South Africa — Cape Town (Part 2)

The final leg of our trip took us back to Cape Town. There we went up to the top of Table Mountain. The view from the top is simply spectacular.

This is Cape Town’s city bowl (or downtown).


Anna’s outline connect Robben Island to the harbor. It’s seven kilometers into Table Bay and we’ll show you pictures from the island a little later in this post.

One of the beautiful vistas from the top of Table Mountain.


Looking out at the Cape of Good Hope.


Camp’s Bay was a great place to share sundowners.

The temperature was perfect … not too hot and not too cold.

A great beach to walk along and watch the sunset.

No, I didn’t retouch this image. This is the natural light. Isn’t she beautiful?

We took a mini-safari when we drove out to Cape Point National Park to see the Cape of Good Hope. These ostrich were getting a little feisty with each other.

Perhaps a bit unsightly, but very tasty (my favorite meat).

Strutting along the road.

We finally reached the most South-Western in Africa (although not intuitive for most Americans [me included], there’s a place to the east that’s a little further south than the cape).

As can see from the image, the wind was quite strong, perhaps a convergence to the two air masses over the Atlantic and Indian Oceans.


This is looking back at the Cape of Good Hope.


The first of two light houses on the cape.

The second.

Still windy.

Another Rock Dassie.

The wind was very useful for kite boarding.

On the way back, we stopped by Constantia, the oldest wine growing region in the cape. So, of course we felt obliged to stop and sample some from a winery.

Moving pollen to help the wine develop a complex flavor.

Steenberg has a classy production.

One of my favorite activities was SCUBA diving with the Cape Fur Seals (AKA Sea Lion). They were incredibly inquisitive creatures. Once we got to the colony the rough seas made for a tough entry and big surge hampered our descent. That aside, once we reached the bottom, we found a sandy patch and sat down to watch the show. The seals would come down and play with us (inches from my mask). I’m not sure who enjoyed it more, them or us. They loved the human interaction and bubbles, and we loved the nimble, aquatic showmanship. It was a great time underwater. However, the people
who stayed on the surface snorkeling, didn’t have as much fun. The seals would play with them, but the rough seas made almost everyone sick. Another good reason to SCUBA! 🙂

The seals didn’t seem to mind rough seas though…



On the way back, we decided to stop at the colorful beach houses on Muizenberg Beach.


One of our final activities in Cape Town was a trip out to Robben Island. This is the former island prison (kinda like Alcatraz) where they held political prisons, including people like Nelson Mandela for 17 years. This quarry is where the prisoners made big rocks into little rocks.

Here you can see Table Mountain and the City Bowl in the background.

Another view of the same.

This is the austere prison cell where Mandela spent several years.

Robben Island also has a large colony of African penguins.

Our final two days were spent back in the wine country. In particular, we stayed at an adorable bed and breakfast in Franschhoek, a village started by French Huguenots several centuries ago. It was a great way to slow down a little, enjoy great food and drink, and just spend time together.
That also wraps up our time in South Africa. It was a great experience, but parting ways again with the knowledge that it would be 5 more months until we saw each other was very difficult. But, today, we have less than 2 months remaining. I continue to let work consume me and Anna tries to enjoy herself in Europe. She’s been able to participate in the official University of Maryland commencement ceremony (even though she officially graduated last year) with my mother. Or, right now, she’s home with her family taking part in the planning festivities for Emma’s wedding in August (her sister).
I’m not sure if the next post will be on Afghanistan again (I have many stories and images to share), or one detailing Anna’s adventures, but we’ll try to post something soon.
Until then…
–Jim