South Afrika (Capetown) April 2025

 Capetown Trip photo blog

Frankfurt to Capetown: 11.5 Hours. But, it is in the same Central European time zone at least!

Unload, get the bags, start looking for the guy with our name on his whiteboard in the taxi line.

We took lots of Übers around town, which were quite convenient and safe. This is 1/2 way up the iconic Table Mountain at the Cable car station. 

The downtown board walk later on in Day 1.

Capetown city park, looking sufficiently wild and African.

Afternoon drinks on the terrace at the Mt Nelson Hotel with Lisa and her mom.

Hike Day! The line was way too long to take the Cable Car up Table Mountain, so we ended up seeing it by hiking up the Skeleton Gorge route. We hired a guide, a young guy from Johannesburg, who I quizzed constantly about history and racial realities post-Mandela.

The hike went straight up the side of Table Mountain, on pegged-in ladders at some points. But it was in the shade of this small canyon so this saved us.

Hiking up steep fields of ferns and granite outcroppings.

On top there is a reservoir and a large expanse of powdery beach sand.

Trail sign from the 1920's apparently.

Group selfie at the top of the return loop trail. Capetown and Stellenbosch mountains in distance.

A Protea, South African national flower. Sugarbush family since they create copious amounts of nectar.

Small carnivorous plant on the side of the trail on the descent. Lots of sticky little arms for catching flies!

We spent a lot of time checking out the various beaches around Capetown. Here is Clifton Beach with some colorful sea stars.

Sand Castling went into overdrive this week.

Jasper's shot of Clifton sunset.

Cody on the rocks.

Clifton sunset, another angle.

Easter Sunday! 

Easter Sunday service at the local Methodist church. Dual-language between English and Khola, one of the dominant homeland languages in this part of the Cape. Lots of great singing and keeping the beat: the ladies whacked these leather pillows together throughout the songs. Super high energy.

The various homeland people were placed into "Townships" by the white Apartheid authorities, and we went to go walk through one of them. This guy makes beautiful glass mosaics in a workshop onsite in the Langa Township. A guide walked us around and laid out the history and the situation for everyone living there now.

Cody was sick so he didn't make the trip. This is Zuzie, a young woman from Langa who is trying to start her own tour business. Money from these things gets routed back into Township initiatives.

In one sectio, shipping containers serve as houses. Two families in one container, separated by a cheap wooden divider.

This is the orphanage.

Not really everyone's idea of a vacation activity, but its reality for so many people. Langa has 100K people and is one of the "safer" Townships to visit if you are white. There are others that sit outside of Capetown with over 1M in them. They don't run tours of those, too dangerous.

Next stop on the historical tour is Robben Island, where they kept Nelson Mandela for 18 years. This is the quarry where he smashed rocks and went half-blind with the bright sunlight and the fine lime dust floating in the air.

The prison guide talking us through the history.

One of the group cells. Originally, prisoners had to sleep on the mats shown above. Amnesty International eventually got metal bunks for them, but then authorities made them into bunk beds and just doubled the number of inmates in the rooms. In the corner was the shower: unlimited showering, but it was cold sea water. Heated showers did not happen until the 1970's.

Main hallway at the high-security section.

Prison gate that you pass coming up from the boat dock.

Lisa's still friendly with her ex-mother in law, and we went over for lunch one day. Front porch.

Our home-exchange property was in the Devil's Peak area on the lower slopes of Table Mountain. Behind the house we walked up the trails one night to catch the sunset.

The Lions Head mountain forms the western part of the bowl of Capetown.

Kids have such amazing energy. Constantly.

Cody silhouetting himself.

More energy: Jasper takes a jump off the top of the sand dune. We rented a Renault Triba and drove up to the sand dunes area northwest of Capetown. Here you can sand board and ride ATVs around.

Hiking up the sand dunes with our boards.

Cody drags his board across the desert looking for water...water...water...

Ok, it is a gimmick and the sand boarding run only lasts for a few seconds, but what the heck. Sandboarding.

Desert Duelers!

There is a 3000-bird penguin rookery outside Capetown. These are the littler cousins of the Magellanic penguins we got to know in Chile and Argentina years ago.

Inevitable penguin shot.

Cuties.

More cuties.

Signs you don't see often.

Muizenberg Beach, a small community south of Capetown where we put the kids in surfing lessons.

The flag was Black today. That means the water was murky and so you can't see if there are any sharks..!

We then drove down to Cape of Good Hope, most SW bit of Africa. Lots of wind and fun headlands to climb around on for the kids.

Sunset from the narrow ledge road around Chapmans's Peak on the way back up to Capetown.

Cheetah-petting in a rescue operation on the way to Stellenbosch.

Cafe in Stellenbosch, where Lisa went to University.

Stellenbosch "wine farm" as they call them. We did a tasting. This is in the middle of South Africa's wine belt.

Oops, back to the Cheetah.

Jay turned 55 the next day...

Last morning in Capetown, April 24, 2025. Lovely restaurant where Cody and I tried the Vietnamese Coffee Bowl: condensed milk at bottom, followed by steam milk layer, then the coffee. Outstanding!

Another one for the books. Thanks for reading!