Day 15 - Cape Town, South Africa - Cage Diving with Great Whites. And wild ostriches

Day 15 - Cape Town, South Africa

Well, this is it, our last full day.  We were supposed to go on one final epic adventure this morning – cage diving with great white sharks.  Sadly, the storm of the century put a kibosh on those plans and the trip was canceled by the tour company.  Am I glad?  Well, more so because I was worried about how cold the air/water would be and the potential for seasickness given the wind as opposed to the likelihood of getting eaten by a shark.  Although who are we kidding, anyone who has seen the video from last October where the shark accidentally gets IN the cage with the diver would put anyone on some sense of alert.  In any case, the choice was thankfully not mine to make.

The rain/winds were still petering out in the morning so we were not in a rush to get moving – we thought the weather would clear up by 11 or so. Our new plan was to drive to the Cape of Good Hope passing a few interesting spots along the way.  The first town we hit, Muizenberg, was rumored to have some famous colored bathhouses.  I didn’t know they were famous, but since they make such a beautiful backdrop to just about any picture and everyone takes pictures of them, I guess they are famous.  We only knew that they were on a beach in town.  The first beach we hit had a few weather worn colored houses that we mistook for the real thing - we took a few pictures

and then read all  of of shark warnings for the area

Clearly great whites are well known around here.  Despite the weather, maybe a little stroll in the surf will give us that up close and personal shark experience after all…  Continuing along the road, we finally found THE colored bath houses and finally got the "famous" shot. 

Our next step was in a little town called Simon's Town.  Damon didn’t want to waste the day just driving, so we stopped and walked up and down the main street, had some coffee and biscuits, did a little shopping, and kept going.  I’m not one for lollygagging and had a fairly long list of places we were required to hit on our journey.  Damon’s theory – we don’t want to be in such a hurry that we don’t take the time to enjoy things.  My theory – we need to keep going because the next thing might be so much better!  Spoiler, on this particular day, my theory won out.

Our next stop, Boulder’s Beach to see penguins.  Cape Town boasts a very odd colony of African Penguins sort of in the middle of a residential area.  Apparently a few penguins landed on the beach in 1982, and the colony (now protected) has grown to over 3,000 birds.  There are a number of viewing sites and we were able to get pretty close to some – they are fun to watch, especially on days like today where the waves are pretty rough and just knock them around when they are trying to get out of the water.  As this is a very popular tourist spot, our patience level was tried very quickly with busloads of people just crammed together pushing and shoving to take, I kid you not, 12 billion pictures of penguins.  We looked, took some pictures, and left.  I’ll get my real penguin pictures whenever we make it to Antarctica.

Next stop – the Cape of Good Hope.  This was our ultimate destination as it is the southwestern most point of the African continent.  Some people call it the southern tip, but there is actually a slightly more southern point (Cape Agulhas).  Not wanting to lose out, the Cape just changes it to “southwestern” most tip.  Everyone has their thing.  On our way in, the landscape was very flat with light brush – no trees.  We are driving and I saw something moving and just yelled “WILD OSTRICHES!!!”  You don’t hear that one too often.  Sure enough, there were a few wild ostriches on the road next to us.  I’m busy trying to take pictures when one just sort of walks up the road within inches of our car and keeps going. 

The area actually boasts two interesting view points – Cape Point and the Cape of Good Hope. 

We went to Cape Point first and hiked up to the top of a light house for spectacular views of towering cliffs bordering the ocean – there was a Funicular (my new favorite word and possibly the name of our next dog) that was not running due to high winds (A Funicular is a cable car/tram). 

View of the Cape of Good Hope from Cape Point

We ate lunch while fighting off some very aggressive birds and keeping a wary out for baboons.  While Damon was waiting for our lunch order, I sat at our table on the patio and just stared at the cliffs and the ocean and the sky trying to burn a mental picture in my brain to go back to when regular life sets back in.  

The afternoon was flying by and in my desire to hit one more spot on the way home, I hustled us along to the actual Cape of Good Hope, which was only a few minute drive away, we did another short hike to the top of a cliff for more fantastic views and then with the sun on the descent, we moved on.

The last spot I wanted to see on our way home was a notoriously beautiful stretch of Cliff-side highway, similar to California’s Highway 1, called Chapman’s Peak.  Given what I’d read, I thought it would be a stretch of road best driven during the daylight both for safety sake as well as for the view.  We hauled butt to make sure we didn’t miss the sunset, but couldn’t resist stopping to take pictures of the MANY beware of baboons signs that were all along the road. 

We never did come across any baboons in Cape Town…

Chapman’s Peak did not disappoint.  This 7-mile stretch of highway cut through the side of a cliff overlooking the ocean and had unbelievable views for the duration – luckily, there were a few good turnouts where we could stop for pictures so Damon didn't have to sneak peeks while trying to keep us on the road.  

We finally made it back to our apartment just in time to turn around and head out again to meet up with our German friends, Astrid and Sven for our “last supper” at a local brewery where we each had a delicious flight of the local beers, plus apps, steaks, and dessert – and I think the entire bill was under $100 for all four of us.  Seriously.  We bid them farewell, went to finish packing, and sadly, left first thing in the am for our flight home.

Our flight home was a 2 hour flight from Cape Town to Johannesburg with a 4 hour layover; then a 10ish hour flight from Johannesburg to Sao Paolo, Brazil with a six hour layover, and another 12ish hour flight to Chicago.  The six hours in Brazil were pure torture as we had been up for about 20 hours at that point and on our time clock, the layover was from about 10pm-4am.  We had club access but the club was packed and there was no where to relax.  I barely stayed awake until we got on the plane and immediately crashed.  For about 3 hours.  I'm not so good with sleeping on planes, so I gave up and watched like 4 movies on the way home and figured I had two days to catch up before heading back to work.  And that, they say, is all she wrote.  A phenomenal trip by all accounts.

Final thoughts – I think Damon and I agree that this trip bumped to the #1 spot in our list – the people, the sights, the accommodations, the food – everything was just fantastic.  I would highly recommend a safari and some time tooling around South Africa.  We will absolutely go back to experience other African countries, new sights, different terrain, more awesome people, and hopefully spend more time with locals learning about their culture.

Until next time... thanks for reading!

Days 13 & 14 - Table (Mountain) for Four / The Storm of the Century

Day 13 - Cape Town, South Africa

We are no longer on any type of schedule and don’t have anything else official planned.  It is strange to be on our own and not have anyone providing meals for us regularly – time to fend for ourselves!  

Our awesome travel agent (Eyes on Africa) arranged for a rental car to be dropped off at our apartment so we could tool around on our own.  We had also contacted our German friends from the first game reserve (Astrid & Sven) and planned to meet them at a coffee shop before heading to Cape Town's biggest natural landmark, Table Mountain, for a “little hike”.  The four of us crammed into our little Ford Fiesta clown car while Damon took a crash course (almost literally) in driving on the other side of the road. 

We found the main visitor area for Table Mountain where there is a tram that will take you up and down the mountain. 

Hmmm, that path looks straight up...

Our original plan had been to hike up and take the tram down, but due to high winds from a coming storm, the tram was closed so it was going to be a 2-way hike.   We decided to tackle the mountain with water and cameras in hand.  Holy hell was that a hike!

Only half an hour in - still smiling!

Almost 3,600 feet above sea level - it took us nearly 2 hours to get up.  It was not the gradual switchback incline we had anticipated but rather a fairly steep and rocky climb that never freaking ended.

Stopping to catch our breath and enjoy the view 

False Summit :(

Every time we thought we were making progress, we would look up and it just kept going and going and going.  We had the path mostly to ourselves on the way up but the few people who passed us on their way down confirmed the view was worth it.  So we hiked on.

Getting Closer

We finally made it to the top and the view was absolutely worth it – we had full views of all of Cape Town from several different angles. 

Success!

Smoochies

We spent close to an hour on top battling the wind and taking pictures, cooling off and enjoying the view.

Hikers extraordinaire:  Damon, Me, Astrid & Sven

There was a restaurant and gift shop at the top - all closed due to inclement weather (ie. too damn much wind).  And a few critters who had made their home up there - Rock Hyrax, aka "Dassies".

People were starting to intrude on our solitude, so we prepared ourselves for the hike back down.  Not surprisingly, for as steep as the hike up was, it was, well, equally steep going down.  It took us about an hour and a half to get down fully intact with no blown out knees, sprained ankles, etc.  I was feeling pretty good about our level of athleticism until we started seeing locals basically sprinting uphill past us, making it to the top and then lapping us on the way down - jogging down the decline.  When asked, at least one said he runs up and down once a week.  Coming from Illinois, I'm pleased with our time.

We headed back to the Waterfront area for lunch – an eclectic mix of African, Tunisian and Mexican foods that we found at a market area with different stalls.  It was a gorgeous day weather-wise, so we ate outside and then parted ways hoping to catch up with Sven & Astrid before we all fly home in a few days.  Back at our apartment, we just chilled and relaxed before meeting some relatives for dinner. 

My step-mother, Diane, is from Zimbabwe and has many relatives in Cape Town.  We made plans to meet some of her cousins for dinner but unfortunately they had to cancel last minute so instead, we went out with their parents (we've never met any of them before) for a wonderful Italian dinner and great conversation.  Somehow in one day, we went from being the cool old couple to the cool young couple.  Well, at least I think we are cool!   Dinner ended on the early side due to warnings that a HUGE storm was headed our way later in the evening and was likely going to last for a full 36 hours.  We made it home before the storm started, but were woken in the middle of the night by crazy howling winds and the sound of our deck furniture moving around.  Earlier in the day, we received a note under our door warning us that this was going to be one of the worst storms they’ve had in decades and we should probably plan to stay in the following day.  The news was warning businesses to close, all schools were closed, and people were told to stay inside.  Well, let’s see what tomorrow brings.  With only two days left, we are NOT letting some little storm stop us.

The calm before the storm (Table Mountain in distance)

Day 14 – Cape Town, South Africa - The Storm of the Century

We woke up with the big storm still in full force – winds howling and rain coming down.  We refuse to be deterred by a little wind (60mph) and a little rain.  What better way spend a stormy day than to go tour wine country!  We loaded up our little Ford Fiesta with rain gear and water and prayed not to get blown off the road.

Cape Town has two main wine regions – Franschhoek and Stellenbosch.  We decided on Franschhoek since it was closer, and drove to the small town in the middle of a bunch of vineyards.  When we got to town, it seemed eerily deserted and everything appeared to be closed.  We drove the main street a couple times and noticed that a few doors were open, but the stores were dark.  Upon further inspection, we saw that the stores with open doors were actually open for limited business and lit by candles.  In desperate need of coffee, we walked into the lone open bakery and asked what was going on.  We learned that the storm had taken out all of the power for the town, the few stores that decided to open their doors had no electricity. The industrious shop owners offered us coffee or tea (anything that only required boiled water) and cold scones, which we accepted, and dined by candlelight.

We assumed that touring vineyards during a power outage could be risky as the tasting rooms might be closed, so we headed to Stellenbosch to try our luck.  In the town of Stellenbosch, the tourist center was closed – due to the storm – but they had at least left out some vineyard maps.  There are about 100 different vineyards in the area so I asked Damon to pick a number between 1-100 and that was how we chose our first vineyard - Somerbosch.

Go figure - we were the only people in the tasting room, so we had the sommelier all to ourselves.  We talked, we tried some wine, we talked more, we bought some wine, and then we asked for recommendations of other places to try of varying degrees of “fanciness”.  He told us there was a “very low key” place nearby owned by a former professional rugby player that had really good wine, so we headed to that one next. 

Low key was an understatement – an odd assortment of rusted farm equipment as lawn art in the front yard and greetings from a HUGE 6-month old brindle mastiff puppy jumping and slobbering on us. 

Annondale tasting room and our trusty Fiesta

The wind was howling so we went inside to the tasting room/main area, which was a very dark room with two enormous thick wood tables.  Looking around, we saw cobwebs all over the rafters and ceiling, a monster stone fireplace on one end of the room with a 200lb (easy) adult mastiff laying under the hearth.  There was one lone guy with his feet kicked up on the table, a bottle by his side and a glass in his hand.  He said his “mate” would be back in a minute and we should just hang. 

Eventually, the mate returned and as it was just us (a common theme for the day), the sommelier and his friend broke out a bunch of different wines, not all of which were on the official tasting menu, we all just tasted wine & talked for about an hour.  The wine, by the way, was quite delicious.  We learned that this place, Annandale Wines, had made the wine for a recent royal wedding (Monaco’s Albert and Charlene) and we saw one of the bottles (they kept a few for display and bragging rights).  We talked wine, weather, politics, apartheid and dogs (enter the puppy carrying a dead bird into the tasting room to present to us as a gift) before buying a few more bottles, and continuing on our way.

Peek of blue sky between rain and wind

We had lunch at a fancy vineyard and made two more tasting stops at Rust en Vrede & Uva Mira (much more upscale – good wine, but no good stories).  We were still the only people at any of the tasting rooms with one exception of 4 ladies in their 70’s, who also thought it would be a good idea to drive around tasting wine during the storm of the century.  Go ladies!  The sommelier at Uva Mira was so excited to see us as we were their first visitors all day (it was almost 4pm).  Sooo, we bought a few more bottles of wine before moving on.

The scenery was spectacular even with the bad weather.  I can only imagine what it must look like with a blue sky.  With 7 bottles of wine in tow, we headed back to our apartment – Damon in good shape, and me, well, a little drunk.  Given the crazy wind and rains, we did not want to push our luck and opted to stay in and eat leftovers and watch a movie.  Side note - every place that we went referred to the storm as "the storm of the century" or "the worst storm Cape Town has seen in 30 years" and I don't want to make light of it as we later found out that 8 people died, roads were closed, and there was massive flooding in the coastal areas.  Luckily, the vineyards were inland and we never felt in danger.  Just a little wet.

Storm clouds

Rainbow over vineyards during storm

With every wonderful day we have, there is always some jolt of reality thrown in.  On the drive back to our apartment, I noticed small patches of shanty towns along the side of the highway.  They were built during the apartheid era government to segregate people by color and ethnic origin.  I am again reminded how lucky I am to have been born in the US and hope that I never fail to appreciate what I have been given. 

Stock photo of what we saw from the M2

As we drove, the shanty towns got bigger and bigger and eventually just lined both sides of the road as far as the eye could see for miles.  I later learned that the area we saw is called Khayelitsha Township and is Africa's largest shanty area.

Days 11 & Day 12 - Victoria Falls, Zimbabwe & Cape Town, South Africa - Where's Damon? & The Elephant Killers

Day 11 – Ilala Lodge, Victoria Falls

7:15am pick up for today’s single activity – white water rafting the Zambezi.  I have done my share of rafting in life - West Virginia, Alaska, Costa Rica, Montana, Tennessee, Colorado... Class IV & Class V rapids on multiple occasions; and I have had some pretty good non-voluntary swimming moments.  But rafting the Zambezi has always been the big one - not only because of the reputed Class V rapids, but also because the Zambezi is well known for hippos and crocodiles.  The possibility of getting eaten adds a new layer of motivation for staying in the raft.  All of that being said, I started the day with some trepidation.   

Our rafting group - 9 of us - met at a lookout point to learn safety tips and check out the falls/gorge from yet another amazing viewpoint before driving to the river entry point. 

I’ve been rafting enough to know the general safety tips, but we did have an added section on crocodiles and hippos as I'm guessing I'm not the only one to have concerns.  Nice.  They told us that Zambezi crocodiles are vegetarian, so we would be okay.  Ha Ha  Really, they said the crocs do not hang out in the rapids so we only had to worry about still pools, and to date, no guests have been eaten.  Good to know.  Still did not make me feel much better about swimming.  And as for hippos - they hang out in shallower water and the rafting section was too deep for them.  

When the truck dropped us off, we had been warned that there was a 750ft descent into the canyon to get to the river and we were told that it was “strenuous”, but holy hell – it was not for the faint of heart!  Again, U.S. safety standards definitely do not apply in Africa.  We hiked/climbed down the side of the canyon on a “path” that at best had huge loose rocks and at worst had rickety ladders made of odd-sized tree branches, held together with wire and protruding metal rods, while locals literally ran by us barefoot carrying everything we would need down at the bottom – including rafts, pumps, etc.  This was definitely a one slip and you were taking out everyone below you kind of hike.  There were times we lost sight of our group and had no idea where the “path” even was.  But, so long as we kept going down, we figured we’d be okay.  Interestingly, they had us all put our cameras into a dry bag before the descent, so no proof of this trek is available. 

At the bottom of the canyon, we came across 20-30 people, some kayaks, and a few rafts balancing on one big flat rock waiting to launch into the eddy of a little cove.  We hopped in our rafts – we were with an American dad/daughter duo and an Australian lady, plus our guide and two other porters training to be guides.  I think our guide may have been blind in one eye, but he never mentioned it and I didn't ask.  

Damon is very excited to get going

We did our paddling tutorial, jumped out for some photo ops and learned how to get back in the boat if we fell out (bad sign) and headed for the rapids of the mighty Zambezi. 

Clearly I'm the only one who listened to our
guide when he said "everyone out"

Eventually they all paid attention

All in all, a great day – all class 4 & 5 rapids and since the river was really high, I think we probably had it a little easier than when the river is lower.  We skipped the one class 6 rapid (thank you, as that is not commercially legal) and portaged (walked) around it while our guides took the rafts through the rapids and past the dual whirlpools.  

Hey photog - look how happy we are!

A portage in Africa is not a nice well-worn obvious path – it is climbing up, around and over rocks, clinging to the walls of rock ledges, and making your way to some point that you cannot see – all while wearing wet slippery shoes,  a life jacket and helmet and carrying a paddle.  Again, not exactly U.S. safety.  The portage seemed to be about a half a mile of this craziness and then we got back in the rafts and carried on.  

Whew - got by that one safely...

During one especially hairy rapid, I saw Damon fly by me in slow motion, land on the dad in front of me and the two of them went over.  I dove for the middle of the raft – no way was I going in.  We lost 3 people on that rapid but quickly got them back in the raft.  

Uh oh

Going 

Going

Going (those would be Damon's feet)

Still going...

aaaand... Gone.

That was our only carnage the whole day – I’ve certainly been on worse, but for as much fun as “swimming” is, those crocs are out there somewhere!  That being said, we were given the “okay” to jump out for a few tamer rapids while hanging onto the safety rope – so we did.   Crocs be damned.

We finished the rapids and left the rafts, momentarily forgetting the 750ft climb back out of the gorge.  If the way in was bad, the way out was worse.  I kept my helmet and life jacket on.  Better to have some cushion when I went down.  Again, we hand and foot climbed up stumps and rocks and tree branch ladders (while the porters ran by us barefoot carrying the gear back up).  The tour ended with a big lunch – salads, pasta and several kinds of skewered meats and vegetables and then a very long and bumpy ride back to the hotels in an open ex-military Russian truck with no shocks - guests, guides and porters all crammed in shoulder to shoulder.

Most of the way back was on dirt and gravel roads.  I thought it was an access road but eventually realized that it is a “main” road that goes through a number of small villages.  Every few hundred feet, we would see a small cluster of buildings – little round clay buildings with thatch roofs.  Most of them had some sort of garden, field or stable attached.  I’m guessing these are all extended family plots that together make up a village of some size. 

Typical structure for the area, Vic Falls mist in the background

There were no other cars on the road but we saw a number of people walking.  Where they were going, I have no idea as there was nothing that we could see anywhere.  The kids loved waiving at us as we went by.  A few of our porters, who had hitched a ride in the truck, jumped out along the way, so I’m guessing they lived somewhere in the village.

We got back to our hotel around 3pm and basically did nothing the rest of the afternoon/night except nap and go for dinner.

This beer cost $2 but had a label stating a MSRP of $1.
Hmmmm.  

We stopped for desert at a pizza place and ate a nutella pizza.  Use your imagination - it did not suck.  The restaurant also had a cool sign:

Our last night in Vic Falls :( 

We’ve gotten much better at shutting down the vendors who just swarm the second we leave our hotel property.  We tried “no thank you”, we tried ”no Ingles”, we tried ignoring them.  Eventually we just got firm and told them to stop following us and that seemed to work better.  Although one guy offered us a 1 trillion dollar bill for 1 US dollar and I was very tempted…

Day 12 - Travel Day - Zimbabwe to Cape Town, South Africa

No activity and no pictures today; however, some interesting things happened on our flights to Cape Town that give me the opportunity to discuss the topic of big game hunters and how they are viewed by the safari rangers (guides).  Warning: a little bit of soap-box here.

Our entire day was spent traveling from Victoria Falls to Cape Town for the last (sob) leg of our trip.  We had a nice relaxing morning as our airport transfer was not scheduled until 10:30 am for our 12:30 flight.  I would like to say that I slept in, but given how early we tend to rise, we are now on an early routine.  Regardless, we had a leisurely breakfast, packed, sat on our deck and enjoyed the last few minutes of Vic Falls mist and headed out.    

Sunrise Mist

Sun up Mist

It only took us a few minutes to get to the new Zimbabwe airport where we realized our flight was at 1:30 and not 12:30 – we had a lot of time to kill and not much going on in the airport.  We found the lone power outlet by our gate, near a reclined teenager, and settled in.  I went to wander the empty airport (brand new terminal, only 6 flights per day) and immediately bumped into Jon and Sydney from our rafting trip yesterday – ironically, the teenager we had settled in with at the gate was the other daughter.  We chatted until it was time to board our plane and bid a fond farewell to Victoria Falls.  The flight was rather uneventful until we landed and were walking through the airport, and I realized Damon was all agitated about something.

He explained that during our flight to Johannesburg, he had been reading email messages over the shoulder of the couple in front of us (we did not like them because one of them reclined in economy - total flying faux pas).  Having one seat back and one seat forward gave Damon a perfect view of the man's cell phone.  We knew the couple had just gotten married as we watched the woman wad her wedding dress into the overhead bin.  

Damon finally got out that he had read that the couple was on an elephant hunting safari with the two of them and both sets of parents.  The husband was writing to the safari company complaining that he had just spent over $30,000 on their elephant murdering, sorry, "hunting" safari and they had never killed an elephant and he was very disappointed.  He went on to rant about the quality of the food and vehicles they had and reminded the company that he had already spent over $100,000 with them in the past successfully murdering, sorry "hunting" other big game.  Now we understand that there are people who get a thrill from hunting, and to a certain extent, I can understand when the meat is used for food, but to me, hunting elephants or lions or any of the big game out here is just appalling - basically you hunt it, kill it, take a picture with it, and leave it to rot.  There is no viable use for elephant IF one could even figure out how to haul a 6,000 lb animal out of the bush.  And before you mention it, yes, it is illegal to take the tusks.

So how do the safari rangers/guides feel about big game hunting?  Well, while we were on our safari, I had brought the topic up to Dawie to get his take on it.  Given our experiences with big game, I said that I didn’t think hunting was all that sporting since the animals are often hanging out or sleeping near the roads.  Doesn't seem exciting to shoot a sleeping lion on the side of the road.  Dawie said that it was different where hunting takes place since the animals are not used to vehicles and generally are much harder to find.  Okay, so at least they have some fighting chance...

I assumed Dawie would be completely opposed to the concept of hunting but was somewhat surprised to hear what he had to say and it may have moved my opinion a miniscule notch.  So here goes - every year, animal conservationists measure animal populations, food and water supplies, etc. and can predict the number of animals that are acceptable losses.  To a certain extent, they determine acceptable losses based on predictions of the natural predation that is likely to take place given populations.  For example, if there are too many lions and not enough territory, male lions will kill each other to take over territories and then they will kill all of the losing lion's offspring.  The theory goes that since those animals will likely be killed naturally, a license to hunt them does not significantly alter nature.

The government will determine acceptable losses by species and then auction off hunting licenses for upwards of $10,000 each.  That money is all used for keeping the remaining animals safe with the fencing, anti-poaching teams, etc.  So while big game hunting is generally abhorrent to me, Dawie at least helped us to understand that there is some benefit to the greater good.  That being said, he did tell us that there are still a number of unscrupulous game hunters who will breed animals just for the purpose of hunting to avoid the rules &/or they will re-sell the licenses for 10x profit to people like those on our flight.

Back to the would-be elephant killers... we spent a few hours in the Johannesburg airport before heading to our gate, and wouldn’t you know it, they were on our flight to Cape Town.  But it gets better.  Damon and I both took aisle seats, so on a flight with several hundred people,  I had the couple sitting in the two seats next to me.  They chatted with me for a few minutes before settling in and I tried to be pleasant.  The man took out his phone and I could not resist the urge to continue reading their story - I mean the phone was huge and the font was huge - and I was able to see a message that came in from a friend of his bragging that he had taken down “2 elly” with “shots to the brain”.  No matter what Dawie thinks, I still have a hard time understanding how people can shoot an elephant and then just leave it there to rot or be eaten.  I’ll get off my moral high horse now.

We landed, got through immigration and made our way to our latest accommodations at the Waterfront Village apartments in Cape Town.  Our apartment, in a vacation resort, was a full 2 bedroom, 3 bathroom spread with a den, living-room, full kitchen and a glorious washing machine and dryer.  It also had a deck that wrapped around giving us views in three directions including the very majestic Table Mountain.  We found out later that our deck even had a small pool on it! 

We walked to the Waterfront area which is loaded with restaurants and a big indoor shopping mall plus a giant Ferris wheel.  We had a quick bite and headed home to sleep.