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.