Day 2 Cape Town
After breakfast we met up with our new ABD family, had our introductions and the guides discussed the outline of the trip. It was one of the fastest introductions as there wasn’t a meal attached to it, and we had to get on our way to be one of the first groups to Table Mountain.
It was a beautiful, clear day to go to Table Mountain. We really were quite lucky as the last two days were overcast and very cloudy. Also, today was the last operational day of Table Mt before they closed for a few weeks. Table Mountain is what it sounds like, a flat mountain which overlooks Cape Town and the ocean. It’s one of the major reasons Cape Town exists at all as it was such a distinguishing landmark for sailors sailing around the Cape of Good Hope. We drove up to the base of the mountain and “fastpassed” by most of the line for the gondola to take us up to the top. The view at the top was remarkable, but I’ll let the pictures speak for themselves.
Here’s the line we got to skip… always a nice treat.
One of the residents of Table Mountain - the Dassie. What’s the closest living relative you ask? The elephant. I kid you not.
From Table Mountain we went to the District Six Museum. District Six was an area in downtown Cape Town that after WWII was very cosmopolitan and multiracial. The South African Gov’t forcibly removed about 1900 families from their homes and sent them to different Townships depending on their race. They sent many Black families to Langa where we visited yesterday. If the families were multiracial, they were split up.
The museum was set up in the mid 90’s to document what happened. On the floor of the museum is a giant map of District Six where former residents have hand written notes next to their former addresses. It was very moving. The gentleman who runs the museum spoke to our group about his experience in the community, being kicked out, and now his mission to set up this museum (with very little to no help from the government) and tell the story of what happened. The museum was closed to the public today, but open for ABD. This was the highlight of the day IMO.
After District Six, we went for lunch in Bo-Kaap with a large Cape Malay culture. It’s also known for its brightly colored buildings. We had a great lunch with mostly Cape Malay food - kind of an African-Malaysian fusion. They had this Malaysian Roti, a bread similar to naan, but a bit thinner. They had Malaysian dishes, african dishes and some more familiar dishes. It was awesome. This started a trend of rather good restaurant choices. I’ve been fairly vocal about mediocre food on ABDs in the past. The meals on this ABD as a whole were very good. I still have to give it to N Italy/Switzerland as the best ABD for meals, but the food on this trip was impressive.
And a view of Table Mountain from the restaurant…
After lunch we drove back downtown to take a brief walking tour. We walked through a lovely park and over to a street market. It was about a block away from the restaurants Gavin and I ate at the previous two nights. The street market was fun. We shopped around for about an hour and stimulated the South African economy. We bought several inexpensive items and presents for home.
We had a little break before dinner. Dinner was at Gold - an African musical show. We started with a little pre-dinner entertainment. Everyone was given sparkling wine/grape juice and an African drum. The wine was I’m sure critical for getting the best performance possible from us. I’m not always into “forced activity fun” but it was cool. Dinner was huge and never-ending succession of African dishes. Nothing too exotic or out there. Dinner was tasty, and the wine was very good.