On January 3, we left Cape Town by rental car. We actually stayed in town for 1 week because every year on the 2nd of January the Cape Town Minstrel Carnival takes place. Only this year was the colorful pleasure on the 9.1. laid.
Unfortunately, New Year’s Eve was canceled because of illness and then just as well.
For the first time left-hand traffic with the steering wheel on the wrong side. I’ll leave that to Georg, I’m finally on vacation 😉
We head for Cape Peninsula, past the beautiful beaches of Clifton and Camps Bay, past Hout Bay, and finally drive down ‘Chapman’s Peak Drive’. This is a 9 km coastal road with 114 bends that winds its way over the cliffs to Noordhoek. A really great track. And although Georg copes great with the left-hand drive for the first time, I am once again a bad co-driver and very tense! Finally we finish the first trip in False Bay in Kalk Bay, one of the southernmost suburbs of Cape Town. We live with a hippie couple in the house. They have a kind of backpacker, is pretty, but there are no locks. The beaches are supposed to be pretty and the water temperature is a bit warmer … um, So the beach is overcrowded and the water is not ideal for swimming. But for a long beach walk to Muizenberg and back, the area is perfect. However, the two places are not suitable for lingering. Nicer is Simon’s Town, the third oldest European subsidiary in South Africa. A pretty town with a perfectly preserved historic cityscape. Just around the corner is a small colony of African penguins. Totally cute little animals in a tailcoat. Amazingly enough, they stay just where most of the locals besiege the bay with their beach picnic equipment. But as I said, the beaches of False Bay invite us anyway not to a longer stop. Our destination today is the Cape of Good Hope at Cape Point, the southernmost tip of Africa. Cape Point is the dangerous, windswept rocky outcropping of treacherous currents that has challenged seafarers’ navigational skills since the Portuguese first circumnavigated the Cape in the 15th century. It is a fascinating sight, the coast is rough, but the water is clear, so we can see the seals in the dangerous surf from the viewing platform. An interesting place.
Then we drive east for 397km to Mossel Bay, where we start the Garden Route. A funny place without any charm. We spend the night in a totally overpriced backpacker, which is quite pretty, but as so often also dingy and loud.
We find a restaurant by the sea serving African food and where you can put your feet in the sand. But for the first time, we also realize how fat this nation is and how it feeds. Everything is greasy, creamy and deep-fried. If the food could possibly taste, something is found on the plate, which degrades it back to a feed. Not only the blacks, but also the whites are so fat here that it is almost abysmal. But as I said, with all the sugars and greasy food, that does not surprise me.
The beer and especially the wine is delicious everywhere. So these were a few negative lines, from now on everything will be more beautiful and interesting.