Go to Cape. Stay in Cape. Holiday.

Hello friends and welcome to the first part of my three-part Cape Town blog (although there could well be a linked fourth part later on because I’m going on a game weekend tomorrow but we’ll see), this first extolling the beauty and majesty and legendary status of Cape Town.

So yeh, I just got back from Cape Town yesterday as part of our team holiday. Out of our 4months working here we have two weeks holiday built into our budget and timescale. If I’m honest I didn’t really want to go on holiday when we first arrived, mostly due to an ignorance of how tired one gets working in another culture, pretty much non-stop and with a recurring inability to say no. So when it came to leaving for the Cape I was more than looking forward to it.

We had decided on Cape Town a while back and although there was quite a lot of stress in booking things thanks to us not having a credit card blah blah blah, we booked 9 nights stay at a backpackers in the middle of Cape Town and boarded our Mango flight. That is, a low cost airliner called Mango. After all, mangoes themselves are yet to evolve the ability to fly.

After a two hour flight from Durban we arrived into Cape Town at 23.30 and in comedy fashion upon arrival there were some people sleeping in our room and were promptly asked to move. We chuckled to ourselves as these two accommodatory misfits (see how the italics long word and unusual consonant combinations make it look like an original Latin word) were shown the correct room and new sheets etc. placed onto our bedding arenas.

In the morning we discovered the marvel of walking. You see when you’ve lived on a prison site for 2months and not been allowed to walk anywhere outside due to safety reasons, walking is no longer a lengthy chore but rather an extended blessing; sort of like what the hand written letter now is when held in the same light as the e-mail. We probably walked for 30mins up to an area known as the Waterfront. We would go on to spend a lot of evenings here. We did however nearly die on the way due to a potent combination of the ridiculously short length of the green man on the crossings, the six lane traffic and the frankly moronic traffic ruling that cars can turn into streets even when there is a green man and people are crossing. You’d think they had overpopulation issues or something.

Anyways, the next nine days were glorious in all but weather, and here are the highlights. Read it as a travel guide, an open journal or just don’t read it. The choice is yours.

Highlight #1: Table Mountain

I don’t think I can stress this enough. Table Mountain is a-maz-ing. Since we began talking about holiday, Kat insisted she was desperate to get up Table Mountain. I didn’t really know why and wasn’t that bothered but by golly was it worth it. I think I’d go to Cape Town just to be up there again.

We went up on the first full day there. Thankfully that day was sunny and clear (and trust me that was a real ‘thankfully’, we never again saw Table Mountain fully due to the cloud and rain in the other eight days). We only decided to head up about 3pm and so there was no time to hike it and we got the cable car up.

There is little point in my trying to describe the views and experience of being up there so I won’t. Just look at these photos and know that if you ever go to Cape Town, go up Table Mountain because it’s phenomenal.

Highlight #2: Cape Point

Commonly held as the meeting of the two oceans and the most southerly point of Africa (both of which are factually erroneous), Cape Point is the base of the Cape Peninsula and a beautiful place to go. We took a tour bus down from Cape Town and it was a lot of fun.

We first went on a little boat ride to Seal Island (clue is in the title) and saw hundreds of seals just hanging out on a large rock area or floating in the water. It’s pretty funny because apparently they have a concentration of blood vessels in their flippers hence why they were lying upside down in the water with their flippers in the air to warm up. They look a lot like dead flies. Only larger obviously. And without wings.

We then stopped at a Penguin Colony on the way which was worthwhile if not a bit dull. In the words of Jenny, ‘they smell and they all look the same, it’s a good job they’re cute’. I wonder if penguins could say the same thing about us.

We then headed to the main reception of the Cape Point nature reserve and had a picnic lunch and then used bikes to cycle around to the Cape of Good Hope. If anyone’s has seen the music video to ‘love generation’ with the little kid cycling through loads of beautiful places, then it was just like that. Jonno and I headed to the front of the group and soon managed to lose everyone entirely. However it was just so much fun cycling by the coast on these massive open roads with big turns and long straights. We also played the waving game where you get points for getting people in passing cars to wave back at you. Jonno won 4-2 (I did also nearly fall off my bike trying to regain ground on him). On our journey we also saw a Porcupine and some Ostriches. I think that 30mins or so was some of my best time in Cape Town.

After the cycle we then hiked from Cape of Good Hope (which is the most South Easterly point in Africa) over the mountain to Cape Point. It was a lot of climbing at times and it did decide to rain on us during the walk, but it was enjoyable nonetheless and the views were once again awesome.

At Cape Point we went to see the lighthouse although it was raining a lot then and wasn’t much fun. We did however see a Japanese tourist wearing oven gloves as standard hand warming utensils. We showed our cultural sensitivity by laughing and trying to take a photo. Sadly we failed because he hid from the rain and ran away.

On the way back we stopped off at an Ostrich farm and they ate seed from our hands. They are crazy animals.

All in all it was a very informative, enjoyable and fantastic sight-seeing day. Thoroughly recommended by myself.

Highlight #3: Robben Island

We were very fortunate to get to Robben Island on more than one count; three counts in fact. Firstly was that when we arrived on the Waterfront on the first day we happened to walk past the ticket office and saw that they were booked up until our last day so we made the decision to buy there and then. A good decision. However had we walked another route, we probably wouldn’t have gotten les billets (that’s French of ‘the tickets’ FYI).

Second the weather was not good in Cape Town while we were there. I have never seen that much rain in my life. It literally poured with rain for at least a few hours each day. This meant that we heard some Robben Island tours were canceled due to unsafe sea voyage. Gratefully ours was not and the weather held for that morning we went (it did however tip it down again in the afternoon).

Third was that I didn’t read the ticket and the taxi was late. We were meant to be at the quay 30mins before leaving time (11am) and I booked the taxi for 10.30am because it was only a 5min journey. However the taxi did not come until 10.45ish and at that point, when looking for the refund policy, I read the 30mins thing. Oops. So we told the taxi man and responded as all responsible taxi drivers should. He ran three orange lights and a red light and we got there with an ample 6mins to spare. And the whole 30mins thing was obviously just a fragrant and blatant lie to get people there early and avoid last minute passengers. Didn’t work on me BECAUSE I DIDN’T READ IT. HA.

So yeh, we headed to Robben Island on our worthy sea vessel, the ‘Sea Princess’. There was however nothing princess-like about our jerky, rainy and uncomfortable 25mins ride. There was a few cases of ‘vomit-ahoy’ among the hundred or so passengers. But we did arrive in one piece and got on a coach which took us around the island.

The island is actually quite big; much bigger than I expected. I think the man said it’d take about an hour to walk around. We went to the lime quarry where Nelson Mandela and the other political prisoners worked a lot, and to the other prison areas that people were held in. It was strange for me because I’d read A Long Walk to Freedom (Mandela’s autobiography) before I came out so this was putting colour and shape to stories I’d read.

We then went into the prison block that Mandela and the other high-risk political prisoners were kept in. We were taken round by a guy who had spent 7 years captive in there. It definitely added a lot to what he was saying. He told us all about the living conditions and daily life. We saw Mandela’s cell which although was obviously just now a clean and empty cell, you knew in that moment you were looking deep into a long enduring twenty-six year battle between oppression and freedom (there’s a nice bit of rhetoric for you, but you see what I mean).

It wasn’t a long tour of the Island, but was definitely worth every Rand spent.

Highlight #4: Restaurants

One thing I definitely learned off my parents in family holidays is that it pays to go cheap with lunch and breakfast and then eat out really well in the evenings. Thanks to the exchange rate ‘really well’ eating turned into ‘first class’. I think we had three big meals out, one for Izzy’s birthday, one for Jenny’s birthday and one for our last evening in Cape Town. In those meals I had two of the best steaks in the history of the world (it was the same restaurant so I know it wasn’t a one off!) and I ate crocodile. Oh yes. I wasn’t sure whether to have it but I thought it’d make a good story one day…

‘What’s the weirdest thing you ever ate?’

‘I ate crocodile in South Africa’

‘Wow, South Africa, what were you doing there?’

‘Well...’

Genius I am.

The places we ate in were the nicest restaurants I’ve ever eaten in. We looked totally out of place and it was great. I don’t think anyone has eaten better food, or probably ever will, than we ate in Cape Town.

So there are my four highlights; Table Mountain, Cape Point, Robben Island and Restaurants. Other things we did do included the Castle of Good Hope (which is actually a fort, much to our annoyance), go on an open top city tour bus (it rained), go to the Aquarium (not as good as London's aquarium Megan!) and had a windy day on the beach rock scrambling.

It was a fantastic time and one of the best holidays ever, certainly in recent times. Cape Town is for my part and from my experience, the most beautiful city in the world, for sure.