Caped Crusadors

(Carys)

I'm not going to lie, didn't have a great night sleep. Woke up quite a lot because there was an awful buzzing sound in my ear. I think it was a mosquito. Anyway, I managed to sleep in the end, and when I woke up and got dressed, we had breakfast, which made up for the  lack of sleep. Was very happy to receive my first pancake breakfast on the holiday.

We packed up and left the lovely guest house - it almost felt like  we hadn't been there at all. After driving through mmore terrible townships and pretty looking lakes, we arrived in the big city - Cape Town. My first impression of it was good. It reminded me of London a bit, a bustly, big city full of food, shops and tall buildings.


We said farewell to our faithful hire car, Zola, and left her at the Avis  drop off station. We strolled back through some markets to our Holiday Inn. After bringing the bags up, settling in a bit and deciding our plans for the day, we walked to the  office of  the  City Sightseeing Bus Tour. We decided to take the blue bus tour  around the coastal part of town. We sat in the top part of the bus, and the wind was cold on our faces and we whizzed around the city. We learnt a lot about the city history from the audio guide.

We ignored most of the stops such as the botanical gardens, winery, and a bird sanctuary; but decided to stop off at  a lovely little beach called Hout Bay. Here we ate some burgers, calamari and chips, walked on the beach and even saw some seals in the port!

Once the bus returned we  drove round some rocky beaches and got off outside the aquarium where we got on a boat for a tour of the harbour. It was lovely to see all the boats and shops, and even some more seals resting in hung up tires.

After getting of the boat and hopping back onto our hop-on-hop-off bus, we drove through the busier part of Cape Town and back to the starting point. We decided to have a quick drink in a nice restaurant called Thirty-Ate and then walked back to our hotel.

We changed into some nicer clothes, and went out in search of a restaurant to eat food in. We were hoping for a curry, but found some great food right on our doorstgep, instead! There was a street market full of different foods and drinks from various cultures.

I caught sight of a stall selling  'Macaroni-And-Cheese Balls' and desperately wanted one. For my first one, I had a bacon one, and later ate a lasagne one. They were one of the best things I've ever tasted! I also ate a tasty white oreo donut for my dessert, and once everyone else had found some food, we were all set for dinner.


We enjoyed the street music and the fairy lights and chatter in the street market for a while, but came back to our hotel for another drink at around 20;00. We came up to our room and went to bed, having full stomachs and having had a fantastic day!

(Lloyd)

Where to start, very much an action packed day, if not lots of Kapows and Kapazz, enough to put some sort of comic feature together.  Started in slightly less active fashion, no run today, a gentle stroll around the Stellenbosch botanic gardens.  The largest bonsai collection in Africa don't you know, which is obviously the reason we came.  Bit of Japanese influence they also love their comics out there, anime, manga, kawii etc  Need to add Japan to the list of next destinations.  It's forever growing.

Anyway, I digress, back to our lovely little calm oasis for some breakfast, before a deep breath and launch into Cape Town.  Must admit to being ready for a bit of crime fighting as we navigated the mean streets of Cape Town, but perhaps the bad press and stereotypes had influenced my thinking unnecessarily. Traffic was fine even in and around the town centre, did a few loops of some back streets while family dropped bags off in Holiday Inn Express.  Then over to Avis to say goodbye to Zola and stroll through town back to our hotel for check in an check wifi time.

bonsai

road trip end

goodbye faithful friend (the car)

Planning for the next few  days ensued. Looked at the internet and settled on buying a 2 day pass with Cape Town City Sightseeing.  https://www.citysightseeing.co.za/cape-town/products/cape-town-open-top-bus-tours  What a good decision, even if I do say so myself.  Perched ourselves up top of a double decker, plugged in some ear phones and learnt a lot, and saw a lot.  Table Mountain can't be avoided but will feature more tomorrow, but plenty of info about the history of the area, the Khoeikhoi tribes that were indiginous, how they were done over by the Dutch, how the Dutch were done over by the Brits, how everybody does everyone else over... humans eh, always seeking the upper hand.... history written by the victors said Churchill, so most of South African history pretty modern.

top deck travel

university of cape town

The bus took us out onto the coastal peninsula where we saw townships, fishing villages, beach resorts, and all over looked by Table Mountain.  Weather changed from hot sun to clouds and mist at various stages of the afternoon, the micro climate is very ummm changeable.  We transferred from the bat bus into the bat boat for a while, to take a seal trip around the harbour.  Don't think we'll bother with Fisherman's Wharf (San Francisco) again now.  Back into the city, Chrissi found us a funky jazz bar hangout type place (no sign of Anchorman and his jazz flute), and then we enjoyed a bit of African street food and gin with a bit of guitar music and smiley faces.  Final bit of reflection in our hotel on what has been a truly super day.

township

Hout bay

not llandudno but near to llandudno

free harbour tour

seal the deal

table mountain ... a teaser

out after dark