A visit to Cape Town, which Alastair has always claimed to be one of the most beautiful cities in the world, was sure to be one of the highlights of our time in Southern Africa. Even though we have been busy and have seen so much recently, we had been looking forward to this trip for quite some time. After arriving at the airport, we headed straight for Table Mountain.
Table Mountain is the iconic thing in Cape Town. It is a massive mountain which is pretty much completely flat on the top. Alastair and his family visited Cape Town for New Years 2004/5, but were unable to take the cable car to the top because of high winds. We decided to take no chances, and planned to head to the cable car as soon as the weather would allow us to!
Luckily for us, the weather was fantastic as soon as we landed, and so we made a bee-line for Table Mountain. Within a few hours of landing, we were standing on the top of the mountain, overlooking the beautiful city of Cape Town. We could see Lion's Head (pointy looking mountain to the left), Robben Island, and the V&A Waterfront. The views were excellent, and it was great to spend time looking around, enjoying the wonderful weather and scenery.
We noticed that Cape Town is just a world away from Johannesburg. We like Johannesburg, but Cape Town is just something else. It is hard to believe that you are in the same country. People drive properly, the city is really clean, the ocean is right there... It is just so different. We chatted about how Cape Town has a lot of similarities to California, and concluded that it is kind of like Orange County, San Francisco, and Monterey all rolled into one.
After enjoying Table Mountain, we headed down to the V&A Waterfront. It is just a nice touristy place with loads of shops, street entertainers, and lots of tours coming and going, similar to Pier 39 in San Francisco. We spent a few hours walking around and eating, before enjoying the rising full moon.
One of our must-do's on our Cape Town list was to climb Lion's Head under the full moon. As we studied what Cape Town had to offer, we found that it was a popular thing to do, and so we left the waterfront as the moon was rising, and drove over to find the trail. When we arrived, we could see a train of lights up the mountain, which turned out to be people's flashlights who were climbing up or down. We didn't get the memo about getting there early, and so we were just about the only people climbing up! Everyone else was on their way down by the time we got there.
After our flashlight batteries were replaced, we reached a point high enough to give us a fascinating view. Some of the parts of the hike were a little tricky, and it seemed to be a long way down, especially when we had to hold on to chains or climb up rocky faces! It was definitely worth the view though. It was so rewarding to sit down and take in our surroundings before heading back down to the trail. Cape Town day one, an absolute success.