Grand Africa Cruise - Cape Town

Cruise Day 46

Thursday, November 24, 2022

“We travel not to escape life, but for life not to escape us.”  -- Anonymous

Happy Thanksgiving from South Africa.  This is our second Thanksgiving away from home; the first time was on the island of Sardinia in Italy a few years ago.

We have an all day tour of Cape Town today that meets in front of the terminal building at 8:15.  We woke up at 7:00 to overcast skies and it had rained during the night so the weather didn’t look too promising, but the prediction was for clearing later in the day so we hoped the prediction would be correct.

It had rained during the night and it was overcast when we woke up, but the patch of blue sky gave us hope.

Today’s Cape Town Tour was originally organized by Cruise Critic Roll Call member Patrice back in 2019 who had also organized the first iteration of our safari at the same time.  Since Patrice is not on this cruise, Susan, who led our overnight Petra tour, stepped in and is leading this one also.  The tour company is Tourism That Cares, the same company that took care of our safari.

We were off the ship and through the terminal before 8:15 and checked in with Susan and found our bus that would be our transportation for the day.  It was a large, modern bus and there were only 24 of us so we had plenty of room to spread out.  There were patches of blue sky, so it looked like the weather was going to be good to us.

Because of the shortened day, we thought they might cancel the dinner that was scheduled at the end of the tour, but they just moved it up and shortened the length of it.  It looks like they are going to get the full itinerary in by shortening the stops, which will rush things a bit, but will be fine.

We drove south out of Cape Town metropolitan area to Hout Bay Harbour.  Hout Bay is an active fishing town and is quite picturesque, but the main attraction seemed to be the booths set up by the local vendors selling their wares.  They had many interesting things, and we made some purchases to take home with us.

Hout Bay Harbor is an active fishing village.

The main attraction, though, seemed to be the booths with vendors selling their craft work.

Val is happy with the carved bowl she found.

After Hout Bay we continued south on Chapman’s Peak Drive.  Chapman’s Peak Drive along the Atlantic Coast between Hout Bay and Noordhoek on the Cape Peninsula is one of the most spectacular marine drives in the world.  It certainly lived up to its reputation and was a beautiful drive.  We made several stops along the way to view the scenery and take some pictures.

Some of the views from Chapman Peak Drive.

A view of Hout Bay.

I didn't know exactly what this was for until I saw people standing behind it getting their pictures taken.

Val found some interesting wire figurines this man was selling at one of our stops.

This part of the drive had a snow shed like structure that kept falling rocks off the road.

Our next stop was Cape of Good Hope Nature Preserve.  Our first stop was Cape Point that offered great views of the coastline.  There was a funicular that took us up to where you could look out and down at Cape Point itself.  The Cape Point Lighthouse is there and you can walk up to it so I did that, but it meant climbing many stairs, so Val opted to stay below and walk around and explore the area.

We take the funicular to the top.

After arriving by funicular, you could climb the stairs up to the lighthouse.  I decided to make the climb while Val stayed below to explore that area.  (That is not me in the picture.)

These are some pictures Val took while I was making my way up to the lighthouse.

This is what I found at the top ...

along with some beautiful views.

We met back at the viewpoint and checked out the shops as I was looking for a t-shirt to add to my collection.  We took the funicular back down and looked around a bit until it was time to get back on the bus.  Unfortunately, one couple didn’t get the departure time right and we sat around for quite a while waiting for them.  Our guide finally went looking for them and while he was gone, they finally came back to the bus so then we had to wait for the guide.  Today was a bad day to have a long delay as the schedule is very tight.

Our next stop was the Cape of Good Hope.  I (and many others) always thought that the Cape of Good Hope was the southernmost point on the African continent, but that was not true.  The southernmost point in Africa is actually 90 miles southeast of the Cape of Good Hope.  When sailing south along the African coast, the Cape of Good Hope is the point where you turn in a more eastward direction.  For more information on the Cape of Good Hope, here is a Wikipedia link.

There was a sign there signifying you were at the Cape of Good Hope that included the latitude / longitude and that it was the most south-western point in Africa.  It was very popular to get your picture taken standing behind the sign so there was a line to wait in.  Val and I also wanted a picture, but we waited until the line was almost gone to get ours taken.  The area was also quite scenic, so we did spend some time taking pictures while waiting.

It was time to leave the park and we started the drive out, but along the way we came to a group of baboons along the road, so we stopped and took pictures and watched them from the bus windows.  Here are some of our pictures, but the quality is poor because of shooting through the bus windows and the bus was moving at times.

By this time, it was mid-afternoon, and time for lunch.  We drove up the western side of the Cape Peninsula through the historic Simon’s Town and on to Noordhoek for lunch at the Foodbarn.  The name didn’t make me think we were going to have a great lunch, but I was very wrong, we had a great lunch.  It was a full, three course meal with several different options for each course.  It was quite delicious, and we really enjoyed our lunch, but wondered how hungry we would be for dinner as it was already 3:30.

We drove back through Simon’s Town to Boulder Beach where there was colony of African penguins.  The penguins at Boulder Beach originally lived on Dyer Island, but because of commercial fishing, pollution and habitat destruction, the population of over one and a half million penguins in 1910 was reduce to two breeding pairs in 1982.  In 1983 they were relocated to Boulder Beach on False Bay where they are protected.  Because of this effort, the population has grown to over 3,000 in recent years.

It was a bit of a long, steep walk down to the beach area and many were commenting that they weren’t looking forward to the walk back up.  The area is a park with restricted entry as the penguins are protected, and after we got in and saw the penguins, the walk was worth it.  There was a raised boardwalk that got us very near the penguins and we were warned that they might bite so not to reach out to them.  We took many pictures and enjoyed watching them, this was the first time that Val and I had seen penguins in their natural habitat.

When it was time to return to the bus, we found out that it had been moved and we didn’t have to walk back up the hill, although we did have a pretty long walk, but on level ground.  Back on the bus, we started our drive back to Cape Town to the restaurant for dinner.  It was a long drive that took us through several different areas including some upscale areas and also an ecological area exclusively inhabited by artists.  It was an interesting drive and allowed us to see different aspects of life in and around Cape Town.

We arrived at the Gold Restaurant which was quite close to the port and were seated in an area reserved for us and another tour from the ship.  Each seat had an African drum on it and after we were all seated, we were given a lesson in traditional drumming learning different rhythms and in the end we put them all together into a whole drumming sequence.  It was fun, but I have to say my hands were sore by the time we finished.

We are being instructed on how to do traditional African drumming.

After our drumming it was time for dinner.  We were served many different dishes that were served on large plates for sharing.  It was traditional African food and to be honest, I couldn’t even tell you what one of them was as the names were not familiar at all.  I did get a copy of the menu from the Gold Restaurant so if you are interested, I have included it below.  

During the dinner we were entertained by drummers and dancers going up and down the aisles behind us.  I didn’t like everything we were served, but most of it was very good.  Unfortunately, as expected, we really weren’t very hungry and didn’t enjoy our dinner as much as we could have if we had been able to the original schedule.

After dinner, ladies came around and painted African designs on our faces.

Our stay at the restaurant was cut short because of having to be at the ship before 8:30 so after finishing our meal, it was back to the bus.  Gold Restaurant is quite large and looks like it caters mostly to tourists wanting to get a taste of authentic traditional African food and entertainment.  We really enjoyed it and had a great time but did wish we weren’t still full from our late lunch.

We were dropped off in front of the terminal around eight and after going through security, we headed into the customs check area to get our passports stamped.  We once again wondered whether we would have to go through a longer process because we arrived in South Africa via Mozambique instead of the ship, but we sailed right through without a problem.  Since there were so many people who got off the ship in Mozambique for a safari it was probably no big deal.

We were back on the ship and in our room just before nine and after settling in and relaxing a bit, we went to bed early, it had been a very busy six days since Maputo.  Tomorrow is a sea day, and we are really looking forward to it.  Despite being worn out, the last six days have been the highlight of the trip with our safari being an incredible experience for us.