South Africa - Part I - Cape Town

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We departed Bangalore International Airport on 1 Jun 2011 to Abu Dhabi on Etihad Airways. Etihad, much to our surprise, had very nice on board services and excellent, steaming hot meals and comfortable seats for the economy class. On arriving at Abu Dhabi at 7.00 AM we realized that we had a day long transit before our connecting flight to Cape Town much later that Night – its only with such incidents do we learn to check the transit time before hand!!

Abu Dhabi Airport Terminal was quiet fascinating. It was a small and non entertaining airport, but the people and their culture was fascinating to look at – be it the prayers on the PAS, the whole architecture of the airport, or men accompanied by more than 1 wives!! Hours passed merely by eating, reading and sleeping in the airport lounge and finally we got on board our flight to Cape Town – a very comfortable 11 hour flight via Johannesburg. On board entertainment was great – ended up watching Little Fockers and Boss Engira Baskaran!!



Cape Town (2 Jun 2011 – 4 Jun 2011)



Weather was wonderful as we set foot onto Cape Town – a chilly yet pleasant 17 degrees… Quickly pulled out are jackets, collected our bags and were off to our place of accommodation. First look at Cape Town and a chat with the cabby and we realized it had wonderful infrastructure and no place was too far from the place we stayed.



An African Villa, Tambeorskloof, is an usual place when it comes to a choice of accommodation. We came across this during our extensive planning phase and realized it was one of those non commercial / flashy but amazing places to stay. The reviews had been wonderful consistently, which was quiet unlikely of any other place we had looked up but a small apprehension lingered in our minds as it was not one of the those brand-assured places.



On reaching the Villa, all we could say was wow! Warm atmosphere, nice décor, wonderful owners – Keith, Cindy & Louis. We were welcomed with nice, strong Brazilian coffee – which for a change was as good as back home! The owners also upgraded us from a Bronze to a Silver room. Keith assisted us with maps of Cape Town, suggested how we can plan our 2 days there based places we had short listed through our research and added few more places to it too. After much speculation we decided to rent a car as it would work out cheaper than a cab to every place back and forth. Once again Keith arranged for the same.

The room was nice, cozy and comfortable with neat washrooms.

We got ourselves freshened up and set out on our tour of Cape Town. A gentleman from the car rental showroom was waiting for us at the Villa as we came down and took us down to their showroom for the paper work. We rented the cheapest car category of car available – it was just 2 days and we needed to commute – that’s it! Well, our luck, we got a brand new (35km run) Chevrolet Spark!!! Aren’t we indeed a complete Spark family!!

Off to the Table Mountains in our little sparky, I learnt to read the maps and navigate while Madhu would follow my direction blindly even if I am wrong!! Finally as I was getting the hang of the maps we managed to reach Table Mountain after just a few wrong turns.

Table Mountain is a flat-topped mountain forming a prominent landmark overlooking the city of Cape Town in South Africa, and is featured in the flag of Cape Town and other local government insignia. The view from the Table Mountain is that of the South Atlantic Ocean, Cape Town City, Harbor and Lion's Head Mountain. They are considered a natural wonder. Beautiful indeed, but not as awe-striking as places we were yet to see. We took a cable car ride up the mountain to find a nice little café up there and an amazing view.

It was noon and we were starving. Headed back for a hot Indian meal out of our luggage – methi rotis with paneer darbari !! Rice maker, however, didn’t work. Worried as Madhu got, he tried brushing up his 1 semester mechanical engineering knowledge with the screws underneath and actually managed to fix it!!!

We rested for about half an hour and set out to Century City – a shopping mall visited by locals and not tourists. It was a nice mall, not too high end nor too low end. After much compulsion from Madhu picked up an expensive pair boots and brooded in guilt over its price for a few hours thereafter!!

Victoria and Alfred Waterfront was the next stop. Situated at the foot of Table Mountain, it is within a stone’s throw from the Cape Town Stadium and in the heart of Cape Town’s working harbour. It was something along the lines of Clarkey’s Quay, Singapore, only along the harbor and over the back waters with cozy restaurants, bars and a lavish, expensive mall.

V&A Waterfront offers the visitors an abundance of unforgettable experiences - indoor shopping and entertainment venues seamlessly merge with ocean vistas and mountain views and the fresh sea breeze and warm African sun add zest to a cosmopolitan, vibrant atmosphere.

We spent the evening window shopping and headed back for Dhal Makhani, rice and Bingo dinner.

Next morning, we had a packed day ahead, woke up early, went down for breakfast. We started out with cereal and the African cooks fixed us yummy spicy omelet with tomato and cheese, toast and some coffee.

We then headed out to the Green Market Square, one of Cape Town's oldest markets, set on a cobbled square between Short and long Market Streets. It wasn’t as I expected it to be but did end up picking up my much wanted Giraffes and some wooden serving spoons with Giraffes and Zebras at the heads. We looked for Ostrich Egg lamps and beaded jewelry but didn’t find much.

From there, we began our Peninsula Drive – a circular scenic drive around the entire coast. The Cape Peninsula is a spectacular region in South Africa that stretches from Cape Town to the Cape of Good Hope. Hemmed in by the Atlantic Ocean and False Bay, the Cape Peninsula boasts magnificent scenery, quaint towns, beautiful beaches and lovely vineyards.

On our drive the first stop was Hout Bay – formerly a fishing village now maintaining its unique combination of fishing harbour and country atmosphere, with its long, sandy beach faceing a bay framed by mountains and is quite simply exceptionally beautiful.

Next stop was the Chapman’s Peak which however was closed due to rock slide so we headed back to take the western coast line route. The drive up to Chapman’s Peak however was breath-taking! At the junction where we had to turn back we pulled over and captured some spectacular pictures of ocean and mountains that surrounded us.

We then hit the Groot Constantia – a wine yard. Groot Constantia is the oldest wine estate in South Africa and national monument in the suburb of Constantia in Cape Town, South Africa. Toured the same, skipped wine tasting though and headed off towards Simon Town – the naval base of Cape Town. Continued then further and entered the Table Mountain National Reserve.

Situated at the south-western tip of Africa, the Table Mountain National Park (TMNP) encompasses the incredibly scenic Table Mountain Chain stretching from Signal Hill in the north to Cape Point in the south and the seas and coastline of the peninsula along the South Atlantic Ocean.

We stopped at a scenic spot within the reserve to have lunch we had packed on hand – puliogare and plain natural yogurt! We then spotted baboons (the local monkeys!!) and ostriches in the wild and final reached the historic Cape of Good Hope a rocky headland on the Atlantic coast, being the South Western most point of South Africa. We climbed up a short rocky mountain near by to get a bird’s eye view of the Cape Point – for a moment when I closed my eyes it took me back in time – in my imagination I could picture Vasco Da Gama and other great personalities would have shaped the history of the world as we know it today, having visited and stood, seen and experiencing what I was then experiencing.

On the way back we stopped by quiet an amusing Penguin Beach cum Farm. Also known as the Boulders Beach it is a sheltered beach made up of inlets between granite boulders, from which the name originated. It is located in the Cape Peninsula, near Simon's Town towards Cape Point. It is also known as Boulders Bay. It is a popular tourist stop because of a colony of African Penguins which settled there in 1982. Boulders Beach forms part of the Table Mountain National Park. While I was terrified of the penguins and their noise, Madhu was quiet entertained wondering they were birds if they cant fly!!

Later that night we went out for dinner to Long Street, one of the few areas which are alive at nights. Going there we found it to be quiet creepy with drunken localities roaming the streets so quickly returned home to our good old Indian meal of chapatis and aloo methi!

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