Back to Cape Town

We came back to Cape Town a few days ago after a truly remarkable time in Stellenbosch. We were sad to leave and even tried to extend for two more days, but they were sold out and there was no room at the inn.  I must say however that living here at the Westin is not a hardship. Our room has a view of the old seaport with Robben Island* in the background, and every morning it is a pleasure to see what is going on outside our windows.  

* the prison where Nelson Mandela and other notables were held for decades

Yesterday we hired a driver and car and drove all over the place. From here to the Cape of Good Hope via the old Good Hope Road, which winds and zigzags over the mountain to get to the shore. We stopped first to see the penguins and I thought at one point that Cindy was going to throw a haymaker at a couple of Chinese women who were trying to push her out of the way to get shots of the penguins.  My money was on Cindy, but she simply glared at them and said in perfect English, I was here first so move on. We related this story to our driver, a native Cape Townian who does lots of tours and he just went on and on about how the Chinese are the rudest, cheapest, nastiest travelers in the world.  He simply won't deal with them any more since it is always so unpleasant. The drive to the marker for the Cape of Good Hope takes you through a lovely state park filled with glorious flowers which are all in bloom. We thought we were looking at sheep grazing but it turned out to be huge clumps of white flowers on stalks that were about two feet tall. The Protea, the national flower, was in full bloom everywhere you looked and in such a variety of colors as to take your breath away.  There were baboons, which we didn't see, ostriches, which we did see, and lots of great looking birds.

The line to take a picture at the Cape marker was rather long due to the fact that there was a group of Chinese who had to take twenty pictures each of the marker - they were lined up and one would pose while her friends took photos, and then another would pose while his friends took photos, and oh dear it was never going to stop. We ended up just taking a picture of the marker between Chinese "models" - there went our Christmas card with the Cape of Good Hope in the background!  The ocean there is just vast and blue and I could just picture my dad sailing around the Cape on his small destroyer escort in WWII. The first time I ever heard about Cape Town was when my dad would 'invite' my sister and me to sit with him on Sundays to watch Victory at Sea. One episode - he was in all of them or so we thought - was about Cape Town and he told us how when they were there for re-provisioning stops before the trip back to Recife, he had his first fresh pineapple. Strangely enough, one night in the Club Lounge Cindy and I were talking to a couple and when I asked what he did, he said he grew pineapples in Durban and his family had been growing pineapples for eight generations and they supplied lots of fruit to the US Navy during the war. That was really cool!

Last night we dined at a restaurant that had a two man band, one on Marimba and the other on piano. It was great fun to listen to the African music but all too soon they switched to old standards.  The food there - and everywhere in South Africa - has been uniformly superior.  Everything is fresh and tasty and prepared extremely well. We have eaten several species of African animals - Springbok, Impala and Ostrich - but hope to see more on the hoof when we get to the safari on Monday.  More later, check Facebook for photos.  Wm