November 21, 2008 – Cape Town, South Africa

8 of us had privately rented a van to tour for the day. The driver / guide gave an excellent tour with lots of interesting information about the areas we were traversing. We headed south through the suburbs and the Constantia wine area. Constantia isn’t a large wine area but was the first, dating from the 1640s when the Dutch East India Company established Cape Town as a provisioning stop for their ships sailing between Europe & the East Indies & India. We proceeded along the west coast of the peninsula into Table Mountain National Park. Along the way we visited an ostrich farm and later encountered wild ostrich & their chicks, a some kind of bok antelope and baboons. Baboons are used to humans and will steal anything and we were told to keep the windows closed. The baboons were all around us with several babies & kids and 3 of the kids climbed up on the van trying to find an opening, crawling across the roof and sliding down the windshield and rear window. We escaped them and made our way to the point where we could walk up to the top of the cliff and see both the Indian & Atlantic oceans. It was clouded over so we went into the restaurant for coffee & tea. My favorite tea is rooi bos which translates to red bush. It’s caffeine free and the whole bush is ground up to make the red colored tea. We continued down the peninsula to a point where there is a wooden marker showing the longitude and claiming (falsely) to be the southernmost point in Africa. The real southernmost is about 30 km east but is inaccessible by road. We next proceeded along the east coast to The Boulders where there is a colony of African Penguins, basically Magellanic penguins residing in Africa. They are small, about 12 inches tall, and dig nests in the beach sand to breed, hatch and grow their chicks. At that area is the Fore Shore restaurant where we all had some great seafood and wine or beer. We followed the coast through the old and well known towns of Simon’s Town & Fish Hoek (the only place where fishing from shore can be done without license or permit.) When we got back to Constantia we stopped at Groot Constantia, the second governor’s residence dating from the mid 1600s and built in the Dutch architectural style and with thatched roofs. It was the Cape’s first winery and is privately owned and open to the public. The place is immaculately kept and the main house has some beautiful furniture, including 2 gorgeous 17th century long case clocks. Back into the city we stopped in a seedy part of town so one of the group could buy a couple of Mandela shirts for an African themed golf outing in January. I got a couple of golf hats with the “Big 5” animals embroidered on them for $5.00 each. We also, at our choice, made a 45 minute stop at a craft market and then returned to the ship.

We had about an hour to clean up and head out for a special event for those of us doing the full cruise. We boarded 2 busses and drove along the east side of the city past the upscale suburbs of Sea Point and Camp’s Bay and into the Constantia area. Our destination was the Buitenverwachting (translates to “beyond expectations) winery for dinner. It’s an old Dutch winery with its restaurant rated as one of the top in South Africa. We were greeted with sparkling wine while listening to a classical quartet. The several courses were paired with their wines and included both game meat and the local prime sea fish Kingklip. It was an enjoyable evening and we got back to the ship around 11:00pm.