The Cape of Good Hope Tour

  Hermanus, South Africa
Monday, February 4, 2008

Breakfast at the Mandela Rhodes Hotel/Apartment is amazing!  The restaurant is on the roof by the pool and the spread is the best we have yet to see.  We have our fill before collecting Christine and heading for the Cape.  Our paragliding is cancelled due to the weather conditions but we have a full day of sight seeing nonetheless.  We stop at a craft market and I pick up a few items to send home.

Jen and Christine in the Company Gardens

The Company Gardens are beautiful in the center of downtown lined with museums and government buildings.  We stroll through and try to visit a few museums but they are all closed until 10am so we move on.

A little captain in the Company Gardens

A short drive up the hillside and we are rewarded with amazing views of the city, waterfront, port, and table mountain from Lion's Head and Signal Hill.  This was to be the sight of our launch for paragliding and I imagine how crazy/scary it would have been.  There will be time later in the trip and I was secretly scared to do it anyways, so its all good!  We start the drive out to the Cape and climb up Chapman's peak which provides us with even more beautiful vistas of Hout Bay and the Sentinel.

Such a great postcard view!

The Sentinal is a mountain that one of Christine's friends is trying to sell for $1.1mm. Seems like a steal with the views and 6 lots until you realize that you sit atop a 'township' which is what they refer to a village of shacks.  I resolve to visit one but imagine how much good one could do by purchasing the mountain and outfitting a school, hospital and apartment housing for the inhabitants of the township.  Interesting charity idea...

We cross the cape to Fish Hoek and head to Simon's Town to check out the "jackass" penguins as they are called.

Jorge learns about the birds and the bees

Sooo cute but not too exciting other than a couple taking care of business.  We backtrack to Fish Hoek to a bakery that Christine wants to check out and the lunch is great but I fear that the collection of foods has started to wear at my stomach.

Moving on we enter the Cape of Good Hope Nature Reserve and hike up to Cape Point.

I've made it..

The views are ridiculous and I try to recall any time in which I've seen so many beautiful views in one day.

We were here!

The Cape of Good Hope is fun and I hike/climb down to the southern most point in Africa and touch the waters where the Atlantic meets the Indian ocean.  I

Cape of Good Hope

contemplate a swim in the icy waters but get distracted by the ostriches... funny animals they are.

Back in Cape Town just in time for dinner at the Victoria and Alfred Waterfront.  A beautiful port area with shops, restaurants, and Christine's office!  She really has a tough life here it seems like.  We eat at a place called Belthazar's (www.belthazar.co.za) and I destroy kebabs of kudu, gemsbok, wildebeest and eland before helping Christine and Jen with some springbok and baby kingklip (local fish).

Wild Game Kebalb at the Waterfront

Christine teaches us some local lingo ('ish', 'bru', 'you're a star', 'hectic', 'splendid' and various other proper-sounding phrases) before we drop her off and head to Hermanus for a nice B&B. 

We get in late and play with our new friend Kitty Kat before falling fast asleep.  The B&B is cute but I can't quite make out the view despite hearing the waves crashing in the near distance... (Ocean Eleven Guest House, www.oceaneleven.co.za)

I wake up in the middle of the night and am pissed as the super bowl is not available despite them saying it would be when I called ahead to make assurance double sure I'd get to see the G'men win!  I follow along via B'berry for a few minutes before falling asleep because I realized I just didn't care enough about the game.