Cape Town Revisited

My friend Jen was in town at the end of August. In addition to sending her on a safari for a few days, taking her to pet lion cubs, and showing her around Port Elizabeth for a few days, we took a super fun trip to Cape Town. Since it was our second time around, it was more relaxing as we felt we knew our way around and where to go/what to do. Hopefully we were good tour guides.

We went to Table Mountain. Jen took the cable-car up.


We decided not to go up this time, as it was like $20 pp and we weren’t dying to go back up there. Are we party poopers or what? It was a great opportunity for us to let Graham walk around and stretch his legs AND enjoy the view of Cape Town, even if the elevation was lower.

We visited the penguins at Boulders Beach.

Something new for all of us was the trip to Robben Island. We took a ferry from the V&A Waterfront over to the island. Then we took a bus around the island. I was surprised to see how much was actually on the island besides just the prison.

There were homes, churches, and below is a pic of a school.

I thought the island flora was beautiful. It was probably all weeds, but I thought it was lovely.

Then we toured the prison. Our guide was a former prisoner. In this pic, he is demonstrating their sleeping rituals.

The sign (hard to read, I know) described the differences in the diets provided to prisoners based on race.

Nelson Mandela’s cell:

We felt they could have done more with the tour. We wished they would’ve explained more about the Apartheid and what led up to Robben Island becoming a prison. They had a short video while on the ferry. However, the only people who saw it were those on the bottom level of the boat (like us baby toting folk), but Jen missed it as she was enjoying the upper deck. Also, we never had an opportunity to walk around the island. It was: ferry-> bus -> short guided tour -> back on the ferry. The tour was still moving and we are glad we went, we just think they could beef it up a bit.

We enjoyed many meals out.

Graham was a trooper. I think even Jen was impressed. Our dinners were usually pretty late, well past 10pm. He was content, just like always. One restaurant didn’t have a high chair, so we brought a bed pillow for support. It was really convenient as Graham laid back on it when he was done with his food. You can tell he’s tired by his glazed over look. LOL

One night after dinner, we wanted to buy some beer to bring back to our apartment. We searched and searched for a liquor store while the stench of Graham poo filled the truck. Finally, out of desperation, Joel and Jen went into a restaurant to see if they would sell them some beer (lucky me got to stay in the car and enjoy Graham’s “Perfume”). Wouldn’t you know it, the restaurant sold them beer. Gotta love Africa!!!

Anyway, we had a great time in Cape Town and Jen loved her time in South Africa. We were thrilled to be able to share our experience with her.