We’ve been in South Africa, Swaziland and Lesotho for a little over 2 months, and will be starting the drive up to Namibia in a few days. Right now, we are in Cape Town enjoying “civilization” while we can. Namibia will be almost entirely an outdoor experience. Oh, before I forget, there’s a Schuckmansburg in Namibia. I must visit that place because my surname is Schuckman, which is not a common name.
Our trip since last time I blogged has been an almost entirely coastal thing. We have walked many hours along beaches, rocky shores and trails through hills overlooking the water. There isn’t much going on in most of the places. One place, Jeffreys Bay, is one of the premier surfing beaches in the world. We enjoyed watching hardcore surfers from around tyhe world do all those cool things you see the great ones do on TV. If you’ve been to Hawaii or any other great surfing place, you’ve seen it. It’s been a while for me, so I was entertained. Myung had never seen anything like it. In fact, she’s never seen anything like South Africa in general. I’ll never be a good phographer, so my pictures of surfers are all blurred. I have a couple of reasonably good pictures to give you an idea. Maybe you can see the two dots on the left part of this crest. Those are surfers. These waves coming in are about 4 meters.
And here is an okay picture of a “tube” as they call them. I don’t recall if there is a surfer in this one.
Another nice place was Plettenburg. There is a lovely peninsula jutting out a few kilometers into the sea. Whale watching is supposed to be good this time of year out there, but it was too rough to see any spouts. There were many sea lions, though, basking on the rocks below. They are too small in our pictures, so I didn’t upload them. After this weekend, we may have better distance pictures, as Myung’s snapshooter gave up the ghost and she’s considering buying one with 10 times optical zoom. Anyway, here is around there.
The hills above Knysna are nice.
That last one is of a flowering aloe. Most of us North Americans are used to aloes being these little succulents that can grow anywhere and have terrific medicinal uses. Well, here, they are practically trees and have beautiful orange-red blossoms this time of year. I hope you can see that in that picture.
Another stretch of Eastern Cape, east of Plettenberg, is called the Wild Coast. There are a few roads into there, but it’s mostly empty except for a few tribespeople, a few hippie types whom society has rejected and the feeling is mutual, and some intrepid long distance hikers. One backpacker ghetto you can drive to is called Coffee Bay. It’s about walking along the near deserted 20 or so km of beach and looking at coastal forest and rock formations. Myung missed it, but I saw a couple of small humpback whales a couple of hundred meters off the beach. I have a couple of pretty pictures of that area.
Also around there is a place called the “Valley of Ferns”. It’s like somethng out of Jurrasic Park, a forest of huge ferns.
We continued west toward Cape Town and went inland to the wine making areas. First we went to Robertson Valley, which is not very commercial. I guess that is because the wine there isn’t as good as farther west around Stellenbosch. We started tasting wines there, then continued to Stellenbosch What a beautiful area that is! I hate to say it, but it leaves Napa/Sonoma for dead.
There are many grand old estate wineries there, some over 300 years old. We spent three days there just driving around, visiting the estates even if we were’t tasting the wines, and of course tasting. In general, the whites are quite good, especially for the money. The good reds are shiraz or mostly shiraz. It wold be easy to stay there for a good long time.
In the Robertson Valley, the tastings are generally free, like in California. Around Stellenbosch, you get six healthy (maybe a little too healthy) tastes for a dollar of two.
Stellenbosch itself is generally quite affluent, plus it’s a college town. So it has an ambience that reminds one of Marin County. Oh, they have great gourmet bread, cheese and the like. It’s one of the oldest towns in South Africa, dating back to the 1600’s, so there are many old buildings the Dutch put up at that time.
Ah, what a perfect place that would be for a vacationer who wanted to golf on the beautiful courses in these settings, then eat fine food and drink wine afterward.
That said, I have to say here somewhere, that the crime situation is appalling everywhere in South Africa. I thought it was going to be bad, but I had no idea it would be like this. Even in Stelllenbosch, outside of right in the cool downtown area, almostno one goes out at night and certaianly not with a wallet or purse, Everybody locks up their car behind a gate or in a garage. Armed security guards are everywhere. Everyone has been robbed. South Africa has the second highest crime rate in the world after Columbia. It’s sad.
Back to the good stuff: Then we went to Cape Town. This is a nice place, really. It’s even halfway less crime riddled, as non-whites were all removed from the city center even before apartheid became official. Most of you have seen pictures of Cape Town. Here’s one picture everyone takes. That’s Table Mountain. We went up there today.
And here is the view toward Cape Point.
You can see why they call it Table Mountain.
The weather turned bad while we were up there.
This was on Signal Hill, an easy walk from anywhere in downtown Cape Town. Myung and I had a lovely time sitting on that bench. I just love benches with a view.
There’s a Muslim community here. The main area in town is called Bo Kamp. It’s interesting because they hae made it so colorful.
Here are striking union workers building the new soccer arena here for the 2010 FIFA championships. There are several stadiums going up in S. Africa. There is concern they won’t be finished on time.
Lastly on Cape Town itself, there’s a San Francisco Pier 39 type area where everybody always goes. There’s a big mall, cutesy and high end stores, many restaurants, street entertainers, etc..
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I’m continuing this a couple of days later. We drove down to Cape Point, the tip of the Cape of Good Hope.
As is true almost anywhere along the coast, it’s beautiful by the water. Cape Point and this are within an hour of Cape Town.
Myung takes wonderful flower pictures. The flowers and plants in general are interesting here. There are six floral zones in the wprld. One is a tiny strip only near the coast of Western Cape. One spectacular flower is the Protea. This picture of one is so sensual.
We have so many great pictures, but things being how they are in South Africa where there’s only high speed internet where there is satellite, that’s going to have to do it for now. I don’t know when I will be able to blog again because Myung’s visa expires the day after tomorrow. Tomorrow morning we’re going to put our heads down, pin our ears back, and make a beeline for the Namibian border. Namobia is a big country with 1.8 million people. There ain’t much there, but if I can write, I will. Be well, all of you.
