartment and some well deserved rest.
Friday, December 31, 2011.
We started out the
day by going to the beach in Muizenberg and checking it out. The beach goes on forever and has some of the
most beautiful white sand I’ve ever seen.
This area is considered one of the best places in Africa to surf and
there were a lot people of all ages surfing in spite of the gusty winds which
produced some awesome waves. What more
would a surfer want?
We then headed up to Cape Town to go to Table Mountain. It is a huge mountain in the middle of town
that requires a cable car to get to the top of the 1,000 meter plus
mountain. For those of you who know me
well, you know that heighth is not one of my favorite things so my favorite
spot in a cable car is in the middle with my eyes closed. Three minutes in a cable car is like being in
hell to me, however, the view from the
top was something to behold. Cape Town
is the 2nd largest city in South Africa and a very modern metropolis
with huge high rise buildings. The sun
was very warm with a temp I would guess to be around 80. Really rough.
After spending several hours on top of Table Mountain we
headed to the V & A Waterfront.
Since today was New Years Day Eve, the Waterfront was crowded with many
excursions being offered for the occasion.
Instead of worrying about that we found another great restaurant and I
had a fish called “kingklip” which has to be the BEST fish I have ever eaten –
wow!
Back to Muizenberg to celebrate the New Year. Urszula decided we NEEDED champagne to
celebrate but when Heinz and Urszula went into the Pick and Pay they could not
buy anything with alcohol in it after 5PM so we have sparkling grape juice.
To Be Continued. (I will post pix later whenever we get a better internet connection.)
