Hi all – We’re back from Cape Town and settling back into our daily routine. I now understand why everyone gushes about Cape Town. It was stunning! Reminded me of a combination of Hawaii, New Zealand, and the Amalfi Coast. So the visual appeal is definitely there, but then on top of that you have world-class food, ridiculously good prices and a huge variety of things to do. Definitely somewhere I think I could live in the future.
On the negative side, poverty, racism and crime are very real issues. The frequent shantytowns were constant reminders of how much of the population lived and we’d heard enough stories about crime in South Africa to be constantly on guard. In fact, everyone here uses armed response teams, so if your alarm goes off, someone shows up with a gun. It’s intense.
We arrived on Saturday evening and began our sightseeing in earnest on Sunday. We devoted Sunday to The Victoria & Albert Wharf area (pictured above). This part of town is known for great food, great shopping, and the harbor. Being that this was a kid-centric trip, we skipped the shopping and fancy dinners and went straight to the aquarium.
It was pretty fantastic and a big hit with the little. I don’t know that it’s quite on par with the Baltimore Aquarium, but it was definitely worth a visit.
On Monday Nick ventured off to take a 2-day Free Diving class (he learned how to hold his breath for up to 3 minutes underwater), so Nia and I were on our own. Animals always go over well with Nia, so we ventured to Hout Bay to see the World of Birds. I was expecting it to be all birds, but it was a whole lot more than that.
The highlight of our visit was this interactive Monkey area. We were expecting to just get to observe the monkeys up close, but we weren’t in there 1 minute and they were already leaping out of the trees onto my backpack. It was quite startling! And they were smart little things. They knew how to unzip my backpack and were trying to take Nia’s hairclips out. They required very close monitoring!
Nia wasn’t sure about having a monkey on her at first, but then she saw another little kid do it and went for it (gotta love peer pressure). All it took was one time and she was obsessed. They climbed all over her and she just kept squealing with delight. It was a very unique experience; I’m sad Nick missed out. Thankfully, I know we’ll be back. Â :)
We had lunch at Dunes Restaurant in Hout Bay, which boasts not only good food, but a beach view and kiddie playground. Will definitely return there as well (Mr. Nick missed out on a lot!)
Tuesday Nia and I went over to Imhoff Farm. We had hoped to get a camel ride, but unfortunately they weren’t running that day. We found plenty of other things to do there though. We took in the petting zoo, played on the awesome playground, had some yummy lunch AND found this great store where you could make your own soap!
I have always wanted to make my soap and she was keen on it too, so we went for it. The story behind this place is fabulous. Robin, the owner, left his financial management job in Jo-burg and came down here to do something different that allowed him to use his creativity more. He tried lots of different creative pursuits that he thought he could turn into a business and ended up landing on soap making. Very random. Reminded me a lot of my journey from Target to coaching.
Suffice to say, we had a delightful time and will definitely be bringing others back (can you sense a theme here). Curious to see what our soap turned out like? Here it is…
We ended up with 12 of each color and paid only $7 or so. Nia was super proud of her soap (because she could do most of the process herself) and insisted on having multiple pictures taken with them. Playing with them also kept her quite occupied in the bath, which was nice considering we had no bath toys with us.
Next up: Part 2, when I get sick and we discover wine country…
