Cape Town: Table Mountain, Hiking and Sailing

Cape Town, Dec. 19-21: At last, we made it to Cape Town and stayed at the Victoria Waterfront at a Marriott Protea. On the way, we made sure to stop by the Cape Town Temple site and mission office. The groundbreaking and construction haven't started yet but it was fun to see where the future temple will be. Our project director, Anton Fourie, is also over this temple along with Harare, Zimbabwe, Lumbumbashi, DRC (Congo), Mozambique, and Cape Town. We talked to the office senior couples, who love serving in Cape Town. Our friends and neighbors, Craig and Janet Peterson, served in this mission and in Africa for 9 years.

Future site of the Cape Town L.D.S. temple, mission office, 2023.12.19

     We enjoyed walking around the waterfront with lots of fun shopping and restaurants. The food in Cape Town was especially delicious with lots of seafood and variety to choose from. A particular specialty in South Africa is the Cape Malaysian cuisine. 

        The next day, we bought tickets to ride the "Hop on, Hop off" double-decker city sightseeing bus. I shopped at a local street African crafts fair and found a fun reversible skirt and bamboo knit sweater. Besides the saleswoman wouldn't take no for an answer!  We took an audio-guided ride to the center of town and took a walking tour to Bo Kaap, a bright-colored neighborhood of homes. Our tour guide, Jennifer, was a local from South Africa and knew a lot of history she shared with us. This neighborhood was settled by former slaves from Malaysia, Madagascar, India, etc. with a majority of Islamic populations. There were 3 mosques in the area. We loved the brightly painted homes and streets. Perfect photo opportunities. 

At the end of the tour, we tipped Jennifer and she mentioned we could shop or eat lunch. Bruce felt the Holy Ghost tell him, "Get out of here NOW!" You can read the signs painted on some of the shops and we felt the unrest. Being an American citizen with the war against Gaza and Palestine felt like the situation could end up volatile. We left the neighborhood block at a brisk pace to where we felt safer.

Lunch at Mozart's cafe; I had a traditional Cape Malaysian fare and Bruce enjoyed mussels with Cajun sauce. The apple crisp with fresh whipped cream was the most delicious treat!

After lunch at a sidewalk cafe, we rode the bus to "Table Mountain" to ride the cable car to the top. It was very crowded with a lot of vacationers but the line moved quickly and we reached the top in about 45 minutes. We met a friendly family from South Africa in line and the twelve-year-old girl was particularly chatty and loved our American accents (and we thought they had accents!) The views of the ocean bay of Cape Town from the top were spectacular. Lots of people posing for photos on top of rocks looking at the cliffs below.

The top of Table Mountain with views of Cape Town and Bay below, 2023.12.19

    We wandered around the top trails and went to take the cable car down. There was a huge line and we figured we could walk down in about 1 hour. The line was probably a 45-minute wait. The workers said it was about a 2-hour hike down but heck, we are in great shape and much faster than the average Joe (or so we thought!) It took us a while to even find the trail down and we had to backtrack on the upper trails we had already been on. There were no signs. We had a hard time finding anyone who knew where the trailhead started. Finally, we found it and started our descent down. Little did we know it was the "hike from hell!" as Elder Anderson stated. Bruce's Fitbit recorded 130 flights of stairs on the way down. The trail was basically large rock steps of various shapes and sizes. Every step was a painful lunge down a rocky staircase. After 2 hours our legs felt like rubber. I thought, "This is worse than a marathon!" When we finally got near the bottom there was a sign pointing to the lower cable car trailhead. It read it was only 720 meters; it felt like another 5 km. We decided, "This will be shorter than going down to the street and having to walk back up." After reascending and descending about 45 minutes later we finally made it. It took over 2.5 hours and over 20,000 steps. We were exhausted! Next time we'll wait in line. We paid the price for the next few days with very sore muscles. It was so hard to take any flights of stairs!

We are smiling in this photo but they are fake smiles! Almost down from the top! 2023.12.20

After our legs felt like noodles, we made it back to our hotel for a short rest. We walked to the waterfront for a fun dinner of Indian poochkas after having lemon gelato as a before-dinner treat. Wow, they're delicious, especially the chocolate dessert! This harbor town is alive and hopping with delicious food, music, and lots of shopping. 

     Our flight wasn't until 11:00 p.m. and the Marriott was nice enough to give us late check out at 4:00 p.m. and keep all our luggage until our flight. On our last day in Cape Town, we took the double-decker tour bus to the Camp Beach area. We enjoyed the bright and warm sunshine but the ocean water was freezing! Our legs were very sore from our hike the day before. Bruce even endured shopping at a mall so we could buy an extra gym bag to carry on the plane for the extra gifts we purchased. We anticipated a very long flight back to America; it's a good thing we got all those steps in!
"We're on "top of the world!" but really on the "bottom of the world", we spotted 2 penguins on our sailing tour. "I sail!"  Table Mountain in the distance that we hiked down from the top. 2023.12.21

        At the last minute with a few hours to kill, we boarded a sale boat for a fun hour ride in Table Bay. We were entertained by a family reunion, who enjoyed a few too many drinks and were quite lively. The crew went from 3 sails to 1 sail and began to tack with the spinnaker. As we turned everyone screamed thinking we were all going overboard! Everyone was laughing as we all got sprayed. We also saw some dolphins and seals in the bay along with 2 penguins swimming out to sea. It was a fun pastime to end our time in Cape Town. We arrived at the airport bright and early and awaited our long 15+ hour flight!

Cape Town Airport, last-minute African shopping, Bruce's spirit animal! 2023.12.21