Cape Town - The Mother City

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This is a long one. Get a cup of coffee and settle in for a read!

We arrived in Cape Town exhausted but it was 11:30am… ugh. We grabbed an Uber (yes, there is Uber in Cape Town) and headed to our Airbnb. Check in was easy and Jan our host was great. The apartment was in the city center near the Parliament. Jan gave us some tips on where to go for provisions and reminded us that tomorrow is a holiday and most places will be closed…. Great.

Well, everything was closed that day as well. It was Sunday. We will have to go out tomorrow morning to find breakfast. Before long we landed at Beer House. We sampled some local beers and had a bite. By about 3pm we got a second wind that got us to 6pm. By 6pm we couldn’t do anymore. Back to the apartment we went for a very long, well deserved night’s sleep.

Man, we needed that. As it is a holiday we went straight to the V&A Waterfront. Victoria and ______ that is, not Vitoria and Albert. The waterfront is a working harbor, mall, restaurants and lots of touristy shops selling all sorts of things made in china. We found a place for breakfast, Vovo Telo. Lovely. The coffee was so good I wanted to cry…. And I got TWO! The food (real food!) was yummy too. From there we wandered about seeing the sights along the waterfront. It became very apparent that most things would be closed except the touristy things. So, we bought a ticket for the hop on, hop off city sightseeing bus. I know this is such a touristy thing to do but it’s a great way to see the city and you can learn a lot if you listen to the recording. A two-day ticket in hand we thought it a good idea to hit the Woolworths before grabbing a bus. Yes, Woolworths. I wasn’t sure what to expect but think M&S… for those of you that know Marks & Spencer (a UK shop). It has actually made me homesick for the UK because it is so much like M&S! As it turns out it was modeled after them… well done!

With provisions in hand we boarded the bus… top please! First stop, Table Mountain. This is the Cape Town icon. This massive flat top mountain nestled right in the center of it all. There is a cable car that takes you to the top. Unfortunately, the top of the mountain was buried in clouds. Maybe tomorrow. We continued on the bus seeing the neighborhoods, beaches and sights of Cape Town. We learned so much… like the electric fencing along the tops of all the residential walls was not to keep out bad people but to keep out the BABOONS!! Yes, there are troop of baboons that will get in your garbage and steal your groceries right out of your hands! This is so crazy. I must see these baboons. The views were amazing. Camps bay, the twelve apostles, the colorful neighborhoods of Cape Town.

For dinner… we are always so late for dinner…. We went to a place called Fork. As it turns out they also have a place called spoon. Tapas. Excellent. So, let’s talk a moment about how inexpensive it is for an American to travel in SA. 100 rand (SA currency) is currently $7.50. Our bill for the cured meat and cheese board, five tapas plates and two very large mixed drinks came to R610…. $45. The thing I have found most difficult to wrap my head around is tipping. 10-15% is what was recommended…. This is so little!

Tuesday was Table Mountain day! We started by heading straight there… too cloudy once again! Crap! How about the botanical gardens instead? Poor Steve he is so tolerant. There was one exciting part for him… the Boomslang. This was a treetop canopy walkway. It was not as long as we had hoped but still fun. The botanical gardens, Kirstenbosch, are located on the other side of Table Mountain. We noticed the clouds clearing and saw an opportunity. We quickly boarded the bus with a plan to catch an Uber from the next stop back to the lift. That was foiled by a broken bus. This is my photographic regret for the trip… not getting a pic of all of us tourists outside the bus on the side of the road with the brakes smoking. What a sight. Uber, rescue us!

Table Mountain was really cool. The cable car ride was super scary for me and being up on the plateau also kinda freaked me out but the views were amazing. From there we went to a brewery called Woodstock. Really great beers with a rock and roll theme. I took a photo of the poster for Sugarman. We didn’t have the beer but love the artist. Check out the documentary Searching for Sugarman. Fantastic! He is a super hero in SA. Dinner that night was at Chef’s Warehouse. OMG… what a meal! They design a new menu every day. Nine tapas courses. Unbelievable! I loved it so much I wanna go back!

Cape Town has been great. Tomorrow we are on a road trip down the Cape peninsula.



S&K

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