Cape Town

We arrived in Cape Town about an hour before the ship arrived. We found a great little restaurant with a water front table overlooking the port, ordered lunch and beer, (yes, we BOTH ordered a BEER!) and watched the ship sail in and dock. David turned his head for a quarter of a second and a pigeon took the opportunity to dive into David's plate and steal one of his shrimp. Fast little guy. After that we both just hovered a bit closer to our lunch.
We docked right at the Victoria and Alfred Waterfront which has to be the BEST place in the whole Cape Town area, if not the world, to dock. Our ship was within an inch of being too large to dock there. If we were larger, the ship would have to dock miles away and we would have to be shuttled everywhere. This would have been a huge disadvantage. Here at V&A there are numerous restaurants on the pier overlooking the water, most with tables outdoors. There is a Waterfront craft market, movie theater, and 400 stores, boutiques, a grocery store, you name it. It is a vibrant, fun, exciting place to be. Bands were playing, groups dancing or singing, people were in a festive party mood and the tables were filled as people ate and drank.

We booked a private two day tour of Cape Town. When we wern't touring, we were exploring the waterfront area. (450 stores/75 places to eat) Our first day we had a driving tour of the Cape. Our driver was a walking encyclopedia of historical information. He was amazing. We saw the city, the seals at Hout Bay, African Jackass penguins (their bray sounds like a donkey :) at Boulders Beach, went to Cape Point where the Indian Ocean and Atlantic Ocean meet, took pictures at the Cape of Good Hope (the tip/end of Africa, and spent some time in Simon's Town, a quaint historic whitewashed little naval port town. We went up the West coast, crossed over, then came down the East coast of the Cape. I was floored by the beauty, the mountains, the cliffs, the rugged landscape, the oceans, the waves and the beautiful beaches. What a beautiful place to be, a beautiful place to live. This was just the first day.... Oh my! The day turned cold and so windy it was hard to walk when we got back to the ship. I understand this place is always windy.

We met our guide again for day two where we were lucky enough with the weather to go to Table Top Mountain and ride the cable car up to the top to see spectacular views of the Cape from every direction. Table Top Mountain is the backdrop of Cape Town. It dominates the city with its sheer beauty and sharp slopes. It was a beautiful sunny day and the winds died down for us. This tour is always iffy and hard to book as the weather seldom cooperates (is canceled because of the wind or weather) and the tickets are like gold. Our next stop was the most memorable and heart wrenching stop of our tour, Robben Island. Once our ferry landed, we had a 3 hour guided tour by a former inmate who knew Nelson Mandela. Obviously the place has been cleaned up quite a bit from when Mandela lived there, but walking the grounds, I had a constant feeling of hopelessness. I still can not believe people treat others as they did here. Political prisoners were held in MAXIMUM security cells in isolation and rapist and murders were in MINIMAL security, nicer cells.... That tells you who was the most feared. Nelson Mandela was incarcerated for 25 years – 18 of it in the same cell. His cell, which we saw, was smaller then the cells they had for their dogs. Prisoners were able to use a toilet once a day and slept on the floor on a mat. The cell was the about 8' long/wide. We saw Mandela's garden where he hid pages from the book he was writing, "A Long Walk to Freedom". We stopped at the lime quarry where prisoners spent their days. Every day you either mined the quarry or moved rocks from one side of the grounds to the other. When Mandela returned for the first time, without saying a word, he picked a rock up and dropped it at the center of the square and all others with him silently followed his lead leaving a small pile of rocks in the middle of the quarry as a remembrance, a shrine, for all to see. It tears your heart to see that. There also is a small cave dug into this lime stone quarry. Inside this hole prisoners went to the toilet and rested. It also served as a place to teach each other to read and write by drawing in the sand, and a space to talk about the future. It became known as The University, a positive spin in a place where hope does not exist unless you can muster your thoughts to keep believing when you are constantly pummeled and all has been taken from you. Wow ... that last bit put a damper on Cape Town eh? Cape Town .... a must see, must do on a list of places to go. Still in love with South Africa!