June 4 – Cape Town, South Africa

Table Mountain!

Weather

Ostrich lesson

– 19º, clear blue skys

Steps – 8,665

Humidity – 50%

On cruises the first day is typically the best…this is when you board, check out your room, sip your first glass of champagne and anticipate the next days onboard. That is true, but days like today might just top that. Today is transition day – the day between ‘legs’ or itineraries. Many people embark and many others disembark, some (usually not many, this cruise about 70, or 10%) remain. We are part of the 70 ‘in transit’ passengers staying on for the next leg.

feeding time

more please

Disembarkation days are always sad…leaving vacation to go home. But being on board while others are leaving is a great feeling. Doesn’t mean we don’t sympathize with those leaving but staying while other leave is nice.

This is our only day to experience Cape Town. A downside of cruising is that the beginning and end days are usually major cities (ease of flights, the primary reason.) This is really too bad, as Cape Town seems very tourist friendly. There is a large waterfront area with shops, restaurants, and bars. Plus, things are pretty cheap. I’d be happy to spend more time here in the future.

very strong eggs

feeding frenzie

Our day started with a photo stop for pics of Table Mountain. Table Mountain could be seen throughout our day in Cape Town.

Next, we visited an ostrich farm – yup, an ostrich farm! Our small group of 16 (perfect number)

arrived in our 20-seater minibus – similar to ones we’ve been on earlier in this trip, but today isn’t sweltering, so I’m not even sure if it had AC.

up close and personal

We spent about a half hour learning all we ever wanted to know about ostriches – it was very interesting. Then we partied a bit with them, watching them, touching them, and feeding them. Chris and both fed the birds. I was a bit tentative at first not sure what to expect…would their beaks be sharp?, mouths wet? Neither. We were taught to put their feed, a combination of corn and pellets

weaver birds and many nests

onto our flat hands and they would take it…yup, that’s exactly what happened. Then we fed them straight from their buckets. This time we were taught to hold the bucket in front of ourselves and back up to the birds. 3 of them snaked their faces behind us and went straight into the bucket. They fed forcefully enough that feed flew all over us – it was a blast!

Before we exited through the requisite gift shop (where they were selling the most

local delicacies

beautiful ostrich leather products which we didn’t buy) we saw a tree with hanging birds’ nests. The Weaver birds called this because of the intricate nests they weave. About 30 of these nests hung like balls from a huge tree. The birds would dart in and out of the nests. When they were

eyelashes!

outside of the nests they were hanging from the bottom – it was fascinating to watch.

Once done the tour, we still had about half an hour to shop or just chill at the farm’s very charming outside area. We found ourselves a South African beer and a South African cider – I’m a bit of a cider snob, and this was delicious, served with a lemon. We also bought a bit of ostrich biltong (the South African jerky.) A small bag of freshly cut biltong was $3! The biltong and the drinks were a total of $9!

16 of us

We sipped and noshed for about 20 minutes. Then we were off to the Durbanville Hills Winery, only about 15 minutes away.

$80CAD!!

The winery is a beautiful place, as most wineries are, but we only spent time in their tasting room…no seeing the vines or production facility – that’s OK with us.

We’ve seen those sorts of things before, it’s interesting, but we’re ok missing it today. We tried 2 reds, 2 whites and one dessert wine. The staff person explained a bit about the wines bit not a lot…I could have used a bit more info. We chatted with a couple from Montana and a couple from Scotland…the couple from Scotland has a daughter with a friend in Red Deer!

We saw a 3L bottle of wine at the winery for $80!!! This is how inexpensive South Africa is.

South African wineries

That was it for the tour. We didn’t have much time until all-abord. We weren’t leaving until 5, but immigration was clocking out at 3…very odd. Also odd that we need to go through immigration on the way out…rare that this is required while cruising. It’s also pretty uncommon that we have to go through any face-to-face anything. Looking forward, it seems like face-to-face immigrations are in our future for the rest of Africa.

glorious location

The cruise terminal is right next to the tourist friendly waterfront area, so we head over there, wandered a bit, and found a place right along the water for a glass of wine, a beer, and a small, but extremely tasty calamari – $25CAD.

snack

I’m always a bit nervous when we’re on our own and on the clock. Plus, we’re not exactly sure of where we are going. I think I’ve said it before, but Chris is an excellent navigator. He sees a map once and that’s all it takes, he knows where we are going…I’m not so gifted. If I’ve been around a corner, I recognize it to back track and see signs.

good bye Cape Town

We made it back, no problem.

We picked up a bit of meat, cheese, crackers, and a cookie from the “Coffee Connection” on the ship to eat back at our room. This is plenty of food for us, for now.

random sculpture

good bye Table Mountain