Safari

Cape Town is the biggest city that we've visited since I joined in Bali.  There is so much to do and see here that I had to make a special effort to get out of the city and see a little more of South Africa.  As always there were too many options and not enough time or money to do all the things I wanted to do. If one could afford to one could easily spend several months in Cape Town and the surrounding area without running out of new things to see and do.  One of my new shipmates, Norma, from Sweden, and I decided to do a 2 day safari at a private game reserve.  The place is called Aquila Game Reserve. They are about a 2 hour drive North-east of Cape Town and both the drive there and the game reserve itself were great.  The prince for the safari included pickup at the V&A Waterfront near the ship, meals, lodging and 2 game drives on the reserve.  The captain and his family happened to have scheduled the same safari and Norma and I so had them for company on the road.  It also happened to be Tammy's birthday as well, which we celebrated at dinner.

Aquila Safari is at point B.  We passed through some mountains and the valleys around them were filled with vineyards.  South Africa is wine country.

The halfway point snack stop.  The area reminded me of Southern California, just outside of Death Valley.

The vineyards started very shortly after we left the service station and the entire valley was full of vineyards, except for a few small orchards.  Some of the vineyards appeared to try and provide decent housing for their workers but many of the vineyards had shanty townships on them.  Small corrugated metal shacks crowded together in some dried out little bowl that must not have been suitable for grapes.

In some areas the grapes were heavy on the vines.  It appeared that they have sections that ripen in a cycle so the entire vineyard doesn't have to be picked at once.

They went on for miles.  We must have driven for 30 or 40 minutes with vineyards on both sides of the highway the entire way.

We're there!  It's funny how long a 2 hour drive in a van feels after spending a couple of months at sea.

This is the back of the main lodge.  There is some new construction on the left side but I didn't ask what they were adding.  The whole wall of windows is the dining room.  All the meals were buffet style and they were very good.  There is a large salt water pool just outside the dining room.

Swim up bar on this end and an infinity edge on the other end, looking out over the reserve.

The luxury accommodations, adjacent to the lounge building.

Inside the lounge.  There was a bar and several comfortable seating areas with fire places and TVs.  Then the back side of this building was a huge kids play area, indoor and outdoor.

This pond was beyond the end of the pool and the bungalows were beyond the pond.  There was a fence between the main grounds and the pond because the pond was within the preserve grounds.

This was our bungalows.  They were little duplex units with their own patios and each had a small fireplace.  Firewood was provided but we didn't have a fire.  The rounded section was the shower.

The accommodations were very nice.

I used the shower but I didn't try out the lovely bathtub.

Yes, there were also animals. I was a little disappointed to learn that the big cats are kept separated from the other animals.  They have their own large enclosure but they don't really hunt for their food, they're fed by the reserve and they're pretty used to people and the safari vehicles being around.  The reserve is over 18,000 acres of hilly scrub and offers safaris by horseback, quad runner or by truck, which was what we did.  Nate did the horseback safari and said he enjoyed it a lot.  He also said the countryside reminded him of his home in Wyoming.

So, without a lot of commentary from me, here are some animals:

Springbok

Wildebeests, the young one is onely 4 weeks old.

Youngish male White Rhino.  It looked like he was going to charge the truck we were in so we had to move away a little.

Female White Rhino.  Females have longer horns.

The young zebras were about 4 months old.  The zebras and rhinos were all herded together.

The other truck got closer than we did.  No windows or even walls on the trucks but the lions just ignored us.  They appeared to be pretty well fed.

Kudu.  I can personally testify that Kudu, Springbok and Ostrich are all delicious with Ostrich being the best and most tender of them all.

Aquila has an Animal Rehabilitation Center (ARC) where they were rehabilitating a pair of cheetah that were found nearly starved.  They said they did not expect to be able to release them back into the wild.

Cape Buffalo

These guys were about 40 yards from the pool on the day we left.  I didn't get to taste Cape Buffalo.

Yep, I was a bit surprised myself.  This was the biggest rabbit I have ever seen.

They also have a leopard on the reserve, though we didn't see it.  It isn't contained with the lions and so hunts for his food and we did see some of his handy work. It had killed a springbok the night we were there and we found the carcase.  One hind quarter had been eaten and the rest was just left laying. My guess is that it knows there are no other predators looking to steal the kill so it can go back whenever it wants to eat more. All in all the safari was a great experience and I'm very happy I did it, even though it was a little over budget, how can you come to Africa and not go looking for animals?

Robben Island

I took a tour to Robben Island where Nelson Mandela spent 18 of the 27 years he was imprisoned as a political prisoner.  It is a must see when you're in Cape Town and it is a very popular tour.  I had to purchase my ticket several days in advance.  One of the really interesting things about the museum is that the tour guides are all either former political prisoners or former guards.  They, the individuals, seem to have been able to reconcile and move past their shared histories; however, I believe it would be an overstatement to say the South Africa has done so.

They're moving in the right direction but they have a ways to go.  There is a shocking disparity of wealth here still and, while you see blacks that seem to have moved into the middle class, the vast majority are still very poor and living in shanty towns, called Townships.  Many of the townships are not really official towns so the government doesn't put any infrastructure in place.  They are crowded, hungry and dangerous places.  Oddly, one can take organized township tours.  The one that I am specifically aware of is ran by a resident of the township and all of the proceeds stay in the township, which are both good things; however, I can't wrap my head around taking a tour of the site of people's misery, as if it were some kind of zoo, so I have not toured one.  We were clearly warned not to go into one without a tour as we would not be safe.  Crime is pretty high here and tourists are prime targets if they are in the wrong place after dark.  Of course, crime and extreme poverty seem to go hand in hand, especially in a big city.  I must admit, I look around here, and I'm afraid I see the future of America if our politicians are allowed to keep helping the rich and ignoring the working people.  It's a scary prospect if you're one of the "have nots".  It's not so scary for the "haves" they seem to be doing very well here.  I've never seen more BMW's, Audi's and Porches.  (End of political statement)

So, back to Robben Island. 

The island is 11 Kilometers from Cape Town.  We had a nice boat ride out but then, we were going for a tour of an historic place, not going to prison for an unknown amount of time.  We saw seals and penguins on the way. The water is cold, actually colder in summer than in winter because the south-easterly winds push the warmer surface water into the Atlantic and bring colder water up from the Southern Ocean.  This makes for chilly temperatures on the boat ride and on the island itself.

The island is low and windswept.  It has been used for defensive installations during WW2  and has a limestone quarry where the prisoners did their hard labour.

It was hard to get a good picture of the prison's outer wall because it's spread over a large area and not very tall.  This is one of the guard towers, where the tour exits the prison.

The prison wall, with razor wire, left of the tower in the picture above.

The prison had dorm type rooms that held groups of prisoners, similar to an older army barracks, and it had small cells where individual prisoners were also kept.  Our tour guide was a former political prisoner named Sparks.  He was imprisoned there for 7 years and spent most of his time in one of these group bays.  They had one small bathroom for 40 prisoners.  They all showed us a sample of the prisoner's diet, which was segregated.  Black political prisoners were given less food than whites and food of lesser quality.  Breaking almost any rule resulted in solitary confinement, which also meant less food, and or beatings.  The individual cells didn't have toilets so the prisoners were given pails to use, which they emptied every morning before they eat the first of their two meals for the day. If a prisoner forgot to take his pail back to his cell he was given solitary confinement for 24 hours. The prison didn't get window glass in the cell's windows until some time in the late 1980's.

So here is the prison cell where Mandela spent 18 years of his life, for opposing apartheid.  The cell was 3 meters by 4 meters. He slept on a woolen mat on the floor and was given 3 blankets.  If he wanted a pillow or sheet, he had to trade a blanket for each. Unfortunately it is impossible to get a picture but it seemed pretty grim.

It was a sad and moving experience to see the prison.  It is a powerful example of what governments are capable of when they only represent a small portion of the people.  It stands in stark contrast to the incredibly beauty of South Africa and the first world opulence of Cape Town and hopefully stands as a reminder to Cape Townians of how much more needs to be done.

Table Mountain

Table Mountain is a defining feature of Cape Town.  It affects the city's weather and it dictates the shape of the city itself.  Cape Town is squeezed between the sea and the mountain so it's a long narrow city and the mountain irresistibly draws ones eyes to it.

Table Mountain towering a bit over a kilometer over Cape Town.  To the left is Devil's Peak.

There are many hiking paths that take hikers to the top of the mountain.  The day before I went several of my young shipmates hiked up to look around.  I did a quick survey of them the following morning and they all were feeling it in their legs.  I took this as a sign that I might be too old to hike up (I was really looking for a sign) so I took the tram up.

This is the lower tram station.  If you look closely you can see the highest point up there along the mountain top, that tiny little spec is the upper tram station.  The lower station is about 360 meters above sea level and the upper station is about 1060 meters above sea level.

I zoomed in a bit so you can see the upper station better.  If you look about half way between stations you can see on of the gondolas, just below and right of center of this picture.  The gondolas hold about 35 people, if I remember correctly, and the floor rotates a full 360° during the 4 minute ride to the top.  They moved fast and my legs were not that tired when we got up there, although I did have to wait in line for about 45 minutes to buy my ticket for the tram.

Some detailed information about the mountain.

The view that awaits at the top.  The handsome guy with the beard isn't always there the the view is pretty much the same otherwise.  (Note the combed hair!)  The hill on the left is Signal Hill and outside of the shot further left is Lion's Head.  The waterfront is along the right half of the picture and Picton Castle is tied to the wall in the smaller section on the left of the waterfront.

Here is the top station looking down at the lower station.  The high point of rock is Lion's Head, with Signal Hill to the right.  There are trails leading up to the top of Lion's Head but no tram, so I haven't been up there.  The small island above Signal Hill is Robben Island, where Nelson Mandela spent 18 of his 27 years in prison.

This is pretty representative of what the landscape looks like on top of the mountain.  Evidently, ages ago, this was all under water and then Table Mountain was an island.  The rock is pretty smooth and rounded with lots of rounded out hollows that look like tide pools.  Winter brings a lot of rain in South Africa and you can see the effects on the mountain.  They have done an excellent job incorporating trails that go all the say around the top of the mountain without disturbing the natural scene and it is kept very clean.  There were quite a few people up there when I was there but it wasn't over crowded.  There is a lot of room to spread out and it took about 3 hours to walk casually around the entire top of the mountain.

Looking South toward Devil's Peak.  The trails lead here as well but I didn't make the trek over there.  When the Southeaster blows clouds form, first on top of Devil's Peak and then over the length of Table Mountain.  They can blow in quickly and it looks awesome from the ground when it happens but I don't have a picture of it yet.

I zoomed in on the waterfront to see if I could see the ship and, sure enough, she's there.  The large building in the upper center is a super nice hotel and the ship is just to the right of the hotel.  The big white crane is covering the bowsprit but you can see her.  In the water right in front of the hotel are a couple of really big yachts.  All the roofs you can see to the left of the hotel is a huge mall with over 400 shops and 85 restaurants.  The entire waterfront has been reclaimed and is full of shops and museums.  It's really lovely and always very busy.

Lovely flowers growing in crevices between the rocks.

Saw a lot of these little guys up there as well.

These little guys are Rock Hyraxes, called Rock Dasie here.  There was a whole family of them just a few feet off the path.  They look like the adults weigh in at about 15-20 lbs but you can do your own research here.  Their closest relative in the animal kingdom is the Elephant...really, check the link.

This is what the terrain looked like right on the other side of the rock where the Dasie family was sunning.  They were pretty sure footed, scampering all over the rocks like it was nothing.

A little farther down the path someone had set a cup down so they could take a picture.  This guy saw it and decided he should investigate.  He came up on the path just a few feet in front of us.  The person picked up the cup before the Dasie got there so he climbed up a rock right next to the path and let us take some close-ups.  He drew quite a crowd and started to get a bit nervous so he scampered away.

Moving on toward Devil's Peak.  From the ground and even from the top it looks like there is a saddle between Table Mountain and Devil's Peak but, when you get closer you see there is a gorge between them.  This is looking into the gorge toward the city.  We also saw a lot of these little peach Lilly type flowers.

This is looking the other way toward what would be the back of the mountain.  I couldn't look straight down to the path in the other picture but this gorge is the main hiking trail to the top.  As you can see, there is a long stair and if you turn left you go to Devil's Peak and right leads to the top of Table Mountain.  What looks like a row of mountain tops leading into the distance is called the 12 Apostles (there are actually 17 of them) and then the Atlantic Ocean.

This picture was taken opposite the upper tram station, looking off the back of the mountain along the 12 Apostles.  This whole area is the Table Mountain National Park and is covered with hiking trails.  The views are spectacular with ocean views all almost all the way around Cape Point.

Table Mountain was amazing and one of the highlights of visiting Cape Town.  I highly recommend it be added to your bucket list.  It was recently voted as one of the new 7 wonders of the world and I can't argue with that.

So, I'm running a few days behind with my blogging.  Today I actually just got back from a 2 day safari inland a ways.  Check back soon and I'll tell you all about it!