We landed in Cape Town on the morning of December 28th. Unfortunately, because of our tight connection in Switzerland, our bags did not accompany us on the second leg of our journey. We did a little research, however, and learned that the bright side of only having the shirts on our backs was that our credit card company would reimburse us $100 for clothes every day until our luggage arrived. This fact was a welcome relief because I was wearing pants and sneakers and it was HOT in Cape Town for a couple of reasons:
a) It was SUMMERTIME! See map below.
South Africa is in the Southern Hemisphere, which means its seasons are opposite to ours in the US and Europe.
b) Not only was it summer, but Cape Town was experiencing a heat wave, with some of the hottest temperatures on record for December and January.
Our AirBnb host, Daniel, was an architect from Mexico who had lived and worked in Europe and also Asia before coming to Cape Town. He’d been in Cape Town for 3 months and so was happy to walk around and explore with us.
View of the fog rolling in over Table Mountain from a park near Daniel’s house in Cape Town
Daniel’s AirBnb was right near a popular street in Cape Town called “Long Street.” There’s lots of restaurants and shopping on Long Street, which was convenient for David and my need to replace missing items from our luggage. The first things I bought with my “free” money were shorts and flip flops!
We also shared several meals with Daniel, including our first night when he invited over a group of his friends for a barbecue, which in South Africa is a time-honored tradition and even has a special name: Braai. A lot of Daniel’s friends were architects too and they were from all different parts of South Africa, and England and Germany too.
Some of our first sightseeing adventures in Cape Town included:
The colorful Bo-Kaap neighborhood in Cape Town
Following the advice of friends we tried out our first hop-on, hop-off sightseeing bus. We didn’t take any photos of the bus, but here’s a couple off the internet so you can get an idea of what our tour was like:
One of my best friends from High School, Emily, now lives in Cape Town because her husband, Andre, is from there. They were both out of town when David and I first arrived, but I had met a few of their friends at Emily and Andre’s wedding in Boston and they generously hosted us instead.
Reunited with Mandy and Claudette, who I’d met a few months before in Boston
Sunset and Music at Blue Peters in Blouberg
Scrumptious South African food at Moyo with our Cape Town crew: Gavin & Claudette are next to me and Mandy & Garth are next to David.
The next day was already New Year’s Eve, and David and I made a last-minute plan to meet up with Emily and Andre a couple hours north of Cape Town in a town called Langebaan. They were staying with Andre’s parents, but we got the last cottage at a nearby Greek-themed resort called, “Mykonos,” so they moved in with us for the night.
David and I borrowed Andre’s sister’s car because she’s spending the year working in the Netherlands (do you remember which city I went to in the Netherlands?), and luckily she was willing to lend it to us while she was gone. Then we set off for “Greece.” Just outside the resort we stopped to do some food shopping and were serenaded by this band playing up and down the aisles of the Checkers grocery store:
David’s new favorite song = Ala-bama (name of the ship that brought the banjo to South Africa).
On New Year’s day we headed back down toward Cape Town and attended a bangin’ Braai (pronounced “bry” as in rhymes with “fry”) at Mandy and Garth’s. Braai-ing is as important to weekends and special occasions in South Africa as Bbq-ing is in the US. Actually, “braaivleis” means “barbecue” or “roast” in Afrikaans, but the grill itself looks a bit different than the one we’re used to back home:
The boys tending the braii
We also got to meet their two adorable kids, Luke and Isabella, who had been staying with their grandparents when we’d all gone out to dinner a few nights before.
The feast is served!
We loved staying in Mandy and Garth’s gorgeous home and they were such welcoming and generous hosts it really inspired us to want to pay that hospitality forward by being super hosts ourselves in the future (when we have a home!)
Armed with lots of advice from Mandy, Garth, Claudette, Gavin, Emily, and Andre (and a list of places they love lovingly scrawled on some scrap paper), David and I set off on a 5 day road trip along the Southern Coast of South Africa. Like in Ireland, this well-traveled road trip route has a special name (in Ireland you might remember it was the, “Wild Atlantic Way”). In South Africa it’s called the “Garden Route” and stretches from Mossel Bay to Storm’s River, just past Plettenberg Bay. Some of the places we stopped (and that I’ll post photos of) are starred on the map below:
A few glimpses of the gorgeous scenery we encountered along our drive:
Note all those little brown dots on the green lawn are cows.
We discovered this arch when we veered off our directions just outside of Oudtshoorn
Our first stop was Oudtshoorn, where we stayed at the “Simmer Down” lodge, which was owned and run by Yuan and don’t forget his pet goose, Berta, who he rescued many years ago and who has lived at Simmer Down ever since. Although David and I splashed about in the pool quite a bit, Berta only swims when Yuan gets in.
Digging the Vinyl placemats during a dinner at Nostalgie restaurant near our hotel in Oudtshoorn. David is about to try ostrich steak, yikes!
There’s a drive outside of Oudtshoorn called the Swartberg Pass that’s famous for its gorgeous views. Also, it still has the same stone retaining wall built by prisoners in 1888 (how many years old is it?)
We only drove about 30 mins down the pass rather than all the way to the next town, Prince Albert, because we had tickets to visit the nearby Cango Cave. Our tickets were specifically for the Adventure Tour, which meant we had to squeeze through some very narrow passageways, occasionally crawling and once sliding headfirst on our bellies!
The next day got even more hands-on with the Cango Wildlife Ranch tour. Here’s the entrance:
As close as I got to a crocodile, since David and I chose to pass on being lowered into the croc pool in a cage… although we did see two boys do that and live to tell the tale
Our favorite part of the Cango Wildlife Ranch was hands down the fact that they had something called an “Animal experience” where you pay a little extra to get to go in the cages with certain animals (I’ve never heard of this type of thing in the US, probably because zoos are afraid they’ll get sued if anything goes awry). David and I picked to visit with lemurs and cheetahs:
David has always been a cat person and he did such a good job petting one of the baby cheetahs that it actually started purring.
Our last adventure in Oudsthoorn was to tour one of its many commercial ostrich breeding farms. Ostriches are farmed extensively around South Africa and particularly in the Oudsthoorn area for their meat, leather, and feathers.
Personally I was interested because I think ostriches are hilarious looking, and I heard the farms sometimes let you ride the ostriches if you arrive early enough in the day…
Flightless birds by size
We learned that ostriches aren’t necessarily the brightest bulbs in the box when it comes to feeding themselves and will pretty much eat anything they come across:
Case in point. Yikes!
They gave us a metal spoon to feed the ostriches with, but “Danger Dave” decided to do it with his hand. Ostrich eggs are are super strong as you can see from the fact that I’m standing on two of them (don’t worry, no babies inside):
The creme de la creme was when I was chosen to ride an ostrich. I was wondering if riding a bird constituted as animal cruelty, but I figured the ostriches that get ridden have a better life than the ones who get eaten! Also, they only let you ride before the heat of the day and if you weigh under a certain amount (I had to stand on a scale to prove it).
Certificate of skill and daring for riding the world’s largest bird
Holding a lemur, petting a cheetah, and now this…. an ostrich driver’s license?! Now, dear reader, you may be saying to yourself– this has to be the pinnacle of Ms. Danielle’s travel adventures. Why should I even keep reading, it can’t possibly get more exciting than this… But, on the contrary, the adventures continue! And especially if you love animals, South Africa has so much more in store for you.
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