Capetown is built into a bay with beautiful mountains surrounding its edges. The metropolitan portion is much like San Francisco, but it is very spaced out and includes “districts.” In the Bay Area, these would be called suburbs: Santa Clara, Pacifica, Halfmoon Bay, etc. This brings their population up to over four million. There is also no border patrol…Another million people have crossed borders to escape from civil unrest…This pushes the unemployment rate to 35% which is probably better than most other countries in Africa. We found the people here to be friendly and curious…They are very proud of their fledgling democracy and the heritage built by Nelson Mandela.
We spent our first day driving along the coast, but always mountains just above us. Our guide told us there was no need to drive the Almalfi Coast after taking us on Capetown’s new two lane road halfway up a ridge…The old road was one lane with no guardrail. Again I was reminded of California, this time the Big Sur section of Highway One. I tried to capture a taste in one of the photos above.
These roads took us to our primary destination: The Cape Of Good Hope !!! Named by Sir Francis Drake on his world cruise of claiming and pirating. The oceans mingle in an extraordinary way: At this point, one current is five degrees warmer than its abutting jet stream. We hiked up to a lookout point, then came down to the beach…Both beautiful.
Our last stop was Capetown’s Bitanical Gardens, which included a canopy walk above the gardens. Very unique and beautiful!!! See the picture above.
Our guide told us that Capetown is more of a Europe feel than Africa. He says we won’t really experience Africa until we get to Victoria Falls. But I have not yet written about the wildlife we saw today, or our trip to Robbin Island…I’m tired and these will be the next blog entries
The Adventures of Barry Brink 