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!