Catching up - part two. Cape Town, South Africa

I started writing this back before we went to Plettenberg Bay and now that I'm days behind on the block I edited it for brevity (really hard for me to do, ha!) and I'll squish about three days into one and then I'll write a new post about Plettenberg.

The first day of our Hop on Hop off city bus tour was very nice. We decided to buy the 2 day pass because it included all three routes (red, blue, and yellow) and a canal boat ride, and a tour of Bo-Kapp, with the added bonus of being able to take the canal tour and/or Bo-Kaap tour on the 3rd consecutive day of the 2-day pass. This is a good thing because everything takes longer than you think it will. All for 270 rand (about $27.00 each) which was a much more inexpensive deal than the bus tour we paid for in London!

We had wanted to start out with the red tour because that stops at the lower cable car junction for Table Mountain. The cable car rides were closed that day, however, due to high winds and adverse conditions. We decided on the blue tour then because it stopped at Kirstenbosch Botanical Gardens and at Imizamo Yethu township where you could arrange for a guided tour. In hindsight, we should have driven to the botanical gardens on our own on a different day, we were there for almost 3 hours and barely had time to get in the tour of the township.

The botanical gardens are huge and lovely and I can't even imagine how beautiful it must be in the spring when all the flowers are blooming. There were still plenty of flowers for us to see and take pictures of, but the place is going to be glorious in another 2 - 3 weeks. 

 Statue of a cheetah attacking a springbok. Very relaxing.

 Flowers!

 The guineafowl very much wanted our lunch.

 Tree canopy walk! I had very much been looking forward to this.

Protea garden!

After we realized that we just weren't going to see even 1/5 of the place in a few hours we stopped for lunch in the garden. The restaurant is called Moyo and they have a lovely tradition where, before you eat, they come up with a pitcher full of water and a basin and they pour the water over your hands into the basin and another person hands you a large napkin to dry off with.

We walked back to where we catch the bus to find out we still had a 15 minute wait. Once we got on the bus we passed by the stop for the bird and monkey sanctuary (privately owned) because we really wanted to do the Imizamo Yethu township tour in Haut Bay and we needed enough time to catch the last bus on the tour.

Once we got to our stop the tour attendant would not let us off the bus until the Yethu guide showed up, it can be quite dangerous walking around by yourself in the townships, even during the day. However, our guide showed up and we went on our short (30 minute) tour, walking uphill and listening to our guide and asking questions. Many of the people knew him and greeted him and the children we saw hung onto his hands and legs, he is obviously a well like man there. 

This is the start of the tour just up from the main road through Haut Bay. There was a small informal market on the corner, those big yellow bags are full of potatoes.

 

A permanent "Mandela" house.

A view of some of the structures built from found materials.

Don took this picture as the truck drove by. The two young men had fresh caught fish hanging from their hands that they were selling.

We then hopped back on the bus and drove along the coast which was beautiful. 

Day 2 of the Hop on Hop off tour.

We looked at the Table Mountain website that morning and saw that the cable car was running so that was our plan for the day, go to Table Mountain (which we were pretty sure was going to take up a good part of the day) then get back on the Red Route bus and just ride it back into town. We had dressed in layers that morning because it can be much colder on top of Table Mountain, especially if it is windy, but it was a very warm (80!) winter day in Cape Town and it was perfect on top of the mountain.

 Even the view from the tour bus is breathtaking.

I wish we'd had access to a printer, we could have bought tickets on-line and not had to stand in this line, plus saved a few dollars. Once you buy tickets you stand in another line to get on the cable car. The total time for us was about 1 1/4 hours before we were on the car.

I had read that the car rotates as it goes up and down the mountain so you get a 360 view but I didn't see it rotating as I was looking at it with binoculars. But when we got on it (and everyone stands, and they pack you in!) the floor then starts to rotate while the outside of the car and the center operator stay in one place, just like with a rotating restaurant.

 See that dark rectangular spot on top of the mountain in the upper far left? That's the tunnel the car goes into.

View from inside the cable car.

 Not a very flattering view of me but I'm so happy I wore my sunhat, that it's hot enough to take off the jacket, and that I'm walking on top of Table Mountain! My ankle got a heck of a workout that day!

 Nothing but amazing views in any direction you faced. See the road down there on the side of the mountain? Almost any road in Cape Town is a scenic drive.

That's Robben Island off to the left.

We were on top of the mountain for about 2 - 3 hours and would have stayed longer except the ankle was swollen and painful. I had really wanted to hike to a certain point where the views were supposed to be really good but it was another 1.7 km up to the point and we had already hiked about 1.5 km (not that far but it was on rocky and uneven ground with lots of stops for pictures) and once I saw the gorge you had to cross to get there I knew I wouldn't make it, it was a steep hike down stone steps while holding onto a cable and then a steep hike up. Here's a picture: 

Done with Table Mountain we took the cable car back down and caught the Red Bus back into town but first it goes along the coast through these very posh seaside neighborhoods and we stopped at one to get lunch at an Indian Restaurant and look at the beach. 

Since it was too late to take the Bo-Kaap tour and/or a canal tour (included in the 2 day ticket and can be used on the 3rd consecutive day) we just took the short downtown tour on the Yellow route which goes past District 6 and then we decided to head for home for sundowners on the deck since it was one of the few days warm enough to do so. (Remember, it's always about 7 degrees cooler in Marina de Gama where we're staying).

Third day of touring: Since our tickets were no longer good for the bus, just the Bo-Kaap tour and the canal boat ride, but the two were of some distance apart, we had to figure out where to park. The canal boat ride goes from the V&A Waterfront to the CTICC (the convention center) close to downtown so we parked at the V&A Waterfront for the canal boat ride. It's a good thing it was included with our bus ticket and we didn't pay for it separately because I would have demanded my money back. It's R40 ($4.00) and not worth it. The ride is very short and it's pretty much a view of all the expensive condos on the canal where the rich and famous live. Did you know that Madonna owned a condo there? Do you care? I don't. However, if you want to get from the V&A Waterfront to downtown Cape Town, or vice versa, it works great as a water taxi.

We then retrieved our car from the expensive parking ramp and drove downtown so to a ramp close to the place where you can take the tour of Bo-Kaap at 3pm every day. It's a one hour tour that's really a 30 to 40 minute tour because you walk for about 10 to 15 minutes, uphill, to get to the Bo-Kaap area from the bus stop. Bo-Kaap is very pretty with all the bright colors of the houses. In the 1600's and 1700's they were all uniformly gray and housed slaves. See the difference now?

We then came to this interesting little tunnel that had some paintings inside:

There were more, these are just a few. This one, of a tailor, is my favorite. 

We were supposed to go through the tunnel and continue on with our tour but there was something in our way:

Looks like some kind of local celebration doesn't it? Well it's not, it's the latest Sacha Baron Cohen movie and we were told "no pictures! no pictures!" Too late, we had all on the tour group managed to take quite a few pictures. I noticed that there were two local security guards sitting in the tunnel but they didn't seem to have any interest in stopping us from taking pictures. The tour guide had a brief discussion with someone from the movie crew and we were told we couldn't go that way. Too bad, that street looked pretty interesting. We detoured and finished up the tour in front of the Atlas Spice shop (which was closed! Why don't they start the tour earlier, we would have loved going into the spice shop?) and then walked back to our starting point by the Red Route bus stop. 

I'll try to get a few folders up on the sidebar with more pictures. Since most of you who read this are also following along on Facebook I feel that you've already seen most ofthe pictures but I'll do what I can to post some you haven't seen.