CT city

We had been told that no visit to South Africa is complete without a visit to Cape Town, so we decided to crash in Norman's bachelor apartment in Sea Point for a week. Sea Point is startegically located very close to both the city centre and Table Mountain and a good place to stay when exploring the town. Luckily this former class mate of mine, that I hadn't seen in twelve years (!), didn't mind too much. His great grandfather was Swedish and maybe that's why he gladly let us stay with him..? CT is a beautiful city and everywhere you go there is a stunning view of the mountain and the sea, so on the first day we were guided around town by our host to make heads and tails of it. One unexpected sight was this late 17th century castle!We wandered around on our own for a while before joining a guided tour, together with a flock of American tourists. In the torture chamber where we were all locked in for a while, to experience the darkness, they were wondering if there ever had been any innocent prisoners locked up in the Castle of Good Hope!? Amazing! Believe me, it was a kind of torture.

Of course we also had to explore the surroundings away from the city itself and therefore the three of us made a day trip to Cape Point. On our way we made a few obligatory stops and the first of these were in Hout Bay. This small town is very busy with tourists in summer but this time of the year, it mostly resembles a quiet fishing village. We strolled around in the harbour for a while, looking at the boats and a couple of seals swimming in between them, in search of fish. The gulls were delighted and noisily followed them around in hope of getting some scraps.

In almost every bay here on the south coast there is a Seal Island and since it was a calm day we went on a boat trip to the island, where the seals were dashing around in the breaking waves. In Simon's Town the traffic signs warned us about penguins and down on the beach hundreds of them welcomed us with their donkey like call, which is why they were once known as Jackass penguins. They do at times cross the roads and the signs are most likely necessary. This is just one of the beaches around the southern coast where you can get really close to these funny little guys and a few days later we encountered them again further away from Cape Town. Many of them had young that were hidden in the bushes on the beach and it was great seeing the parents coming back from the sea to feed them, only a few metres away! After a late lunch just outside Simon's Town, we reached Cape Point and Cape of Good Hope, located in Table Mountain National Park. At one of the view points I got a bit of a shock, since I had rushed there only to realize that the drop on the other side of the very low protective wall is about 175 metres! If you don't feel dizzy looking down, there is most likely something wrong!The dramatic landscape is truly breathtaking and should probably be explored during a full day and not only in late afternoon...

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