South Africa - Christmas 2010

So...I'm pretty late putting this up considering the trip finished about 2 months ago, but it is definitely worth putting down.

South Africa, if you didn't already know, has so many different connotations that come along with it - if not solely from the second part of its name. It conjures up the most primitive, untamed images from the Great Migration river crossing, vast savannahs, lions roaming in search of their next prey, the Okavango Delta and serving as the reputed cradle of mankind...but alongside those wild and raw associations, South Africa also possesses the paradoxical mix of refined qualities from its ubiquitous vineyards, elegant Dutch architecture and European influence (as a result of its Anglo / Dutch history) and abject, deep rooted poverty personified by the townships, crime, drugs and HIV that can be found in most urban settings.

That mixture makes the country such a diverse, fascinating and wonderfully rich place to explore, and for this trip,  my mother, brother and I were visiting the Western Cape, mainly around Cape Town, right before and over the Christmas holiday.

Day 1

Luckily, we were just able to escape London before it and pretty much the rest of the European airports shut down due to all the snow across Europe, but off we went (one of the last five planes out of Heathrow!)...and I was stuck in a middle seat on the BA 747 for 12 hours. However, leaving all that cold, grey weather (living in London - I felt as if I hadn't seen the sun in two weeks) behind, I had nothing but 10 days of, what I hoped, would be warm, temperate South African summer.  

After a quick disembarkation and collection of our rad, matchbox car (steering wheel on the right side), we headed to our hotel (the AtlanticView) in Camps Bay, which is a small beachside suburb of Cape Town. On the way over, we had the famous Table Mountain in sight, passed some of Cape Town's townships (basically large concentrations of corrugated tin sheets slammed together...), alongside Lions Head and then descended down into Camps Bay. Perfect day to start....25 degrees (80F).

We arrived at the hotel, which has a picture perfect view over the Atlantic and town below with Table Mountain's steep edges towering above the hotel's rear....this is what we had come for...

Being the first day, we went down along the beachside for a boozy lunch and decided to head back to the hotel for a nap....once I got up, I went for a run along a trail, pretty sure it was the Pipe Track, that runs along the base of the Table Mountain cliffs. There were some fantastic views of the 12 Apostles and the Atlantic...almost surreal with the stark contrast between London and where I was running. The beachside dinner at Paranga was really nice, but we were exhausted from the prior night's flight and were ready to finally call it a night until we got back to our hotel to see nearly a full moon over Lions Head...deserved a bottle of South African red...so down it went with some good tunes.

Day 2

Although the morning started off covered in the ever present Atlantic fog (which always seems to be loitering offshore only being held at bay by the powerful winds careening down from Table Mountain), I wanted to get out on the bike and put in a long ride along the coast out to Cape Point, which was about a 90 mile round trip.  As I distanced myself from Camps Bay, the clouds began to clear, uncovering a stunning coastline view along Victoria Road with the deep blue of the Atlantic to the west dotted with rocky islands just offshore, some dotted with seals basking in the emerging sun (shark bait immediately came to mind).

Over the course of the day, I passed some amazing scenery from Hout Bay, Chapman's Peak, Misty Cliffs (with 15 ft surf and loads of kite surfing), Table Mountain National Park, the Cape of Good Hope, baboons, ostriches, and shitloads of unabating, powerful wind! Once I passed Chapman's Peak, I ran into a fairly constant, stout headwind basically until I reached the Cape of Good Hope, so with a headwind on the way out, I figured a tailwind would be in order on the way back. Not the case, at least not the whole way back.

Today was the day I learned about the famous Cape Town winds - I'm talking about wind that when going down hill, my momentum would have been stopped if I didn't continue to pedal. Almost 5 1/2 hours later, including a nice lunch on a little organic farm on the Cape peninsula, and exhausted, I rolled up the hill to the hotel...took a soak in the pool and proceded to commence boozing at the hotel's designated sunset wine and d'oeuvres hour. Always a quality recovery strategy.

Ate at a place called Haiku (Asian fusion) - delish!

Day 3

Since I spent pretty much the entire day before on my own out at the Cape, we decided it would be a good day to head out in the car to see the Cape (I didn't go to the lighthouse the day before since it was up a hugh hill and into the wind - opted for downhill into the wind), stop at Misty Cliffs for some beach and surfing and check out the Cape Peninsula. 

Fortunately, we had another picture perfect day, but with tons a wind...again (some people in Cape Town say they prefer rain to wind - even if on a perfectly sunny day!). We retraced my ride out to the Cape and stopped at Misty Cliffs to jump in the freezing cold water (12 degrees - 56 F)....the water was cold but the beach was beautiful and there weren't all that many people compared to places like Camps Bay and Clifton Beach. We arrived at low tide with waves still approaching 10 ft! High surf is around 15 ft.

After checking out the Cape light house (with about 50 mph winds!), we retreated along the eastern part of the Cape toward Fish Hoek and had late lunch in a nice harbor.

Afterwards, we headed back...ended up being about a 7 hour roundtrip.

Ended up eating at this Indian restaurant, supposedly, according to my mom, one of Bill Clinton's favorite restaurants - called Bukhara, which we didn't think was all that special. 

Day 4

If you go to sub-Saharan Africa, you feel compelled to "experience" the wildness that Africa embodies - lions, giraffes, hippos, elephants, etc etc, so we made plans to go to a local game reserve that about 2 1/2 hours away from Cape Town and right on the edge of the Kalahari desert in what is called the Karoo - an old indigenous word for dry thirst land.

So we drove out, early that morning and, on the way there, passed through the famous vineyards of Stellenbosch and Franschhoek and through the Hawequa mountains. Once we got out to the reserve, we were told it was about 10 years old, so the animals it housed were relatively young hence smaller than those living in the real reserves.

All in all - the day "safari" was pretty cool but contrived given the concentration of animals and the separation of the lions from most of the other animals. Supposedly in the real game reserves (e.g. Kruger, Masi Mara) , the wildlife is much larger (sometime 2x the size) - they have to be to survive and, obviously, there is no separation of the animals and they are allowed to roam freely. It really makes me want to go back and see the real thing.

Day 5 - 9

The next few days we covered Stellenbosch and Franschhoek, which are fantastic vineyard towns, Cape Town's  downtown, Muslim district (Bo Kaap), and had an absolutely fantastic Christmas Eve dinner at Constantia Uitsig with our friend Peter. 

I also went on a long hike around Table Mountain National Park on Christmas Day and had some spectacular views of Cape Town, Camps Bay and the Twelve Apostles. I'm not a botanist or anything close, but the diversity of flowers and vegetation was extraordinary...

Our last day in South Africa we took a helicopter ride around Cape Town, Hout Bay and Fish Hoek - it was my first time in a helicopter and it'll be tough to beat. 

South Africa, without a doubt warrants, another trip to explore the other areas like Kruger, Drakensberg,  Garden Route, Rocklands, KwaZulu-Natal....just to name a few (there are tons! - the country is massive and incredibly diverse). 

For sure will be back.