View of Cape Town
A month into the new year and my resolution of traveling is holding up well. Mid January I attended a close friend’s wedding near Indore and then jetted off to Cape Town, South Africa. Now I am back from God’s own country and am desperately cherishing my 8 days there.
Where do I start? The place is just stunning. Cape Town has it all, the white sand beaches to high mountains that makes for beautiful treks. Also, within a 2.5 hr drive, you can find yourself at the southern most point of Africa, Cape Agulhas. It was an action packed, not really, 8 days where we tried to do it all.
We trekked up Table Moutain (took close to two hours), and this made up for the fact that the view atop the mountain was quite foggy. This was my first trek ever, and having the fear of heights, I am so super proud of myself for accomplishing this. This, of course, wouldn’t have been possible without my husband telling me all the dos and don’ts about trekking and being my support system all the way. The trek offerred some of the most breath taking views of the sprawling city. All houfing and poufing the way up was worth it.
Table Mountain
You would think one 2 hour trek up Table Mountain would be enough for our trip, but no, not for us. Immediately, the next day, we found ourselves chugging along the trail to the Cape of Good Hope. What started out as a nice and easy stroll, quickly became almost a 3 hr excursion for us. We had multipe photo stops along the way, and then even decided to trek down to Dias Beach from the Cape.
Cape Town also made for some great encounters with the wild life. Near the quaint town of Simon’s Town, we found ourselves amongst a colony of African Penguins. I didn’t bother reading about how or why the penguins made Boulders beach their home as I couldn’t get over how cute they were. They were just there on the beach, sleeping, walking, and looking cute. Cape Town is also one of the few places in the world where you can see the great white shark in its natural habitat. One of the most popular tourist activities is Shark Cage Diving, and we being the crazies we are had this as our last day in the city. It was one of the most awesomest (is this even a word) experiences of my life. Contrary to belief, the experience wasn’t scary as we were in the hands of highly experienced professionals and it’s quite a controlled environment. What shark cage diving consists of is being lowered into the ocean (between Gaansbai and Dryer Island) in a cage and being able to view a shark at eye level. The diving staff throws a bait of juicy tuna into the ocean and this is what attracks the shark in the first place. We were able to have two sharks, both close to 3 meters, come to our cage. Most of them were just attracked to the tuna and didn’t linger much around the cage. What bothered me more than diving was the freezing water, lol. If had the chance, I would do this again. Unfortunately, I don’t have pictures of this experience as we both were in the cage at the same time, but believe me when I say it’s not scary at all.
Cape of Good Hope
How can I not talk about food (and South African wine)? Another one of the highlights was all the delicious food we hogged. From ostrich burger to african pickled fish, and mouthwatering mussels. I can visualize all these meals as I am writing this post. As for the wines, I am not a connoisseur at all, but I can surely say is that they were yum!
Trying Oysters
I can go on and on about the trip, but I don’t want to bore all of you. I am sure I will keep refering to tid-bits from the trip in other posts.
What have been your favorite vacations? Please tell me if any of you have tried anything “crazy” over your vacations.
Chai and CCD 