Cape Town

Cape Town

What an amazing few days we've had in Cape Town. On Sunday we took the train all the way down to the last stop, Simon's Town. Simon's Town is the home of the South African navy, and it is an incredibly charming town right on the water. The train ride down took about an hour, since there are so many stops along the way, but it was a great ride, because we went right along the edge of the ocean almost the whole way. Once we got to Simon's Town, we found a beautiful beach where we had our picnic lunch. This side of the cape is the Indian Ocean, and the water here is warmer, so there were lots of people swimming and scuba diving. 

We walked through super charming Simon's Town and continued on to Boulder Beach. This stretch of beach is home to a huge colony of African penguins, just like the ones we had seen in the aquarium. This time of year they are busy molting and nesting. We saw tons of them guarding their eggs in their dug out nests. They were not fearful of humans and seemed so curious. But they do not want to be pet, as I found out from a sharp peck in the hand!  There are thousands of them on this beach, because they like the huge boulders, and there is a very large area of protected shrub land that gives them good places to build nests under the cover of the shrubs. They are an endangered species, because their habitats have been destroyed elsewhere. Boulder Beach is part of a national park, so it is protected. 

Farther down the beach was a little public spot where people could swim. There were also penguins on the rocks here, and we couldn't resist the idea of swimming "with" the penguins, even if they weren't really all that close to where we swam. While this ocean might be warmer than the Atlantic side, it was still really cold, so we got in and out pretty quickly. We sunbathed on the beach a bit more and then walked all the way back to Simon's Town and hopped back on the train. 

We went only a few stops and got off at Kalk's Bay, where our friend, Ian, had told us we could get fantastic fish and chips. Kalky's is a little greasy spoon restaurant right on the water, and the food was awesome. Jonathan got the fish and chips (hake for the fish, caught right here) and I got calamari and chips, also caught locally. With our bellies stuffed we headed back on the train all the way back to our hostel. 

The next day we set aside for hiking Table Mountain. It is an incredibly flat topped mountain that makes part of the amazing backdrop of this city. It rises straight from sea level to a little over 1000 meters. There are many routes up, but the safest and easiest is called Plateklips Gorge. It isn't a terribly long hike (about an hour and a half) but it is pretty straight up the whole way. The mountain is made of sandstone, and they have carved stairs out of the sandstone all the way up. All the way up, you have an increasingly breathtaking view of the whole city of Cape Town and Table Bay. 

Once we made it to the top, we quickly had to put on our fleeces. It was about 85 degrees down in town, and we got super sweaty on the hike up, but at the top it is cool and extremely windy. We found a spot to have our lunch while we looked out over two oceans. Pretty amazing!  

The other cool thing is that once you make it to the top, you realize how massive the mountain really is. This section of mountains is called the Table Mountain Range, and it extends all the way down to the Cape of Good Hope. All of the area encompassing Cape Town and the surrounding cities used to be under water, and the mountain tops were islands. That's why the soil is so sandy, even at the very top. There are big reservoirs up on the top of the mountain (down just a little in Echo Valley) that provide Cape Town with water. 

We hiked over to the very highest point, Beacon's Point, and then down into Echo Valley and all around. There are tons of well maintained trails, and you can hike for days.  After a few hours we headed back to where we started and walked over to the cable car to catch a ride down. There is an incredible, revolving cable car that runs up and down the mountain. It had gotten so windy, and we heard a siren sounding. That meant that they were shutting down the cable car, and everyone had to head back down immediately if you didn't want to walk. We rode down and called our friend, Ian, who was very graciously giving us a ride. He had brought us out to the trail head in the morning and told us that we could go get a drink at the Yacht Club, where he is a member, in the afternoon. You don't say no to drinks at a yacht club, so of course we accepted!

Ian is from Cape Town and knows everything there is to know about the city. Before going for drinks, he took us over to Signal Hill, where the military still fires a cannon every day at 12 noon sharp. It is called, very appropriately, The Noon Gun. Ian was in the South African army and fought in 3 wars for SA, so he could tell us all about the history around us and pointed out details of the city below. 

Off to the yacht club we went, feeling very fancy, but looking not at all fancy. We had drinks on the deck, overlooking all the yachts moored there. There were hundreds of them - lots of racing yachts, some huge luxury ones, some little guys, and the huge catamarans. Ian told us all about the different boats and stories of the people who owned them. Not something you get to do everyday!!

We had a great braai (Afrikaans for BBQ) that night and planned our last day. I really wanted to see some of the S African vineyards. There was a tour bus we could take, so we planned on doing that. But then good ole Ian got wind of our plans and said, no, we couldn't possibly go on a dreadful tour like that, and he would take us to the best places. 

So we set off in the morning again with the wonderful Ian. He took us first into the Helderberg wine region, just about 20 mins outside Cape Town. We went first to Lourensford, an extremely fancy estate that made not only wine, but also roasted coffee, made olive oil, had fruit trees that they used to make jams and jellies, etc. They also had art galleries. It was only about 10:30 in the morning at this point, so we didn't do a tasting at this spot. We moved on to another estate right next door named Vergelegen. This place was started by the Dutch in the mid 17th century and has oak and camphor trees that were planted in the year 1700. It is now owned by Anglo American Plc and is like nothing you've ever seen. The wine is wonderful, and we did do a tasting here. Ian said they were known for having the best Sauvignon Blanc in the country.  I don't know enough to say whether that's true, but it sure was good!  They have truly amazing gardens here that were started by the original Dutch owners. They are incredibly symmetrical and intricate and would remind you of something from a French castle. 

We moved on to the Stellenbosch region. The town of Stellenbosch is a beautiful, bustling college town. The University of Stellenbosch is here, and Ian is a graduate, so he was busy pointing out every building to us and telling us stories from his glory days. We took him to lunch at a delightful cafe he recommended and then had a brief tour around the city. It is so charming, and so European in feel that you really forget you're in Africa. 

Next stop was the town and region of Franshoek, a lot like Stellenbosh, but more mountainous and settled by the French Huguenots. We went to a winery called Dieu Donnè, known for their Merlot, and did a tasting there. All the wine was excellent, but I was so amazed by the views outside, that the wine was just an enjoyable thing on the side. They had a wonderful Rose that I liked, so we got one bottle here. They also had a huge fig tree with enormous green figs. Sipping amazing wine, while eating freshly picked figs and overlooking the mountains here is something I will never forget. 

Ian wanted us to also do an olive oil tasting, so our next stop was Tokara, a huge vineyard that makes wine, olive oil, chocolates, pretty much every decadent kind of thing you can imagine. They also have loads of interesting sculptures all around their immaculate grounds. We tasted 5 different types of olive oil, from very mild and "citrus-y" to strong. I could tell the difference between the strongest and the mildest, but the middle ones were lost on me, except that they all tasted delightful!  They also had Kalamata olives for us to taste as well as an olive spread that was to die for. 

Every time we got back in the car, we  both thought surely we were done, but no, Ian had one more place where we just had to do a tasting. Asara is a huge place where we tasted five delicious types - my favorite was the Pinotage, a red varietal grown only in S Africa. We sat at a table outside by a big pond full of birds hunting their dinner and watched the sun begin to set before we finally drove back to the hostel. 

We cooked a huge feast for our last night there, and to try to thank Ian for the amazing day. There was no way we could ever have gotten such a tour, even if we'd booked a private outing with a super expensive tour group. 

As we grilled steaks we all chatted with PJ, the owner of the hostel. We tried to learn more of the history of this crazy place from him. It was indeed a huge mental hospital, whites across the river at a nicer facility that still operates, and blacks and coloreds on our side of the river. The place occupied by the hostel was specifically for black women, and stopped operating as such about 25 years ago. It's so strange the way they still talk about "blacks" and "coloreds" in this country - coloreds being any non whites, including light skinned blacks, Indians, etc. The issues surrounding race here are huge, and you can feel how young this democracy still is. 

Today we fly to Dar Es Salaam in Tanzania. We are staying with Logan and Molly Wheeler. Molly is an old friend from way back - we went to summer camp together and the Outdoor Academy. Her husband is in the US Foreign Service, and they moved to Dar last August. I can't wait to see them both.

Jonathan and I keep joking that we still haven't seen Africa yet, we've seen Cape Town. I have a feeling we're about to see a very different Africa than the manicured vineyards and leafy, shaded streets of the European-like cities around Cape Town. The adventure continues...