Ah Cape Town, one of the worlds best cities, in our opinion. The back drop of Table Mountain along with one of the best laid out waterfront ares makes this city an excellent port visit as the ship docks within easy walking distance to all the waterfront action.
My write up says that Cape Town’s setting ranks it as one of the most beautiful in the world. Situated near the southern tip of the vast African Continent, about 25 miles from the Cape of Good Hope, the city spreads between the 3,000 foot high, flat-topped Table Mountain and the sparkling sea.
At first sight, Cape Town appears surprisingly small. The city centre, lying to the North of Table Mountain and east of Signal Hill, is also referred to as the City Bowl. It’s compactness makes for easy exploration on foot, starting with the historic company gardens.
Cape Town offers museums, parks and gardens in additional to numerous historical buildings such as the Castle, which is the oldest surviving structure in South Africa. It was built between 1666 and 1679, replacing Van Riebeeck’s original mud-walled fort.
We enjoyed 6 days here back in 2014, so if interested please use the index at the opening page of the Blog and go to 2014, Mid April I believe. That said, even in 6 days there is so much to see and do here, you could easily spend a month here before taking all of Cape Town in.
Just to touch on a few high points where you can easily do things on your own, I would first direct you to the Hop on Hop off bus. At a reasonable cost, the HOHO offers 4 routes here, the Red City Tour, the Blue Peninsula Tour, the Yellow Downtown Tour and the Purple Wine Tour. Buy a two day pass to cover all the routes. Visiting Table Mountain is highly recommended (please watch out for weather windows as it can be covered in clouds at times), the tram itself rotates a full 360 degrees on the way up offering all aboard a fantastic view. A visit to Robben Island is also highly recommended, where Nelson Mandela was held captive, again watch the weather window, if the seas are too rough they will not run the tour. Finally the V and A waterfront (Victoria and Alfred) offers everything within the easy walking distance as mentioned. There is everything from local crafts to a full blown out shopping mall with every store you can imagine. Our favourite store in the V&A is the African Trading Post, yes, we enjoyed a few hours again here today.
For our day, a couple from the Albert and Kate asked us if we would like to join them in visiting the Bo Kaap district (a former India district) about a 15 minute taxi drive from the port, we enthusiastically said yes as this was an area we had not visited. The area here has wonderful brightly coloured homes along its streets with many art galleries, shops and restaurants. Highlights include watching Albert chatting with the right people to get an exclusive viewing inside one of the homes currently occupied by three generations. For privacy I did not take photos of the inside of their home but it was a very residence and well appointed, a three story narrow home with a renovated modern kitchen and comfortable living quarters with a dining room that could easily sit eight people. As a gift for allowing us to view the home, Kate, a singer and actor, sang a beautiful song - all were impressed. The other highlight was a purchase negotiation. I was looking at a chair (that I did not need) in this wonderful shop full of African Art over two floors - really some amazing pieces were I could have gone crazy but I was thinking about how much room or lack thereof in our luggage. Well, this chair caught my eye, so I just was curious about the price, just wondering really, the shop owner said, 1700 Rand (about 100 USD), okay I said, thank you. We purchased the obligatory fridge magnet and left the store. Albert then said, are you interested in the chair, I said no, not at that price plus the luggage situation. We left the store and proceeded down the street without me knowing that Albert began chatting with the shop owner. Albert then came up to me and told me he had good news and that the shop keeper was willing to sell me the chair for $50 CDN. I said, no and that I only have US dollars anyway. Long story short, a few blocks later, I said okay, you get him down to $30 US and I’ll take the chair. We start walking back but he tells us to wait about a block away while he goes back to the shop. Ten minutes later here comes Albert with the shop owner down the street, the shop owner has the chair under his arm. So in the middle of the street, I say $30.00, he asks for $40.00. Albert says how about you guys meet in the middle at $35.00, I reluctantly say okay, he reluctantly says okay. I’m now the proud owner of a Zimbabwean chair that I don’t know how I’m going to get home, lol. What a fun day…
We took the taxi back to the V & A, I brought my purchase back to the ship and then met them all at our favourite store, the African Trading Port. We spent another hour plus in this amazing store and then had a wonderful lunch at a local Tapas Restaurant with a perfect view of Table mountain. Then it was time to check out the mall and I took a few moments to watch the end of a soccer match at the outdoor amphitheater. This was another great day in the sunshine just relaxing mostly. We were back to the ship by about 6pm to get ready for dinner.
Just to quickly touch base on the political scene as we were exposed to three different views of this dark topic. The first was our transfer driver from yesterday, a locally born South African, she was out of work because nothing was moving here for the Covid Years. She is thrilled that cruise ships are back, we are the second ship in. That said, she is upset with all the foreigners that have come to South Africa and are willing to work for cheap wages just to earn some income, and this includes the Uber drivers. The second was a unmarked taxi driver originally from Iran, he is an ardent Trump supporter. Why? Despite Trump being a public buffoon (his words), he loved the fact that he is a nationalist, Ie. Only concerned with his own country. This driver effectively said that the USA ruined his country with their foreign policy and that the US should just mind their own business. So here he is in South Africa, eking out a living as what appeared to be an unlicensed driver. See first person comment. How do I know this? The licensed taxi from the port charged us $10.00 USD to take us to the Bo Kaap district, No meter. This unlicensed person was only charging us $5.00 USD to come back. So there is no regulating here on just about everything. South Africa’s current unemployment rate is 47% or at least that is what they say. My third person is a fine young gentleman that I happened to be sitting with in the outdoor amphitheater watching the Uruguay and Korea soccer match (football here), FIFA World Cup. He opened the dialogue with, “this is a tough match”, I responded that with only 25 minutes left, I was surprised that it was still zero, zero. I then said I was from Canada and was happy to see our nation back in the World Cup, first time since 1986. He said he liked Canada and had a friend in Edmonton. Our conversation continued, he was from Zimbabwe and has been here since 2012 and lost his job during Covid. He was looking but hasn’t had any luck finding employment, he is now living on the streets. He said that yesterday he had a successful interview and is supposed to starting a new job as a bartender on Monday but his Visa has just ran out and he needs to get it renewed before he can start. It costs $800 Rand ($50 usd). Now he was pretty well dressed and had a new backpack (which he did say carried all his belongings), so I was wondering if a con was coming. But we did chat a bit more as this tough match did end zero, zero but no further discussion about money was made, so I was happy to hear or not hear that. With the game over, I said that it was nice taking with you and stay positive, you have a good attitude and that will take him places, I strongly believe that you will be okay. He smiled and thanked me saying that he enjoyed sitting with me. Something tells me that he will be taking the job but forced to work for cash under the table. That way the bar owner will be able to get away with this cheap labour. So yes, things here in South Africa are tough like the soccer match.
Some pics of our day, hope you enjoy….
Quote of the day, “Broad, wholesome, charitable views of men and things cannot be acquired by vegetating in one little corner of the earth all of one’s lifetime.” - Mark Twain
Welcome to Cape Town
This is the Bo Kaap district
The Green house is the one we visited.
With Kate and Albert
This is a cooking school.
Amazing shops…
The V & A clock tower
The incredible African Trading Port
Jan making some purchases.
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