TRAVEL BLOG December 14th, 2021 - CAPE TOWN

 

12/14/21- We get a decent night’s sleep despite having to wake up early for our day trip tour to the Cape Peninsula. Breakfast was good with eggs, ham and fruit and wait for our pick-up at 8:45am but arrives a half hour late. Then it drives to pick up the next group and we have to wait another twenty or so minutes for them to be ready, so already this tour is starting off an hour late but at least the skies are blue, and there's only four of us. The couple picked up is from South Africa but I swear they sound Australian.

We travel down to Hout Bay to get a great view of the harbor, then our driver tells us if we don’t have enough cash for the entrance fees coming up to use the ATM as their credit card machines don’t work half the time. I wasn’t expecting to spend more fees taking out cash but what’s a few more dollars I guess.

Now off to the main attractions. We arrive at the Cape of Good Hope, which is the southern most end of Africa you can get and where the currents of the Atlantic and Indian Oceans meet. We pay the admission and decide to take the funicular to the top of the mountain as walking uphill is not in our best interest right now, and it would take over an hour. Once at the top, there are more stairs to climb before finally reaching the lighthouse. The view is amazing and surprisingly it’s not windy or cold. I pretty much brought my jacket for nothing.

On the way out, our van is stopped by guards making sure we didn’t take any flowers from the area as it’s illegal to do so. In the process, they find that his tour credentials expired last month and questions him for several minutes before giving him a pass. I understand in this Covid age how crazy it is and feel bad as that has to be a bit embarrassing.

Our next stop is for lunch in Simon’s Town. The beach there looks amazing with white powder sand and excellent views of the surrounding mountains. The food was quite good too as we had fish & chips, hamburger and wine, all for around $25 USD. With our bellies full, we walk down the block to Boulder’s Beach and see the many penguins that live there freely. They swam from an island about 60 kilometers away in the 1980s and have stayed since, so now they're considered African penguins. They're so close that we can reach out and touch them if we want, but that's very much frowned upon so we reframe. We did see several getting-it-on so to speak.

Our last stop is to Muizenberg, famous for its colorful beach houses. We thought they'd be riddled with tourist or people camping out in front of them, but surprisingly it was easy to take photos. I did search around for a souvenir shop as we’re still looking for a Cape Town one, but everything seems closed. Hopefully tomorrow.

The driver drops us back at our hotel around 6pm and we are exhausted. We did find that South Africa is no longer on the red list for Covid so that may make it easier to get back home, so glad for the little ray of hope ahead.