Cape Grace Hotel Cape Town

(We took thousands of photos and only have some of them uploaded and sorted. These are the best of what we have so far but keep checking back. We have some great ones not yet online!) Dad: The last 4 days were spent in the Sabi Sands Game Reserve that nestles up against the Kruger National Forest. While, technically, we HAD internet service it was slower than you could ever imagine. Think 1985 and 300 baud modem slow. We just couldn't update this blog or upload pictures while there. Last nigh...

Dad: We were so tired yesterday that we just piled into the room, ordered room service, watched tv and crashed. Alyssa went to sleep around 9pm and slept a full 12 hours. I tossed and turned despite the fact that these beds are ridiculously comfy and finally got out of bed around 6am to catch up on the world's events via the web. The Cape Grace Hotel is a gorgeous place right in the middle of the Albert and Victoria Waterfront in Cape Town. The entire area has been overhauled over the last 10...

Alyssa: Let me start off by pointing out that Cape Town is NOT in the middle of the jungle. It is a HUGE city with tons of people and a ginormous mall. Our hotel is right in the V&A Waterfront. The waterfront is a multi-million dollar creation with tons of shops, hotels and things to do. So if you guys were thinking that we drove for hours and hours just to find a movie theatre, think again. We only went to the movies when the weather was terrible or because of the weather, our other plan...

We first landed in Johannesburg but only to transfer to a flight to Cape Town, 5 nights at the swanky Cape Grace Hotel right on the revamped waterfront. We arrived 2 days prior to the conference, unfortunately the weather was so inclement that while Table Mountain rose immediately outside our rooms window it was not visible. We still managed to make good use of the time, getting over jet lag (a massage in our room by a masseuse who's last appointment was some of the Ozzie cricket team, helped...

Because Cape Town's winter weather is notoriously unpredictable, and so many activities are weather-dependent, we had left one final "free day" in our schedule, figuring that if weather prevented us from going up Table Mountain or to Robben Island, or if we were not able to fit the Spier cheetahs in on the winelands day, we could do those things on the free day.  Since we had already done everything we'd planned, and it was rainy and cold outside, we decided just to look around the waterfront...

Day 2 Saturday, 1/9- The Cape Town airport is pretty small, and we were let out onto the tarmac and taken by bus to the terminal. It was very sunny and warm (ahhh, high summer in the southern hemisphere!). Luggage came quickly and we went out into the maelstrom of archaeologists trying to get rides into the city. The travel folks (of course) had lost my name, so I had to unpack to find my receipt (which I was smart enough to have with me at least). They had also never told us where to meet fo...

First of all, don't think I'm finished with our safari...I will never be finished with it. We'll get back to that later but on a more current note I thought you'd like to know about Cape Town.

Our first day in Cape Town was wonderful. We drove, with our guide, all the way south to the Cae of Good Hope or Cape Point (Buzz assures us that the entire peninsula is the Cape of Good Hope) and back up the eastern edge of the peninsula. We hiked up the trail to the Cape Point light and had our...