Rolling in Cape Town

This is our third day here.

We arrived on the purple train Friday and checked into our guest house. After our two weeks in S. Africa it feels like we have moved back to California. Don has been in the small pool daily. Surprised?

Saturday we took the hop on-hop off bus blue route. We went to Kirstenbosch Gardens first, then toured the Constantia wine area. Both experiences were wonderful. We had lunch at the second place and bought some local wine. Then we rode the whole rest of the route by the western coastal suburbs back to city center. There we took the canal tour before completing the loop back to our stop. We had dinner at Cafe Paradiso where our server was from California.

On Sunday we had day two of the tour bus so we opted for the red tour. Our goal was Table Mointain. We purchased tickets for the cable car online and we were ready to go. There are layers of clouds that come and go over the mountain called the tablecloth. How cute. So there were clouds. We occasionally got a glimpse of blue sky, but after hot chocolate and strolling on top, we came back down. There were some lovely vistas from the cable car--it rotated as it traversed the hill.

We hopped back on and toured those beaches again, this time getting off and walking for awhile. We took a break for a couple of hours then assembled a picnic to take on the night tour to watch the sunset from Signal Hill. The marine layer kept the sunset from being spectacular, but we had the experience none the less. The bus driver was kind enough to let us off at our guest house--it is right on the route back.
To day we spent some time In the city park, called the Company Gardens and we went to the South African Museum of Art. The museum had a new exhibition featuring the works of Peter Clarke of Simon Town, SA. He is 82 years old and he explored almost every medium. I add that info b/c this is my blog and I want to remember that detail. I enjoyed both places that we visited.We continued our walk to the city center where we had lunch, went to a jewelry store, and found the Hertz car rental. After 42 (almost) years of marriage Don is still my hero as we rented a stick shift little Citroen car and headed off into the sunset on the left side of the roads. Now I served as the navigator--actually we paid extra to have an electronic Garmin to do my job. I had to tell her our destination. We headed out of town on the east side of Cape Town. We saw the penguins at Boulder Beach and went to the Cape Point. There we hiked and climbed up to the old lighthouse and again saw amazing views. We took a different route back. We drove west to be on the Atlantic side again. This included a toll road that goes by Chapman's pass. This was incredible. It is curvy, narrow, and high on the cliffs. There have been many car commercials filmed here. My hero drove it flawlessly!
Don drove up Signal Hill tonight again to watch the sunset into the clouds. That road is almost as bad as Chapman Road.
We love Cape Town and we love meeting other tourists, taking pictures, etc.

The purple train

A shanty town

View from train Friday morning

New favorites and the old train

I have to go back to Thursday and our overnight train ride. The premium lounge at the station was wonderful and we met two sisters from Cape Town. Edringa wanted our names so she could pray for us---let me spell it for you.

The train was electric, but a bit on the old and noisy side. I think their philosophy was"give them enough food and drink and they will be happy.". We had a nice compartment 3A. First there was a departure drink in the lounge car with some potatoe chips, nuts, and jerky. In two hours there was tea and cookies. In two more hours thre was a 5 course dinner. We didn't know our table assignment. We misunderstood the porter when he told us that we would eat all meals at the same table. It was the table in the lounge car where we originally had our departure drink. The train was painted purple on the exterior with aqua trim and a goldfish stripe.

Our beds were made up during dinner. We both loved the nice shower. Bathroom always smelled. The train only made 3 official stops, but for unknown reasons it seemed to always be stopping. That caused noise and jerking. We survived.

Breakfast was delicious. Tea was served at 10 followed by lunch at 12:30. Food was great and we met some nice travelers.

With all the delays we were only about 30 minutes late. We had hired a driver to meet us at the Cape Town station to deliver us to our guest house.

We have a lovely guest house on Kloofnek street. It feels very Californian to us. Nice people here,too. And wifi!

I posted a pic yesterday and will try again tonight. D & J

Guest house

Still rolling

Yesterday we left J-burg on the Premium train at 3:00 pm.

In Johannesburg we spent three days and nights. These are the highlights:

We took the ultra modern and immaculate Gautrain from the airport to Sandton on Monday eve. Where Adrianne and Nathan picked us up. We had dinner with them at an African restaurant at Nelson Mandela Square.That is one of the nicest places around.

They had secured a place for us to stay at the Baptist International Missions guest house. It was quite a large campus. We had a bedroom and bath with a small shared kitchen which A & N stocked with some breakfast foods for us.

On Tuesday they picked us up at noon. We went out for lunch and then toured the Apartheid Museum. We also experienced city traffic.

Wednesday we had lunch with a young missionary family that was staying at the guest house. And had one last meal with the Penners. What a great young couple they are.

Don spent much time effort and also money scurrying around to purchase the train tickets. We couldn't do it online. We were supposed to print their form and sign it and fax it back to them. It was impossible to do from an IPad. He ended up hiring a driver to take him to a mall to go to a branch of their bank and having to deposit cash into the train's account. Meanwhile, I had relaxing time--no tv or Internet. We could get 30 minutes at the coffee shop.

The same driver took us to the train station Thursday. There was a definite security presence. Some of the guards were armed with machine guns. Our driver parked and walked us inside where we were able to locate the designated Premium lounge. Our train departed at 3:00 pm.

So stay tuned and I will tell you what that premium train was like. I am writing from cape Town so you know that we made it.