A Full Day in Cape Town

Monday, August 2, 2010

We started the morning with a wonderful breakfast buffet at our hotel. It had been awhile since we had so many wonderful choices for breakfast, and we took full advantage. After completely cleaning our plates, we got a taxi to the base of Table Mountain, where we bought our cable car tickets to ride up to the top of the huge plateau. On the ride up, the floor of our cable car spun 360 degrees to give everybody a full view of Devil's Peak, Table Mountain, Lion's Head, Signal Hill, Cape Town City Bowl, and Table Bay. Just the ride itself was amazing, but the views from the top of Table Mountain would be even better.

View of Table Mountain from the city

There was quite a bit of cloud cover over the ocean and much of the coastal areas of Cape Town, which caused some of the sightseers to complain that "you can't see anything." They failed to appreciate the fact that we were ABOVE THE CLOUDS! We could see the mountain tops perfectly fine, and the only thing that we were missing was a view of the water--big deal! We began to make our way around the northern edges of the plateau facing the the city and Table Bay, stopping at several lookout spots along the way. Each stop we made had a better view than the last one, and we took tons of pictures.

View of Signal Hill and Cape Town City Bowl from top of Table Mountain

We were also surprised by the amounts of vegetation at the top of Table Mountain. From the city it looks like it would be very dry, but due to the clouds that often cover it, Table Mountain receives more moisture than almost any other part of Africa. We followed a trail towards the eastern end of the plateau before making the turn to come back along the southern edge, looking out towards the Cape Peninsula and the Cape of Good Hope. We hiked around for nearly two and a half hours before getting back to the cable car station. We took a break at their gift shop and cafe before heading back down to the base of the mountain.

View of the Cape Peninsula

From there, we got onto a red, double-decker, open-top bus to get a tour of the entire city. The best thing about these busses is that they make several stops throughout the city, where passengers can get off and enjoy the area. Every twenty minutes, another bus passes through, and the tickets are good for any of these buses. That means you can spend as much or as little time as you want at any of these places.


The bus took us into the beach cities of Camp's Bay, Clifton, Sea Point, and Green Point. All of these beach communities are very upscale with expensive houses and trendy shops and restaurants. It reminded us of Malibu, California.


We got off the bus at the Victoria and Alfred Waterfront to walk around and find some lunch.
The Waterfront is very much like San Francisco's Fisherman's Wharf, with plenty of shopping and restaurant options. We found a restaurant on the harbor called Quay Four where we sat on their patio with an excellent view of the water and all the boats. Dena had fish and chips with a fish called Hake, and Doug had the catch of the day, Bluenose, blackened cajun-style. We also had mussels as an appetizer. We were glad to have a break from all the red meat we've had on this trip.

After lunch, we walked back to the bus's pickup spot and continued our tour. We drove around some of the main parts of the city, eventually getting off at the Cape Town Jewish Museum and Holocaust Center. Many Jews relocated to South Africa after being liberated from their concentration camps. There is still a very large Jewish population throughout the country. We spent around an hour and a half at these two museums and then hopped back onto the bus to finish the tour. We drove past some government buildings, including Parliament, the President's Office (the capital city is actually Pretoria, near Johannesburg, but they have offices here too), and City Hall, where Mandela gave his first speech after being released from prison. We also drove through District 6, an area that was completely bulldozed by the Apartheid Government after forcefully relocating the black residents. The government wanted to redevelop the area, but pressure from the international community stopped them. Many parts of District 6 are still empty grass lots.

We got off the bus in downtown Cape Town and walked around to do a little shopping and to look for anything interesting. We found a few street vendors who were getting ready to close up for the day, and we bargained to buy some vuvuzelas for a cheap price. We took a walk down Long Street because we heard there were some good bars and restaurants there, but it turns out we were at the wrong end of Long Street.

We walked about 10 or 12 blocks back to our hotel and made a short stop in the Convention Center at a bar called Marimba. We had one drink there just to relax a bit, then walked back to the hotel so that we could update this blog before eating dinner. We wanted to go out, but can't stay out too late though because we have a 7:40 AM tee time tomorrow at the Rondebosch Golf Course.