march
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16
Although
we had planned to do Table
Mountain tomorrow, it was a beautiful clear day and some things just
have to dictated by the weather. We decided to postpone the penguins and
Cape Point until tomorrow and take advantage of the clear day. We hustled
out the door near 9:30 am after a quick breakfast to beat the crowds and
tour buses. Driving through Cape Town was a pleasant experience, viewing
all of the old homes and tree-lined streets. We saw many huge old trees
and passed by the Kirstenbosch Botanical Gardens on the way.
Veda
dropped us off to buy tickets and we actually got to use Eric's school
ID to save some money off the admission price for him. It wasn't too crowded,
so Veda had no trouble finding us after she parked the car. She had an
mini adventure climbing up a deteriorating staircase to cut some walking
time, but we decided to take the full walk back to the car after our Table
Mountain experience. We barely had to wait to get on the cable car for
our scenic ride to the top of the mountain. The day was still and clear
and even though I am slightly afraid of heights, the scenery kept me occupied.
The cable car turns during the three minute ride, so everyone gets a panoramic
view. Once at the top, you could see all of Camps Bay, Lions Head, Table
Bay, downtown Cape Town, and harbor. We could even see the Kommetjie 'Slangklop'
lighthouse way off in the distance.
While
we didn't see much wildlife, a few dassies, ravens, and a lizard or two,
we did get some nice shots of the city and a few flowers.
After Table Mountain, we drove into downtown and through the Cape Muslim area, Bo-Kaap, with beautiful colored homes and mosques with brick streets. Veda also took us past the Old Slave Lodge and the Planetarium. For lunch, we found a place in Heritage Square called Simply Asia & Noodles where Veda updated my chopstick handling.
I
mentioned that we would like to see the World
of Birds and since it was on our way home, that's exactly what we
did. This place is incredible! There are over 100 aviaries to walk through
with thousands of birds. Unfortunately, we missed out on the walk-through
monkey exhibit, but we did see macaws, scarlet, sacred and bald ibises,
a toucan, secretary birds, turkey chicks, darters (anhingas), hawks, storks,
a hoopoe and several varieties of doves and songbirds. We spent two hours
there and could have easily stayed longer, but Eric ran out of card space
on our camera. The friendly but cheeky seagull (above) and an aggressive
rhinoceros hornbill topped the list.
All
the bird watching made us hungry, so on the way back to Chapman's drive,
we stopped for an appetizer of mussels (chicken nachos for Eric) at a
place in Hout Bay called Dunes.
The mussels at the fish fare blew these out of the water, but Eric's nachos
were tasty. We were going to buy a shirt, but all they had was the men's
style and they wanted R150 ($25) for it, which was a tad pricey in our
opinion. Especially after the acting manager came over and told us the
current quality of the shirts was bad and they were in the process of
reordering everything. Hmmm.
We rushed home so Veda could make her 7 pm meeting at the library and I chatted with Doug while Eric helped Cody with some mp3s. There was a police drama that Veda wanted us to watch, so after she got home we turned it on. It was a three-parter about deaths at a relaxation spa. Time for bed and penguins tomorrow!