Jeremy was our guide for the 4-hour scenic trip “Cape Town and Table
Mountain” tour. Table Mountain is Cape
Town’s most celebrated landmark, and South Africans are obviously very proud of
it. By the way, although we think of
this city as being at the southern tip of Africa, it’s actually on the western
side, facing the Atlantic Ocean. Several
times, we heard comparisons of Cape Town to San Francisco, mainly because both
are big cities facing the ocean on the west with many very steep streets. However the mountains close to Cape Town are
higher. Our bus departed the pier for
the drive up Kloof Nek (“gap neck” in English), the saddle between Table
Mountain and Lion’s Head, en route to the Lower Cableway Station.
After arrival at the station, we all stood in line for 10 minutes or
more, which we had expected, waiting to board a cable car. At that point, we boarded a Swiss-engineered
Rotair cable car, and ascended from the 1,190-foot Valley Station to the
3,477-foot Mountain Station. The journey
from the base to the summit takes just under four minutes, while the floor of
the car rotates 360 degrees during the ascent and descent. Standing just inside the entrance next to the
window, Sally felt crowded into a small area and unsteady, thus she tried to
hold onto the rail around the outside of the car. This was the wrong thing to do, as the side
kept rotating away from her. For her, it
was a confusing feeling because she seemed to see about the same scenery the
entire time because taller people blocked much of her vision except what was
directly in front. (Coming back down,
the cable car was not as full; then Sally could see the rotation of the floor
that she stood on, and was more conscious of the scenery changing in front of
her.)
Table Mountain gets its name from the flat-topped central massif of
the mountain. When viewed from the city,
it is surrounded by Devil’s Peak on the left, Lion’s Head on the right, and
Signal Hill in the foreground. They form
a sort of amphitheater that encloses the city center and some older suburbs. Other suburbs are situated on either side of
the chain of mountains, which run like a spine through the Cape Peninsula from
Table Mountain to Cape Point, the cape for which Cape Town is named.
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| Atop Table Mountain |
Yes, the view from the summit was quite lovely, as several others of
our friends commented to us as they passed by, admiring the scenery. Looking down from various points, we could
see mountains and forest, city, and ocean.
Massive boulders were scattered about along the periphery of the summit,
and people could sit relaxing in the sun while eating a sandwich or an ice
cream cone.
We saw a sign, “Don’t feed the dassies. They might bite.” What on earth is a dassie? Then we saw an animal under one of the tables
where people were sitting. Jesse pointed
and said, “See the rat!” Well, it was
larger than a rat and it was furry, with no tail. Also, the dassie didn’t scamper; it trudged –
and it didn’t appear to be afraid of people.
According to Wikipedia, the “rock hyrax (Procavia capensis) also called
rock badger and cape hyrax,” is commonly referred to as the dassie. (The name “dassie” means “hyrax” in
Afrikans.) Wikipedia also states that an
almost unbelievable fact about Table Mountain’s dassies is that they are the
closest related relatives to elephants, despite the enormous difference in
size.
Later while discussing this tour, Jesse and I attempted to compare
Table Mountain to other high points that we have reached by cable car or some other
conveyance. To Sally, it was less
impressive than the “Christ the Redeemer” statue in Rio de Janeiro – but definitely
worth seeing while in Africa.
After walking through several souvenir shops (with no purchases), we
decided to descend by stairs from the fifth level instead of riding the elevator. After underway, we regretted that decision somewhat;
there were a lot of stairs! Out in
front, we waited for about 45 minutes until the rest of our group was together
and we boarded the bus for our trip back to the pier.
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| Beach Photo Stop |
We passed through possibly the highest-priced real estate in the Cape
Town area, where one can have an ocean-side view. Since it is illegal to block the view, the
buildings closest to the beach are built so that the top is level with the road. On the other side of the road, the buildings
are built up from street level with the backs of the buildings seeming to butt
against the high cliff behind them. In
that way, all of the buildings have a good view.
Although Jeremy once compared the Cape Town public beaches to those in
Florida, there is really no comparison except for the nice sand. Between the beaches, large rocks can be seen, where
swimmers would definitely not swim.
Also, the breakers looked rather large.
In addition, Florida swimmers would not be pleased with the sea water
temperature at Cape Town, where temperatures peak at 66-72 degrees Fahrenheit at
the end of January, and are at their lowest at 57-61 degrees about 10 August. Compare these temps with those for Daytona
Beach, where the water is warmest in early September (83 degrees) and coolest
in February (59 degrees). [The lowest temps
are similar, but the highest temps are much different.]
We passed by the public swimming facilities, that include several
types of pools. However, Cape Town is
now trying to cope with its worst drought in history, and those pools are not
totally filled. Overdevelopment,
population growth, and climate change have upset the balance between water use
and supply. For months, citizens have
been urged to consume less, but more than half of residents have ignored those
voluntary restrictions. So in January,
the city requested even steeper cuts, asking residents to consume just 50
liters per day – less than one-sixth of what the average American uses. (Washing one’s car or watering the lawn is
illegal unless done with waste water.) If
consumption doesn’t drop steeply and quickly, everyone will be forced into “Day
Zero,” where all will have to live on far less water – about 25 liters a day,
less than typically used in four minutes of showering. At that time (mid-April), the city will shut
off taps to homes and businesses because reservoirs have gotten perilously
low. Four million people in Cape Town
may have to stand in line surrounded by armed guards to collect rations of the
region’s most precious commodity: drinking water.
Passengers on the Insignia also have been asked to conserve on water
usage because the ship cannot load more tap water here. More bottled water is being purchased, of
course (it is provided free of charge onboard), but its cost has been driven up
by water scarcity.
On some bus windows, we always see the words “EMERGENCY EXIT.” Buses in South Africa have those words and
also “NOOD UITGANG.” Since “ausgang” (exit,
in English) is used in the German language, Sally was curious about the words
on the bus. It turns out “nooduitgang”
is Dutch, which she suspected. (“Notausgang” is the German equivalent.)
According to the last (2011)
census, South Africa has 11 official languages.
The three most spoken languages are Zulu (22.7%), Xhosa (16%), Afrikaans
(13.5%), and English (9.6%). Despite the
fact that English is recognized as the language of commerce and science, it
ranks fourth as a language spoken by South Africans. The other seven languages are tribal
languages, whose names are not familiar to most Americans.
We were back on board the ship by 6:00 PM, and after resting a bit, we
both enjoyed lobster for dinner – no dancing tonight.
Thursday, 8 Feb 2018 – Since we had no excursion scheduled for today, we decided to
explore Cape Town on one of their Hop On Hop Off buses, which we boarded at
about 1:45 PM for the 90-minute City Tour (one of the four available tours). It turned out that the bus took pretty much
the same route as we had taken for our Table Mountain Tour yesterday, so we
didn’t see anything new. We hopped off
the bus at the Victoria Wharf Mall to do a little shopping, but did not
purchase anything. We re-boarded another
“City Tour” bus
and planned to exit the bus at the next stop nearest our cruise ship; however,
the bus skipped the next three stops!
When we asked the driver about it, she said the road to those stops had
been closed, but she will be returning there in another 90 minutes and would
drop us off then. By the time we reached
Table Mountain (for the 3rd time), we needed to use the facilities, so we
exited the bus. We boarded the next City
Tour bus for the remainder of our trip; however, when the bus stopped at the Victoria
Wharf Mall, the driver told us that he would be skipping the next three stops
(again)! Since his next stop would be
even farther from the ship, we decided to exit the bus at mall and walk back to
the ship. Although we had been told that
it would be about a 10-minute walk, it took us about 30 minutes (turning in the
wrong direction twice didn’t help!), and we re-boarded the ship, exhausted, at about
7:30 PM! Too tired to dance, after
dinner we retired for the night.
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| Nobel Square (Near Mall) - L to R: Albert Luthuli (1960), Desmond Tutu (1984), FW de Klerk (1993), & Nelson Mandela (1993) |
Friday, 9 Feb 2018 – We had booked an excursion for Robben
Island, which is where exiles and prisoners, including Nelson Mandela, were
imprisoned, as well as a place of confinement for lepers, lunatics, and the
sick. Since 1960, it has become
synonymous with the political struggle against apartheid in South Africa. The last political prisoners were released in
1991, and in 1997 the Robben Island Museum opened its doors to the public. In 1999, Robben Island was declared a World
Heritage Site.
However, neither
of us was in peak condition, and Sally had managed to sleep less than 3 hours
the previous night. When the alarm came
on at 6:15 AM, she said she could not go out on this excursion. Jesse didn’t like missing the excursion (the
cost of which would not be refunded to us), and he told Sally that he would
have to go by himself. However, after
looking at the itinerary, he decided it wouldn’t be interesting enough for him
to go. In museums, generally Sally walks
through and, if she finds it interesting (as she did the Mahatma Gandhi museum in
India or the Kensington Palace in London, she reads everything – while Jesse
finds a comfortable place to sit and waits for her! Therefore, we stayed in the cabin and relaxed
today. Because of a strong wind, the
pool was empty with a net over it, and there was no dancing.
We attended a
lifeboat drill (our third) because new people boarded the Insignia yesterday
and today, while it was in port, for the next segment of the world cruise. After dinner, we danced for a half hour in the
Insignia Lounge.
