Penguins, Wine, and Mountains: Cape Town Part 2

 So here is the second installment of my South African ventures! Thursday- Tuesday was full of adventures, new things, places, and people! 

Thursday:

Destination day! And where did we go? To a vineyard. To drink wine. And boy did we drink wine! We went to the Creation Winery in the “Heaven on Earth” valley outside of Hermanus, which was about a 2-hour drive away. We splurged for a 8 course wine and tapas tasting, so got to try a wide variety of food and wine.  The most interesting dish was kudu (an African antelope) and the best was pork with caramel sauce! Weird right?! Overall it was an extremely enjoyable experience and for my first wine tasting, it was delicious and informative! After the vineyards, we went and walked off the food and drink with a Cliffside walk in the town of Hermanus in hopes of seeing some whales! Sadly, none were to be found, sad face.

(Creation Vineyard) 

Friday:

Friday was a… struggle day. We started off the rainy day by going to a cool coffee shop I found online called Truth Coffee Roasting (thank god for Pinterest am I right?!) It’s a steampunk style shop and so all the décor and even the wait staff uniforms were themed. It was good food and coffee and the staff was pretty sociable and fun! From the time we paid, things started to get weird and go downhill. First, a waiter was waiting out front of the shop and stopped us to say he liked us and wanted to meet up later (which we never did, don’t worry mom…) so we chatted and he gave us his number. Ok flattering right? Yeah so then we get to the car and decide to walk about some more, so we pay a parking attendant, only he wasn’t an actual parking guy so we got ripped off and had to go find the real ones. Then I realized I left my phone in the bathroom of Truth Coffee. So we embarrassingly walk back in and I’m freaking out at this point obviously. They found it and after a brief quiz on the type, color, and case, I get it back. After heading back outside and walking around the neighborhood and castle, we decide to cut our losses and go see a movie, cause why not.  

(Just one of the many beautiful views of the sprawling city.)

Saturday:

Birds, birds, birds! We ventured to the World of Birds and spent at least 2-3 hours wandering around aviaries with all sorts of birds! I can’t even begin to explain how many varieties of birds there were and they were all so cool! I had slight Jurassic Park Aviary fears, but after awhile of not being attacked, I felt much safer! Obviously the owls were my favorite, and there were also other animals like tortoises, servals, monkeys, ect. I even let some monkeys climb on me, though I wasn’t as eager for this as Laura was! After we went and had a huge lunch and decided to bike the Promenade, which is like 11 km one way! It was ton of fun, and even though it was a bit chilly, it was cool to see the city and ocean by bike!

(Me posing with a Golden Squirrel monkey (Big step as I have a thing with monkeys crawling over me! ;p))

Sunday:

Another destination day! And this time we went to the most south westerly point in Africa, the Cape of Good Hope. We got there fairly early to try and beat the tourist busses, which we did for the most part. This was amazing! The cape is so lovely and fun to hang around! We visited beaches, collected shells, hiked around a bit, saw tons of flowers, and overall had a windy but memorable experience!  After hanging out with the wild African penguins on Boulder’s Beach, we drove through the sleepy beach towns of Simon’s Town, Kalk Bay, and Muizenberg as we lazily made our way back up to Hout Bay.

(Boulders Beach penguins!)

Monday:

Today we conquered Table Mountain! Yes it’s a far cry from what we are about to do on Kilimanjaro, but still, it was great! The hike wasn’t very long or too difficult, but it was a winding, rocky staircase the WHOLE WAY UP! I wish I had been counting the stairs because I really felt like Frodo and Sam when they follow Smeagle up the staircase by Minas Morgul into Mordor. There were THAT many stairs. It was beautiful at the top! It was cloudy, but that only added ambiance and mystery to the top of the flat mountain. We trekked across the top to Maclear’s Beacon which is situated on the highest point of the mountain at 1086 m. And to get the full effect of Table Mountain, we rode the cable car down to the bottom. What took us 2 and a half hours to hike up took us maybe five minutes with 360 views to get down. #worthit

(On top of the Table)

(Taking the lazy but spectacular way down!)

Tuesday (and final day in ZA):

So we packed, stuffed our suitcases to bulging, and decided to see what we could still do that was close. We went to the Kirstenbosch Botanical gardens and reveled in the gardens containing all sorts of flora and fauna! My favorite part was the tree canopy walkway. This path is situated 11 meters above the ground and offers a birds eye view of the gardens and the surrounding park. Obviously with it being winter here in South Africa, we didn’t see a ton of flowers, but we did get to see some annuals and late bloomers! We finished with afternoon tea in the gardens before making our way back to the apartment for check out.

(Tree Canopy Walk)

We flew all night and now on Wednesday we are outside of Moshi in Tanzania, awaiting the eminent arrival of the Powers family and the official start of our Kilimanjaro trek! So what’s next for me? Well, Kili is the next endeavor! I won’t have any service so you’ll have to wait for a blog post upon my return from the summit (fingers crossed)!

We are hiking with Kandoo Adventures, and you can follow them on Facebook and Instagram (being the more popular one) to see posts and pictures from our trek up the highest mountain in Africa!

Wish me luck!

This time TO Africa

Hello from South Africa!

Saturday:

So after one 24 hour layover in Salt Lake City, UT and two, yes TWO eleven hour flights, I finally arrived in Cape Town and was greeted by my best friend Laura! We have been traveling and working separately for almost a year now without seeing each other, so it was pretty great to be reunited to say the least!

(Hout Bay Beach)

Sunday:

After my long days of travel, I slept for almost 12 hours and then we were off to explore the area! We have a quaint apartment, which we rented from Air BnB in Hout Bay and it couldn’t be a better location! Yes, it’s a bit far from the city center, but for the price, and the fact that we rented a car, it works perfectly for Laura and I! So after peeling myself out of bed around noon, we walked down to enjoy the Bay Harbor Market. There were tons of unique stalls and interesting goods to buy and SO MUCH FOOD! We walked by the food stalls at least 3 times trying to decide what to get! Finally settled with some sandwiches and beers! We came home to relax and I promptly took a 2-hour nap before we decided to head on down to the local pub- Woodcutter’s arm for some beer and food. See a trend yet?

(Nelson Mandela)

Monday:

Monday was relaxing. Laura and I splurged and went to afternoon tea at the Belmond Mount Nelson Hotel. Here, we were treated to a plethora of mini sandwiches, scones, South African MCC sparkling wine, desserts, and yes- tea. After a filling two hours of eating and drinking, we walked off our stupor in Company’s Gardens. These gardens are huge and lovely, and have so many twists and turns, that it was confusing sometimes! Afterwards, we headed home and stopped to watch the sunset at one of many cliff sides.

(Tea and Scones!)

Tuesday:

Excursion Day! (aka “let’s do every physically draining activity possible” day!)

We started the morning off by hiking Lion’s Head Peak. This climb takes 45 minutes according to the guidebook, but took us nearly and hour and a half due to the fact that it was soooooo crowded. It started off as a nice wrap-around walk, then quickly turned into a sheer scramble up the rocks. There are a few ladders aiding you when the rocks get too steep, as well as sets of chains and staples bolted into the rock face so that you can climb up. Going up was fine and it was fun hopping around from rock to rock! Coming back down, well that was more difficult! Laura and I didn’t want to wait around so we just freehanded it down the cliff. Yeah, it was terrifying and hard to find purchase sometimes, but hey! We both made it down safely! After our extended hike, we headed down to the Promenade and grabbed some lunch before checking out the beaches at Clifton Bay. Then we headed to meet up with our sea-kayaking group for a 2-hour adventure in hopes of seeing some seals, whales or dolphins, and penguins! It was mostly me paddling while Laura admired the one penguin and seal we saw. Nonetheless, it was really cool being in a sea kayak and learning how to steer and navigate the waves! After exiting the frigid water, we headed to a nearby restaurant called La Perla and stuffed our faces with pasta and wine!

(On top of Lion's Head overlooking the ocean)

Wednesday:

SLEEEEEP! Finally I got the chance to sleep in a bit (much needed after Tuesday’s excursions), and we started the day with a visit to the beach! We went to Llandudno Beach, which neighbors the “unofficial” nudist beach of Cape Town. After spending a considerable amount of time there, getting sandy, soaking up some sun, and cutting up my hand on some rocks, we were off to the Waterfront, one of the most popular Cape Town destinations! So imagine your hometown mall. Got it? Now times it by a THOUSAND! This area was so large and confusing, we got lost a few times! You’ve got the main mall area- which is so huge in itself and has every store you could ever think of… (even a Cinnabon!), and then there’s the Watershed next door- which hosts local artesian, goods, and stalls of all sorts, and then there’s the outside attractions- like boats, boats, boats and a Ferris wheel and a ton of food places! Overall, huge. After checking everything out, getting some gifts and souvenirs we went to The Baia seafood restaurant for dinner. Delicious. No other word for it.

So that’s a low down of the past few days. Since Laura and I are doing so much, I figured it would be easier to do a couple of Cape Town posts instead of just one super-dooper long one. So enjoy and TTYL!

(Sunset over the Cape)