more in cape town

I must apologize to those of you that have been reading that several days have gone by. Internet is challenging in this part of the southern hemisphere, and the number of activities in Cape Town and time changes since returning to sea have also been factors. Our current time is 9:15pm, 9 hours ahead of EST, 10 ahead of CST, 11 ahead of MST and 12 ahead of PST. And we will be advancing clocks an hour again tonight, so will be even further ahead of all of you.

On February 20 in Cape Town, our friends Maggie and George, who have spent quite a bit of time in Cape Town (Maggie went to school here as a child), rented a car and invited us along to see parts of the city. John was still feeling under the weather so he stayed back and I went with them. We started with a visit to the Kirstenbosch National Botanical Gardens http://www.sanbi.org/gardens/kirstenbosch on the eastern slopes of Table Mountain. It is rather late in the season here, so many of the blooming plants are past their prime, but the gardens are quite beautiful nonetheless. The photo at the top is one I took that day of a protea. There are several varieties, but most bloom in winter or spring rather than summer. This is such a quiet, peaceful place to walk or sit, and the sounds of the song birds are lovely.

From Kirstenbosch we had planned to visit Constantia, home of Groot Constantia, the oldest grape growing estate in South Africa. However, the road was closed and we were unable to get there. We also found the Chapman's Peak drive closed and were only able to see the beautiful views from partway up. There is a lot of contruction going on in Cape Town right now, including a new stadium, in preparation for World Cup 2010 http://www.worldcup2010southafrica.com/.

We had a long drive through several areas in and around the city, including Camps Bay and the top of Signal Hill. It was a beautiful day and the views were fantastic. We had good views of Lion's Head, although I never could see the lion's head until the following day from a different angle.

The following day John was feeling a little bit better, so we caught the Hop On Hop Off bus near the port so that he would not have to do much walking. We viewed other parts of the city and we had hoped to do the Table Mountain gondola to the top, but the day was cloudy and we knew the views would be obscured. We were able to get some lovely views from the lower gondola station, and I was finally able to see the lion in Lion's Head.

Our last day in Cape Town dawned sunny and bright, but very windy. We decided to go to the Table Bay Hotel, next to where the ship was docked, for brunch. We soon learned that Robben Island http://www.freedom.co.za/ trips were being cancelled due to wind and strong currents. We knew that the gondola on Table Mountain would also be shut down because of the wind, so we never did make that trip, unfortunately. We will have to do it the next time around!

We were scheduled to leave Cape Town at 8:00pm on Sunday evening, however the opening to the port is quite narrow and winds continued to be very strong. We were told we would be leaving sometime after 11:00pm. We did not actually depart until 8:00am on Monday and the water was very calm as we left.