Planes, Trains and Automobiles

April 30th - May 1st

After a fantastic week or so in South Africa, it was time to make the long journey home. We jam packed our travel day with everything we could possibly fit since we don't know the next time we will be able to make it back.

We started the morning driving to the Cape Town airport for a quick two hour flight to Johannesburg. Once in Johannesburg, the fun really began. Our flight landed in Johannesburg a little before 1pm and out flight to Amsterdam didn't leave until 11:15pm. So it was time to store our bags at the airport and head into Johannesburg!

Johannesburg has a high speed train called the Gautrain, that will take you from the airport to different parts of the city. We knew we didn't have a lot of time so this was going to be our best option instead of just driving around in crazy traffic.

We found an on/off bus company that would tour us around all the different parts of Johannesburg so after a pretty simple train transfer, we ended up at the Park station where the City Sightseeing bus/rep/office was going to be.

The view as soon as we walked out of Park Station

After 30 plus minutes of desperately trying to find the City Sightseeing office, going into three different buildings, walking around any different blocks and asking tons of people that all gave us a general idea of location but nothing for sure, we finally found where we were supposed to be. Do you see it? It is in the picture above... it is that random guy in the red shirt, obviously. We were so close to just giving up but we found him just in time. We hopped on the big bus and for the next two hours we heard about the city, some of its history and saw many different things from the top of a double decker bus.

Since we didn't have a ton of time before the last bus got back to our train station, we decided to just stay on the bus for the next two hours. I was really hopeful that we would be able to go into the Apartheid Museum but we would have only 40 minutes in the museum so we decided to pass.


Statue of Ghani

 

The museum from the parking lot

 

Street Markets were everywhere in the city

 

City Skyline

Government Building

 

Nelson Mandela Bridge

They did make one pit stop so that everyone could get off the bus for a few minutes (we were the only ones on the bus at the time) at a casino. Who knew they were so popular in South Africa! So we had the chance to wonder through and enjoy the sites and sounds of the casino.

It was so great to get a chance to see just a little of Johannesburg. It sounds like a pretty amazing city and it would be a lot of fun to explore more of it one day. But today, we headed back to the gautrain and headed to a completely different area of the city called Sandton. We were told it would be a great place to explore and more importantly, find dinner. The Sandton stop dropped us off right in the middle of Nelson Mandela Square. This was a super fun area with lots of people watching, restaurants and more shopping. Funny how many shopping areas we happened upon on this trip. Especially since we couldn't buy anything cause we couldn't get it home in our backpacks. But it didn't stop us from window shopping and exploring the area.

As we were wondering around the area, I got excited when I saw this very unique restaurant in the mall. The location and decor were very creative but then I saw cupcakes and we had to go. At first it was just for cupcakes (and fresh bread for the ride home) but once we looked at the menu, we decided to stay for dinner and Walnut Grove.

After wandering around for a little while we even found the actual Nelson Mandela Square complete with a huge statue of Nelson Mandela.

Unfortunately, time was flying by and before we knew it, it was time to head back to the airport. It was quite a successful layover trip and so much better then just hanging out at the airport.

We made it back to the airport with plenty of time to get everything taken care of before out flight. The eleven flight was great and felt pretty short since we were both able to sleep for the first seven hours of the trip. The Amsterdam airport was fun to explore for a little while. We were able to stop and get some Amsterdam cheese to go with our South Africa bread for the last leg of our flight.

The flight back to the states was also quiet and uneventful. We were able to catch up on some old movies we wanted to see on the plane and read some magazines and books before landing in Dulles around 3:30pm on May 1st. Jordan was nice enough to pick us up from the airport. We headed back to his house where he and I did a little work before heading out to dinner with the family before Jed and I hit the road for our final five hour drive.



It is still hard to believe that we had the opportunity to go and do this. It was so much fun and such an amazing country.

The NEW Wonder of The World

April 29th

The one thing that everyone and everything said that we had to do while we were in Cape Town was get to the top of Table Mountain. Since we were pretty limited with time, we decided to forgo a half day or entire day hike to the top and made our way to the rotating cable car to make it to the top.

The ride us was so much fun. We were moving pretty quick and heading really high. It was a pretty crazy feeling. But when we got out at the time, it was just an incredible view.

We had brought some breakfast with us so when we got to the top we walked around for a little while and found a place to sit and eat.

For the next hour or so, we just explored the top of the mountain. We did a little hiking but mostly we just sat. We watched as the clouds moved over the mountain and just marveled at the beauty in front of us and how incredible it was to just be there. It was such a memorable experience.

But today was our last day in Cape Town so we weren't able to stay at the top all day. We had other areas to explore. So before the mountain and the cable car got to crazy busy, we head back down. Our next stop was another beach town on the other side of Table Mountain, Camps Bay.

We made our way to the heart of Camps Bay and started to explore. The water, beaches and the opposite side of Table Mountain were all so beautiful. We spent some time taking pictures, exploring the shops and just sitting on the beach. It was a perfect afternoon.

We found this awesome place for a late lunch right on the water where we could just sit and enjoy the weather and the views called Blues.



The view from out table at Blues

After lunch, we said good bye to the beaches and headed back to the city bowl area. We wanted to take some time exploring the markets and the craziness of the downtown area of Cape Town. We ended up finding a few small things at the markets and I am sure we paid way to much but it is the experience of it all, right?

As we were exploring we found the coolest thing! A cupcake shop in a church. It was beautiful and such a neat experiences to go get a few little cupcakes and sit in church and just relax and enjoy.

And every time we go exploring, we always find something weird and unique. Today, our weird and unique was this...

There was one last place that we wanted to check out before the day was over, V&A Waterfront. So we headed back to the car to try our hand at city driving and parallel parking one more time. Thankfully it is starting become second nature so we made it to the waterfront pretty easily.

The waterfront is a neat area that has tons of shops, markets, restaurants, bars, live music, boats, and more unique finds. We spent the evening exploring the area, window shopping and laughing and remembering all that we have seen and done.

After dinner overlooking the boats at Karibu, we decided to head back to the hotel. We still were not ready to call it a night yet so we headed down to Long Street one last time for dessert that we have been eyeing for the past few days.

The Royale Eatery has continued to call to us every night we walked down Long St. They advertise fantastic milkshakes so we had to give them a try before we left. The restaurant itself was super cute and surprising packed for super late on a random week night so we knew we had made the right decision. After a great dessert and evening stroll, we headed back to the hotel to pack up and get ready for the journey home.

A Long Beach Drive

April 28th

We started this morning by walking up to a car rental office just a few places from our hotel. As we were researching Cape Town and seeking advice from people that have been there or have/do live there, we learned that there are a lot of must see's that we would need a car to see. So we jumped at the chance to try our hand at driving in South Africa.

It took a lot of getting use to just riding on the opposite side of the road, now Jed was going to tackle driving on the other side of the road from the opposite side of the car. (The steering wheel is on the right side of the car over there.)

Since it was very cloudy when we got the car, we decided to wait until tomorrow to try to go to the top of Table Mountain, instead we started to drive to our first beach town for breakfast.

On our way to Kalk Bay, we saw St. James Beach. I was so excited about St. James beach. I had seen pictures of it when we were looking up all of our travel stuff but I was very unclear as to where it was or how we would fit it into our schedule. When we saw it from afar, we had to stop.

I loved the colorful beach "houses". They are little rooms for changing into and out of bathing suits, at least that is what we are guessing they are for. There is a small rock beach here and a tide pool which was way fun. We didn't stay long but we did get to watch a few minutes of the baptisms that were going on in the tide pool that morning which was really amazing to watch.

Kalk Bay was our next destination. A friend had recommended a breakfast place called Olympia Cafe. He told us it was his favorite place in South Africa to eat breakfast so we had to check it out.

This place was awesome. It was perfect, the food, the wait staff, the other patrons, the atmosphere and the view. We had the best time just hanging out and enjoying all that it had to offer.

After breakfast, we went to explore Kalk Bay. We wandered around and found a bakery, a fishing pier, light house and sea lions.

It wasn't long before it was time to hit the road again. This time to Simon's Town. Simon's Town was a bit bigger then Kalk Bay and we stopped in a few shops to check out all the souvenir stuff. We spent some time checking out the beach and an ice cream shoppe.

We stopped into a welcome center and they advised us to walk down to Boulders Beach. It was a beautiful day so we thought we would go explore.

I am so glad we went. Boulders Beach is the home of The African Penguin, who knew. So we paid the fee and headed down to see the little guys. When I first saw them I was so excited. I felt like I was in the Happy Feet movie. I am sure I made an idiot of myself being so giddy and silly but they were so cute and there were little baby penguins.

It was time to keep heading south if we were going to make it to everything today so we jumped back on the road to go check out Cape Point and Cape of Good Hope. Cape of Good Hope is the most south-western point of the African continent so, of course, we had to check it. But first, we hiked around Cape Point.



Cape of Good Hope from Cape Point

We were able to hike up to the lighthouse and check out all views. We were hoping to hike to Cape of Good Hope but the timing didn't work out. We decided to drive over so we didn't get caught in the dark or stuck in the park over night.

We did get the change to hike around the area for a little while and take in the incredible views. While driving to and from the Cape of Good Hope, we ran into a few more animals.

There were three of these guys and they got really close! We also saw baboons and dassies while we were out and about in the park. The sun was setting and the rain was coming so we decided it was time to head back up the coast to Cape Town. We wanted to take a different route then how we had come down. A few hours into our drive back, we started seeing signs for Chapman's Peak.  We didn't know anything about it but we knew 1.) it was a toll road and 2.) we had to take it to get back to Cape Town. I finally decided to look it up in our Frommer's travel book just miles before we got to it. I read the description to Jed:

Chapman's Peak :

Built between 1915 and 1922, this winding 10km (6 1/4-mile) drive must rate as one of the world's best, with cliffs plunging straight into the ocean, dwarfing the vehicles snaking along its side. Not surprisingly, hundreds of international car commercials have been shot here.

There is nothing like hearing "cliffs plunging straight into the ocean" when you are just learning to drive on the opposite side of the car on the opposite side of the road that you are used to. Pretty sure he was regretting having asked as soon as he heard it. And at this point, we were far past turning back. Jed did a fantastic job maneuvering Chapman's Peak and it was so much fun with incredible views and unforgettable cliffs and over hangs.

Chapman's Peak ended at the start of Hout Bay. So what better place to take a break, relax, laugh about what we had just done and grab some dinner over looking the bay.

We found the perfect place to sit and eat outside watching the sunset, Dunes.

The day flew by and before we knew it, we were driving the late leg of our day trip back to our hotel in Cape Town. Jed did a phenomenal job driving, parallel parking and tackling Chapman's Peak.