South Africa – Part 3

First impressions? It was like entering another country. Or yet, another continent. Developed infrastructure, modern cars, big city, mixture of nations and cultures. Cape Town seemed completely European to us. It’s not called one of the most beautiful cities for nothing. Cape Town is really something special. It has nice climate, it’s multicultural and it’s on a beautiful location. On one side, you can see Table Mountain, which has a cloud hat or it shows itself in all its glory, which probably means that it’s going to be a windy day in the city. On the other side of the city, you’ll find wonderful beaches and the endless ocean. We wanted to watch the sunset from the Table Mountain but we missed the last cableway because of the traffic. We quickly reorganized and drove to the nearest hill, which is accessible by a car – Signal Hill. We certainly weren’t sorry. It was one of the most amazing views at the city – Table mountain on other side and on the other side the whole Cape Town. It couldn’t be more pretty.

Not far from Cape Town is Boulders Beach. The beach got its name after its boulders, round rocks on wonderful white sand, but it is famous because of its inhabitants. This is one of the rare places where you can see a colony of African penguines. They’re so cute. They’re really clumsy on dry land. We saw one that stood for 10 minutes, preparing to jump over a small crack in the rocks. When he jumped over, he slipped and he ended up in water. But his moving was completely different in water. He was on the other side of the beach in seconds.

We drove towards the south and came to the Cape of Good Hope, a point where European sailors who tried to sail to India, believed that they may just make it. Cape of Good Hope is a place where the stormy Atlantic Ocean pours into calmer Indian Ocean and the direction of sailing changed from south to east, which was a good sign that they will reach Asia. Many people think that Cape of Good Hope is the most southern point of Africa, but that’s false. The most southern point is 150 kilometres away, Cape Agulhas. But the Cape of Good Hope is much more impressive as it’s actually a giant rock, reef, which projects from the continent towards the sea. You can imagine that the wind is extremely strong here, but the views are amazing. There’s a walking trail, leading from Cape of Good Hope to Cape Point. It will take you 30 minutes and in this part, we got rid of the tourists who want to see the capes but don’t have the time to walk between them. You know it payed off when you meet an ostrich or dassies, African marmots.

 

Rok wanted something special in Africa: swimming with sharks. We drove to town Kleinbaai where he got on a boat, got dressed in a neoprene suit, got into a cage, which was attached to the boat and waited for sharks. The crew made some kind of fish soup in the meantime and poured it into the water. It smells so good to the sharks that they quickly came. Because of the poor visibility under water, one shark ran into the cage where Rok was in. But we had the best view from the deck. The employees invited the sharks with dead fish. They put the fish on a stick and held it just above the water and quickly pulled away the stick when the shark jumped for the fish. We could see the shark, its jaw and teeth and he was left without his lunch. With a purpose. If they would feed animals like that all the time, they would get spoiled and they would stop hunting for food. They just lure the sharks with food so they show themselves, but the sharks still remain hungry and have to find their lunch themselves.

 

Even though we travelled for a month, it was over too soon. For an end, we drove to the wine-growing area near Cape Town, to Sellenebosch and Franschhoek where we tried some superb South-African wines and soon it was time to go back to Europe. They say that when you once visit Africa, you come back all the time. It’s definitely true. We can’t wait to visit this continent again and again.