Day 2. Cape Town City Orientation

I woke up at 3am, but Claire slept through till 7am. Our hotel included free breakfast buffet, so we had a big breakfast at the hotel. 

We headed out at 9am to go on a city orientation tour with Hank. He prepared bottled water for each of us.

Camps Bay

Our first stop was Camps Bay. This is the richest suburb in this country. Hank pointed out a house that was sold for 22 million dollars. Camps Bay was a beautiful place with beaches right under the mountain.

Table Mountain

Our next stop was Table Mountain. I bought the cable tickets (AM, return trip) the night before from https://tablemountain.net/ . The tickets were good for a week so even if the weather was not good today we could still use it later. AM tickets can be used for PM but not the other way around.

The cable ride was fun. The car rotates while traveling up, so you get to see mountains and beaches all around.

It was very cloudy when we were on top of the mountain, so we just saw mists and I did not get any good photos. On a sunny day it would be really nice to look at the city from up there. We did a little walking around. If it were good weather, it would be a great hike.







Signal Hill

Hank drove us to Signal Hill so that we could look at the entire city from there. He introduced us to various areas of the city. For example, from the distance, we could see Robben Island, where Nelson Mandela was imprisoned there for 18 years. We saw a stadium where 2010 World cup was hosted. We also saw Table Mountain, which we just visited. There were three buildings right at the bottom of the Table Mountain. Hank said that they were originally set as water towers, but later built as apartment blocks. He said that the joke is, when there were clouds on Table Mountain, one can imagine that those clouds were the table cloth, and the three buildings were salt, pepper and mayonnaise, and now the table is set.






More Cape Town

We stopped by District Six, where the apartheid government forced 60k residents to relocate; Castle of Good Hope which is the oldest house in Cape Town; Bo Kaap, where the houses were colorful; St George’s Cathedral where Bishop Desmond Tutu used to work; a market place; the parliament, which had a fire last year and was still closed.

There were places that were not very safe. For example, we saw lots of homeless camps near the oldest house and Hank said that we should not get off the car there. We just drove by. In other areas, Hank told us to put the cell phones in the pockets instead of holding them in the hand. His car also has shades for all windows so that people cannot see what is inside the car. There are 55% population living under poverty and 40% unemployment rate in South Africa. This is leading to a high crime rate.

We asked to have local foods for lunch, so Hank took us to a food court called Food Lover’s Market. The food for Claire and I combined was like four dollars. One funny thing was that after lunch we wanted to go to the bathroom and they charge 2 rand per person (~10 cents). Hank had to get changes for us in the market.

Hank then took us to the Slave Lodge museum and gave us a guided tour of Cape Town history. He dropped us off at the VA Waterfront. We walked a little around the shops and it felt just like a mall in the US. We got a Uber ride back to the hotel.




Claire and I decided to skip dinner because we were not hungry. We went to sleep but both woke up at 2:30am.

Location: South Africa

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