A beautiful sunrise coming into Capetown South Africa this morning!
We did the Cape of Good Hope excursion today so we were up and out the door early this morning. This was a 8.5 hour tour that left at 8:15. We traveled along the shoreline passing through community after community, each with its own personality. What I found most interesting is the homes that were built on the coastline were below the level of the road and people “parked” on their roofs. This allowed the traffic on the road to be able to see the scenery instead of just looking at houses. Of course, those houses also had spectacular views!
The following pics are from our drive up the coast towards Cape of Good Hope.
The following photo is the area where a lot of the new immigrants coming to South Africa looking for work have set up housing.
More scenery on our way to Cape of Good Hope
Cape of Good Hope
We were probably 2 hours getting to Cape of Good Hope which is the most southwestern point on the African continent where the Indian and Atlantic Oceans meet. Our tour was supposed to take the funicular to the top of Cape Point but due to rolling blackouts, it was not operational. We took some pictures, did some retail therapy, and then walked down the road to take some pictures of the beautiful flowers we saw on the drive in.
The next stop was the beach below. We saw a couple of male ostriches close to the surf and there were seals on the rocks. This was just a quick photo stop and we were off to our next stop.
We had an excellent lunch of fresh fish at a coastal restaurant and then walked down the road to view the African Penguins at Boulder Beach.
After we took pictures we walked back to the bus and along the way encountered a troop of Baboons (we had been seeing warning signs all morning about not feeding them and staying away from them but his was our first closeup with them). We were told they can be very aggressive so we gave them a wide berth and took pictures from the safety of the bus interior!
Off to our next and final stop – the Kirstenbosch National Botanic Gardens. It is 1300 acres of indigenous plants n the eastern slopes of Table Mountain. There were a number of large green lawn spaces were people were gathered on blankets enjoying the beautiful scenery and weather. Since it is on the side of the mountain, the paths were UPHILL!! We found a sign pointing to Skeleton Gorge and it sounded interesting so we made our way in that direction … UPHILL! We found a turnoff, crossed a wooden bridge built over a stream and started UPHILL. We walked for about 15 minutes UPHILL and around every corner found that the path continued UPHILL with no gorge in sight! So, given the limited amount of time that we had, we started back down and back to the bus making it with less then 5 minutes to spare.
After we got back to the ship, we got a bite to eat and then walked to the Waterfront area. It was Saturday night and extremely crowded. There were lots of shops, a mall, restaurants and street performers working for tips. All of the locals were dressed up … well, at least the ladies were. We were surprised at the women who were letting it all hang out or were very provocatively dressed – think, long sheer white dress with only a thong underneath .. and no, I didn’t take a picture! I’ll just leave that to your imagination. We were tired, it was a very long, busy day so we headed back to the ship.
