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We arrived in Cape Town on Tuesday night, and tried to find our hostel in Woodstock. Having no real good map of the Woodstock area, we got lost as it was getting dark. Lower Woodstock was not a nice area. Lots of businesses lined the road with sketchy characters wandering about, everything very run-down, colors of dirty gray and brown come to mind. Getting nervous as shops were closing and no idea were to find our hostel, we drove back downtown and circled around till we saw an "i" for the tourist center, and got a map of the Woodstock area. .. just in the nick of time as they were closing 5 minutes later, whew! The hostel, in upper Woodstock was in a slightly better neighborhood, but not by much. It was a large deep purple building in the middle of this gray neighborhood with high walls lined on the top with spikes. Looked like a prison - just purple. We had to intercom the front desk to open the gate for us (we found out later all hostels around Cape Town do this). However, the inside looked actually pretty cool. All the walls and ceilings inside were also deep purple, with a funky 60s art déco decor. The people at the hostel were all really nice, and didn't seem to be too concerned with safety.. they probably thought we were overly paranoid about safety. But still we didn't feel super comfortable in that neighborhood, and there was no way we could really get around to and from this neighborhood without having a car. So the next day we decided to drive around till we found one in a safer and more convenient neighborhood, and found one finally in the City Bowl suburbs, walking distance to Long Street where all the action is.
Here are some of the highlights of our stay in Cape Town:
V&A Waterfront
We also thought the V&A Waterfront resembles Pier 39 in San Francisco. Lots of boats, shops, restaurants, bars. The area felt very safe - there were also lots of guards around. Sundays are pretty cool as there are tons of street performers out there. Most impressive was a group of kids performing traditional dances. They were singing and dancing with so much energy with living drumming, it really got us in the mood for dancing (Shari at least).
Robben Island
Similar to Alcatraz in SF. But the island is much larger, and is about 7km to the closest point on the mainland - it took us about 30 min to get there by boat. The island is especially famous because Nelson Mandela was a political prisoner on this island for almost 20 years. It was hard for us to believe that this island was only converted from a prison to a museum in 1996, not long ago at all. One of our tour guides on the islands was a former political prisoner and told us how he and other political prisoners were treated, and how the officials still tried to segregate the prisons based on color. For example Africans, Indians and Coloureds (no negative connotation in SA like in the US - these labels are used for people of mixed race in SA) were served different types of food. His descriptions were very moving, it is a tour well worth going to.
Except from the book "The Long Walk of Nelson Mandela" here describing a prisoner's typical day
http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/pages/frontline/shows/mandela/prison /darkyears.html
Cape Peninsula
We still had the car for a few days. We drove down the Cape peninsula, stopping by Simons Town, and one of Frank's favorite beaches, Boulder Beach. Huge boulders were all around and tons of penguins. We loved the sign as we left to return to the parking lot: "WARNING: Please look under your vehicles for penguins".
Along the way to Cape Point we saw lots of BMW motorcycles on the road. SA looks actually fantastic for motorcycling! Yep, Frank is already thinking of coming back to ride the roads of SA on his motorcycle.
Cape Point - Very dramatic, steep cliffs
It was a nice sunny day when we went, but the gusts of wind were super strong. Shari was worried of falling off the cliff with the gusty winds. It's amazing how close we were able to get to the cliffs edge... in the US it would be fenced off 10 feet away. We did a lot of walking around this area but the most interesting thing we came across were some Buddhist monks dressed in bright orange robes on a tour from Thailand. We thought "wow, they travel just like any other tourist". What was funny is that they were moving about with all the other tourists, little in a hurry to sit in front of the lighthouse and then they paused for an instant just to take a photo of themselves in a peaceful meditative state... then continuing to move to the next touristy spot.
Another favorite spot (esp for Frank) was our stop in Scarborough on the way back from Cape Point. It was a small sleepy town, with no traffic lights, gas station or grocery store (nearest one 10-15 min away), and only 1 restaurant. We had some coffee, tea and dessert at this place, checking out some more BMW motorcycle riders who also were stopping by for a break. Besides the motorcycle guys, a bunch of Germans of course, there were a couple of ladies playing cards in the corner. One with a parrot on her shoulder.
Unfortunately we couldn't do Chapman's Peak drive on the way back to Cape Town as the road was closed. One guy said it was closed to due falling rocks with the bad weather. Another guy working there said it was closed cause some folks were shooting a movie. Go figure.
Table Mountain
It is so awesome seeing this mountain in the middle of the city. Oftentimes in the afternoon there are clouds moving over the top, looking sometimes like a waterfall moving in slow motion. Feeling a bit lazy, we decided to do the cable car ride up to Table Mountain instead of hiking up there. It took us a couple tries to get up Table Mountain as it was closed due to bad windy weather. We arrived there late morning on Sat and had to wait in long lines in hot sun to ride the cable car up. What's amazing is how flat the top of the mountain is, and covered in rocks... not dirt or sand. It was super crowded on top of the mountain, lots of people walking about, so it was really hard to take a nature break away from people when you're 30 minutes away from the restroom! We ate some lunch and dessert at the restaurant on top looking out with a fabulous view.
Kirstenbosch National Botanical Garden
The oldest and largest botanical garden in S.A, and the first botanical garden in the world to achieve the status as a UNESCO World Heritage site. The best part about the garden was having the view of Table Mountain towering in the background as we walked about all the plants. The garden was pretty huge.. our favorite parts were the Protea area.
Long Street and Kloof Street
Couple people we met recommended Zula's for some local S.A. music. So we headed to Long street on Sat night. The bars, clubs, and restaurants along Long Street were packed, with lots of people in the street, and also local police patrolling, which was a nice surprise since we had been a bit scared about safety at night. We liked the balconies on the 2nd floor of the bars where people could hang out there and do some people watching on the street below, or to check things out on balconies across the street from one another. A local band, The Rudimentaries, were playing. Music was lively, but what was a little scary was that we could feel the floor boards bending under the weight of all the people jumping up and down to the music. We just hoped that the floors would not give way that night!
Next morning, heading up Long Street turned into Kloof street, which seemed to have more upscale shops, cafes and restaurants. We ended up hanging out at a newly opened Italian/French bakery, Carmellos, which had excellent baked goods and pastries, especially their chocolate croissant, yum!
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