Adventures in South America

We are in Cape Town

After an hour 8 hour overnight flight on Malaysia Air, we arrived in Cape Town this morning. Everything went smoothly – we quickly got our luggage, picked up our rental car, got local SIM cards for our cell phones and set out on our way. I must say we were quite intimidated by driving on the LEFT!!! It was definitely a team effort and I acted as the driving coach, reminding Seth to stay on the proper side. I must say he did quite well and adapted pretty quickly. We are also extremely lucky that Cape Town is a relatively small city (you can drive from one side to the other in about 20 minutes) and the drivers are pretty calm – very few crazy power moves. The craziest people on the road were the pedestrians… people literally would cross almost without looking and we were constantly dodging pedestrians crossing against the light or in the middle of the street. I don’t think those pedestrians would last a day in Buenos Aires… in BsAs the drivers practically speed up to HIT YOU. Another driving note – they call stoplights ROBOTs there. It’s not slang either – sometimes you will see signs or words painted on the street warning that there is a “Robot Ahead”

Capetown is a breathtaking city. Everywhere you look there is amazing scenery – Table Mountain, the 12 Apostles, Beach after Beach. And the beaches are gorgeous – white powdery sand that is never hot. The only drawback is that in Cape Town the water is FRIGID!! Apparently is carried on a current from Antartica. I went in but only up to my calves. It literally felt like ice water. In general there are a few brave souls swimming, but I don’t know how they do it. The majority seem to spend most of their time on beach blankets or just dipping their feet in. We arrived at a very interesting time – elections were taking place a few days later on Mar 1st. There were massive power outages affecting the whole Western Cape and resulting in rolling blackouts. Their nuclear power plant was having some major issues that they say will take months to completely resolve.

On our first day there we met up with my parents in the afternoon. They spent their first night at the V&A Waterfront Hotel to catch up with my Aunt Yvonne and cousin Crystal Brown who happened to be travelling in South Africa at the sametime. 

posted by Kathy T @ 7:17 AM