Cape Town is the third most populous city in South Africa and its legislative capital as well as capital of the Western Cape Province. The city lies at the foot of Table Mountain (3,3570 feet), so named after it's flat top, and on the shore of Table Bay. Cape Town is a commercial and industrial center; oil refining, food, chemical, and fertilizer processing, and the manufacture of automobiles, leather, plastic goods, and clothing are the chief industries. An important port, Cape Town's exports consist mainly of gold, diamonds, and fruit. With one of the world's largest dry docks, ship repairing is an important industry. Cape Town is famous for its gorgeous natural harbor, as well as its location near the Cape of Good Hope. Much of the former dock area is now a commercial and tourist waterfront area with museums, craft markets, and restaurants. Because of its location and natural beauty, Cape Town is the tourism capital of South Africa, receiving the largest number of tourists of any South African city.
We were to arrive in port at noon on the 20th. Because of gale force winds, we were anchored just outside the harbor for hours. The Harbor Master didn't feel it was safe for us to dock in such winds so had closed the port to cruise ships. Mel and I went onto the bow to take pictures, and boy was it blowing! I saw them watching us from the bridge, probably thinking what idiots we were being out there in that wind. It was an experience! We were finally portside at about 9 pm, having missed an entire afternoon on shore. Darn!
We were up early the next day to jump on the shuttle which took us from the ship to the shopping area in the port. Some ships dock right next to the mall, which would have been nice. Even though our ship is small compared to many ships these days, we were too large to dock there. The area has several malls and huge stores. Wonderful shopping! It was great to just see a price and that's what you pay, no bargaining, fair prices. Our items were even wrapped in bubble wrap! We've been buying in so many markets, that it was a nice change. We even asked for extra bubble wrap and the stores were happy to give it to us.
We grabbed a quick lunch on the ship then went out to meet our driver. We headed out of town to a Spier resort to get up close and personal with cheetahs! The resort is about 50 minutes east of Cape Town, in some small hills. The area is famous for it's wineries. There was one at the resort. We were dropped off and checked in. The room was large, with a fireplace. The hotel is set up like an apartment complex with a number of different buildings. In between each area is a pool for those rooms. It was very nice. We settled in, then headed for the cheetah experience. Spier is a large complex which includes an amphitheater, Manor House Museum, craft market, huge buffet restaurant, a winery, several shops, the cheetah experience and an eagle experience. We browsed the shops and craft market until we got to the cheetah experience. It hadn't opened yet so we shopped until it opened at 2.
Entry into the cheetah area was just $1! They have 14 cheetahs in all. For $9 we could enter one of the enclosures with an adult cheetah. For $20 we could go in with 2 six month old cubs. Mel chose not to go in with the cubs so he went up on a viewing area to take pictures and movies. A young girl told me the rules before entering. There were a number of young people there, working with the visitors. They were from all over the world and were there as volunteers for a number of weeks. I was told to get down on one knee so if the cheetah rolled over, I could get up quickly and move to it's other side. They only want visitors at their back, not front. I could only pet the back and side. I was dying to touch it's head and tail! The "babies" were about 1/2 size, 40 lbs. I was behind one of them when he rolled over, so they had their backs facing each other. I got to be in between them, petting them both at once. It was very cool. Cheetahs have been my favorite cat for years (sorry Koda!). I was in with them for about 20 minutes. The handler answered any question I might have. I'd read a lot about the facility there, in doing research before our trip. I knew it is associated with the Cheetah Conservation Fund whose headquarters are in Namibia. I had tried to arrange a trip there, but it's so far in the interior of Namibia that we would have had to charter a plane to get us back to the ship, pretty pricey.
Next both Mel and I were ushered in with an adult cheetah. We had just kneeled down to pet him when he decided to roll over, so we had to get up to move to the other side. Cheetahs sleep 18 hours a day, so visiting them while sleeping isn't a hard thing to do. This one decided it was time for a drink though, so we were asked to move quickly to the fence, then out the gate. He was running around when we were taken to a different enclosure. This guy behaved himself and let us pose for pics and pet him for as long as we wanted. It was a great experience.
After the cheetahs, we did some more shopping. We relaxed in the room for a while, with a fire, before dinner. Nice to just be able to shop without rushing, and to relax and do nothing for a change. We seem to be racing from one thing to another whether we're on the ship or off! Don't want to miss anything. We went to the restaurant for dinner. Mel had a Game Platter, consisting of crocodile, kudu and ostrich. The croc was very tasty, with the consistency of chicken but had a wonderful fishy taste. The kudu was a bit gamey for me, but the ostrich was also good. After dinner we needed some exercise so walked around the facility. We heard music, so headed that way. It was coming from the buffet. We asked if we could just come in and listen since we'd had dinner at the hotel. That was fine. The main buffet was in a tent with several dozen tables. Outside were smaller tents with propane heaters and a blanket on the back of each chair. We found some sofas which also had blankets on them. It was quite cool out. While sitting there in came a group...from HAL!!! We were hoping to get away from ship people. :) They were surprised to see us also. It was a tourist agency tour to have dinner at Mojo, the buffet. Too funny.
We had negotiated with our driver for a tour the next day. He was to pick us up at 9. We were all there and ready at 8:30, so off we went. We headed almost due south to the coast of False Bay. We passed by a shack town with over 1/2 a million residents! The shacks seemed to go on forever, but the area appeared fairly clean, not like the horrible slums in India. The coast was beautiful! One of the roads was closed, we went thru anyway. They close them after big wind storms because the sand covers the road. It wasn't too bad. We drove along the coast passing by small towns that could have been in Monterey or Carmel, very quaint. Our first stop was Boulders Beach to see the penguins. This colony of penguins arrived the same year as the war in the Falkland Islands and never left. There are several thousand penguins, but we only saw a couple of dozen. They are Jack Ass penguins, named that because of their funny squawk, just like a jack ass! I held out my hand to one, she bit me. Just another contact with an animal to write in my book. They were fun to watch.
We kept going south, entering the Cape of Good Hope Nature Reserve. There are supposed to be Cape Zebra and baboons there, but we didn't see any. There were signs everywhere saying that baboons can be dangerous and don't feed them! At the point, there is a funicular to take you to the top. From there it was 104 stairs up to the lighthouse. We could see the western southernmost tip on the African continent. It was cold and windy but beautiful to see. There was a nice gift shop too.
On the way back to Cape Town we stopped at a small craft market. We finally succumbed and bought a carved giraffe. It isn't 7 feet tall like others we've seen onboard, but is a skinny 4' tall. Now to find a box that long. We also stopped at an ostrich farm. They had ostrich of all sizes, the babies were very cute. The shop had gorgeous ostrich products which were very expensive, almost $300 for ostrich leather driving mocs. We left with no purchases and headed back into Cape Town. Our guide was telling us about the history of the area and what we were seeing the entire time. It was an excellent tour.
We left our luggage onboard and headed back out to take the shuttle to the shopping pier. The time to be onboard had changed from 5 to 7, probably to make up for our late arrival. We walked around the shops, visited the craft market that we'd missed on the first day. We also went into the huge mall where the locals shop. We bought some bubble wrap. I also picked up 2 bottles of the Amarula which we'd had on our safaris, yum. We were back onboard by about 4. Mel took our receipts to claim our Value Added Tax (VAT 14%) back while I headed to our cabin with a headache. Our visit to Cape Town was wonderful. I could easily come back for a longer one. The city is clean and beautiful. The small towns on the coast are quaint. There are game reserves within driving distance. What a beautiful area.
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