Cape Town 0906

Cape Town is like San Francisco in Africa, from the scenery to the diverse population to the food, with great wineries about an hour away!



(Top L) We woke on Wed., Sept. 6th to this ocean view from our room at the Ambassador Hotel, in Cape Town's Bantry Bay. It reminded me of looking across the bow of a ship at harbor. Today we drove down to the end of the Cape Peninsula along its Atlantic coast and back up its Indian Ocean coast. Our first stop, strangely, was an ostrich farm (Above L) that had provided South African fashionistas with a major source of ostrich plumes in the early 1900s. Adrian, Rick, and I took a tour of the farm, and both Rick (Above R) and Adrian got to hold a prickly, squirmy baby ostrich. The beautiful yellow protea bush seen on the farm (Top R) was all along the coast.

			The Atlantic coastal road, part of which was called Chapman Peak Dr. looked as though we were driving SF's old 49-Mile Scenic Drive. (Far L) Rick and Adrian pose at the beach. Many house-lined hills (Center L) could have been along Sea Cliff. This huge rock formation (L) looks like a rhino emerging from the water though it also resembles Seal Rock off SF's Land's End.


At the tip of the Peninsula are the Cape of Good Hope and Cape Point indicated by the signs (Above L), where the Atlantic meets the Indian Ocean. As we parked at the Cape of Good Hope, the police officer said, "You can only leave the car there for 20 minutes because the Russian President is arriving." So we quickly started to climb up Good Hope Peak when the police waved us back down to move the car. (Above L) Rick is the blue (bald-headed) figure heading down the stairs to the parking lot. Eventually Rick climbed to the peak and posed (Above R) with Adrian. Actually Vladimir Putin did arrive at the top of Cape Point (Top R) while we were there. He's at the far right next to the only woman, being followed by his dark-suited security entourage (former KGB buddies?).


Our last stop on the Cape Peninsula's eastern shore was Boulder Penguin Colony, a rocky oasis (Top and Above L) literally embedded in a Cape Town suburb. Though official brochures call them African Penguins, they're commonly known as Jackass Penguins because they communicate by loudly braying like donkeys. Thursday morning was clear not foggy, so we drove to Table Mountain which reigns with supreme views above Cape Town and is reached by tram (Above R). Our walking tour of downtown took us by a wide variety of architecture, including "Cape Dutch," embodied by the National Museum (Top R).


There are Beaux Arts buildings alongside glass and steel ones, including the Standard Bank (Above L). One of the old landmarks is the elegant old Mt. Nelson Hotel (Above R) where we enjoyed a classic High Tea. Then contrasting with the upper crust European sophistication are the crass, shocking headlines in newspapers (Top R) across the city.


The Winelands is a 300 year old wine-growing region about 1 hour over the mountains from Cape Town. We stopped in one of the oldest wineries, Vergelegen (Top & above L) which has won many recent awards for its reds. As typifies this volatile industry worldwide, these wineries are built on previously-accrued fortunes. We had lunch on the veranda overlooking the vines at a 6-year old estate, Tokara (Above & Top R), then tasted and bought 2 bottles of their red wines--that's 2 for 2. .


While the gardens (Top L) may look like a Monet landscape, they are part of the Rustenberg estate, also built in the typical Cape Dutch style (Above L). Our final stop was at South African golf champion Ernie Els' new winery with idyllic views (Above R) seen from a starkly modern set of buildings (Top R). Clearly he enjoys playing with his money as much as golf. We drove back to Cape Town with 7 bottles to look forward to drinking!