Saturday, Day 91 - Apr 7 - 7am to overnight Cape Town, South Africa

Beginning of the Fifth Segment.

Cape Town is called ‘the fairest cape in the whole world and regarded as one of the world’s most beautiful cities. Cape Town offers museums, lush parks and shops. Impressive mountains, magnificent beaches and outstanding wineries. Ride a cable-car to the top of famous flat-topped Table Mountain and gaze at the mosaic of towering mountains, verdant valleys and the confluence of the Atlantic and Indian Oceans. The historical highlight is Robben Island, once the prison holding such outstanding anti-apartheid leaders as Nelson Mandela.

We spent five days in Cape Town in 2009 and another three days in Cape Town and Stellenbosch on our 2015 trip seeing many of the city’s highlights and visiting some of the wineries in Stellenbosch and Franschhoek, two near by towns famous for their vineyards and architectural quaintness. These two days we will revisit some of our favorite places plus a couple we missed in the past using Cape Town's HOHO bus for transportation and two of the free ship’s tours.

We arrive at the dock very early; about 6AM. The night was rough as we rounded the Cape of Good Hope some time after midnight. The seas were living up to their reputation! When we get to breakfast just before 9AM the ship is empty. The call is made at 9AM for everyone leaving the ship to leave and collect their luggage as customs is shutting down. Most of the in-transit tours left around 8AM.

After breakfast we take the ship’s shuttle over to Victoria and Alfred Mall in the Waterfront
 area. Dick gets a hair cut at Mr Cobb’s the Barber by Jonathan. He has given Dick the best two haircuts Dick has ever had! Dick stumbled on the shop when we first visited Cape Town in 2009. He went back in 2015 and now he has the third one. Carolyn video’s Jonathan cutting so the stylist back home can try to copy it. This is at the request of Dick’s stylist.

We do a little shopping and then pick up the Hop On/Hop Off (HOHO) bus; we plan to do the red and yellow routes. The red route has stops at the Waterfront, the Clock tower, the Convention Center and 81 Long Street which is also the connection for yellow bus for the downtown route. We get off at 81 Long Street to do some shopping at Greens Square Market, one of the few things we have not had time for on past trips.

 Cape Town's architecture

At the Market stop, where vendors from all over South Africa gather, we look for some bead work and luck out. We also peek in some of the shops along the street before going back to the Long Street stop and boarding the yellow bus for the downtown tour including St. George’s Cathedral, South African Museum, Mount Nelson Hotel, South African Jewish Museum, District Six Museum and Castle of Good Hope then back to the 81 Longstreet stop where we change back to the red city tour bus and go on to Table Mountain and out to Camps Bay and drive the coastal route, with stops at the President Hotel, St John’s Road and the Winchester Hotel then back to the V & A waterfront. We are riding and taking pictures just for the pleasure of seeing Cape Town again. This turns out to be an excellent way to get an overview of the city. It is a glorious day, blue skies with white fluffy clouds, so the coastal drive is spectacular!

 Castle of Good Hope

 Camps bay and coastal drive

We get back to the V & A mall in time to catch the 3:30PM shuttle back to the ship.  It is a hike back to the shuttle as the HOHO drops off at the top of the Mall on the harbor side and the bus pick up is at the bottom of the mall on the Ocean side! We get back to the ship about 4PM, cool off and rest with a drink on the balcony before we leave again for our free ship’s tour, “Sundowners on Signal Hill,” departing at 5:30PM. It is supposed to be 1 ½ hours but we don’t get back to the ship until 8PM!
Harbor from balcony

Why you may ask are we so late? Well all starts off OK as we head to Signal Hill via Kloof Nek for beautiful views of the city as dark approaches and the lights come on. Sunset is at 6:38PM.  BUT....we get about 2/3's of the way up Signal Hill and traffic comes to a stand still. Seems as how it is a two lane road to the top and other people coming to see the show have used the downhill lane as a parking lot so now there is only one lane and it is the uphill lane! Some a**hole in a BMW has started down in our lane and will not back up so we can get to the top. The driver and guide get out and our driver almost comes to blows with the other driver, but there is nothing the bus can do as there is a second ship’s bus behind us along with a stream of cars. The driver still refuses to back up. So we unload both buses and walk to the top leaving the BMW driver stuck and absolutely furious!

It isn’t a bad walk and it is cool. Once at the top by 6:15PM, we have an area to ourselves where a catering truck has set up a nice spread of tasty canapes and wine, champagne and mimosa makings. We all enjoy the drinks and canapes and watch a beautiful sunset and then see the stars come on in the Cape Town Bowl, ie., the city lights come on! The BMW driver eventually gave up and backed up so the buses are at the top when we return to them about 7PM.

 Robbens Island

Well, now the fun beings!! The road to the top has become a parking lot both ways with cars parked going both ways on the downhill side and on the uphill the later cars and HOHO buses just parked where they were stopped and the passengers walked to the top. There is no police supervision and no one directing the traffic snarl!  We get in line heading down and wait. After about 30 minutes enough of the lower cars have moved out and the buses can snake their way back down weaving in and out of still parked cars on both sides!  Not very much fun as the drop off next to the outside lane is straight down to the valley below in the dark!

At this point our guide says we will take the scenic route back through Camps Bay...mind you it is pitch dark and pushing 8PM and it has been maybe an hour since we last saw food....we are missing dinner service! There is a mini rebellion! Everyone wants to go straight back to the ship. This upsets our guide but she finally agrees. Back at the ship we head for the dining room which is almost empty. Hey, we had skipped lunch since we were doing the HOHO with a time crunch earlier in the afternoon. Our favorite Boston lettuce salad and the veal with lemon caper sauce are on the menu again. We have a nice meal and fall into bed after an interesting and fun day!