H'moon 20 - CTown Wine Tasting

And again, we woke up to a howling wind.  Incredible that it just doesn't stop.  As such, the Table Mtn cable car was closed again and the beach was too windy for surfing or swimming.

So we decided to head inwards for some wine tasting.  South Africa has some delicious grapes, including Pinotage and Shenin Blanc.  We headed for the Stellenbosch area, with a quick stop at Groot Constantia first.  This winery dates back to the 1600s, and was the requested wine of Napoleon when he was exhiled to St Helena.  We got complimentary glasses with our tasting, grabbed a bottle of Rose, and headed towards Stellenbosch.

There are 100s of wineries in Stellenbosch, so its hard to know where to start.  We were gifted a bottle of Mulderbosch Rose for our wedding, so we headed there first.  As we drove into the area, the mountainous scenery was beautiful and the rows of grape vines were stunning.  As we pulled up, we were the only ones there and had the tasting room to ourselves.  We bellied up to the bar, and luckily were paired with an amazing server.  We tasted all kinds of wines, shared stories, and since we didn't know where to go, he provided some recommendations for us!  His goal was to see every winery, so we knew he was a good resource.

We had to keep moving, so off we went to Jordan Estates for lunch.  Amazing scenery with the mountains.  Then onto Stark-Conde which was started by some Germans & then Kanonkop, where we tasted an amazing Pinotage & Pinotage Rose.  In fact we bought a case for the first time, it was so good!  We also had a great time with the server, who told us about her up bringing and how her father was a pastor.

The wineries were closing down, so we drove back in Cape Town.  We got stuck in heavy traffic, but even that was neat to learn about, and how other major cities struggle with traffic.  As we got closer, Table Mountain appeared out of the smog as this ominous shadow.

We had one more night of our honeymoon, so we headed out to main street, Buitengracht and enjoyed the night life.  We were tired, but still in that glow.  The wind had calmed down, so we were hopeful that we could visit Table Mountain on the last day (our flight left in the evening at 6p)

Groot Constantia Winery (dates back to 1600s!)

Mulderbosch Tasting Room

Jordan Estates for Lunch

Kanonkop Winery

Stark-Conde Winery

Table Mountain from West Beach

No people on beach b/c its so windy!

Looking back up Buitengracht Street 

Final night of our Honeymoon

H'moon 19 - CTown Walking Tours

We awoke again to a sunny day, but a howling wind.  We were up early, as our boat trip was 8am.  We checked the Robbin Island website, and the boat trips had not been canceled.  Again we had an amazing breakfast, and then headed on foot to the wharf.

We walked through the city streets, apart of the morning rush.  We passed little parks with statues and made our way towards the water.  There were also framed shots of Table Mountain that highlighted the beacon of the city.

We got a little lost looking for the boat trip office, and had to ask some local dock workers where to go.  As we strolled up, we saw lots of people looking unhappy and sure enough the wind was too high and tours were cancelled.  Argh!  Our only shot to see Robbin Island was gone, all tickets the rest of the week were gone.  Dave was very frustrated, but Nadine said 'let's keep going'.

We shopped around the wharf a little bit, but then headed back to the city.  We checked the Table Mtn cable car, and this was still shut down as well due to the wind.  What to do next?  Well we had plans to do free walking tours so we decided to make some lemonade from lemons.

The first 90-minute tour we did was a historical apartheid route.  We learned how brutal the racial divide was, including forceably moving colored people into Districts.  We also saw where Nelson Mandela gave his freedom speech, toured the old apartheid government headquarters in Company's Garden, and other notable & beautiful sites.

Since we had all afternoon, the second tour we did was of the historical Bo-kaap Neighborhood.  These homes used to be rented to slaves, but now the area has turned trendy due to the colorful houses and rich culture.  We walked up and down the streets, and got to try a local sweet treat, Koeksisters, a sweet doughy dutch-french-indian treat.

At the end of the tour, our tour guide told us there a local lady in Bo-kaap that does cooking classes.  There was no upfront cost, so we said 'sure'.  We walked over to her house, met her, and signed up for the morning of the final day in Cape Town.  Fun!

The day hadn't gone how we expected, but we still had some fun.  We had a free evening as well, so Nadine suggested a local Jazz club that was located in the crypt of a catholic church.  Desmond Tutu used to give services here, and the crypt held refugees safe in apartheid times.  We enjoyed a nice evening of good music, good wine, and small bites.  And speaking of bites...Nadine's legs were starting to improve, so she was happy there!

View of Table Mountain from Robbin Island Tour

Statues around the city

Walking Tour - District 6 Apartheid Museum

Walking Tour - Where Mandela gave speech

Company's Garden (old government quarters)

Where S.Africa President used to live


Desmond Tutu Arch

Around the city

Famous Charyls Bakery

Bo-kaap (Bour-cap) Neighborhood with Lion's Head

Bo-kaap walking tour

Bo-kaap View of Table Mtn

Bo-kapp Koeksisters Treat

Crypt Jazz Club

H'moon 18 - CTown Cape Good Hope

We awoke to a sunny day, but a howling wind.  You could hear it whipping through the city streets.

We got dressed and headed down for breakfast.  It was AMAZING!  Made to order eggs, homemade cappuccinos...so delicious.   When we were satisfied, we grabbed our day bag and south towards the Cape of Good Hope.

The drive is Chapman's Scenic Peak Drive, and it did not disappoint.  But we did not plan for ridiculous winds.  The winds were almost strong enough to close the scenic drive.  As we stopped at scenic views along the way, we struggled to stay upright, and also not get amputeed by our car doors!  The drive was about 1 hour along the twists and turns....and we passed some watchers part of the 'Shark Spotters'!

We got to the park and headed straight for the true Cape of Good Hope.  Dave had stared at this point on a map since the 5th grade, and couldn't believe we were finally be there.  He had learned about all these ships that sailed around it, and just the geographical significance...it was very humbling.  There were crowds in the parking lot, and everybody was fighting the wind.  But we marched down to the trail to the Cape, and looked at where the Atlantic and Indian Oceans met.  We felt like we could fly with all the wind.

Up next we headed back towards home up the east side of the peninsula, and stopped off at Boulders Beach where a colony of penguins call home.  We got the beach, and most of the penguins were hiding in the sand because they had not regained their feathers from the spring, and also the blowing sand was so wicked it was difficult to look at them for too long.  But on the way back to the car, we stopped inside a gift shop, and bumped into a couple that we had met in our Jo'burg hotel...what were the odds!

After the penguins, we headed to Muizenberg beach.  Dave was hoping to do some surfing in South Africa, and this would be the beach to do it.  But again, the wind was so strong, that surfing was off the list.  Instead we found the famous beach houses, snapped a photo, then headed back to the car.

We got back to the hotel with some extra time due to the wind, so we ate early at a neat place, the Bombay Bicycle Club.  It was a great bohemian vibe, which matched our feel as well.  We got back to the hotel and stayed in.

Tomorrow was packed with a boat tour to Robbin Island and a possible Table Mountain visit...but the winds had canceled all of the previous days trips to these locations, so we went to bed hoping tomorrow would be calmer.

Driving to Cape of Good Hope

Hout Bay on drive to Good Hope

Cape of Good Hope!

Super Windy at Cape Good Hope

Driving up to Boulders Beach 

Boulders Beach Penguins

Penguin stroll on the beach

Muizenberg Beach Houses

Dinner at Bombay Bicycle Club

H'moon 17 - CTown Lions Head

Leaving Zambia & Zimbabwe

With Nadine’s red-colored legs, we packed up and met our driver.  We got to the border, and our other driver was there to pick us up, hooray!  (the cars didn’t cross borders, they simply dropped you off to be picked up)  We walked inside, and the border agent took our passports and began to simply stamp them to let us pass.  Could we get lucky!  With mine done, she then looked at Nadine’s and noticed we had other stamps that required us to pay again. Rats!  We almost had made it through.  I handed her the dirtiest pile of cash ever, she looked at it, looked at me, then counted the total, and off we went.  Phew, no major issues.  We got the airport just fine and on our way out, the Kenya Airways pilot said we were cleared for a quick fly over Victoria Falls for a view.  We were fortunately on the right side of the plane to see it from above…wow, so beautiful. 

We had survived Vic Falls, and would probably do it differently next time, but hey, it was an adventure.  Up next was our final major stop Cape Town!

Arrive to Cape Town
We each read up about Cape Town while on the plane.  There was so much to take in about this city as it was the most modern city of the entire trip.  As the plane got ready for landing, we looked out the window and saw Table Mountain and the whole city!  We took one look and got excited!

We got through customs and immigration no problem, and got our rental car too easy also.  We had a SIMcard and off we went (driving again on the wrong side!).  As we left the airport, there was a giant sign about the local drought, "save water like a local" was the message, we had no idea!

We got to the Parliament Hotel nestled in the middle of the city, and planned our evening.  Nadine's legs were irritated from the bug bites, but she said 'lets go' and toughed it out.  The weather was beautiful for a hike, so we headed over to Lions Head for an early glimpse of the whole city.

We drove up to Cannon Hill and enjoyed the beautiful sights in every direction.  The views of Table Mountain were amazing.  We also saw some paragliders launching towards the Atlantic Ocean to the west.  We were tempted to do it, but the price was a little steep.

Next we headed to Lion's Head hike, and headed for the top.  It was not an easy hike, and we planned such that we'd catch sunset on the way back down.  As we looked around, everyone was in amazing shape!  Tons of fit people were doing the hike, so we joined right in.  Immediately the hike starts off with a steep incline, so we were sweating in minutes.  There were amazing views of the surrounding city and landscapes.  And towards the very top, the hike gets very steep and requires using all 4 limbs.   We got to the top and cooled our heals for a bit...Nadine had brought two small bottles of wine she kept from the plane ride, so we enjoyed some vino!  We could have stayed for hours, but the sun was setting and were unprepared to hike in the dark.  About halfway done, we caught the sunset and then happily walked back to the car hand-in-hand.

We got back to the hotel, washed up, and headed out to find dinner.  We walked upon a nice restaurant with a great menu, and enjoyed our official 6 month anniversary dinner!  The staff even made us a celebrity plate!

What a great day, and we were safely in our final city.  We had 3 full days to tackle Cape Town...but we'd quickly learn that the Wind would get crazy and wreak havoc all over.

View of Table Mountain from Airplane (Lion's Head on right)

View of Table Mountain from Cannon Hill 

Paragliders on Cannon Hill

Trailhead for Lion's Head 

Not an easy hike!

Pretty views! 

At the top of Lion's Head 

At the top, view towards Table Mountain

Sunset from Lion's Head

6 month Anniversary Dinner in Cape Town!

H'moon 16 - Safari 3

Safari Day 3

We were up early again, packed up all of our bags for our trip home later, and headed out on a drive.  After about 90 minutes the skies began to get dark and we could see lightning in the distance.  The winds picked up, and within a few minutes we were caught in an African thunderstorm.  It poured and it poured.  We tried to take cover in the truck with ponchos, but didn’t do much good.  We were all soaked, the roads were full of puddles, and animals had scurried away too.  We headed back to camp and decided to call it quits a few hours early.  Luckily they moved all of our stuff under cover to stay dry.  We ate an early lunch, then decided it was time to head home.  We drove out much different than in.  The dry roads turned into challenging puddles, but the savanna seemed refreshed from the rains.  We drove all the way back to the river and again took a boat back across to Zambia. 

Our driver picked us up out of the boat and we headed back into the border crossing.  We had no idea what to expect, and of course it was $50 each to re-enter.  We luckily had just enough cash, but then talked to our driver if we would need more to cross into Zambia next morning to catch our flight.  He said we would US Cash at the border to enter Zimbabwe, so off we went in Livingstone to get $150 more US Cash.

And of course it was a story.  We got into town and first needed to get Zambia Kwatcha, and needed several 100,000s because the exchange rate was so crazy.  We found an ATM, got out an uncomfortably huge wad of cash, and then headed to our favorite border crossing.  I walked in with our guide and he explained in Zambian what we needed and I handed over the wad.  The lady took it, counted it, then grabbed under the desk.  She started counting out US cash!, but it started out as ones.  Another one, another one, this is crazy!  Am I gonna have 150 one dollar bills?  That won’t look shady!  And then came a different bill, yes!, but I looked and it was a $2 bill.  What the?  This is crazy.  Finally 5, 10, and 20s came along, but some of those bills looked like they had been living in the mud.  She finished counting and it was $148.  The stack of bills looked terrible, but what were my choices.  I said thank you and hoped for the best for tomorrow.  We drove back into town, and thanked our guide.  He was very helpful, but was also asking about the $2 bill, he had never seen it before.  As a gesture, we gave him that as a gift/tip, and he was very excited.  We were finally dropped back off at the hostel, and back to pseudo-reality.

Back retiring for the night, we decided walk around the town for a couple blocks to see if we could find anything we liked and to also see the people.  We were the only white people in sight, and people certainly starred at us.  We didn’t find anything we liked after an hour, so we headed back and showered up.  We were joining our friends for dinner.

They knew where to go so we followed them to a restaurant and order local food and cheap drinks.  We had a great time, then headed back to the hostel before it got too dark.  We continued to drink and chat.  Then it was time to say goodbye and good luck!  We headed off to bed too, happy to be back in society.

Nadine then woke up Dave around 4am with a “honey, can come here and look at this”.  Her legs were covered in bug bites.  COVERED!  She had forgotten to re-apply bug spray for the dinner and the bugs ate her alive.  “I kept feeling little things on my legs, but it didn’t hurt and thought it was nothing.  Oh man, it was terrible!

Monsoon rain on our final morning!

Look at the flooding!

River Delta

100+  Bug bites on Nadine's legs!