Penguins and Tables…
Thursday, May 24th, 2007I really should just concentrate on one thing at a time, but of course that doesn’t happen…
Anyway, we took the highly efficient commuter train from Stellenbosch to Cape Town. It was pretty much like any commuter train in the states. We arrived at the train station and walked to our next hostel, Zebra Crossing. It was kind of out of town a bit (like every hostel in a major city so far) but nearby groceries and restaurants. We really liked it there though. Really chill and everyone staying there was super nice.
We actually had pretty decent food here (we decided to knock off the self-catering deal a bit because we figured we wouldn’t get chinese/thai food for a while). A long while.
Our first tourist activity was to take the train to Simon’s Town which is south of Capetown going down the Cape of Good Hope. From there we walked a few kilometers to the coolest thing – Penguins! Woohoo! There was this boardwalk type thing with a short fence and you could see tons of penguins nesting and having babies. It’s a good thing we saw Happy Feet on the way over the Atlantic! I’m talking way cute. I know, I know, whatever, it’s a chick thing.
Over the next couple of days we visited Bo-Kaap, the Muslim area (totally kickin’ colored houses – kind of like those row houses in San Francisco), the VA Waterfront – the totally touristy area of Cape Town – and of course, Table Mountain. Which quite literally, looks like a flat table on the top of it. Of course, being the unlucky people that we are, we pick the one day out of our stay there to do it and it’s totally rainy and cold. Oh, and did I mention, windy? I mean, we’re talking oh my gosh I’m going to get blown off this mountain windy. Okay, maybe not, but it felt like it. So we get to the top and see nothing but when we’re coming back down we could see the skyline of the city. It was kind of funny because the whole trip including the hour it took to walk to the trailhead and the hour back was like 5 hrs. We met this girl at the hostel that took 5 hrs one way. I mean granted she said she was out of shape, but she didn’t look too terribly out of shape. But I guess looks can be deceiving.
Anyway, Cape Town was a nice end to our South Africa journey. And we were almost on to our next destination, Namibia! Which coincidentally used to be part of South Africa until like 10 years ago.
JohnCin