Well I was only waiting to come to South Africa for about 15 years, since as long as I can remember I have had a fascination for Africa, and especially wanted to have the opportunity to check out South Africa. After having a great opportunity to work and live in Malawi, I could scoot down to see what SA has to offer. But of course before you can get something great, there is usually a hard time that has to come before it.
Unfortunately, our fiasco was on the Intercape Bus that left from Windhoek in Namibia and came all the way down to Cape Town. We were supposed to leave at 5:30pm on a Monday and get there at 3:00pm on Tuesday. Well just to start off with, we didn't manage to get into Cape Town until afte 4:00am on Wednesday morning, with a total Intercape experience of close to 40hrs. Our bus broke down outside Keetmanshoop in Namibia and we were stranded in the Namibian desert for over 12 hrs. They sent a new bus from Upington in South Africa that met us where we were stranded. We got on that bus and went about 5km before the fan belt of that bus broke. Causing another layover in the desert. At this point they were sending a bus from Cape Town which was over 12 hrs away, so people on the bus started to get pretty antsy. What the bus driver decided to do was fix the fan belt, and only use a couple of the gears, making the top speed of the bus 60km an hour.
People were irate and hungry so the company ended up buying us lunch and dinner at Wimpy's. Easily the most disgusting fast food burgers I have ever had in my life. You couldn't pay me a million dollars to eat there again. We also managed to get a free night's stay in Cape Town at the Carnival Backpackers for the wednesday night. But now starts the fun part.
We had finally made it to Cape Town and we wanted to get in as much as possible, so Tracey and I woke up bright and early around 8:30am on Wednesday and bought a two day ticket on the city sightseeing bus that took us all around the city to check out some of the places that we would like to go during our stay. The first day we took the Red Bus Line which was pretty much a city tour just taking you to the beaches, showing you the bottom of the Table Mountain climb, where there is a Cable Car (or Gondola for us Canadians) that took you to the top. We also got a free night tour with our two day ticket so that night we ran to the bus, almost missing it by literally a minute, and it took us up to signal hill to watch the sunset.
After that tour we decided to go check out another backpackers than the one we were staying at. We moved from the Carnival Court to the Cat and Moose which is at the end of Long street where all the parties are, but it's enough out of the way that the drunken fools won't keep you up all night. Anyway, we had heard about a cool spot called the Longstreet Backpackers and we went in to see what all the hype was about. It lived up to the standard for sure. We only had to buy one beer and start talking to all the people who worked there before the drinks starting flowing....fast and free! We got on a good tear that night and it was only a Wednesday. That night we checked out some of the bars on the street too. The Dubliner had some good live music, Jo'Burg had the dancing and I can't even remember the other bar we went to, but we weren't in bed until after 4am. We almost regretted that late night decision the next morning when we woke up and realized we had paid for the two day bus ticket and had to go check out the Blue Line Route. Little did we know it was going to take us to wineries where it was 30 Rand (about 3 dollars) to try 5 different wines. So we mended our hangovers with some delicious red wines. Well Tracey tried a few whites, but I'm a red wine kinda girl.
That night we just wanted to hang out, so we didn't really party too hard because the next day we climbed Table Mountain. Man was that a feat. We both didn't realize that it was going to be as intense as it was. Not only were we so impressed that we made it, but after 2 and a half hours of pretty much walking up natural staircases, we realized we took the hard route. You could actually walk on the road to get to the beginning of the gorge, but we didn't know that and trecked the whole gorge like terrain from the bottom. But that's ok, it made us feel even better at the top. We didn't really get great views from the top because we were in the clouds and it was freezing, but we had a nice coffee before shelling out over a hundred rand to take the cable car down. There was no way we were doing that climb backwards when we didn't have to! The climb took a lot out of us, so we didn't do much that night either.
The next day we walked around and ate some delicious Thai food and had a Thai massage which was great, gave a good relaxing afternoon before visiting the Longstreet Backpackers to pretty much have another night as good as the first, with the drinks flowing fast and free!
While we were hung over the next day we went to check out the beaches of Clifton Hill basking in the sun and actually went into the Atlantic Ocean when the temperature was about 14 degrees Celsius. That was cooold!!!
Our last big tour in Cape Town was the Cape Point Baz Bus tour where we got to got to Hout Bay, Simon's Town, Cape of Good Hope and did some biking through a National Park. Simon's Town was super cool to and see the African Penguins. There were so awkward and cute and we go to get super close to them. I hadn't been on a bike since Ryan and I had our fiasco in the Gilli Islands in Indonesia, so I was a bit nervous, but it was actually super fun and we only had to ride about 6km so it was very leisurely. The picnic lunch was great and it was cool to go to the most South Western part of Africa. The views are spectacular from the mountains, watching the waves smack into the rocks and looking out into the vast Atlantic Ocean. We even got to go to the spot where the Atlantic Ocean ends and the Indian Ocean begins. I get the understanding of the wine company Two Oceans from South Africa now. I mean it makes sense, but I never thought that much into it.
We did a lot of walking in Cape Town and a lot of drinking. On our last night we actually met up with one of my friends from High School, Claire Gemmill who is actually living in Cape Town volunteering. She met us at the Dubliner before going to The Waiting Room to watch some local bands. It was a really nice and relaxing last night and a great chance to catch up with an old friend.
We were on the bus the next morning by 8 o'clock, making our way to Mossel Bay where I am actually writing this blog. Mossel Bay has been great to us, with some good stories to come. I'm just killing time before we skip over to Wilderness to see the next stop on our journey.
Cheers from the South,
Em J
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