P....p....pick up a penguin

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Day 22 - Saturday 13 October
When we arrived last evening, very late and in the dark, we had no idea of our hotel's location in relation to any of Cape Town's highlights.

This morning when we lifted the window blinds we found that we have a wonderful view of Table Mountain, to the left, and Lion's Head to the right.

So after a lazy, late, leisurely breakfast we took a walk around the local area. Feels less edgy than J'burg but can't help still feeling a bit wary around some of the street corner loiterers. In fact at one stage a bloke smashed a glass bottle into a drain nearby and said something to us that we didn't understand. Later, when we were well clear of him, Paul remarked that he had been concerned about something the bloke had been carrying as it looked like a closed cut-throat razor! The driver for this trip, Roy, hasn't got a good thing to say about the 'locals', and always seems to be slagging them off about driving, street violence, etc etc.

On the early afternoon we took a Free Walking Tour (which they are not, of course, as there is an expectation of a tip at the end). They run three routes here and we took the one that focused on apartheid.

Our guide was very good indeed. One early stop was at the, now, High Court Annex where the Race Classification Board sat and passed judgement on what race - from the predefined set of options - individuals were. The 'judgement' was based on skin colour, eye colour, what language you spoke and other pretty random factors eg they would put a pencil in your hair and invite you to jump up and down, with your head static, and see if the pencil dropped within 9 jumps. If it did then you could be classed as white or European as it showed you didn't have curly hair. Only 'whites' were afforded full privileges.

In an area known as District 6, 60000 'blacks' and 'coloreds' were forcibly evicted to shanty towns, with just what they could take from their homes at short notice. Their homes were then demolished ready for the area to be allocated to 'whites'. The first free government of Nelson Mandela said they would not do anything to the area until all the original inhabitants had returned. But they can only return if they can prove that they owned their home/land in the area. Only 300 have managed to do that so far.

At City Hall we saw the balcony from which Mandela gave his first speech after prison release on 11 February 1990, to a crowd of 250000 who had been waiting in 38°C for a speech that should have been at 1pm but wasn't until around 9pm.

They have just erected a statue of him, at a cost of R3.5m (around £180k), but we wonder what he would have made of the money being spent that way.

The current president, Cyril Ramaphosa, is worth $550m. (Our current transport driver also says he is subject to 400 fraud and crime charges, including one of rape). Cyril was born in Soweto, studied law and rose through the ANC, and it was he who held the microphone for Mandela's speech that day in February 1990.

When we got back to our hotel we tried for a swim at the pool but it was 'closed for winter'. It was around 30°C!

Day 23
There had been no get together for the new tour group last night as they, all 16 of them, were flying across from Johannesburg late that evening. Turns out that 10 of them had done the same Swaziland / Zulu / Kruger tour as us, but the week later, and 6 had done an Explore Swaziland trip. Consequently a lot of group bonding had already taken place and getting 'integrated' is proving slow.

The day was spent going through the Cape Peninsula south of Cape Town, all the way down to the Cape Of Good Hope, which actually isn't the most southerly point of Africa - we go there towards the end of this trip. At Cape Point we looked out to where the warm Agulhas current from the Indian Ocean meets the cold Benguela current from the Atlantic, and could see. ......bugger all. When Pip was here previously there was a distinct, colour-change border where the two currents met, and she has the photos to prove it. Today, however, no sign of a border at all.

This Cape was first seen by a European in 1488 when Bartolomeu Dias, a Portuguese explorer, sailed around it looking for a route to the East Indies. A century later, Sir Francis Drake described it as 'the fairest cape we saw in the whole circumference of the earth'. We reckon he didn't take the walk route down from the high point, where there is now a lighthouse, to the cape's sea edge like we did, almost getting blown over the edge whilst we did so!

Astonishingly it was another century before the Dutch East Indies Trading Company established a permanent settlement here where they supplied ships with cattle, water and food traded from the indigenous Khoi population.

There are over 1400 species of indigenous plants, more than almost any single area on the planet. There is also supposed to be several species of noticeable wildlife eg antelope, but we saw only butterflies, birds and the odd lizard.

Boulders Bay was next, home to resident African - Jackass - penguins. It was very busy, both with tourists and penguins. It was Sunday after all, though we doubt the penguins were aware of that. It was possible to get quite close to them even on the boardwalk and Paul took over 80 photos - 'you can never have too many photos of penguins'. 'Yes you can!' Some serious thinning out will be required.

We were particularly struck by the penguin's apparent ability to build their houses out of fibreglass!

Then Simon's Town, home of SA's navy, named after Simon van der Stel, an early governor of the Cape Colony. In Simon's Town we chanced upon a Cornwall link. There was a boulder in the street engraved with the cornish arms and a plaque referring to HMS Cornwall - see photos.
ST also gave Paul a chance to buy some new sandals as the toe strap on one had broken during the Cape Point descent.

A brief stop in Hout Bay on the way back where seals will do anything for an easy free meal of a bit of fish. And local down and outs will entice then onto land and offer to take pictures while you feed them - with a morsel of fish, or your hand!

Day 24
Contrary to the plans last night not to go to Table Mountain today, because of overnight rain, our guide changed his mind this morning. But up there the clouds looked iffy so we, and 4 others, didn't bother today. We've got more chances when we return to CT. In the end those who went up did get a clear view but only had 20 minutes up there.

We went for a walk instead on the approach and parking road admiring the views and the plants.

Lunch was in Franschhoek, a lovely little town in the Winelands, full of galleries and restaurants. There is a Huguenot Monument dedicated to those Huguenots who emigrated from France to escape Louis XIV's religious persecution in the late 1600's. They bought with them grape growing and wine making expertise, a business that has blossomed in the area.

Unexpectedly we were then taken to Drakenstein Prison where Mandela walked free in 1990 after 27 years of incarceration. He spent the last 3 years here, in a private wing with a pool and private chef! We saw the road & exit gate where he emerged, hand in an air salute, transmitted across the world.

Wine tasting at the Boschendal, established in 1685, one of the oldest still producing wineries in the area. The winery was bought by Cecil Rhodes in 1887. The 5 wines we had during the tasting did the winery no favours though. 'Rough ' was the description that most came to mind.

We are now settled in Stellenbosch for 2 nights.

This tour is somewhat different from other Explore trips we have had. Very much more laid back, slow, languid. We can't recall any trips with them where up to 2 hours is given over to lunch ☺ and tomorrow is basically just 'a day in Stellenbosch' or a nature walk.

Day 25
An interesting start to the day. Basically it looks like there is a lot of friction on this tour.

Between the tour leader, Sydney, black, and the bus driver, Roy, Afrikaans. We had a group orientation meeting to start - on day 3 of the tour! - outlining the day-by-day plans for the rest of the trip. Not an edifying sight to see them go to one side in the room in the middle of that meet to argue over what could/could not be done on particular days. Don't know how much of that tension is a black/white issue, and how much is a less experienced /more experienced clash - we know that they had had problems filling the tour guide slot for this trip and we think Sydney may have little experience on this route whilst Roy has done it several times.

Also we have seen several times where Roy is very belittling of blacks and coloreds.

But also friction between Sydney and the group. It doesn't help that it is very difficult to understand Sydney, he has a very thick accent. But he is also very wishy-washy and several in the group are very attentive to what the programme promised from the trip notes.

So after a lot of iffing and whating the group set off for the day. As it turned out only we wanted to spend the day in the town of Stellenbosch. All the others stayed on board to go off on a nature ramble.

Stellenbosch is a delightful town. Again, its roots are with the emigrating Huguenots of the late 1600s. The place is pretty, and pretty immaculate, a world away from the rough of Johannesburg and Cape Town.

A reason we chose Stellenbosch rather than the trek, besides it being a lovely place, was for the University Botanical Gardens, and they were delightful. They date from 1902. Not overlarge but enough to keep us occupied, especially with a scone, jam and cream at the cafe, for a couple of hours. They have the largest collection of specimen bonsai trees in Africa, some styled to specific African rather than Japanese styles. They also have an impressive collection of waterlilies, though sadly it was too early in the season for many flowers.

If we were at home the car would now be filled with plants from the garden's nursery, but we have had to limit ourselves to a couple of packets of seed.

Currently it is very pleasant quaffing some local wine in the sunshine watching the world go by. Beats sitting in a Starbucks in order to get wifi. [NB, from what we can see from Google searching whilst there are many coffee shops in SA it doesn't appear to be infested with any Starbucks, yet.)

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