Capetown, South Africa 8/26-29/2006

We arrive in Capetown early a.m. from Johannesburg.  Get a taxi to St. Paul's Guest House where we have booked a room via phone from Kruger.  Melvin lets us in.  We have a wonderful corner room with 2 twin beds, small sofa and 2 living room-type chairs with a coffee table, dressing table between the beds and a small table on either side of the beds.  Shared bath and full breakfast every morning for R250 ($38.46) split between us.  I get up late but in time for breakfast.  We meet Val, the manager, who is an absolute doll.  She makes us a great breakfast.  It is a beautiful day.  Val tells me about Melvin and his responsibilities here.  He was a street person.  Never got over what happened to his family in the apartheid years.  Val tells about her father being so frightened by the white policemen coming to their door when she was a young girl and how she noticed her father's fear and the humiliation given to him by these white police.  They had to leave their homes that were just bulldozed down and move to the townships where they had no home.  Their houses were leveled so whites could build their homes on the land.  It's such a terrible story.  St Paul's was once a home for unwed mothers and also a hospital in the past.  Now it is owned by the church and used as a guest house and income for the church.  They have some of their meetings here during the day with Val.  The day is warm and sunny and a perfect day for Table Mountain.  We take the yellow open taxi to the base of the mountain.  He picks us up at St. Paul's.  We take the cable car up.  I pay only one way because I intend to walk down.  It is an incredibly beautiful day.  We walk around and bump into Luis and Erica.  How funny is that!  Hug and tell our tale of making the flight.  They flew in this a.m.  Janeen and I have a picnic lunch at the top looking at the wondrous view.  Bought some wine and an apple to go with my cheese for the picnic lunch.  We check out the gift shop and I buy a Christmas ornament with Capetown written on it, postcards, a magnet of a whimsical African woman, couple pair of socks for the girls and some stamps to mail the postcards home.  Then bought 2 bracelets on my second check into the gift shop for the girls.  Cable back down because I can't find the path down and I'm running out of time. It takes a few hours to hike down and daylight.  We go to dinner at a great restaurant, sitting in lounge chairs before being seated at a table out on the veranda.  After dinner we sit in the lounge area and listen to live music.  It was truly a wonderful day, having more wine, relaxing and listening to the wonderful music.  Walked back on the sleepy streets of Capetown to St. Paul's and to sleep after a wonderful day.  Up for another wonderful breakfast and chat with Val.  This morning Lenzi & Silvia are here at breakfast with us.  They are from Germany and are touring the southern part of Africa for several months.  They are shopping for a car to buy to use for this adventure.  When done with southern Africa they will sell the car and fly to Australia where they will purchase another car and stay on this continent for several months.  I am still in contact with Silvia.  We have the Cape of Good Hope tour today which Val arranged for us yesterday.  We drop our laundry off to be done while we're gone, just down the street from the guest house.  The lady at the laundry will deliver to St. Paul's.  We're picked up at the guest house before 8:30 a.m. and our guide is Samantha who prefers to be called Sam.   We pick up 8 other people before leaving Capetown.  We drive past Clifton Beach with a beauitful view from high above the Atlantic below.  The residents here are the trendy set and it is a haven for international jet setters.  There are 4 beautiful beaches here all accessed by stairs leading down from the road.  Next we go by Camps Bay which has a long sandy beach accessed from the road.  Sam tells us about the indigenous people who were here originally.   They were the Khoikhoi who were closely related to the Bushman people who were the other original indigenous people here.  The Dutch were the first to come to this region in 1652 followed by the British.   We stop by Maiden's Cove, another popular beautiful beach and get out for a 5 minute break to take pictures and stretch our legs.  Then on to view the African Penguins at The Boulders, which is part of Table Mountain National Park.  Nestled in a sheltered cove between Simon's Town and Cape Point, Boulders has become world famous for its thriving colony of African Penguins and magnificent wind-sheltered safe beaches.  Although set in the midst of a residential area, it is one of the few sites where this vulnerable bird can be observed at close range, wandering freely in a protected natural environment.  The African Penguin is listed as a vulnerable species.  In 1910 there were approximately 1.5 million, only some 10% remained at the end of the 20th century.  The uncontrolled harvesting of penguin eggs as a source of food and guano scraping (excrement of sea fowl and used as a fertilizer) nearly drove the species to extinction.  From just two breeding pairs in 1982, the penguin colony here has grown to about 3,000 in recent years.  This is partly due to the reduction in commercial trawling in False Bay, which has increased the supply of pilchards and anchovy.  Their diet consists mainly of squid and shoal fish such as pilchards and anchovy.  They can swim at an average speed of seven kilometres per hour and can stay submerged for up to two minutes.  Their enemies in the ocean include sharks, Cape fur seals and on occasion, killer whales (Orca).  Land-based enemies include mongoose, genet, domestic cats and dogs and the Kelp Gulls which steal their eggs and new born chicks.  Their distinctive black and white colouring is a vital form of camouflage, white for underwater predators looking upwards and black for predators looking down into the water.  Although the African Penguin breeds throughout the year, the main breeding season starts in February.  They are a monogamous species and the lifelong partners take turns to incubate their eggs and to feed their young.  Peak moulting time is during December, after which they head out to sea to feed, since they do not feed during moulting.  They return in January to mate and begin nesting from about February to August.  The Boulders, bordered mainly by indigenous bush above the high-water mark on the one side and the clear waters of False Bay on the other, the area comprises a number of small sheltered bays, partially enclosed by granite boulders that are 540 million years old.  We view the penguins by boardwalks to Foxy Beach, a few metres of the birds.  The site is very lovely with big boulders in the crystal clear blue water of the Indian Ocean and the beach is golden sand.  We are rushed here but have to wait for a white young Tunisian couple who are not very punctual.  People are getting annoyed with them.  We head on from here to Cape of Good Hope viewing a male ostrich who is black and very fluffy and a female not so beautiful in the fields by the sea.  Get some photos of them.  At the Cape of Good Hope where they claim the oceans meet, the Atlantic and the Indian Oceans, but not the southern most point.  That is Cape Agulhas that you can actually see jutting out in the sea to the north in a hazy view.  Arriving in the parking lot there is a baboon who has stolen an orange from the back of a van and is enjoying it very much.  We watch him move about the parking lot and I take pics of him with his stolen orange.  You need to watch out for these little thieves in many places along the coast here because if you leave an entrance into your vehicle they will break in and steal any food available.  We go out on the point and take pictures of us with the ragging sea behind us and some pictures of us with the Cape of Good Hope sign in front of us.  Take the funicular to the top for the view.  I climb up to the lighthouse for a more spectacular view.  Janeen stays below and reads the sign saying this area is "the Treasure Chest of the sea", where the cool waters of the Benguela current meet the warm waters of the Agulhas currents which produces a striking array of life.  We pass by Simon's Town, a quintessentially English seaside town on our route back into Capetown.  The tour has ended  and we are back in Capetown around 2 p.m. and dropped at the street market.  It is very colorful and going on all day today.  I buy another woven basket, 3 painted rings made from impala horns and painted like the zebra and giraffe skin.  I wear these rings the remainder of the time in Africa.  Buy another beaded necklace and a pair of earrings from the same impala horns and painted with the zebra and giraffe design also.  I wear these alot in Africa.  They fit!!!, and not so obtrusive.  Buy a beaded orange belt with shells on it that I loved and hope I wear and another belt made with seeds that has broken in my bag and I hope I can fix.  Still have not fixed that belt but did wear the orange one NYE 2007.  I've sent it home.  Purchase 2 small African dolls for the tree and 2 sets of carved giraffe and zebra headed salad thongs, one of the spoons has a split in the wood but they cost me $1.50 each set!  I'm using the zebras ones today and have sent the other none broken one to a friend as a gift.  Finally a beautiful pillow cover of washable suede-like fabric and hand painted with whimsical stick Africans and a hand painted batik bed cover of the same design.  This market was great fun.  The woman I bought the batik from had her beautiful child strapped to her with the cloth they tie their children on their backs with.  She was lovely.  I took her pic and it is on the blog.  We walk to the Victoria and William Harbor to find the place for dinner some people had told us about.  There was a live concert going on that we watch a bit and I photo.  The dinner is excellent.  Mixed seafood sitting on the Harbor.  Back to St. Paul's and to bed.  Up for another of Val's wonderful breakfasts.  Today we go on the wine tour to the Constantia Valley.  The bus is full with many young people.  A few people our age.  One is a British woman with her daughter.  I talk with her a bit.  Her daughter is going to school here and she is visiting her.  The guide, Grant, who is young and seems very knowledgeable, tells us much that I do not remember as I write this 52 days later, still trying to catch up on the journal.  It's amazing I remember what I do.  Going thru the pics at Inge's in Hjorring, Denmark helped.  The first winery is Villiera in Stellenbosch, South Africa,  and Grant takes a huge sword and cleanly whacks off the top of a wine bottle and pours the wine for us.  It is a rose and quite good.  I buy a nice bottle of Shiraz 2003 here for R39 ($6)where my notes tell me the formula originated in Iran and is the oldest and is spicy and delicious.   We are told that the first wine made in South Africa was in 1659.  We go on to another winery, Beyerskloof in Koelenhof, South Africa, where I buy a Pinotage 2005 for R33.50 ($5.15) and a link of hard salami for R16 ($2.47) which I never eat and leave in the room at Nairobi, Kenya, telling the guy at the desk to retrieve it.  It was actually a very good salami but I get sick the next day en route to Durban on the Garden Route and never drink any of the wine I purchase till I get to Durban and am feeling better.  End up with 3 bottles of wine that I tote to the campsite in Masai Mara, Kenya.  The whole reason for purchasing the wine is that we will be driving for 3 days in a rented car and I can do it!!!   The Pinotage grape is grown here in South Africa.  I had never had this wine before but it is very good and similar to a Shiraz or Zinfandel and a bit spicy and of course a red wine.  We are also served some olives here that are very good.  Very good wine here too and I am so enjoying this tour.  We go on to Fairview where they have wonderful cheese and bread for sale along with the wines.  It is a very large display room.  They have a special on their Akkerbos Chardonnay, 2 bottles for the price of 1 @ R99 ($15.23).  I buy some blue (white in color) cheese here that is wonderful and some cheddar and a loaf of beautiful bread.  Never eat the bread and leave it with Ilona in Durban to make croutons with it.  Don't know if she ever did.  The cheese is left at Danee and Phil's in Rehany, Ireland, except for the cheddar that I finish on safari in Kenya.  Now we go onto the last winery, Tokara in Stellenbosch, South Africa, where the 6th wealthiest man in South Africa owns this vineyard for a hobby.  We see him because he is here today.  The winery is the most beautiful with fabulous views of the vineyard, town and sea.  There is a huge fireplace in a great room where we taste the wine.  There is an outdoor patio off this room with tables and fresh flowers, but it's a bit too chilly out there.  We are served olives here and I buy their olive oil and a bottle of Zondernaam Shiraz 2003 for R62 ($9.54), which is wonderful even though it is young........yummy!  They describe it as "the nose shows hints of spice as well as red fruits with an underlying wildness of Karoo bush scrub.  Tangy berry flavour coupled with hints of sage and lavender".  I purchase a bottle of their extra virgin olive oil also for around $6.  Tokara describes itself as "wine made art" and their sign is a beautiful example of the art, a neuvoo woman with hair flowing around her.  We stop in one of the lovely towns around here that I don't remember the name of and go into a wonderful chocolate shop where, of course, I buy some chocolate.  I go to the Internet at some time today that I can't remember either.  I do not have dinner noted on this day.  The tour is over and I have enjoyed it very much.  Have wine now for the drive to Durban.  Back to the room late from the Internet and to sleep.  Have our last wonderful breakfast with Val.  Pick up the car late @ 12:10 p.m. and drive back to St. Paul to load our stuff into the car.........The Garden Route drive is next...........