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Summary
We spent two and a half weeks in Cape Town,
relaxing, recouping, and planning for the next phase of our trip.
We had expected Cape Town to be an 'easy' place to enjoy and we were not
disappointed. It is very much like the US/California in terms of
conveniences, language, weather, geography, etc. with the added benefit
of a very strong dollar/rand exchange rate. We did all the 'must
do' tourist things over our stay, but also took time to just 'hang
out'. We moved around and stayed in four different accommodations,
mostly because we did not have anything reserved when we arrived and the
city was very busy. Although we were only able to plan in detail
the next 2 weeks of our trip while in Cape Town, we felt that it was
time to move on with our trip.
Detail
We will give some details about our stay here, but
since we stayed so long and did so much, we describe the attractions we
visited and the tourist things we did in a separate section following
the background and trip commentary.
Cape
Town Background
Neither of
us knew very much about Cape Town before this trip. But when we
were in college students at both our schools built shanty towns in the middle of
campus to protest against South Africa's oppressive white apartheid
policies and the Universities' investments in South Africa.
Pressure from all over the
world as well as internal rebellion forced the downfall of Apartheid
in the early 1990's with the first real democratic election in 1994, bringing
Nelson Mandela to power. Since the middle of the century the white
only Apartheid government had created a very
racially segregated country. At one point the government formally classified
everyone into white (or European), black (or native), and colored
(mixed) categories. Whites had full privileges, colored had some
limited rights, and blacks were at the bottom of the list in terms of
rights and privileges. In
the 1960/70's the government relocated blacks and coloreds from certain of Cape Town, leveled the
neighborhoods, and started building white-only areas. The shanty
towns built by students during college represented the new homes of the relocated
people.
The
Dutch/British influence on Cape Town is clear from the architecture and
street names. Afrikaans, the official language of the Apartheid
government, derived from Dutch. Some of the colleges/schools have
always taught in Afrikaans, partially as a way to limit the students to
primarily whites.
Cape Town has many
mountainous attractions. Table Mountain, a huge flat- topped
mountain, sits in the middle of the city, flanked by Devil's Peak on one
side and Lion's Head,
Signal Hill and the Twelve Apostles mountain peaks on the other. Much of the
harbor and downtown portion of the city is 'reclaimed land' -- 50+
years ago they pushed earth into the ocean to make additional habitable
land. Hundreds of blocks of the city is reclaimed land. Now
it is not clear what is reclaimed and what is natural, but much of the flat land near the shore is reclaimed.
One of the biggest tourist areas of the city
is the V&A Waterfront -- somewhat odd since it is just a large
upscale mall/food court on Table Bay, the bay on which the town is
set. Most of the touring boats take off from Table Bay and the
nicest hotels surround the mall area.
We were in Cape Town during the tail end of their
Summer and we found the weather varied greatly. It was typically comfortably warm during the day, but some
days were very hot (104ªF), and some were almost cool (65ªF). Most nights
were comfortably cool, some very windy and
chilly. And, of course, the wind could be gale-force, or stagnant. Most houses do not have heating or air
conditioning, because there are very few extreme days of the year (we
hit the hottest).
Trip
Commentary
During our Mt.
Kilimanjaro climb Tonya recommended places to stay, places to
eat and things to do in Cape Town (she lived there for 3 years).
So we entered the city with a long list of 'must see/do's. But
after completing five weeks of non-stop traveling culminating in seven
days of camping on Kilimanjaro, we also had a huge desire to do
nothing. The 'do nothing' desire won out for the first 5
days. We stayed in a very luxurious suite at the Commodore Hotel
and watched TV and movies, read books, ordered lots of room service, and
walked the 3 minutes to the V&A Waterfront for food or light
shopping. We started to get rejuvenated. We had only booked
5 days in the Commodore because that was all that was available and also
because we wanted to have flexibility to find a better place.
It was not until the 3rd day when we heard the
howling of the gale force winds that we realized that we were in Cape
Town during the 'windy' season. Truthfully, it was not until we
jumped in a taxi in the center of town, and between telling us his
opinions on Bush and Gore the taxi driver pointedly asked 'why are you
here, now, it's too windy in February!'. For two days the
patio furniture was blown across our deck, we could not stay outside on the
deck without holding on, and we either got significant help or hindrance
walking down the street. No exaggeration -- winds were as high 75
MPH! We heard differing stories on when the real windy season is,
but we found out that Cape Town is known for very strong winds. We
had considered chartering a fishing boat that first weekend but ended up
blowing it off --
we could only imagine the waves and weather on the water.
Near the Waterfront tthere is a Sunday market
where hundreds of vendors sell roughly the same African artwork at a
wide range of prices. On that first Sunday at the Green Point market, we ran
into a friend/co-worker of Dan's (Eric Anderson) and his family on
vacation -- what a small world! We went out to dinner with them
one night and we ended up using the their tour guide to see some key attractions later in the week.
We decided that we had to get away from the
Waterfront to start seeing the 'must see/do' things on our list so
we started looking for another hotel. We spent a day walking
through 5 or 6 hotels from the Waterfront to downtown, inquiring about
room types, rates, hotel features, and TV channel selection (a sore
point for Dan!). We could not find anything as nice as the Commodore
outside of the Waterfront until we hit the Cape Sun high rise in down
town. It is an older hotel but when they showed us the
Presidential Suite on the top floor of the hotel we could not
resist. We talked them down about 50% so it was the price of a
room at the
Commodore. The suite had a great view of Table Mountain, had a huge
living room with 3 couches, a dining room area with a table with 8
chairs, a bar, a large master bedroom, 3 bathrooms, and a Jacuzzi. Yes,
it was a bit much, but we could not resist. We figured being away
from the Waterfront would make us do and plan other things.
That week we climbed Table Mountain, road the cable
car, visited Kirstenbosch Botanical Gardens, Robben Island, and the
Aquarium. Then we hired a great tour guide who took us to the wine
country, Cape Point and Cape of Good Hope, False Bay, Hout Bay,
Stellenbosch, and cheetah petting, See Tourist
Activities list for more detail.
We had initially planned to stay in Cape Town only
two weeks, but by the middle of the second week we still had nothing
planned for after Cape Town. At the end of that week we started to plan
the rest of our trip, or at least the next few steps. We had at
least contacted A&K earlier in the week to help plan the steps, but
had a hard time making quick progress. Jackie, our Cape Town tour
guide, suggested Adele Wise, with Mushinda Travel, who is a specialist for South African
travel. She came to our hotel late on a Friday morning with brochures and
talked with us about what we wanted to do. She ended up meeting with us
the night before we left town the next week to give us our tickets and
vouchers for the next two weeks in South Africa.
We decided to rent a car so we walked to Avis and
Hertz to see what they had. Unfortunately they only had low end
cars (no air conditioning) available on the weekend at the last minute,
so we got a crappy little car. But it only cost $8/day! The
next day we exchanged it for a car with air conditioning. Dan
adapted quickly to driving on the left side of the road, but used the
window wipers more than we needed -- the blinker and the wiper controls
are on the opposite side of the steering column than in the US, so when
he meant to switch on the turning indicator he turned on the wipers
instead!
After five days in the Cape Sun and having seen so
many other parts of the Cape, we decided to see if we could get a room
farther from the city in Camp's Bay or another beach area. We
checked out of the Cape Sun and drove down to Camp's Day and started
looking for a place to stay. We had found a bunch of weekend lease
places online but could not get any response from the sites. The
beach was packed with people and people were waiting everywhere for
parking places -- we realized that maybe a weekend was not the time to
find a place with no reservation. We stopped by a housing broker
and they confirmed that there was nothing available.
We drove around some neighborhoods and realized
that there were a number of houses with guesthouse' signs so
we stopped in one of them. They had an 'extra' room that had an
amazing view for only $100 so we took it. Zero luxury (except for
the view) but it was a
two minute walk to the beach and the main street with all the restaurants and
the husband and wife owners were very friendly. It turns out that they owned a
software company in Johannesburg and the husbnd had authored software
methodology (UML) books. Dan avoided any detailed work discussions
but they were very nice.
After two days in the guesthouse the housing broker
had a great third story apartment available overlooking the beach on the
main street. Because it was a weekday, they were willing to give it to
us on the weekdays for only $65!
We spent the last days in Cape Town enjoying the
Camp's Bay area restaurants and jazz clubs, and frantically
planning the next couple weeks of our trip.
We left Cape Town with plans for the next two weeks,
but nothing confirmed beyond that! We can see going back to Cape
Town -- it is a great place.
Facts
Currency: Rand (~R7.5:$1USD)
Language: English (& some Afrikaans)
Internet connection speed: Local ISP access
28-56kbs.
English speaking TV channels (all hotels had
same): 6 unique
Cape Town population: ~4.5 million
Tourist Activities
The following sections provide details around the tourist attractions we
visited and the tourist things we did.
Table Mountain
Table Mountain is the prime land mark
in Cape Town since it lies in the middle of the city only about a mile from the
shore. It can be seen 124 miles out in ocean, flanked by Devil's Peak
and Lion's Head and is 3000 feet high at the highest point, Maclear's
Beacon. It gets it name from its flat summit. On some days the
clouds cover the whole summit and spill over the edge, like a
table cloth. A cable car was installed in1997 so that
you can easily get to the top where you get great views across the city and the Twelve
Apostles mountain peaks extending southward from the city. We climbed the mountain instead of taking the cable car.
We climbed from Kirstenbosch Botanical Gardens, up
Skeleton Gorge, to Maclear's Beacon, and then across the 1.8km top to the cable
cars. Unfortunately, we picked a day on which the table cloth was in place. The
climb was very steep across ladders (literally) and steep ravines -- there was
no one else on that path and we later figured out it was one of the steepest
trails. It was a fairly short climb at 2.5 hours. As we got closer to the top, the clouds shrouded the path to
the point that we were not sure where to go. We could not see more than 30
feet at the top and the wind was blowing at about 30 mph trying to push us off
the edge of the mountain, where the path ran 3 feet from the steep
drop-off. Because of the clouds it looked like we would fall into a bed of
cotton. After only a few wrong turns, we made it to the cable cars across
the summit and the skies were clear and enjoyed some beautiful views.
Robben Island
Robben Island is the infamous prison
island in Table Bay where Nelson Mandela and other political prisoners were held
during the days of Apartheid. It is 7 miles from V&A Waterfront to the 1428
acre island. Mandela spent 18 of his 27 years of incarceration on Robben
Island. The prison was eventually closed and became a museum in 1997.
Ex-resident political prisoners lead the tours of the island so we were able to
get a
real feel for what it was like there.
Kirstenbosch Botanical Garden
Supposedly one of the best
botanical gardens in the world. It does contain an amazing number
of plants/flowers/trees across a vast area but we could not appreciate
it as much as someone who knows more about the subject matter. We
used the garden as a jumping off point for our climb of Table Mountain
-- we heard that the actual garden border extends all the way up to Maclear's Beacon.
Victoria Wharf
The large mall on the V&A
Waterfront that is oddly one of the biggest tourist destinations in Cape
Town. It has one or more of every type store imaginable and has a large
number of varied restaurants including a Hard Rock cafe and a Sports
Restaurant. It also houses movie theatres and an amphitheatre.
False Bay
False Bay is a natural bay that
stretches along the peninsula's eastern
coastline from the Cape of Good hope Nature Reserve at Cape Point to Cape
Hangklip. It is known as false bay because navigators mistook Cape Hangklip for Cape Point
which resulted in many shipwrecks in the bay with its strong cross winds and rocky
routes. During the right season (May-Sept) there is great whale watching in the bay.
With our tour guide we drove along the coastal
route through Lakeside, Muizenberg, St James, Kalk Bay, Fish Hoek, and Simon's
Town to Cape Point. Supposedly Miller's Point is super busy in
Spring when the southern right and humpback whales and Bryde's whales congregate on
the point. We ate lunch in Miller's Point at the Black Marlin, one the country's most highly acclaimed
seafood restaurants. It was actually very good. In Simon's
town at Jubilee Square, we visited the statue commemorating Royal Navy Able Seaman Just Nuisance,
the only dog enlisted in the Royal Navy. Supposedly, Just
Nuisance, a huge Great Dane used to lead drunken sailors back to their
boats or trains after long nights of drinking. He became such a
common fixture in the area that he had his own seat on the trains and
defended it fiercely. But only enlisted men were allowed to ride
for free on the trains/boats, and they had come to depend on Just
Nuisance, so they enlisted him with the lowest rank in the Navy.
The main reason we mention any of this is because it made us miss Bailey
(our dog).
Constantia
We drove around Constantia
with our guide. It is a somewhat upscale suburb, but also the site
of the first vineyards in South Africa, and the only ones close to the
city. Supposedly, the Dutch taught them how to make wine so that
they did not have to carry wine for the sailors all the way from Europe.
Green Point Sunday Flea Market
Every Sunday there is a huge
flea market in Green Point in the parking lot of the stadium. Many
hundreds of vendors have tents selling African arts and crafts,
household items, books, food, etc. We bought some English books
from a vendor who had an amazing selection of novels. There must
have been 200 vendors side by side selling the exact same African crafts
at vastly different prices. Of course you negotiate lower prices
but it was humorous to hear their starting price. We did not buy
many items because of the huge cost of shipping anything back to the US.
Two Oceans Aquarium
We visited Two Oceans
Aquarium at the Waterfront on a Sunday, which is the primary 'feeding'
day. There are over 3000 species of fish housed in the
museum. We watched the feeding of penguins and many other
fish. But the feeding that draws hundreds of tourists is the the
shark, ray, and turtle feeding in the 'Predator' tank. We sat in a
very crowded area while divers handed fish to the 6 foot sharks -- it
was pretty interesting. One of the divers holds a stick to fend
off any over-excited sharks.
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Panoramic view of Table Mountain, a major landmark of Cape
Town. Picture from our room in the Cape Sun hotel in downtown.
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The frequent 'tablecloth' of clouds covering the
mountain.
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Sunset from our Commodore Hotel balcony.
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Sunset the very next night from same Commodore Hotel
balcony.
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View from our Camps Bay Terrace guesthouse room.
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Kristen enjoying the sunset from the guest house
balcony.
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Mini-panoramic of the guesthouse sunset.
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Panoramic of Camps Bay main beach.
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Our last stop -- Brighton Court apartment on the main
street,
overlooking the beach. Nice view from the room!
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Sunset
from the apartment balcony. |
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Kristen's
standard sunset position in the apartment. (Nice farmer's tan,
huh?:) |
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Dan
chilling with the view. |
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Panoramic view from the apartment beach-facing balcony .
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Panoramic
view from the apartment mountain facing balcony .
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Kristen on the rocks of Camps Bay main beach.
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Dan on
the rocks as the tide comes in. Staying on the rock as the waves
consumed the rocks was a challenge! |
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What a small world! We saw friend/co-worker Eric
Andesrson and family in the Green Point flea market. They reside in
London.
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Posing at the Cape of Good Hope -- there was actually a
line for this picture!
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On our way to the Cape, Kristen standing on the
scenic edge of Cape Town suburbs .
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Panoramic of False Bay, the large southern bay which
Cape Point/Good Hope borders.
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Kristen with Royal Navy Able Seaman 'Just Nuisance' --
it made us miss Bailey (the dog!)
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Penguins at Boulders National Park. They
migrated here, so the government created a park for them. |
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We are hanging with Nyana, the world's fastest mammal,
literally (according to Guinness Book of World Records) ! |
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Nyana and other Cheetahs live in the Spier Cheetah
Reserve near Franschoek. |
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Nyana had won the 'fastest cheetah' race on Wednesday,
February 21, 2001. This is from the newspaper the next day, when we
visited. |
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We spent a day in wine country, outside Cape Town. |
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We toured Nederburg winery. Since it was
harvest time, we got to see the whole process in action. Not much
action in this part, though. |
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The Fairview winery and cheese shop imported Swiss
mountain goats for the cheese. This 'mountain' to climb makes them
feel at home. |
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One of only a few reasons Dan could not live in Cape
Town:) Check out the sign! |
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We visited Kirstenbosch Botanical Gardens, on our way to
climb table mountain. Kristen is appreciating the aroma garden. |
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Dan acting like he is appreciating the aroma
garden.
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This was Dan's favorite plant -- check out its uses! |
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We climbed Table Mountain (1086m) from the gardens
entrance. This climb was fun, but not for everyone -- very
steep. Some parts had ladders to make the climbing easy.
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Other parts we had to find our own path -- this made it
interesting. Not 100% sure we took the official path the whole way..
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Maclears Beacon is the highest point on Table
Mountain. We were the only people near the top. |
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The full 'table cloth' was in place at the top.
Here we practiced with our mini-tripod. |
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With the thick clouds, we could not see more than 30
feet and there was no clear path to traverse the 1.8km long summit. |
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And, of course, it was 20° colder in the clouds and 20
mph winds -- they tried to blow us off the sharp edge of the summit. |
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Once we traversed the summit from the beacon to the
cable cars, we found the table cloth did not cover the whole top.
Panoramic of Cape Town from the top. |
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We went on a resident-led tour of Langa Township, where
blacks were forcibly relocated during the 1960/70s. These are the working
class homes.
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These are the 'hostels', a step down from the working
class homes and very crowded. The residents were very friendly and let us into
their rooms.
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The middle class area, or 'Beverly Hills of Langa, was pretty
nice. We were surprised at the clear class separation in the
settlement. |
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And the 'informal townships', or shanties, built around
the highway or wherever there was unfenced space. |
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Kristen insisted that we participate in the English
tradition of 'high tea' at the Mt Nelson hotel. |
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Dan trying to act the part for high tea.
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We visited Robben Island, the political island prison
where Nelson Mandela was held for 18 of his 27 years of incarceration. |
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Kristen standing by Nelson Mandela's cell. An
ex-prisoner of Robben Island led the tour.
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Dan with Nelson. |
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The only tour option was the typical 'group tour', our
first herd tour of the trip. Actually, it was fine. |
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From Robben Island we had great views of Cape
Town. The Island is 7km off shore in Table Bay. |
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As we compare Cape Town to a California city...they have
lots of fires during the dry season. They ran fire helicopters for 2
days to extinguish Table Mountain. |
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Cape Town is a long way from everywhere.
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We visited Two Oceans Aquarium on V&A Waterfront in
Cape Town. First sea horses Dan had seen. We included extra
aquarium pics for our nieces/nephews! |
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Penguins at dinner. |
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The penguins were very playful -- they took turns
jumping off the rocks into the water. |
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Dan with a Moray Eel. |
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A diver feeding the fish in the Kelp Forest. |
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A ragged tooth shark after taking his food from a diver. |
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Divers feeding a turtle and the shark. |
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Diver feeding a huge stingray. |
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The ray, turtle, and shark all in the same
picture. |
Distict Six and Langa Township
We took a half day tour of District
Six museum and Langa Township. District Six was a Cape Town city area
where the Apartheid government removed 60,000 blacks between 1968-1980.
They leveled the area to build an all white development. They attempted to
get foreign investment to help develop the area, but by that time the world was
frowning on their discriminatory practices. The only major development in
District Six is the technical school built by the government. In
1998 they started a land restitution process to try to determine who owned what
land and figure out a way to make amends. The Langa Township was
relocation spot for blacks moved from desirable areas of Cape Town in the
1960/70s. A resident of Langa took us on a walking tour through the many
areas of the township. We walked through the working class sections
(connected houses), hostels (less nice apartments), middle class section
(relatively nice houses), and the infamous shanty areas (shacks of
wood/cardboard). Although much media attention has been brought to the crime and
unrest in Langa and other townships in the past, it was clear that things have
changed. The people were very open with us (basically a group of all white
tourists) and allowed us to enter their homes to see how they lived.
Interestingly, the goal of the tour leader was to show us that Langa was a real
community with aspiring citizens that was no more dangerous than other
communities. They believed that so much had changed for the better in only
the last 6 years and that they would continue to improve their situation.
It was not until 1994 that the residents of Langa were even given ownership of
their land.
Wine Country/Tasting
We spent a day with our guide wine
(and cheese) tasting in the Cape wine country. We took the 'Stellenbosch Wine Route',
on which there 30 estates and cellars. We only stopped at 3 vineyards for
wine tasting and did a winery tour at the first one. Because it was
harvest time we were able to witness the entire wine producing process.
Even though we tasted many wines, we had a hard time finding one that we both
liked a ton. We also drove through Paarl, one of the country's main wine-producing
areas. Paarl was founded in 1668 six years after Jan van Riebeeck landed in Table
Bay . We saw the 'Tall Monument' -- three tall structures
pointing towards the skies, one for civilization of Europe, one for the heritage of
slaves from the East, and one for influence of the African continent.
Fairview, one of the wine and cheese stops, specialized in goat
cheeses. They had imported Saanen goats from
Switzerland and built a tower with an external staircase for them to climb,
simulating their mountainous environment.
Stellenbosch
During our wine tour we drove through
Stellenbosch, the 300 year old town started as a farming community for Dutch Eat
India Company for ships supplies. It was the first settlement established
beyond the immediate boundaries of the Cape colony. It is the home of seminary
schools, and University of Stellenbosch (1918) -- one of the schools that only
teaches in Afrikaans which
eliminates most non-whites from enrolling.
Franschoek
During our tour of the wine country
we stopped in Franschoek, known as the 'French Corner' in reference to the 200 Huguenot
families who fled persecution in France to settle amid the Cape mountains in
1688. Supposedly, the town boasts the largest
number of award-winning restaurants in South Africa. We ate an outstanding
lunch at Franschoek Country House in its open courtyard in the shade of many
trees.
Greenmarket Square
Greenmarket Square is in the middle
of downtown and is home to a daily market. On Sunday all the vendors move
their booths to the big market in Green Point. Once again all the wares
are the same African crafts we saw in Tanzania. As we walked around the
square we were approached many times by 'street kids' asking for money. We
heard different stories about their situation from locals, but they say that
many of the kids live with their parents but skip school and come to beg from
tourists. No matter the reason we had been told to not give money to the
beggars so we just walked on, uncomfortably.
Cape of Good Hope
During our tour we visited Cape of
Good Hope Nature Reserve which comprises 25 miles of coastline and is home to over
a thousand different floral species and tons of wildlife including birds, reptiles,
cape fox, baboon, cape mountain zebra, antelope, eland, and ostrich.
Mostly, we just drove through it to see the southwestern- most point of
Africa. At the light house on the point, the wind continually gusted like
the worst windy days in the city. We read in a local magazine that Cape
Point/Good Hope is the second windiest spot on earth after Cape Horn (South
America).
Cape Point
Cape Point, which is in Cape of Good
Hope Nature Reserve, is often mistaken for the meeting place of the Indian and Atlantic
Oceans. However, Cape Agulhas is the southernmost point in Africa and is
the meeting place of the oceans. We did not visit Cape Agulhas because it
was 4-6 hours from Cape Town.
Cheetah Petting
On the way back from our wine country
tour we visited Spier, home of a cheetah conservation center, and more
importantly, home of Nyana Spier, the fastest land mammal in the world,
according to the Guiness Book of World Records. They had held their yearly
cheetah racing contest the day before we visited, and Nyana had regained her
title by reaching 100 meters in 6.6 seconds, reaching over 60mph. For a
small fee, we were allowed to pet Nyana in her pen. Unfortunately, the
ranger had to be in there with us to ensure that Nyana did not see us as a snack
-- unfortunate only because the pictures included a stranger!
Camps Bay
Camps Bay is an exclusive shoreline
suburb of Cape Town that lies at the foot of Twelve Apostles,
the mountain range that extends south from Table Mountain. On the hill
with amazing 270° views of the ocean lie huge mansions. Surprisingly,
houses that would cost many millions of dollars in the US can be bought for less
than half a million dollars. This is largely due to the exchange rate of
7.5 rand to 1 dollar. If it were not 18 hours from Atlanta, we would have
seriously considered an investment!
Hout Bay
During our tour we drove through the
fishing village of Hout Bay. Because of its relative seclusion and the staunch 'patriotism' of its
citizens it has unofficially become known as the Republic of
Hout Bay, and realistic passports can be purchased from enthusiastic custodians.
Its name comes from a Dutch/Afrikaans word for wood. The Bay was aptly
named because this is where wood was taken
to build ships in early days of the the Cape colony.
Kloofing -- missed it :(!
We tried multiple times to go
kloofing, but we could not make it the days they offered the trips or when we
could they cancelled the treks. Kloofing involves hiking into a gorge to
the origin of a river, then hiking down the river and jumping off the many
cliffs into the pools below. They say that it is about a 12 mile
hike with cliff jumps from 15-65 feet! It sounded like a blast and we are
very disappointed we did not do it. We have included it here only for
anyone thinking about a visit or to remind us in case we go back.
High Tea at Mt Nelson
Mt. Nelson Hotel is a very old and
expensive formal European hotel in Cape Town. They honor the English
tradition of 'high tea' every day from 2-5PM. Based primarily on Kristen's
wishes, we attended this tradition. Dan was pleasantly surprised that he
could get something other than tea and they have a huge buffet of food to go
with the tea. Even though it was mostly 'snooty' food and atmosphere, it
was fun.
Local Cell Phone
We had not had cell phone service in
any of the countries we had visited to this point. We finally called
Powertel in Atlanta (collect) and they confirmed that they had not correctly
enabled global roaming on our phone. And, they confirmed that they could
do nothing for us remotely. We had to have a way for travel agents to get
in touch with us (for onward trip planning), so we bought local cell phone service.
They make it pretty convenient because they sell SIM cards (USD$15) that are
duration based and use pre-paid minutes. Their air time rates seem like
rates from 5 years ago in the US (USD35¢/minute, no bulk plans) but their
convenient pre-paid/recharge approach is good. Almost every store sells
recharge cards so when your cell account gets low, you just dial in a code from
the recharge card and it increases the account by the value of the card.
The phone worked all over South Africa. Even though the cost is
relatively high compared to other South African items, everyone had a cell
phone. Many stores had signs asking that you please hold conversations
outside the store!
Getting There
Our second pass through Nairobi, Kenya just after the Mount Kilimanjaro climb
marked the end of pre-planned trip, and from that point we were free to go
wherever we wanted. Since we had been traveling on a tight schedule for 5
weeks and we had just trekked for seven days on Kilimanjaro, we were ready to go
some place and just relax. So we decided to head straight to Cape Town
versus going to places we had considered visiting after Nairobi, including
Mombasa, Madagascar, or Seychelles. We had only reserved two days in the
Norfolk Hotel in Nairobi so we needed to move quickly to plan our trip to and
accommodations in Cape Town. We tried to work with A&K to get flights
and hotel set up, but as of the middle of the second day they had not worked
anything out. We decided to take it into our own hands. We had been
checking for hotels on Expedia.com and Travelocity.com but both showed no
vacancy in the hotels/areas we wanted to stay. But we figured the flight
was the most important, anyway. At 4:30PM the day before we were supposed
to leave, we asked the hotel travel agent to help book a flight that Dan had
found online, as she was ready to go home. Because the airline (Kenyan
Air) needed payment immediately she could only reserve it and told us to be at
their travel desk at 5AM the next morning for the 7:15AM flight. The only
reason we went through them versus doing it online, was that online could not
get the ticket to us, and we knew it was international with two different
carriers, and we wanted to check our bags all the way through -- something the
travel agent said we would be able to do. Checking bags all the way
through was important because we only had 70 minute layover in Johannesburg on
the flights we had selected.
At 4AM that morning Dan found a room in Cape Town that had just opened up via
Expedia.com and made the reservation for that same day. We arrived at the
airport at 5AM, and woke up the travel desk representative (literally).
She worked for over 1.5 hours trying to get the multi-carrier ticket printed
(technical problems). With 20 minutes to spare, we had tickets and went on
our way. When we arrived in Johannesburg, we waited for 45 minutes (out of
our 70 minute layover) in the passport control line! The agent suggested
we check for our bags at the carousel even though they were checked all the way
through to Cape Town. Thank goodness she suggested that -- they were there
waiting for us to be carried across the entire airport and checked in at the
other airline. Fortunately, we made it and had a comfortable flight into
Cape Town. When we arrived at the Commodore Hotel on the V&A
Waterfront, and they took us to their Executive Suite we had reserved, dubbed
the Balmoral Castle! We decided that we had been lucky -- the hotel was
the perfect location and was much less expensive than the hotels we thought we
would go to.
Cost Points
It might seem a little odd to dedicate a whole section to the cost of
purchases during our stay, but we think it gives some justification for our
wayward thoughts of moving here:) It shows what the strong dollar (or weak
local currency) can do even in a modern city.
- Avis rental car -- we rented a car for a weekend (though not a very
good car) for R$57/day (US$7.35)! We upgraded to a much better car and
paid about $18/day.
- Dinner at Spur -- one of our newly favorite restaurant chains. We took Eric
Anderson and his
family (total 4 adults, 2 children) to dinner with appetizers, wine, beer,
and tons of food and the whole bill with tip was US$48.
- Dinner at Blues -- very upscale place, for appetizers, food, wine, and
dessert only $US30.
- Clothing at Edgar's -- we bought Kristen two shirts, a bathing suit and
sarong, and Dan a bathing suit all for US$60.
- Haircut for Dan -- Dan walked into the first place he saw next to the Cape
Sun downtown hotel, and paid $4.50 for the haircut (and no, electric shears
were not used!).
- All day guided tour -- For a full day drive around and outside Cape Town
including entrance to all the exhibits it was only US$170 per day.
- Housing -- Ok, this is where it gets back to the real world, if you go for
luxury. The Commodore executive suite
(second from best room) R$1800 (US$230) per night, the Cape Sun
Presidential Suite (top floor) R$3000 (US$380) per night, and in Camps Bay,
the guest house R$750 (US$100) per night, and the Camps Bay apartment R$490 ($US60)
per night.
- HP Re-Writable CD player -- our very portable RWCD backup device for the
laptop quit working when we arrived in Cape Town. The only RWCD
device available in Cape Town (at the only CompUSA type store) is much
larger and cost R$3000
or around $400 -- a little more expensive than it is in the US, but a
necessity.
Almost everything you buy in South Africa is subject to a 14% Value Added Tax
(VAT) which is already included in the price and itemized on the receipt.
Tourists can get a refund of the VAT on items they take with them out of the
country. This means that items like gifts, T-shirts, books, and RWCD
drives are 14% less than the price marked! The big catch is that we had to
produce the goods at the airport with our boarding pass and all receipts, wait
in a line for 45 minutes for customs to confirm we were taking the items out of
the country, wait in another line for 30 minutes to get a VAT refund check, then
wait in a third line for 20 minutes at the currency exchange counter to cash the
check. All for $108 refund!
Restaurant Guide
We were told that Cape Town had amazing restaurants. We are not sure we
agree with that completely, because we had many disappointments in some of the
supposedly good restaurants, but our food preferences are not like
everyone's. We include here an exhaustive list of restaurants we visited
just in case you go there and want our opinion (or for us to remember if we go
back:).
Name |
Location |
D&K Rating |
Comment |
Spur |
Canal Walk mall, many others |
Very Good |
Combination of $3 cafe, Taco Mac, Dennys, and
Shoney's -- consistently good.. |
Nando's |
Many -- fast food chain. |
Ok. |
Over- hyped chicken place. Wendy's
chicken as good. |
Bukhara |
Downtown. |
Very Good. |
Well-hyped Indian food. Wonderfully spicy. |
Rempies |
Cape Sun Intercontinental - downtown. |
Not Good. |
Well laid out buffet, but food not good. |
Mussel Cracker |
V&A Waterfront. |
Not Good. |
Over-hyped seafood place. Portuguese rolls
great, rest of food fair. |
St. Elmo's Wood-fired Pizza |
V&A Waterfront, many others. |
Pretty good |
Basic medium/upscale pizza plus some pasta
dishes, but pretty good. |
Garlic-prawnsplace |
V&A Waterfront. |
Ok. |
Great garlic bread, bad prawns. Rest ok. |
Debonair's Pizza |
Various |
Good |
A local pizza delivery chain. We had
great oven baked subs. No idea about the pizza. |
Black Marlin |
False bay, near Simon's town. |
Very Good |
Great calamari, stir-fry and fish. Best for
lunch because great views. |
Franschoek Country Place |
Franshceok |
Very Good |
Great rolls and all around great food.
Best for lunch because of atmosphere. |
The Sandbar |
Camps Bay. |
Very Good |
Lots of veggie food, but all is good. |
Dizzy's Jazz Cafe |
Camps Bay |
Very Good |
The best calamari and line fish -- could have
eaten every day! |
Prima Piatta |
Camps Bay |
Very Good |
Basic mid-scale pasta/pizza, but very good. |
Blues |
Camps Bay |
Ok |
Nice atmosphere. Supposed to be very
good. Not bad. |
Contacts
Name |
Contact Info |
Comment |
The Commodore Hotel |
V&A Waterfront, Cape Town 8002
(+27 21) 415-1000 |
In V&A Waterfront, 3 minute walk to big
area/mall. Most reasonably priced luxury rooms. |
Cape Sun Intercontinental |
Strand Street, Cape Town
(+27 21) 488-5100 |
In center of down town, but unobstructed
views of Table Mountain. |
Camps Bay Terrace guest house |
(+27 21) 438-5693
gila@campsbayterrace.com
www.campsbayterrace.com |
Great views, just up from the water. No
common room, but Gila and Chris partially retired from their software
company are very 'normal'. |
Camps Bay Beach Village |
(+27 21) 438-0066
www.campsbaybeach.com |
VERY friendly and helpful, and good inventory
of housing. Ask for 28 Brighton Court -- the best view apartment. |
Capexec Tours |
(+27 21) 434-8410
Ask for Jackie |
Very professional, flexible and personable tour
guide. |
Mushinda Travel Agency |
(+27 21) 555-0476
Ask for Adele
adele@mushindasa.com |
Very service oriented specialist on South
Africa locations. |
V&A Waterfront Information |
http://www.waterfront.co.za/home.shtml |
Good source of information about the
Waterfront offerings. |
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