Trawal to Cape Town

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Trawal to Cape Town

This was another easy travel day, around 300 km again on paved road, through Citrusdal (the name says it all - many citrus groves full of oranges and lemons), up and over a high pass in the mountains, wide fertile valleys growing wheat.  We still can't believe the huge contrast from the countries visited earlier on this tour, where mechanized farming just doesn't exist and people till the soil with hand made hoes.

We see Cape Towns Table Mountain about 50 km away and then finally arrive in Table Bay with a great view of the city, beach, surfers, and surrounding mountains. Unfortunately it is raining for the first time in 45 days.

Our accommodation is the Cape Diamond Hotel in central Cape Town. Excellent service, clean, quiet, hot showers and with a great restaurant. A walkabout reveals police at each intersection protecting the many white tourists. But there are no touts. The local craft market is clean, well organized, but we have all the African art we need for presents. 

Our tour leader Allan takes us the Marcos African for African food. Kayla had prawns and couscous. Richard had Kingklip (fish). Some others in our group had Ostrich, Impala, crocodile and Kudu. But after watching the animals in the wild it did not seem right to be eating them.

After the meal we enjoyed a live Marimba band with three female dancers and singers. Their licks were so entertaining that we stayed until the restaurant closed and Kayla joined in the final dance with the band.

We walked back the the hotel with our driver "ThinkWell" - deserted streets but safe with foot police and Thinkwell's large presence to ensure our security.

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