Last Day & Cradle of Humankind

Our last day in Cape Town also included a drive through of the Malay part of the city, predominantly Muslim, with very dramatic colors on the houses. A couple of the mosques looked like they had been converted from churches. The square where our last B&B was had some very cute cafes and boutiques.

Because our flight from Cape Town Jo'burg was at 7:00 am and our flight from Jo'burg to London wasn't until 8:45 pm we decided to rent a car and drive west of Jo'burg to the Cradle of Humanity area. Several excavations here, starting in 1947, have uncovered many fossils in the limestone caves that run under the grasslands. The most famous, nicknamed Mrs. Ples is a skull dating back 2.5 million years. The displays give a time line of the discoveries of various types of pre-Homo Sapiens that put evolution in a very vivid perspective. Another location has an almost Disney-like ride in an underground raft that ends in a great interactive museum that tries to explain what it is to be human. It's an on-site evolutionary science museum.

On the base of the statue of Cecil Rhodes in the Cape Town gardens the inscription, I guess a quote, reads "Your Hinterland is there". We're still trying to figure that one out.
When we turned in our trusty Ford we noted that the odometer had turned 5800 km or 3292 miles! Yes, that's a trip across the U.S.

Kirstenbosch Botanical Gardens

Kirstenbosch is a very large garden that is dedicated to plants that are native to South African. Not a lot was in bloom but it was still very interesting because we had a tour given by a volunteer who was a real "plant nut". Some of the most interesting plants were the cycads or "dinosaur" plants, ones that have not evolved since the age of the dinosaurs. Some are the only known examples of the plant: there are no more left in the wild. There is even an illegal business dealing in some of the endangered species.

The guide also gave us more views of the immigration problem in SA. Her view is that there are a lot of immigrants coming in from the north who are more motivated than locals and are getting jobs, even if they are just parking lot guards. This leads to resentment, xenophobia and recently some riots targeting immigrants from Zimbabwe, Zambia, etc. She also talked about the problem of trying to find a way to return some of the land taken by European settlers to native tribes. Many problems. It's as complicated as the US situation with American Indian tribes.

When we were in Cederberg I had a talk with the B&B owner about making prickly pear jam since there were so many prickly pear cactus around. Turns out they are invasive species originating from the US or Mexico. We don't always think about the invasive spacies that we have exported to other countries but another one that is also a problem in Britain is the Grey Squiril.

Yes, our little friends were all over the gardens in Cape Town. Families were feeding them like it was a fun thing to get them to come up and eat out of their hand.

In the afternoon we went to the Jewish Museum and the SA National Gallery. The Jewish museum told the history of Jews in SA starting in the 1800's. Many came from eastern Europe. Some got involved in diamond mines and started a little company called DeBeers.

The National Gallery had two great exhibits. One was the work of a woman who started drawing Africans in their tribal costumes. Many had beautiful beaded capes and outfits and were reminiscent of some of the beautiful costumes of American Indians from the great plains. They also had samples of the amazing beadwork. Now the beadwork tradition is carried on making trinkets for tourist; some are impressive, but not the beautiful art shown in the exhibit. We were at the museum at closing. It is a huge old mansion and at closing the guard follows the last visitors (us in this case) around sliding huge oak pocket doors closed in each room. We got the message very quickly and made our exit.

Security

From the first night we stayed at the Shamrock Arms in Waterval Boven we were aware that things were different here as far as security goes. Most houses (or B&B's) in nice neighborhoods have a wall or high metal fence and a self closing gate. Many doors have a wrought iron security door on the room in addition to the regular door if it opens to the outside.

There are also signs on every walled compound or gate saying "ADT (or other security company) Armed Response". In Pater Noster when we stopped an ADT patrol in his truck to ask directions we saw that he was wearing a bullet proof vest and was armed. Private security is a big business here…and possibly a trend to follow in the US.

Our last B&B in Hout Bay had three strands of electric fence around the perimeter of the walls as many other places do. I guess it looks better than barbed wire or razor wire. We were also surprised when we were checking out TV stations that one channel showed the CCTV security cameras. Luckily they were all outside and not in the guest rooms!

Many parking lots or street parking in shopping areas have "guards", some are dressed in official looking uniforms and some seem to be guys who put on a florescent vest and are just there. They greet you when you get out of your car saying they will look after your car. When you return they give you a big smile, sometimes help direct you out of your parking place, and expect a tip which I gladly give to them. It's all part of the game.

For obvious reasons dogs are not allowed in game parks. On the flip side we have seen dogs in restaurants and there seem to be no rules about walking dogs on the beach. And OSHA doesn't seem to exist here. In the V&A Wharf area two guys were painting while standing on a roof: no safety harnesses, no cones around the ladder, people walking under the work area. Safety and security are two very different things.

Cape Town

The short drive up from Hout Bay runs along cliffs and through high rise residential buildings that run up the mountain sides and descend to the beaches. It's obviously a very affluent area. I pulled up behind a Maserati parked on the street to take some pictures.

The Victoria and Albert Waterfront is a huge commercial development like South Street Seaport in New York plus two or three very upscale mega-malls. There is everything from tourist trinkets to Louis Vuitton. And the kids line up for a picture with the Lindt Chocolate Easter Bunny (or maybe it is just the free chocolates). This is the other side of SA. They even have beautiful clean bathrooms. Believe me, there were parts of our travel where bathrooms were not in evidence, or if they existed you would be scared to use them.

Our big disappointment of the trip is that the bookings for the ferry to Robben Island were full until Friday, so obviously we can't go. However, it is fascinating to watch the clouds roll off the top of Table Mountain. It looks like someone has a huge smoke machine and is blowing the smoke over the top where it quickly evaporates.

We also tried the Table Mountain Cable Car but it was not running due to the wind. We had been warned about the wind in Cape Town and now see why: gusts are easily more than 50 miles per hour. It is brutal. Even without going to the top of Table Mountain we had a great view of the city. Then we drove out to Signal Hill for more views of the city.

The city has some beautiful Victorian municipal buildings

More Signs of South Africa

I just can't help taking pictures of the signs here.

Who would have thought that a Confederate ship would have been in Simpn's Town during the Civil War?

The sign with all the "permitted" and "non-permitted" activities is from the West Coast National Park.

Can you believe that when we were in the Cederburg Wildnerness we stopped in Algeria?

Cape Point

Question: What do penguins, baboons and golfers have in common? Answer to follow.

We are now in Hout Bay, just south of Cape town. I am looking out the door of our exceptionally stylish B&B (with hot tub and pool as you can see) across the bay to Chapman's drive. Chapman's drive is a 20km drive cut into the cliffs: paved and with cemented stone retaining walls, so you get something for the 31 Rand it costs to drive on it. The views are spectacular.

Today we took the scenic route down the east side of the Cape Point peninsula, stopping in Simon's Town, home of the SA Navy. The main street buildings are all lovely Victorian, especially the British Hotel. There are supposed to be penguins here but they were not around. Instead we had a nice lunch at a harbor front restaurant looking out over a yacht harbor and part of the SA fleet. It's funny to look out over sail boats and see a cruiser. We didn't see penguins but we saw a submarine coming into harbor.

Down at the end of the peninsula is Cape Point and Cape of Good Hope. As you can see from the photos it is a mega-tourist attraction. From the rest of our trip we are not used to crowds, but we dealt with it. How many times can I say that the views are spectacular.

Answer: They are all posted on warning signs on the road near Simon's Town. The only ones we found were the golfers since the road cuts right through the course.

The West Coast

Almost straight west from Cederberg are the towns of Pater Noster and Langebaan and the West Coast National Park. Pater Noster is a quaint fishing town (or was before it became a vacation home development) with Greek style white-washed houses and a huge beach that stretches for miles around the bay. There were incredibly few people on the beautiful beach. The feeling of the place is almost like an American beach resort off-season, but the weather is again 75 degrees with not a cloud in the sky.

Langebaan is a much more active beach resort town with lots of water sports (especially kite surfing) and a lot of restaurants. The owners of our B&B are another Scottish couple who moved to SA for his career, worked in Cape Town, and went into the B&B as a retirement move. He was a contractor so he built the B&B with beautiful views of the ocean, large rooms, and very nice tile work in the bathroom (I have noticed a lot of not-so-good tile work along the way). It turns out that they stayed at the Duff Cottage B&B in Franschoek a week ago with other Scottish couple we stayed with. The wife has been in the US many times since her sister lives in San Francisco. She even has been to Williams and our part of MA a long time ago. Small world.

The West Coast National Park encompasses a huge bay with wetlands that has a large bird population, including wild ostriches. We had also passed more ostrich farms near here, but seeing wild ostriches run full speed in the park was quite a sight; they could easily keep up with the car going 30 km/hr.

We were happy to see a herd of Eland (the largest antelope variety) and some Duiker (one of the smallest antelopes).

The next room at the B&B is occupied by a Japanese business man. The B&B host explained that there is a large iron ore mine inland that ships the ore via rail to a port near here. Toshiba sold 40 engines for hauling the ore so they have had numerous Toshiba men here related to the deal. Guess where the iron is going: China. We are jealous of the Toyota diesel SUV with big tires that the guy has. Boy, would that have been great on some of the roads we have been on.

Cederberg

Cederberg is on the map, north of Cape Town and Winelands

Cederberg is a wilderness area including a series of high arid valleys with a single dirt road running up and into them (yes, more corrugated dirt roads). The most dramatic features are the rocks (which we took many pictures , many more than the few included here) and San rock art paintings. The rocks are sandstone which has been sculpted by the elements to form caves and fantastic shapes. The San paintings are odd in that they show elephants, an animal that was not present in the Drackenberg paintings. The odd thing is that there are no elephants in this area. The Oliphants (elephant) river runs through it, but that's as close as we come to elephants being here. More research needed.

Almost as amazing is that 20 miles into the austere wilderness area on a dirt road there is a lush (colors, not lifestyle) winery. They have a high altitude microclimate that allows them to produce great wine using bio-dinamic principles (pesticide and artificial fertilizer free). They also harvest at night and are able to leave grapes on the vines longer to develop more flavor.

Our B&B for the night is named Hebron and we thought it might be a hippie kibbutz. It is a group of adobe style buildings, slightly like Arizona, plus a wild flower farm. There were dogs and kids running all over when we arrived. The 40ish couple who run it had taken it over a few years ago from her mother after returning from London with the idea that this would be a much better place to raise a family. Quite a leap, but since her mother had the property it is now a question of what they can do to make it work financially.

On the way there we encountered more road projects. Since the roads here are mostly 2-lane, when they do work it usually means closing one side down so that they have flagmen, one-way traffic, and waits of up to 30 minutes. It really throws off the timing on our GPS, but hey, it creates jobs. There are usually several flag women plus the men doing the work, some using heavy machinery and some doing work by hand (the old fashioned way with shovels, pics, etc.) They do the line painting with trucks but to locate the lines they use tape measures and a long rope that they run down the center of the road with a truck then mark by hand. The project near the B&B has been going on since November 2010 and may (the owners hope) be done soon.

Winelands

We are now into the Winelands area on the map.

Franschoek is billed both as the food and wine capital of SA and as its most beautiful town, and it all might be true. The main street is a bit touristy with lots of arts and craft stores, real estate agencies and restaurants. The setting is phenomenal with the vineyards all around and dramatic mountains behind them. The town was settled and became a wine region due to the immigration of Huguenots (French protestants) who fled Catholic oppression in the 1600's and 1700's and brought their wine making skills to SA. On the way here we went through the Huguenot Tunnel, (3.9 km long) and at the end of main street there is a big Huguenot monument.

Our B&B host, an ex-Scottish, ex-Jo-burg business man who retired with his wife to Franschoek suggested that we try a restaurant called BOCA at the Dieu Donne Vineyards. It is up on the mountainside and overlooks the valley. We had a wonderful experience starting with champagne and tapas on the terrace then a great dinner at a table by the window inside. The pics of the mountains are taken at sunset and then in the morning from the terrace.

We also were fortunate to be here on Saturday when they have a farmers/crafts market.

In the morning we moved on to Stellenbosch, a much larger town with a university, colleges and a culinary institute. Can you imagine the happy students here! There are many wineries, a lot of them more self-contained resorts with hotels, conference centers and wedding sites. We are not that far from Cape Town and it apparently is a very attractive option to come out here for events rather than stay in the city. We had a wine tasting at one and also visited Spier Vineyards that includes a Cheetah rescue operation. Cheetahs are much more endangered than Lions or Leopards because they tend to come in conflict with farmers more. They are beautiful cats. You can pay to go in the pens and pet them, have your pictures taken with them but our timing wasn't right.

We had a very nice dinner at the Apprentice restaurant, run by the local Institute of Culinary Arts. Unfortunately we were one of only 3 tables.

Prince Albert

If you want to locate us on the blog map, we are very near Oudshoorn.


The town of Prince Albert is a little farming oasis set at the foot of the Swartberg Mountains (and our favorite pass). It reminded us a little of Mormon outposts in Utah, only it has an art scene/gay community and a real estate market that seems to be like Telluride in the early days: some interesting Victorian period architecture with gingerbread, numerous real estate offices lots of "investment opportunities" for wealthy people from Cape Town which is 4 hours away. Only problem is there is no ski area.

The Dennehof B&B where we stayed was the earliest farm in the area. It was converted to a B&B twenty years ago and now has a very sophisticated feel to it. We stayed in the Carriage Barn which had a shabby chic/southwest feel to it due to the large timber beams, thick walls and cow hide rug. Dinner at The Gallery on main street was another treat: impala for me, vegetables with a quinoa stuffing for Eva and a Malva Pudding,a kind of syrup soaked sponge cake that was billed as the SA national dessert.

From there we drove through the high dessert with straight roads, scenic mountains in the distance and lots of trucks to pass. Since a lot of highways here are only two lanes, drivers are very curteous and drive to the left in what would be the breakdown lane for us to let other drivers pass. After you pass you flash your lights to say "thank you".

We also passed more ostrich farms. The area saw a heyday in the late 1800's when ostrich feathers were used in hats, boas, etc. were fashionable. Now they have a couple ostrich farms where you can ride an ostrich (we didn't do that) or you can buy decorated ostrich eggs. I also had ostrich carpaccio for dinner one night.

Swartberg Pass

We had another google map moment. The road after Cango Caves goes through mountains and is shown as the Swartberg Pass. What we didn't realize from Google or Garmin was that it would be 30 km of narrow switchbacks on a dirt road with some pretty frightening drop offs. It is the scariest version of a public highway that I've been on. Very close to the road going up to Pandora basin in Telluride, but we were driving a tiny Ford, not a 4-wheel-drive Jeep.

The Road was built in 1888 using dry fit stone walls: no cement, no guard rails. Other than some grading upkeep after washouts I don't think it has been improved since then. They did manage a couple warning signs such as "No trailers or heavy vehicles" and "Use low gear" .

When we got to our lovely B&B in the town of Prince Albert we found out that the owners offer mountain bike tours: they take you up to the top of the pass and leave you and a friend with mountain bikes and think that it will be fun for you to ride down. Eva and I think not.

Oh, and guess what the sign says at the summit, "Die Top"!