Cape Town
Saturday, September 9, 2017
On our flight to Maun, we got to see a lot of the Okavango Delta. The scenery changed often from dry to wet with rivers to lakes.
We arrived in Cape Town in the late afternoon and checked into our hotel on the waterfront.
Table Mountain, which we could not get to last time we were here, had a very large curtain of fog pouring over it. We’re going tomorrow if the weather improves. This photo is from our hotel room.
Cape Town has several few world–class restaurants, and we are going to eat at three of them, the Pot Luck Club, Burrata and a favourite of ours, La Mouette.
Here is a map of the area. One of our trips will be north to the West Coast National Park. Otherwise, we are going to tour around inside the City.
Sunday morning, we walked around the developments at the waterfront (near our hotel). The weather was great, and since our first visit, there has been a building boom here.
Table Mountain looks clear, so we are going to try to get to the top later today. We were unable to make it up on our first trip here in 2012.
Here is a view from our cable car as it climbs up the side of Table Mountain. It is absolutely sheer.
The car stops at the highest point in the photo above.
Once at the top, we walked around and enjoyed the view and the setting (it is inside a National Park).
The view back down to the City was not as clear as we hoped.
There are trails on the top of the mountain. The sheerness is spectacular.
Here is a view looking towards Lion’s Head. Also in view is the Sea Point suburb and Robben Island offshore.
We decided to head over to nearby Kirstenbosch National Botanical Garden to see the spring–blooming flowers. But first, we had to go back down on a cable car. The structure just to left of center in this photo is the end of the cable line.
We had lunch at one of the Garden’s restaurants, and then walked around to see the world famous Western Cape flowers.
After returning to our hotel (where we had high tea), we walked around the waterfront area again.
This is going to be Africa’s largest museum when it opens (about two weeks after we get home). The Zeitz Museum of Contemporary Art Africa (MOCCA) is definitely a large structure.
The next morning, Monday, we were driven up the west coast to the West Coast National Park, about a 90 minute drive. On the map, it is the flower pin in the upper left. Most of our trip was on the western peninsula.
Back at our hotel, the sunset was great.
Tomorrow, we will be leaving for home late in the evening. So we decided to walk around the center of Cape Town and have an early dinner back at our hotel before leaving for the airport.
Our first stop was in the Bo–Kaap neighborhood and its museum. It’s the museum pin on the map. There is a lot of history in the neighborhood, which is undergoing gentrification as the central, downtown, area is very close.
The houses are painted bright colors.
There are quite a few building cranes in the area.
After wandering through the central section, we worked our way over to the Company’s Garden. One of the reasons for it was to provide food and water to Dutch sailors as they went around Cape Horn.
This plaque has the date the Garden was started!
Here is a view toward Table Mountain from the beautiful garden.
After, we went back to the area around our hotel and had lunch, then packed up for our long trip home. Here’s one last post from our time in Cape Town, a performance at the botanical garden.
We flew home from Cape Town, via Amsterdam, a distance of 11,472 miles/18,462 kilometers. We left on September 12th and arrived at SFO the next day, Wednesday September 13th.
On Saturday afternoon, we drove to the airstrip and boarded a plane for Maun, where we transferred to a jet for a flight to Cape Town. We’ll stay in Cape Town until Tuesday night.
