Cape Town 2018

May 20 to 21
At long last, after well over a year of planning, we are off to Africa!  Our flight from Vancouver to London on British Air left at 8:55PM and 8.5 hours later, we were in London. We had assigned seats in the middle of the middle section on the second level of this airbus. The bulkhead made for extra leg space which was nice. Despite this, and the overnight flight, I think I slept only a few minutes in total, not all at one time of course.
At Heathrow airport, we had what was to be a 7 hour layover, a long time, but a little short to be taking the train into London itself, so we sat and sat and walked around and sat some more. My eyes were too tired to read or do crosswords. We were there only a day after the wedding of Harry and Meagan at Windsor castle, but I was surprised to find only a small supply of left over souvenirs, like mugs and cookie tins. There were still tins of Kate and William's wedding, even though they had two children by now. How stale would those cookies be? We were disheartened to learn that our flight was delayed by an hour and our wait would be extended. We did not leave until 10:30PM, May 21. We were traveling with 8 people, family and friends, and my sister was hobbling with a cane due to impending hip surgery. Because of this, when I pushed her up to the gate, all 8 of us were let through and we ended up being the first to board. I have never been first on a plane before. The airline had again assigned us middle seats in the middle section of the plane. We were not pleased because this was a long, 11 hour flight and we would not be able to see when we flew over Africa. However, at YVR they were very accommodating, and gave us a window and aisle seat, with a seat in between, in the hopes that it would go unused. This is what happened, so we had extra space. After a meal at midnight, lights went out and the long night began. This time I did manage to get between 1.5 and 2 hours sleep, and Joanie slept much longer. The view out of the window was less spectacular. We flew over the northern part of Africa, including traversing the Sahara, in the dark. Then we flew over the ocean just off shore so we had no view of land until we reached Cape Town. We did get a nice shot of the shoreline and city as we approached. Finally, Tuesday morning, May 22, we set foot on African soil. Bring on the adventure, even though my mind was a little foggy from lack of sleep. I did  get an email as well saying we had been upgraded, and our accommodation at the Sweet Orange Guest House had been upgraded to the Sweet Olive Guest House, owned by the same people.

May 22 - Tuesday
Proceeding at the airport went well and we quickly found our pre-arranged driver, Kyle, who informed us that our accommodations had been changed again, now to the  Sweet Ocean View Guest House. Each change was supposedly and upgrade, and when we arrived at the Sweet Ocean, it was sweet. It was actually two houses, across the street from each other, and we had two rooms in each. The houses were old, probably over 100 years, but had great character and suited us all very well. We chose to stay with R & R in one, while G&G and Sister T and Joaniès sister W stayed at the other, because a lack of stairs to the bedroom. (This suited hipster T much better.) After diligently sampling the local wine for a while, most of us went for a walk, exploring the waterfront which was only a few blocks away. I was amazed and surprised by how nice this area was. The road along the beach was lined with palm trees like some L.A. boulevard. Well maintained apartments and hotels fronted this and it appeared to be for those with deep pockets. Atlantic waves crashed along the seawall while the sun shot rays through the foaming mass. Stunning! This part of the city was back-dropped by the iconic Lionhead mountain. It was all quite beautiful, even for these sleepy eyes. I did manage to find a few new birds to photograph and whet my appetite for the rest of the trip. For dinner we walked for 10 minutes to La Boheme. I had a grilled springbok, a very small antelope with bambi eyes. Very good although difficult to distinguish from beef. Joanie shared a huge plate of various seafood with tomato rice. A nice meal.
Our four days in the Cape could be interesting. While Kyle said the first water desalination plant just started running, and there have been rain showers in recent weeks, there was still a severe water shortage in this drought area, and there were reminders everywhere to conserve water. We were told that people were encouraged to restrict showers to a very quick run through and never to run water without using it. It was preferred that you restrict toilet use to twice per day. That could not be very popular at the local bars. My plans to wash my underwear in the shower might need to wait until Namibia.

May 23 - Wednesday
 I got a good sleep last night, at least until 4:30 when I awoke and could not get back to sleep despite only 5 hours sleep, and so little sleep the nights before.  It  might be just the wine speaking, but we had a great day. At 7 AM we went across the street to join the others for breakfast, which consisted of a fruit and yogurt glass, assorted  buns, and eggs with bacon and cooked tomato. We were picked up at 8:30 by Jan from African Eagle. He drove us to Kirstenbosch Botanical Gardens, providing us with a history of Cape Town, the racial religious structure of the area, the development of the wine industry by the Dutch and French in the 1600's and the social structure of how the government is trying to address poverty and the many shanty towns near Cape Town. We spent two hours exploring the gardens on our own. They were filled with thousands of indigenous plants and trees and I found many interesting birds, including colourful sunbirds. The gardens were incredibly beautiful. The weather was overcast, threatening to rain. I filled my camera with shots of birds while Joanie concentrated on the plant life. After this our driver Jan took us to Stellenbosch, driving through the city and university. Very nice. We then drove to the Delaire Graff Estate Winery, one of the fanciest wine estates in the Stellenbosch region. We had a wine tasting there. I think we all really liked the wine there, but were reluctant to buy because we were visiting some other vineyards as well. Bad decision. We then drove to Babylonstoren for a late lunch. This was a highly recommended estate to eat at. Lunch lasted 2.5 hours. The menu was limited and hoity-toity in my opinion. After eliminating pork bellies, a steak on the bone, and a whole small chicken on the bone, I hate dealing with deboning at a restaurant, and a local trout, I was left with a special type of cheese which was grilled to imitate a steak and served with veggies heavy in olive oil and biltong, dried meat. While everyone liked their choices, Joanie had rizotto, I was more interested in the prospect of making up for this large lunch by going to McDonald's for a late dinner. After this, we were off to another local winery for more wine tasting. We all agreed that the best wine came from our firs winery and we should have bought some there. There was a plot developing to see if we could go back on tomorrow afternoon's free time if a trip up Table Mountain did not pan out because of rainy weather. Then we went home, arriving back at about 6:30PM. A full but very enjoyable day.
Of course, things were going too well. I left my camera in the van when we got out. Here's hoping they find it and return it tomorrow and I don't see some fantastic bird in the meantime!

May 24 - Thursday
Sleep was still illusive. I woke up at about 4:30 AM to the sound of clicks from Joanie's phone. She was awake and texting home. Neither of us could sleep after this despite how tired I was when I went to bed. We did get good news. My camera had been found and would be brought by the driver who was taking us for a tour today. What a relief!
It was a very rainy day. We were picked up after breakfast and did a half day city tour. This began with a drive to Camp Bay and what I suppose on a sunny day would be beautiful beaches. The view of the Twelve Profits mountain range was invisible in the low hanging clouds. We got soaked stepping out to check the coastline. Then we drove up to where the gondola taking you up Table Mountain was. It was pouring and Table Mountain was also invisible. We then drove down through the Bo-Kaap district, where the small houses are painted in bright colours every year during the month of Ramadan. This is where the slaves were housed. Slaves only had one day off per year, New Years Day when the owners were sleeping off their New Year's Eve partying. They celebrated by painting their houses bright colours and dancing in procession down the street. This is still re-enacted every January 1. Our driver was very cautious because there had been some demonstrations the night before against developers who were buying up the houses and driving up the prices, making them unaffordable to the locals. That sounds familiar. It was OK. We then visited the South African museum which was very good, but we only got through part of it before our scheduled rendezvous with our driver. We also drove through the downtown area and visited the local market and a diamond store for a demonstration on cutting and valuing diamonds and tanzanite. It was a good way to spend a rainy morning.
By afternoon things dried up and walking back to our place we ran into a woman who lived a few blocks from our B&B. She started talking and asked us what we were doing while in Cape Town. She was a tour guide with her own company and offered her services. Since we had the afternoon free, we negotiated for her to take some of us back to Stellenbosch.  We spent an hour there walking around while the women among us shopped. On our way back to Cape Town, the guide, who said she specialized in tours of the townships offered to take us through a township which she said was safe. It was set up when the government demolished the houses in District 6, near the downtown area, and move the Blacks to a township set up on one side of the freeway some 40 km. away, and the Coloured (people of mixed race) to this township across the freeway. She said she was raised in this area. We found the locals very proud and willing to talk about what happened with Apartheid and the developments since Mandela was freed in 1990. We learned a lot and drove through the narrow streets with small, square, often corrigated steel covered shacks and the area where the people could buy live chickens which would be killed and defeathered on the spot, as well as stalls selling all sorts of gross parts to sheep. It was very interesting, even though it felt wrong to take too many pictures. However, she said the residents were happy to see visitors. In some townships, Whites would be very unwelcome and violence is rampant.
In the evening we contacted this guide again to drive us to a seafood restaurant she recommended. It was very good, although the price was in stark contrast to our lunch at McDonalds.
Overall, another great day. Off to bed for an early start tomorrow on an all-day tour of the cape.

May 25 - Friday
As promised, it was a sunny day, with highs reaching 18 degrees. Sleep was still an issue. I slept nicely until 2:30, and then only dozed off for a few minutes after 4 AM. I got up at 6:50. We got picked up at 7:30 for a full day excursion. Our guide was a feisty young woman and we had a good time together. We started by revisiting some of the beach areas by James Bay that looked quite different with no clouds. We were to go for a walk around Bo-Kaap, but due to reports of regular protests and tire burning in the area, it was not considered as safe. We drove along the coast past Hout Bay to the Cape of Good Hope. We were the first tour there, which was nice. We got some pictures and then went to the lighthouse in the park, which required a 45 minute (actually could b e done in less).  We spent some time here. Here we saw our first game, a herd of eland and a small group of ostriches. I saw a number sunbirds. At the end of our stay, a baboon came across the parking lot, sat among the tourists for a while, and then entered the local gift shop, stealing two bags of what looked like pieces of cake. He was in and out in a flash and sat on a ledge eating his spoils. I also saw a small chipmunk creature. Following this, we drove to Simon's Town and visited the jackass penguins that live at Boulder Beach. There were many fuzzy chicks.A few minutes up the road we stopped for fish and chips as part of the tour. We all chose Snope as the fish. It was good but had many bones.We finished the tour by visiting the Groote Constantine winery for a taste test.
For dinner we went to a restaurant recommended to us, and authentic African restaurant which served game meat. R and W had fried caterpillar for an appetizer. Joanie tried it and did not like it. Most of us ordered a three meat dish with kudu, springbok and ostrich steaks. Kudu and springbok won the taste test.There was also a live band playing African music. As caucasians we were definitely the minority. A great end to a fun day. However, at dinner I could hardly keep my eyes open.
even as I wrote this blog, I was nodding off but I know when I hit the bed, I will wake up. Final event of the day was packing up for leaving Cape  Town.