South Africa: Cape Town, Tuesday, April 4 - Thursday, April 6, 2023

Monday, April 3, 2023, Cape Town, South Africa

We docked at Berth “E” on the waterfront in Cape Town at 8:00 am. Cape Town is gorgeous, with Table Mountain, Lions Head, and Signal Mountain as a backdrop. It was every bit as spectacular as Rio de Janiero and overall a more satisfying experience. Not as hot.

South Africa requires a face-to-face customs inspection upon arrival. They did this onboard the ship. Once we had our passports stamped, we disembarked. We were at the cruise ship dock rather than the commercial dock.  No razor wire or people with guns as we had experienced in commercial ports around the world (so far) with stacks of shipping containers, shipping vessels and large fishing operations. A nice change! There was also an air-conditioned tourist welcome center right off the dock. The weather was perfect, too.

Empty frame from photo op spot at Victoria & Albert Waterfront

We sent our regrets for the ship’s special event at a winery. We heard later that the event was wonderful—I’m sure it was—but we didn’t want to spend an entire day in Cape Town at one winery, however beautiful the setting. One friendly couple did save us a bottle of champagne that was a freebie from the event (we did realize later they must have kept the Cape Town bottle and substituted French).

We needed to exchange some US dollars for South African rand. Since the ATM in Namibia ate my cash card, this required a trip to a money exchange, which was on the way to the Victoria and Albert (V&A) waterfront tourist area. 

We bought 2-day tickets for the Hop-on/Hop-off bus (along with a city pass for some extra freebies) at the waterfront and immediately took the bus to Table Mountain. We rode on the top deck which is open-air with a wonderful view. The bus had a couple of stops downtown before heading up the mountain, but we stayed put.

We reached the cable car station at Table Mountain, and there was a long line, even for people with tickets or passes. It was Easter break and there were lots of families. We decided to stick with it. Thankfully the line went a lot faster than we thought it would, still over an hour. The ride up in the cable car was a thrill and it was gorgeous at the top. We spent a couple of hours hiking, taking pictures, and getting snacks at the restaurant before riding back down.

Charlie on the edge of a thousand foot drop

The cable car—you can barely see the 2nd car near the top

At the bottom, we caught the HOHO bus down the mountain. We didn’t realize it at the time, but we were now on the “blue” line instead of the “red” line (both lines have red buses). The blue line goes along the waterfront, and we got off at the first stop (Camp Bay) and had a free city pass lunch at the Hard Rock Cafe with a view of the lovely beach. There were vendors at the beach; we bought a hat for Charlie and a visor for me.

Camps Bay

Vendor - Charlie bought this hat

We got off at most of the waterfront stops. One of the best was a huge grassy field along the ocean promenade—paraglides were landing there. The two-person gliders started at the top of Signal Hill, only a 15-20 minute drive up. The professional fliers swooped their passengers around in the updrafts, went out to sea a ways, then made smooth landings on the grass. They tried to talk us into it. 

Paraglides landed in this field

We eventually ended up back at the V&A Waterfront, and used our city pass to go to the aquarium. It was a really good one.

Penguin at the aquarium

By then it was close to sunset. A pleasant surprise, the HOHO bus shuttled us and other stranded cruisers back to the terminal.

Tuesday, April 4, 2023

We took the ship shuttle to the V&A Waterfront with some friends, then got on the Blue Line Hop On/Hop Off again. Our first stop was downtown near a restaurant we were interested in, Grumpy & Runts. We bought donuts and lunch to go and ate an outrageous jelly pastry right on the spot. Again, perfect weather, just a bit on the warm side.

A Jewish museum was close by, so we toured that. The best exhibit was a recreation of the Jewish section of town from the 1800s, complete with a small house, school, and store. Jill appeared to step back in time for a photograph of her standing on cobblestones in a doorway in front of a life-sized black and white photograph of the town.

Exhibit at the Jewish Museum

From there we caught the HOHO to Kirstenbosch National Botanical Garden, which was gorgeous. We ate our take-away lunch on a bench, did the tree walk and came across an amphitheater where Charlie got on the stage and sang “Our Love is Here to Stay” a cappella. 

We stayed too long at the garden, but finally caught the HOHO bus, this time for a Seal Island tour (another freebie with our CityPass). The bus went behind Signal Hill and Table Mountain, so we saw some wine country and other interesting communities on the way to Hout Bay. There we took the boat out to see a giant seal colony. The boat was full of families and other tourists. There were vendors on the pier so we spent our extra time bargaining, and Charlie found his first ever bracelet!

Seal Island from Hout Bay

Back on the HOHO bus, we went back to V&A Waterfront and rode the large Ferris Wheel. Getting towards dusk and too tired to walk back, we took a taxi to the pier.

Wednesday, April 5, 2023

We did not have a HOHO bus ticket for this day, so took a taxi to downtown Cape Town looking for the Green Market we’d been hearing about. This is a large square with many vendors. Basically a tourist trap. We bought some African shirts but had a hard time getting inspired to buy much else.

The Green Market

This building from 1896 is squeezed between modern skyscrapers

On our way to Bamboo restaurant we passed by a second hand store. Anyone acquainted with Charlie knows we had to stop there. He got 3 shirts. We found out it is a business raising funds for recovering addicts, including the nice in-recovery staff who worked there. They said downtown Cape Town has a very bad heroin problem. Downtown did seem a little sketchy.

We ate at Bamboo, a plant-based restaurant that was really good, then found the post office which had a large lines, some for people doing some kind of financial transactions and others for people mailing things before Easter. It didn’t look like a place to spend a chunk of our day - family post cards would have to wait.

We moved on and found taxis near the convention center. We took one back to the pier, forgetting to negotiate the fee beforehand. Charlie was outraged at what he wanted to charge for a 5-minute ride, and there was some back and forth before the driver relented and told Charlie he complained too much. He did knock off a couple dollars off the fare.

Back at the tourist welcome center, we climbed the stairs and asked the sushi restaurant if we could borrow their wi-fi. We went out on the nice deck with a view of the ship and port, got comfortable to begin downloading and backing things up - functions impossible for ship wi-fi. We looked over to our ship and saw staff leaning against the railing with phones at hand.

Staff getting every last moment of decent wi-fi while in port

Too soon, an officer from the ship came to round up wayward passengers enjoying our last few minutes at Cape Town.