Highs and Lows in Cape Town
Trip dates: April 6, 2017 - April 12, 2017
Warning - this post is super long; no tl;dr, suck it up!
[Eric note on 4/8/18 - I had started this blog about 9 months ago and am just getting around to finishing it now. Yikes!]
Regarding the blog title - the highs we had in Cape Town were really great: the scenery is amazing and the food is superb and hard to find anywhere else in the world. However, it also had our biggest low of the trip, which I'll cover at the bottom of the post. If you keep up with us on Facebook at all, you know what I'm talking about.
We landed in the afternoon in Cape Town and took an Uber to our Airbnb near the V&A Waterfront (named after Queen Victoria by her second son, Prince Alfred, who visited the Cape in the mid 1800s). We stayed kind of in between the waterfront and the CBD (Central Business District), since it was a pretty good price and seemed convenient enough to Uber around.
Lishan had visited Cape Town a few years ago and stayed in the same area, so we felt it should be safe. While it was fairly innocuous, all of the apartments in the area had full time security guards. The immediate area didn't seem bad and we ended up walking a few times back and forth to the Spar (grocery store) that was only 2 blocks away.
However, our friends were staying at a hotel just a few blocks north of us and they were advised to take a taxi to go to a restaurant a block away, just because there was a dark alley that you had to pass through. So safety was definitely something we were aware of in an abstract sort of way.
We visited the waterfront often for food and general hanging out. It only took about 10 minutes to uber over and cost $2-3 USD. It is a pretty area, but also full of tourists. If anything, we liked the food hall the most, grabbing snacks there one day and lunch later on. It had a ton of different international cuisines and generally decent food!
Our plan for the first full day was to rent a car and go with our friends to visit Boulders Beach to see the African penguins and then head out to the Cape of Good Hope. It was a beautiful but windy day - the scenery along the drive south from Cape Town to Boulders was absolutely stunning.
Driving wasn't too bad - I had recent left-side driving experience from our trip to NZ the previous year so it didn't take long to remember what to do. The roads were a little tight though and the car was big, so it was a little harrowing at times. There were also lots of pedestrians all around, even on the big, coastal roads, which was a bit odd. When we stopped the car to take pictures, there were people begging or otherwise trying to sell stuff, so we made sure to lock the doors and keep an eye on the car.
When we got to Boulders, you park in this little lot that has a bunch of guys 'helping' that you tip at the end. I think I gave the guy who helped us 50 ZAR (about $4 USD) which is higher than normally suggested, but he did help us fit in a tight spot and kept away other cars who were trying to steal the spot.
You then walk down a small side road for 250 meters or so before you get to the park entrance. As soon as we paid the entrance fee, there were penguins just hanging out at the edge of the pathway! Annnd then you get hit with some penguin stink and funny penguin noises. These guys make noises that sound like donkeys, so not exactly cute (also why they were originally named the jackass penguins).
There are two sets of paths that bring you closer to the penguins - we started on the left fork that is the primary path. One thing we didn't prepare for was the wind! It was blowing stinging sand into our faces, hair, and gear constantly. We tried to do our best to huddle behind other people for protection, given that it was super crowded along the pathway.
It was still cool to check out the big groups of penguins just hanging out at the beach, even if they are stinky, molting, and donkey sounding guys and gals.
After Boulders, we headed further south to go check out the Cape of Good Hope. You actually need to pay a park entrance fee along the way to keep going, but as we got closer to the entrance, the weather got worse and worse. Instead of the beautiful but windy weather we had earlier, it was now cloudy, drizzling, and foggy. When we pulled up to the park entrance, the lady there said it wasn't likely we'd be able to see anything at the Cape, so we just bailed on the plan.
We turned around and grabbed food at Camps Bay, which is a popular little beachy area. Lishan had had some of her favorite calamari ever there the last time she was here, so we gave it a visit! See more food pics below from that meal.
Afterwards, we had enough time to head over to Signal Hill to catch the sunset. It's a popular place to go as evidenced by the packed parking lot when we got there, but I managed to snag a spot.
The next morning when we got up, we checked the weather for the cable car for Table Mountain. It had been closed the previous few days, but it was open today! The line was growing already by 9 AM, so we figured we should grab some food and head out.
After getting some food at Spar, we grabbed an uber and headed over to Table Mountain. Only to get stuck in a huuuuge line of traffic as it was 1) Saturday 2) beautiful weather and 3) first time the cable car is open in the past 6 days or something. We ended up having the uber driver drop us off at the hiking entrance to Platteklip Gorge, which will get you to the top of Table Mountain in about 3 hours. The line for the cable car was at least that much time of standing around in the sun, so we figured a hike would be a better use of the time.
WELL we were not prepared for this hike! The driver made it seem like it wasn't too bad and he did it in like 1.5 hours, but we call BS on that. The hike was mostly in the sun, fairly steep elevation gain over constant switchbacks, and full of people sprawled around on the rocks and in your way. We also ate right at the beginning, which wasn't great for our stomachs as we were making our way up the mountain. We had 1.5 L of water (I think) and it only lasted us 1/2 way up the mountain.
For all the hard work though, the gorge and the scenery really is beautiful. It also makes the top that much more worth it and the drinks we chugged at the top even more delicious.
At the top, we basically wandered around a bit to see the different views as Lishan had been there before and I was just plum tired. However, we did make sure to go re-create a picture that Lishan had from her previous time! The one on the left is from February 2014 and then the one next to it is from our trip. Pretty close, huh?
The expansive views were just amazing from up top. You could clearly see all of the different mountains and the bays below. Plus, there was a nice breeze up top to keep us cool after that arduous climb.
Of course, there was a line to take the cable car back down, but we managed to get in line early-ish and only had a 45 minute wait to get down.
The next day we had pre-planned a "swimming with seals" activity. There are two companies that do it, but basically you go to Hout Bay, put on a thick wetsuit with hood, gloves, snorkel, and flippers, get on a little rubber boat to go into the open water, and get tossed in and go watch the seals!
The water is freeeeezing cold - even though most of you is covered, the shock of the cold water hits you really fast. The day we went also had pretty choppy waves, so it was a bit hard to keep our bearings and stay in control, but it was worth it when we got to see the graceful seals jumping, diving, playing, and jetting around us. There was a large group out with us and many were not very comfortable in the water and kept flailing around, making it hard to see the seals. So we kept off to the side by ourselves to try and catch the seals, utilizing our diving experience to minimize our movements and just check out our surroundings.
We also went to check out the Bo-Kaap area in Cape Town. It used to be known as the "Malay quarter", but honestly it seemed the Malay/Indian/Dutch influence has died down quite a bit. There is still a lot of character and unique architecture in the region though - the colorful houses reminded us a lot of Copenhagen!
Ever since Lishan went to Cape Town a few years back, she has raved about the grilled seafood in Cape Town. I saw pictures but I never really understood what she meant about why it was so good or what was so unique about it. After having been there (ok, Auckland was also similar and very good), now I am 'in the know'.
Basically, the seafood is lightly prepared but mostly seems grilled on a flat top (i.e. calamari is typically crispy on one side and also not as cut up as American style preparations) or just broiled/grilled under some intense heat to get nice crispy bits on the edges of prawns. The fish was prepared in a similar fashion to what you would find elsewhere but it was generally fresh, so that was good too.
We went out to eat with our friends to try all of the seafood we could given our limited timeframe. Here are some of those pictures of delicious seafood! Most of these are located in the V&A Waterfront and in Camps Bay.
Our last night, we decided to go out with a bang and do a famous seafood place in Camps Bay called the Codfather (ha ha ha). They had super legit conveyer belt sushi as appetizers and then you pick your own seafood that they cook up. It was really good and a great ending to our seafood gorging in Cape Town.
Here's the rest of our food pics that I basically classify as "not fancy seafood". This also includes our basic home cooking we did at the tail end of our time in Cape Town, which was a nice break.
So, this all sounds great, seriously get to the point and tell us what the low was!
I'm finishing this part now after starting this post in July 2017 (it's now April 2018). Part of it was because I didn't know how to talk about this section (even after sharing some of it on Facebook), and the other was that we both were starting back up with work and just got crazy busy.
For those loyal readers who follow us on Facebook, you've likely heard our story. Long story short - after our seal adventure in Hout Bay, we ended up being assaulted by two men when we were walking down a short strip of road in the middle of the day in between two crowded, touristy areas. We think they saw us as an opportunistic target: there just happened to be very few people in a small secluded spot at that point in time; we had tech goodies visible on us; it was just the two of us.
We were very fortunate that someone in the local community watch was driving by right after we were attacked, and he was able to scare away our assailants and help get us some medical attention. We were lucky to have no lasting injuries and have none of our things taken from us, and realize how much worse things could've turned out. The effects of this incident are being felt by us still over a year later.
Looking back, we could have been more diligent. As I mentioned earlier, we were cognizant of safety issues and had been taking some basic precautions already. However, on this day, our guard was down because we were in a tourist hot spot that's generally populated and it was the middle of the day. Since this incident, no matter where we are, we are both more diligent about observing our surroundings and the behaviors of those around us.
It's one of those things we had always read about in TripAdvisor horror stories, or heard some stories maybe of acquaintances or friends of friends, but never really imagined it could happen to us. Now, we spread our story to our traveler friends to help them be prepared and be diligent in the hopes that it never happens to them.
Thankfully, we had a few more nights in Cape Town after this. We were able to rest and convalesce in our Airbnb and come to terms with what had happened. This enabled us to accept the previous events and also be as ready as possible for the next leg of our journey to South America. Of course, our next big stop was in Rio de Janiero, where security and personal safety was already something we had been worried about.
We only had about 6 weeks left in our trip at this point. It was also the first time we began to think: it'd be nice to be home. Our safe little world had had a reckoning, but we also were looking forward to South America and the things to come.
Next up: we fly back to Johannesburg for our final stop in Africa, where we visit the Cradle of Humankind and meet our tour organizer who helped set up our travels in Africa.
