A day in Capetown
The ship got to Capetown harbor early Saturday morning. I was awake to watch it sail in and it was just at dawn and very pretty.
We had to get off the ship by 8 and our usual breakfast place on the ship normally opened at 7:30, so I thought we wouldn’t get any. But, they opened at 6:30 so I was very happy we did.
Our flight home isn’t until tonight, Sunday. So, we have about 36 hours in Capetown with no specific plans. I had booked the same hotel near the airport as on our way in, but no more than that.
So, when the cruise ship offered an all day excursion, including lunch, for Saturday, we agreed.
It started by taking us to Table Mountain and up the cable cars to the top. As this was on my wish list anyhow, I was very happy to start with that.
The cable cars are a bit strange as there is a rotation so you get to see all sides as you go up or down. But, it isn’t the car that rotates, it is the floor inside. So, the posts, walls and windows stay in place while you go past them.
This caused some problems with folks holding their cameras, bags, etc as posts would be suddenly there as we rotated around.
My wife was very worried that we had packed our hats and it would be very sunny at the top. As we went up, the car operator said “someone lost a hat, if it is yours I have it.”
My wife thought he said “I have loaner hats if you need one I have one”.
So, she took the hat.
When we were walking around the top, a man came up to her and said “Hey! That’s my hat!”
So, my wife found me as I was looking out and she had no hat. But, I had bought two at the gift shop and gave her one.
Our guide had told us to stick with her and she’d give us a walking tour of the top before we needed to head back down. Then, she got in the line for another car and we didn’t see her again until the specified time to descend.
It was nice at the top. A bit cool with a slight wind, but fine for us used to winter and cold. I bought some things other than hats at the gift store for our godkids. We walked around and look off north, south and west sides. (The east side is quite a walk away and we only had an hour up there.)
At the appointed time, most of us had met by the cable car station. The tour guide was worried that two had strayed to the restaurant which is notoriously slow.
She picked someone whose name she knew from the tour, named Graham, to “be in charge of keeping folks together”.
I told him he won the sheepdog prize as he took this very seriously and made sure we all kept together in a group.
When all of the folks had been gathered, we took the cable car to the bottom.
The bus was not ready. At all. It had parked a few kilometers away in bad traffic.
So, we had to walk to a waiting area. As we did, folks spread out.
“Graham, where should we be going?” I asked. He proceeded to gather folks together on the sidewalk near a tree. We then had a nice discussion with his wife about where in England they’re from, their new home near England, their son with social anxiety and many other things.
We then all got onto the bus and drove back to a shopping mall next to where the ship was docked for lunch. Seemed a lot of unnecessary back and forth across the city to me. I’m sure there were lunch places near the mountain.
But, it turned out to be a very good thing as the mountain caught fire.
The restaurant we were at had us in a big enclosed glass room right by the harbor. We had an excellent view of the mountain across the city from us.
I looked over and saw some smoke near the base.
“Is that a fire near the cable car base?” I asked the person sitting next to me.
“Oh no,” he said. “I’m sure it’s just a factory or something.”
It was not a factory or something. Soon a large area of the mountain was on fire. And, it spread right under the cable car line.
They had to stop the cable cars, close that part of the mountain and rescue the folks up there some other way.
I’m glad we went in the morning instead of after lunch.
But, that did leave us with a quandary. The tour was supposed to go up the hill next to the mountain in the afternoon. All the roads were closed, people were evacuating, helicopters were dropping water all over the place to stop the fire from spreading and generally we all thought we didn’t want to be closer to that than we were.
The tour guide offered the option of a bus tour of downtown including driving by the castle, the cathedral and other sites in the city instead of going near a flaming mountain.
Well, we like castles and cathedrals, so we voted for that.
I am sad we didn’t get out of the bus to see them. We could go over today, but the airport where we are staying is quite a drive away and I’m uncertain of the cabs in the area.
(When a local newspaper has a page dedicated to “Taxi violence”, I have to wonder about if it is the best way to get around…)
It was still an interesting drive. They didn’t shy away from some of the bad history. Outside one building where they processed slaves they had the benches for “whites” and “non whites” still in place as an acknowledgment of how it was.
And, there are some very poor areas around here where it isn’t all that much better than it was.
At the end they brought us to the airport and we got the hotel shuttle bus over to the hotel. We had dinner in the restaurant there and went to bed fairly early.
Tonight we get on the plane back to the US. 16 1/2 hours is the schedule. That will make it, by far, the longest flight we’ve ever taken. The longest so far was about 14 1/2 hours from Qatar to Melbourne back in 2016. My wife is still mad about that one.
We’ll see how this one goes.
Hopefully tomorrow we’ll be back at home and I can finally start sharing photos.