Pappiesbank

We knew the day was going to be rainy, and Liz had adjusted the schedule to take that into account. Despite the rain, the view of the harbour and the mountain was clear. We headed out at 8:30 a.m. and drove downtown to the Greenmarket Square where every morning, traders lug carts loaded with wares to the square to set up, and by the time the rest of the city awakes the cobbled square is a bustling market filled with curios, food, buskers, jewellery, clothing, and nick-nacks. However, due to the rain, the vendors were still setting up when we arrived. Because there had been some serious shopping done in Stellenbosch yesterday, we all decided that it was okay to skip the market.

Instead, Liz gave us a little driving tour of the city. Especially poignant was the site of Nelson Mandela’s speech on May 9, 1994, just after he had been elected president of South Africa. South Africa had been in the grip of apartheid from 1948 to 1994.
We saw the church of Archbishop Tutu. We saw the castle that was built to protect the city (not that it was ever in danger of invasion), but the area around it has been taken over as a tent city which doesn’t help to draw tourists.

The other site that struck us deeply was District Six, a former inner-city residential area where over 60,000 of its inhabitants were forcibly removed during the 1970s by the apartheid regime. The area of District Six is now partly divided between the suburbs of Walmer Estate, Zonnebloem, and Lower Vrede, while the rest is generally undeveloped land. This undeveloped land is being used by homeless people while government representatives debate the best use of this prime site located close to the city centre, Table Mountain and the harbour.

From Cape Town, we began to head south along the ocean side, down through Sea Point and Camps Bay (where we were on the Hop On Hop Off bus on Monday) to Hout Bay. It was pretty wet in Hout Bay, so we just did a quick pit stop, looked at the seal that is kept captive to lure tourists for photos, and jumped back on the bus.

The drive along the coast offers fabulous views, even in the rain. The road hugs the the edge of the cliffs and in some cases is carved out of the cliff, just wide enough for two lanes of traffic. It's very much like the Amalfi Coast of Italy.

We followed Chapman’s Peak Drive to our ultimate destination was Table Mountain National Park which was proclaimed on 29 May 1998, for the purpose of protecting the natural environment of the Table Mountain Chain, and in particular the rare fynbos vegetation. The park is managed by South African National Parks. The property is included as part of the UNESCO Cape Floral Region World Heritage Site.
We entered the park and began traveling on the winding road down to the southern tip of this peninsula. And soon, the excitement began. We saw baboons – a whole troop of them! They come down from the trees on the mountain to graze in an area for 3-4 days, and then move on to another area. We saw baby baboons hanging onto their mothers.

Then we saw ostriches – a male and a female, on the Atlantic Ocean side. This made for much more dramatic photos than if they had been against a vegetation backdrop. (The male was closer and easier to photograph.)

And to complete the trifecta, we saw eland. From www.awf.org - The cow-like eland is the world’s largest antelope. However, it has the endurance to maintain a trot indefinitely and can jump a 1.5 meter (4 feet) fence from a standstill. Both males and females have horns that spiral tightly, though female horns tend to be longer and thinner. Usually fawn or tawny-colored, they turn gray or bluish-gray as they get older; the oldest animals become almost black. A tuft of black hair grows out of the male’s prominent dewlap, the loose fold of skin that hangs down from the neck. Adult males also have a mat of hair on the forehead that grows longer and denser as the animal ages.Read more