Cape Town is a beautiful city reminiscent of Adelaide in Australia with a climate very similar to Vancouver.  Not too hot in summer and rainy winters.  We have been very fortunate on this trip with no rain as of yet but we understand the rains will start any day now, possibly tonight!  

Our morning dawned with brilliant sunshine and a view of Table Mountain from the lobby of the hotel.

We are told we are very fortunate as 40+% of the time the mountain is obscured in clouds or haze, so once again the travel gods have smiled on us. Table Mountain is a huge flat-top mountain that abuts Cape Town to the east.  The main city is between Table Mountain and the Atlantic.  The coastline  is very rocky with the occasional beach and very cold waters, again similar to Vancouver.

We boarded our bus for an early trip to the mountain which can get very busy on a beautiful day like today.  The top of the mountain is 3,500 feet high with a cable car that takes you to the top.

The cars are barely visible in the middle of this photo.  Here’s a closer look…

These cars are huge, easily holding 100 people and the floor slowly rotates to give everyone in the car a 360 degree view going up and down.  Here is another view from the top.

Table mountain offers breathtaking views of Cape Town and all of the surrounding area for miles

The top of the mountain is covered with hundreds) of varieties of protea, a type of flowering plant we had never heard of which resembles a combination of succulent, evergreen.  Protea are native to South Africa and grow all over the area in an endless variety, much like orchids.  Their flowering season was just beginning so we only caught a couple in bloom.  They come in every color, shape and size under the sun.

Basically all of the plants you see in the photo below are different varieties of protea while the shrubland is called fynbos.

We took in the views from the mountain and the many towns that surround Table Mountain in addition to Cape Town

Then we discovered these fellows clinging to the rocks surrounding the top of the mountain.

These are Rock Hyrax or “Dassies”.  Although they look somewhat like groundhogs, believe it or not, they are most closely related to elephants or manatees (mini land manatees!).

Then it was back down the mountain for a visit to the remains of District Six.  As I have many history nerds viewing this blog I’ll save you the trouble and link to the wiki page here: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/District_Six

We met a docent Joseph Schaffers at the District Six museum, housed in a former Methodist church in the area.  Joseph lived in the district until he was 28 when he and 60,000 other residents of this thriving multi-cultural area were forced out during apartheid and all of their homes buldozed to make a whites-only area in 1966.  The story is both tragic and compelling.  

Apartheid in South Africa did not really begin in full force until 1948 when the National Party came into power.  This was a racist regime on a scale even worse than our own civil rights atrocities during the last century.  It continued until 1991 after Nelson Mandela was released from his nearly 30 years of imprisonment.  It is a chapter in Cape Town history that still lingers in the “townships” where blacks and colored persons were relocated during apartheid and its effects are still lingering today as Joseph explained.  

After this informative presentation we stopped by the area where the Arab and Indian peoples were relocated.  They fared better then the blacks and other colored people.  One characteristic was that the tended to live in multi family, multi generational units and combined what monies they had so they could afford to build better housing.  This area has become a colorful and popular area of the city.

We were returned to the beautiful One and Only for lunch on our own and shopping if desired.  Tim took to the bar to do some blogging 😉

That evening we set off for a beautiful “braai” (South African for a “barbi” or barbecue) at a local chef’s estate in the beautiful hills overlooking Hout Bay.

We were treated to a delicious meal hosted by the chef and his lovely wife along with a couple of assistants.

A wonderful meal to end another beautiful day in Cape Town.

This is our last full day in Africa.  We have seen some amazing sights during these past weeks and this morning we are being treated to a ride down the cape to the Cape of Good Hope – the southwestern most point in Africa.  For my map readers (I’m thinking of you Becca) here’s a reference…

This was our first cloudy day since arriving in Africa and we felt fortunate to have seen Table Mountain the day before as it was no longer visible from our hotel.  We boarded our bus for a ride down the coastal road into the Table Mountain National Forest.  This road hugs the coast passing several coastal town.  The road took the British 20 years to construct as much it is cut into the rock and your are hugging the side of the mountain

Along the way we passed the occasional baboon, ostrich  and even a wildebeest, although we were less than an hour outside the city.  The views were breathtaking, reminiscent of the coast highway in California or the roads into and surrounding Sydney.  This was the area Vasco da gama ”discovered” in 1488, although the indigenous people may beg to differ.   

There were thousands of birds present and even a ostrich who wandered into the scene.From there we headed out to the Cape of Good Hope lighthouse with spectacular views of the cape, and low and behold the sun started to come out.  There a funicular to take you up to the base of the lighthouse

From there it was a climb up rocky stairs to the light house itself, but the views were worth it.Eland, the largest antelope in South Africa

From there we headed up the other side of the cape to the village of Simon’s Town for lunch and a visit to the beach where the African Penguins hang out.The babies that have hatched are already as big as the parents in less than 30 days

Most of us could have spent hours watching them but, it was time to return to the city and civilization. On our way back we could see the storm clouds already falling over the back side of Table Mountain

The clouds were a harbinger of the winter rains to come so our timing was perfect, time to leave the cape, Africa and the trip of a lifetime.

As we write this we are waiting in the lounge of Qatar Airlines in Doha, Qatar to catch our flight back to Miami in the morning.  We hope you have enjoyed our postings and we look forward to seeing everyone soon.  It has been a wonderful trip.