Advertisement
Published: October 16th 2008
Edit Blog Post
Welcome to Cape Town
At the V&A Waterfront 21 Sep - WELCOME TO SOUTH AFRICA. Both me and my backpack arrive in Cape Town and make it hassle-free to the Tulip Inn Hotel as planned, phew!!!! While driving into Cape Town I'm amazed by the views of Table Mountain...didn't expect it to dominate the city sykline as much as it does. Too early to check-in to hotel so head off into the great unknown, armed with my Lonely Planet. Find Long Street which is backpacker central. It's a Sunday and v quiet with all the shops shut (ah, remember the days when that used to happen in Scotland...). Find a great wee internet cafe though and catch up with emails and bit of the blog. Once I check-in to hotel, I'm rewarded with a great view of Table Mountain from my window.
I appear to have my room to myself so chillout with relaxing soak in the bath. Head down to bar at 7pm to meet the GAP group. It's a big group of 22 with mixed nationalities and ages including Brits, Aussie, Americans, Canadians, Germans and Swiss. We have Brenton the tour leader and Errol...aka Ding Dong the driver & cook, although they're interchangeable 😊 We get
View of Table Mountain
From my room at the Tulip Inn Hotel! the necessary paperwork out of the way then most of us head to Long Street for dinner. It's a great authentic South African restaurant where I have bibouti - an oven baked dish similar to moussaka, v tasty with two large glasses of local red wine. Great to be back in a drinking country, esp one that produces such great vino 😊 Spend most of the evening talking to Helen from Melbourne. It's her 50 th birthday today and her room mate arranges for a birthday dessert and glass of champagne (ah, reminiscent of my birthday in Aleppo!).
It's early days but I think I'm gonna like it here in RSA....it's a great group who are already bonding better than the Morocco lot, male prospect(s) and lots of fellow drinkers. RSA seems very friendly, mostly English speaking with great food and wine...a refreshing change from the Muslim countries of the last 4 weeks. We have to have our wits about us though when walking round the city at night and make sure we don't end up on our own. Despite their being more black people on the street than I'm used to in Scotland, I don't feel intimidated.
Meet Priscilla...
Queen of the Bush(veld) 22 Sep - we board the GAP overland truck which will be home for the next 21 days...in fact, the next 54 days as it turns out, including bed several times 😊 We later christen her Priscilla - Queen of the Desert. She's a great, big, comfy overland truck (with an extremely girly sounding horn and squeaky brakes, hence the name) with a huge amount of storage underneath for all our backpacks as well as tables, chairs, hob, kettles, pans, dishes, cutlery, food, tents, poles and mattresses. On board there's also cool box for our booze supply, safe, chargers and I-pod speakers...a real home from home.
We stop off at the shops at V&A Waterfront before our first drive. A short 4 hour journey to break us in gently. We arrive at campsite mid afternoon at a picturesque citrus farm within the Cederburg mountains close to Citrusdal. The scenery is a refreshing change after the barren-ness and desert scenes of Jordan and Morocco - v lush and amazing bright flowers and trees of fuschia pink, orange and lilac 😊
We start to get to grips with life on the road ie how to pitch our tents, where all the equipment is stored and the rota of duties - icebox, kitchen prep / washing up, truck cleaning, packing and day off. Due to the numbers of the group, I end up sharing tent with Ulf, a cute young German guy...both slightly apprehensive about this arrangement, lol. I decide to give the arranged walk a miss and drink Windhoek Lager and Savannah Cider with the guys instead...this will turn out to be the drinks of choice for a VERY long time...in fact, I'm sitting here drinking one as I write this a month later at Twana 😉 Our first dinner round the campfire is a meat feast of T-bone steak, chicken and salad. It's amazing the quantity, quality and variety of food Ding Dong can create in the middle of nowhere. I head to bed about 10pm...while Ulf keeps drinking 😊 Turns out this is our only cold, damp night on the trip but still fairly comfortable and NOTHING like camping in Scotland.
Footnote re overlanding terminology:
Ding Dong - multipurpose word used by Errol (created by Janet - more of her later) which can be noun, verb, adjective, etc ie where's the Ding Dong? When do we get to Ding Dong? Increased use occurs during periods of drunkenness 😊
hey, Scottish - Errol's name for me
hey, Scotty - Brenton's name for me
Priscilla - the GAP overland truck
BIRD - a phrase shouted numerous times over the next 21 days.
Advertisement
Tot: 0.06s; Tpl: 0.01s; cc: 8; qc: 24; dbt: 0.0386s; 1; m:domysql w:travelblog (10.17.0.13); sld: 1;
; mem: 1.1mb