2 21 CAPE TOWN, SOUTH AFRICA

I don’t know what I expected. but Cape Town did not look like I thought it would.  I knew it was a large city.  I did not know it had lovely mountains in the city.  The largest is called the Table.  Sometimes, when the weather is right, the Table is covered with a Table Clothe.  This covering is a cloud layer that forms right there on the top of the mountain and flows downward continuously.

When we arrived, the tablecloth was happening, and it continued to happen the entire day.

Oh, did I mention it was windy.  No?  Well, it was WINDY !!!!! It was so windy that at least 2 people were injured just getting on the ship.

We took an on-off bus.  As you can see, the top of the bus is open.  Well, we brought hats, for the sun.  As you can imagine, the wind did away with wearing regular hats.  Duane’s hat flew off the minute he got off the ship.  So, we went and bought hats with straps.  It seemed like a good idea at the time.  It turns out that wearing a strap under your chin in a gale force wind can actually strangle you.  So, we eventually went hatless.

We decided to get off the on-off bus and go indoors, rather than ride it all around town before getting off.  So, we went to the Jewish Museum, which included a Chul (Jewish Church), a museum that included a rugby exhibit, and a holocaust museum.  After the depressing holocaust museum, we saw a movie about Nelson Mandela.  It showed how the Jewish people helped him in his fight against apartide. 

We had some traditional Cape Town food for lunch.  Duane had pickled fish and I had a dish of lentils and fruit.  Both were very tasty.

Here are some city pictures.

 

          

We continued around on the tour bus and visited the base of the gondola.  The gondola takes people up and down Table Mountain.  It does not run when the winds are high.  And, as I said, the winds were high.  The views were nice from up here though.  Problem was we thought the bus would get blown over.

On the other side of Table Mountain is the beach area.  It is supposed to be less windy.  Not today.  It is lovely, though.  There were times during the ride, that was narrated via earphones, that we could not hear the narration over the sounds of the wind, even though we had the earplugs deep in our ears.   OK.  I guess you get it, that it was windy.