Cape Town

Table Mountain and the V&A Waterfront

Cape Point

We got out of school early on Friday July 23 and took Frances the Beetle for about and hours drive to Cape Town. (I should really say Nick drove the car and I held the GPS…thank God we borrowed a GPS) We were staying at the beautiful Cape Grace Hotel, which is located right on the Victoria & Alfred Waterfront. Our room was absolutely stunning, very modern and very cool. After we got settled we went for dinner at a restaurant the concierge recommended called Balthazar. I tried my first African fish called kingklip, and it was delish. We walked around a little and found an Irish pub where we met our new friend Dominik from Frankfurt, Germany. It really is amazing how everyone outside of the U.S is fluent in at least two languages, where in the U.S. most people struggle with their own. I’d seriously like to become fluent in another language. So cool.

Saturday we woke up early hopped in the beetle and drove about another hour South along the costal route to Cape Point and the Cape of Good Hope. If you’re not familiar with it, at the top of the Cape Point Mountain, you can see where the Indian and Atlantic Oceans collide. It’s really beautiful. The Cape of Good Hope is known for being the southernmost point on the African continent…(though apparently that is debatable, and there is another spot that we did not see.) After many pictures we headed back to check into our new digs for the night, the Table Bay Hotel. We were told by several locals that we had to go to Long Street for the night, and we did. There are a ton of bars and restaurants to go to, and we ended up going into The Purple Turtle and Dubliner with our new friend from Germany. Never having been to New Orleans, I can’t be positive, but we decided that Long Street resembled what Bourbon Street sounds like. It was great.

Our only stop on Sunday was to go to Table Mountain. It looks just as it’s name sounds, like a table, and it is amazing. You can pay to take a cable car to the top, (3,567 feet) or take on a massive uphill hike. In the interest of time and after our long night, we opted to take the cable car. The inside of the cable car spins, so you have a 360-degree view of the city of Cape Town and many of the nearby costal towns. The view is breathtaking. When you get to the top you can choose to do various walks that take you all around the mountain. I’d say we walked across about half of the flat mountaintop before we decided to leave. Everywhere you looked was different, and every view was stunning. There’s a contest going on to have Table Mountain join the 7 Wonders of the World, and I think it should definitely win. Pictures won’t do this place justice, but if you ever get the chance to go to Cape Town, Table Mountain is a must see.