We decided to head out of Cape Town for a couple of days as the surrounding area has a lot to do and see.  Our first stop was a little town called Hermanus, 122 km south of Cape Town reached by driving on a beautiful coastal road.  Hermanus’ claim to fame is that it’s the world’s best land-based whale-watching destination.  The southern right whales come every year between June and December from the Antarctic waters to calve in the warmer shallower waters off the coast here.  The town was cute and there were plenty of restaurants with windows overlooking the bay so that you could whale watch.  We found a great spot for lunch and we sat there, staring out into the water waiting for a whale to show up.  Supposedly if we came a month later there would be over 50 whales in the bay, but being a little early we had to wait and stare.  Sure enough, about an hour later, we could see water flying out of the sea in a V shape pattern, indicative of the blow holes of the southern right whales.  After that, a whale would continually breach (launch out of the water and crash back into the sea with a huge splash) which was a truly amazing and powerful thing to watch.  Another whale came right up to the shore to swim around and gracefully play in the kelp.  I could only imagine what it would be like with 50 in the harbour, as watching 2 of them was already a really moving experience.

About 50 kilometres past Hermanus on the same coastal road is a town called Gaansbai.  Though this town was not as picturesque, an experience of a lifetime was waiting for us there.  A 20 minute boat ride from the Gaansbai coast lies “shark alley”, and Di and I were signed up to do some cage diving with great white sharks.  We went with a company called White Shark Projects which is a conservation and ecotourism outfit.  They were passionate in the saving of the sharks and before we hopped on the boat we were given the stats and issues with the dwindling shark population of the world.  Their estimates are that the great whites would be extinct in 10-15 years if what’s going on out there continues.  “What’s going on” was really embarrassing to Di and I, as we were the only tourists of Chinese origin in the group of 18.  Sharks around the world are dying at alarming rates, pretty much all due to shark fin soup, a Chinese delicacy that I am extremely guilty of indulging in my whole life.  After we were given the informative talk we took the boat out to a spot the captain thought would be favourable for finding sharks, and then chum was thrown into the water.  Like whale watching, he said we would have to just hope sharks were in the area and we would have to wait.  Di and I were in the first group to get into the freezing (about 12 degrees) water.  We put on 7 mm wetsuits and dive masks and jumped into the cage which was just hanging off the side of the boat.  Though it’s called shark diving you actually don’t get scuba gear as they found the bubbles were not conducive to the experience, so basically we would just wait in the cage with our heads above the water, and when they yelled “Down!” we were to drop ourselves underwater and hold our breath as a shark swam close by.  They would lure the sharks around the boat with the chum, and then they would use a large tuna head tied to a piece of rope to draw the sharks close to the cage for us to see.  Now the waiting in the water was not fun as the waves were quite choppy and as I said before the water was cold.  In addition the visibility was only about 2-3 metres when you were underwater.  But when they yelled “down” and you tried to focus on that tuna head being pulled toward you, suddenly a large shark would emerge, jaws open ready to bite.  That experience is completely indescribable, and no matter how many times you’ve seen it on the Discovery Channel it cannot compare.  Having an apex predator literally an arm’s length away from you with its eyes looking at yours as it swims by is unbelievable.  There were times in between shark sightings (after seeing how formidable they looked) when I would look at the extremely meek looking cage that was protecting us and think, “what the hell am I doing in here?”  After 45 minutes in the water we got out so that others could get in, and watching the whole thing from the boat was to us equally as exciting.  The sharks would breach as well like the whales, but they would do it with their jaws wide open trying to eat.  Witnessing that definitely brought some different emotions (namely fear) when compared to watching the whales breach.  As you can see from the picture above the sharks are right beside the boat, and following their dorsal fins as they slowly circle us with their silhouettes just underneath the water is absolutely spell binding.  The captain said we had a very good day as we saw 7 different great whites, all ranging from about 3-4 metres in length.  Unfortunately the even bigger ones are hard to spot now as a lot of them have been fished out.  Watching these incredible predators was mind-blowing.  They are beautiful, graceful, powerful, and terrorizingly (I’m pretty sure that’s not a word) awesome.  Plus our oceans need them, so we’ve decided to not order any more shark fin soup, and I hope you’ll do the same.  I also hope that that will be last time Di and I will ever run into them underwater.

Lastly we spent a few days in the wine country.  The setting was stunning.  Then again, when is wine country ever not stunning?  We spent a few nights in the picturesque towns of Franschhoek and Stellenbosch, our bases for visiting the vineyards.  South Africa is now the 9^th largest producer of wine in the world, and the quality is outstanding.  The signature grape here is called the pinotage (a cross between the pinot noir and cinsaut) and over the many days of tasting we really enjoyed this varietal.  Though all the wineries were beautiful, our favourite was one owned by the golfer Ernie Els!  Its location was as scenic as it gets, and his wines (named after himself) were the favourite of our trip.  If you can, try to find a bottle of his Bordeaux blend.  As with all other wine regions, amazing food usually goes hand in hand, and every meal we had here was fantastic.  We were told that the highest rated restaurant in South Africa, and also consistently ranked as one of the top 50 in the world, was in Franschhoek, so we had to give it a try.  It was called The Tasting Room and Chef Margot Janse gave Di and I one of the best fine dining experiences of our lives.  We each had the tasting menu and every single item brought to the table was incredible.  I’m usually not a huge fan of the flavoured foams and the dry-ice presentations but it really worked here.  The quality was world class, yet the price was extremely reasonable (about 1/3 the price of places we ate it in Paris and New York).  To emphasize my point, we had an excellent bottle of wine here and it cost us the equivalent of 30 USD, about the same price we paid for a glass of wine at Le Cinq in Paris.

As Di wrote previously, Cape Town is a remarkable place with a lot to offer.  However we could have easily spent an extra week just outside of Cape Town as well.  As a destination, South Africa is in my opinion under-rated.  Everyone is concerned about safety and though there are these issues, we never felt really unsafe the whole time we were here (though Johannesburg is supposedly different and far more dangerous).  Maybe it was low season, but the prices we were paying for food and accommodation were extremely affordable for the quality you got in return.  Hopefully one day the social issues will resolve, because with that fixed, Cape Town and its surrounds would be one of the greatest travel regions around.

We flew to Johannesburg (Jo’burg) from Dar Es Salaam and arrived at 11am.  Then we waited for about 10 hours at the Jo’burg airport before flying to Cape Town.  Why would we do that?  Because we wanted to save $200.  It seemed to make sense at the time to book the cheaper but later flight, but because Eug was feeling under the weather when we flew out of Dar, the 10 hour wait turned out to be more difficult than we anticipated.  We tried for 2 standbys to get on the earlier flights, but both flights were full.  Eug sucked it up and we finally made to Cape Town at 11pm.  We were lucky to get a very good deal on this brand new serviced apartment hotel in the city, so we happily crashed in this comfortable modern one bedroom pad as soon as we checked in.  Eug recovered quickly after just one day and did I mention there was a washing machine?!  We found heaven again.  Although this time heaven ruined our white t-shirts because we used super hot water to make sure we don’t have any more bed bugs Eug inherited from one of the hostels we stayed at earlier.  Argh.

Early next morning we got a call from Ken (our USAID friend in Tanzania)’s friend Raymond who invited us over for dinner that night.  We were very pleasantly surprised as it was only our first day in a new country and we already had an invite!  Raymond is a Mauritius born Chinese and he moved to Cape Town about 15 years ago.  He has a beautiful family, amazing kids.  They were all great hosts, and Raymond’s a fantastic cook.  We ended up going to his house twice for dinner, the first time he made abalone with chicken and Chinese mushrooms (soooo good!), and the second time he had a Braai (South African barbeque).  There was T-Bone steak, warthog sausages, pork chops, and delicious fish that melts in your mouth.  They even had karaoke!  Eug and I couldn’t be thankful enough for Raymond and his family’s generosity and hospitality.  We had a really great time hanging out with them.

We spent the first two days walking around the city.  Even though it’s winter here, the weather was just perfect.  It’s like those sunny autumn days in Vancouver, the air crisp and the sun warm.  We paid a very interesting visit to the District Six Museum.  The host Noor who gave us a tour in the museum was born and raised in District Six himself before it was declared as a “white” area under the Group Areas Act in 1966.  Noor personally experienced apartheid and told us the compelling story of his life.  It was a tragic story but he was optimistic and uplifting.  He showed us where he used to live on the map inside the museum and he showed us pictures of his house before it was bulldozed over.  We also walked around Bo-Kaap, the Muslim quarter where there were brightly painted houses; Long street where we were told that during the World Cup, it was the most happening street with tons of people in the bars and restaurants; and the newly developed V&A Waterfront, where we watched the third Twilight (woo!) and Eug admitted it was the best of the three so far.  That was pretty awesome. 

There’s a mountain in the city called Table Mountain in the Table Mountain National Park.  It’s called Table Mountain because the top of the mountain is flat.  And the flat part is often covered by a dense white low cloud that locals call “the table cloth”.  We could see this from the balcony of our 7^th floor apartment behind the neighbouring buildings.  We walked about an hour to Table Mountain from our apartment and we took a cable car up to the peak.  There are also various routes you can take to hike up the mountain, but since we already hiked Kilimanjaro, we thought we would take it slow here.  At 1088m at the peak, it’s the ultimate viewpoint over the city and it’s absolutely breathtaking. 

We rented a Kia Picanto for the rest of our stay in Cape Town.  It was not a very powerful car but it did its job of taking us around.  It was Eug’s first time driving on the other side of the road, and also his first time shifting gears with his left hand.  He did become really good at it after the first day, but it was funny to see the windshield wiper going up whenever he wanted to signal a turn, and almost immediately I’d hear a “sh*t”.  We drove around the coast down to Boulders Beach to see the penguin colony.  The penguins were really cute.  They wobble around feebly like they are about to pk any minute.  We drove south to Cape of Good Hope which is supposedly the most southern point of Africa but really it’s the most southwesterly point.  We drove back up along the Atlantic coast and we couldn’t stop being wowed every five minutes by how beautiful the view was, especially on Chapman’s Peak Drive.  We both agreed it’s probably the most beautiful road we’ve ever been on.  We had to pull over a few times to fully absorb the scenery and take pictures.  We also checked out Camps Bay, a wealthy residential area with an amazing sea view.  There are a few nice restaurants there too.  One of our guest house hosts recommended us to go to a steak house in the area, and it’s here that I had the best steak ever.  And Eug had the biggest portion of ribs ever.  We were both laughing when the ribs came, even the table next to us was laughing at the gi-normous sized dish.  Though the next day we were both feeling the effect of meat overload.

Cape Town is an amazing city with a lot to offer.  It’s got the mountain, the water, good food, really good wine, excellent choices of accommodation, and amazing nature and landscape.  You can surf, hike, and see penguins all in one day.  We are really enjoying this place so far.