Saturday 5/31/2008- Wednesday 6/4/2008
The extremely high headwinds meant our flight to Cape Town took 2.5+ hours. After landing in Cape Town we took a shuttle into town where we checked into our Daddy Long Legs Apartment. Katie’s friend Julie and her friend Andrew were staying in the apartment next door to us. They welcomed us to Cape Town and we unpacked our stuff and then looked through all the goodies that Julie brought from the United States for us. She had our new SLR camera, which we were very excited to test out on S. African wildlife.
We grabbed some ‘happy hour’ drinks at the Dubliner and sampled some horrible nachos. We decided to check out Mama Africa’s for dinner, where our server had a flip book of all the animals they served…very classic. A traditional African band played as we ate antelope, springbok, crocodile, and kudu among other new meats we had never tried before. After dinner we headed to Mr. Pickwick’s for legendary milkshakes- including chocolate and mint liquor…deeelish. Tired from our day of traveling, we went back home to do a little trip planning and before heading to bed.
Well, Long Street is party street—so until about 5:30am, we had all types of noise, car alarms, home alarms and all types of sounds to try to keep us from sleeping. Luckily, we all slept somewhat well, as we made our way to a Sunday Jazz Brunch at Winchester Mansions. On our walk there, we walked through a movie set, with cars driving up and then all reversing in unison…it was very random. After our ridiculously tasty brunch, we rolled ourselves along the beautiful west coast of Cape town. We enjoyed the gorgeous weather and watching the rough Atlantic Ocean’s waves. The water is apparently freezing as it comes up from Antarctica…we didn’t try to see how cold it was… We made a few familiar stops to the surfshops and to NY bagels….so tasty, only R18 ($2.40US) for a baker’s dozen.
We lucked out with one of the craziest taxi drivers we’ve had in a while, back to our apartment. He insisted that we were all on our honeymoon together and proceeded to shriek profanity until it received a reaction from us. He insisted on giving us ALL his business card to give us a tour of the Cape…we all quickly exited the car without a second glance to his business card….
After a quick rest, we caught a cab to the cable car to see the view of the Cape from Table Mountain. We enjoyed the sunset, and we attempted to walk down without much luck, as they make the trails confusing….so we reluctantly ended up buying our return ticket to avoid being stuck on the side of Table Mountain in the dark. Sunday means most ‘good’ restaurants are closed…. And we certain found the Mexican Kitchen which also did not fall into the ‘good’ category. After a few sad excuses for margaritas and dinner, we hit the hay to prepare for our big day of Cape Culture tomorrow.
We started our morning with a tour of the District 6 museum, which ironically the taxi driver did not know where it was located. This is due to the fact that this once peaceful, aboriginal neighborhood was ‘classified’ in the 1940’s as “whites only.” The museum told life stories of families shattered by being forced out of the homes under the apartheid’s ‘classification’ law. It was a necessary element for us to understand the South African People, as well as see the parallel racial discrimination placed on blacks as it was done in the USA. The main difference is that apartheid was only abolished in 1990’s…which is an unbelievable 40+ years of segregation and inequality for all living in South Africa.
After learning more about the atrocities and struggles of apartheid, we caught a taxi to the ferry for Robben Island. Our 45 minute ride went quickly as we visited the ‘Alcatraz’ of Cape town. Much different from Alcatraz, Robben Island still houses a large percentage of the employees working on the island, as well as a primary school for around 30 students. After around an hour tour of the island: seeing the town, school and other functions of the island while it was a prison, we toured the prison which once held famous inmates like Nelson Mandela. We were even able to hear the insider stories about the prison from our tour guide who was an ex-inmate himself. One of the most interesting things learned, is that Robben Island was a prison for political prisoners, or essentially people that have violated the apartheid. Since many of these prisoners were educated, they did not allow the internal ‘classifications’ separate them; moreover, they used their diversity to learn and educated each other. Once apartheid was defeated in the 1990’s, their jailed leaders were able to launch South Africa into a new universe with shared views and understandings of their culturally diverse neighbors.
After our full day of history lessons, we walked around the waterfront and had a late lunch at the Cape Grace Hotel’s Bascule restaurant. It was a beautiful day overlooking V&A Waterfront and Table Mountain, and we took advantage of the 420+ types of whiskey on the menu and their tasting menu of various seafoods. It was just what the doctor ordered to hold us off before our big Italian meal at 95 Keerom St later that night… which is apparently Lance and Stephanie, as well as Bradalina’s favorite restaurant in Cape town. Our server was very energetic…from North Carolina! Small world…
The next morning we woke up and the rental car company dropped off our car for us at the apartment. After packing all our stuff in it and then trying to get in ourselves, we realized that we could probably use an upgrade, so we drove to the rental car office and traded in the 4-door hatchback for the 4-door sedan. With our new set of wheels we left Cape Town to explore the surrounding areas.
Our first plan now that we had some wheels was to do the Cape Peninsula drive. Our first stop on the drive was the second oldest winery on the cape, Steenberg winery. We sampled their wines, and we learned about their founder Catarina who outlived 5 husbands, all which tragically died on her. After choosing Dermot, our designated driver, we headed south. The drive was beautiful as we hugged the coast the entire way around the peninsula.
We stopped in Kauk Bay for lunch at the award winning Harbour House. Julie read that Vanity Fair ranked Harbor House as one of the top 10 beachfront restaurants in the world—good enough for us! The review was spot on as we had unbelievably good (and cheap!) sushi as we looked out on the water in the restaurant. We then carried on to Boulders Beach which has been made famous by its resident Jackass African Penguin colonies. There are thousands of penguins who decided to make Boulders Beach there home about 30 years ago and have not left since. We walked along the boardwalk and got some great pictures of penguins young and old. We then packed ourselves back into the Nissan Tiida and headed down to Cape Point and the Cape of Good Hope. The most southwestern point in Africa. The scenery was amazing as a small strip of land jutted out into the sea where the Atlantic and Indian oceans met. We were quickly running out of day light, so we then bee-lined it up the western coast of the peninsula so that we could get to Hout Bay before it was too late.
We had plans to stay in a township with a friend of Bonnie’s (the girl we met rafting in Uganda) named Shirley. We parked our car in the police station and were picked up by our hosts in the township. Shirley was one of the first people in the township to get a proper house built. She was very proud of her house and decided to start a B + B, so that tourists could get a glimpse of what it was like to live in a township. Approximately half of the houses were just metal shacks, while the other half were proper stone/cement houses. It was very interesting to get to view the township from the inside as opposed to just passing by it on the highway. We had a delicious meal that Shirley prepared, while we listened to one of Shirley’s favorite bands, the Gypsy Kings. She also told us about her past cooking career working at Mexican Kitchen in Cape town! Small world—we ate there only two nights ago! After having some tea and some dessert, we played some cards before going to bed.
The next morning we woke up to the smell of bacon, eggs, sausage and grilled tomatoes... delicious. Shirley had to head off to work, so her brother gave us a quick walking tour of the area. He took us to the community center where he had built and started a computer training center. We also went to a mosaic shop which was located in the community center. We were really impressed with the community projects and how locals were coming back to help the community after receiving their higher education.