Day 5 – Cape Town, Penguins and Cape of Good Hope

Today we start the formal part of our holiday. We met the gang on the G Adventures tour last night, had our dinner, and we start the “tour” piece. Most of the days are going to be long so I may not be able to post the blog over night. I am writing this on Wednesday morning before we start our vineyard tour out at Stellenbosch.

We met our guide Johannes today who will be with us until we head to Zimbabwe after our safaris.

Today we left the hotel at 7:45 and won’t be back until at least 5:30 am. Our first stop is Bo Kapp in Cape Town which is known for its colourful houses and is the home to the Muslim area of Cape Town. The areas is made up of Malaysia and Indonesian immigrants who moved to this area to work for the people working and living in central Cape Town. We got to try Koeksisters which is like a gingerbread flavour (spiced dough) which is deep fried then boiled in a sugar syrup and rolled in coconut, very delicious. I didn’t find them to be too sweet but the others thought they were (I definitely have a sweet tooth). I thoroughly recommend trying them if you ever come across them. They are better hot but still delicious cold.

From here we moved to the Kirstenbosch National Botanical Gardens which is on the eastern side of Table Mountain. This land was bequeathed to the South African people by Cecil Rhodes and was then developed into a botanic garden.

We started from the top gate, where we met our guide Andrew who reminded Stu and I of Jeff (same jokes and lack of filter). Andrew worked at the gardens for 46 years before retiring a few years ago. He is extremely knowledgeable of the gardens and their history.

We saw a large number of plants including proteas, silver tree, medicinal plants, birds of paradise and cycads that are endemic to South Africa. One Cycad was more than 600 years old and was on the verge of extinction when they discovered it. Trees are one sex and use suckers to reproduce asexually. The botanists use the suckers to grow new plants and hope that one day one of them will be female (they are all male at the moment). They have to have it behind an enclosure as poachers used to come into the gardens at night and steal the suckers and there was a worry that the damage they were causing would kill the tree and make this Cycad go extinct.

Another plant that they brought back from the edge of extinction was a golden bird of paradise that was called Kirstenbosch Gold, which they renamed to Mandela Gold when Nelson Mandela came and visited the gardens.

We then hopped in the bus and headed towards the Southern Cape with a stop at Simonstown where the African Penguins live. They are very beautiful and there is a little area where you can walk over boardwalks and if you are lucky see the penguins. Johannes said that because of the weather and that it was breading season there were quite a few penguins on the beach while we were there.

We had lunch at Simonstown and I ordered the Kudu Burger. Kudu tastes like a strongly flavoured beef, almost a mix between beef and lamb.

We then moved down to the Cape of Good Hope. The wind was very very strong and Stu and I decided to go up the funicular to the top while Peter and Jayenne stayed in the cafe (I think they made the right move). The view from the top was amazing but hard to take photos because I was holding on to my hat and the wind was pushing against my phone.

We then moved on to the Cape itself where we stopped for a few minutes to take photos and then head back to Cape Town.

We saw Eland, Ostrich and Blesbok, Egyptian Geese and of course Baboons on our trip down to the Cape. Apparently we were lucky to see the Eland and the Blesbok which are both a type of antelope.