Our glorious run of Cape Tonian weather couldn't hold and after our first Monday we were faced with rain, wind and more rain. We dealt with this setback by heading indoors.
First to the acquarium, which apart from a terrifying puppet show featuring animatronic frogs learning about the environment, was wonderful:
Violet has found Nemo:
As close as we came to a shark, thank God:
After a sensational and inexplicably cheap meal on the waterfront, we left the city for Kalk Bay (snigger). We'd made friends the day before with Cape Town`s horrendous traffic and were determined to beat the rush this time... We didn't and sat for 45 minutes.
It was raining and horrible the next day, but neither of us wanted to deal with Cape Town traffic for a third day (I didn't fly half way around the world to commute like a schlub) so we decided to stick closer to home and explore our neighbourhood. A bunch of towns are stretched out along the coast of False Bay, so we headed north to Muisenberg which is famous for its surf beach, and more importantly on a freezing and rainy day, it had a couple of museums.
The first we hit was one dedicated to Cecil Rhodes -- you know, colonizer extraordinaire, scholarship dude. The museum we visited was actually the house he died in, and the dusty, abandoned, slightly derelict, very freezing building's piece de resistance was the bed where breathed his last. Not the most compelling museum, what with the framed yellowing newspaper articles, dusty random artifacts and that frankly creepy death bed looming in the corner. No matter, there was roof to keep off the rain and we'd pried Violet away from satellite TV for a morning.
Our next stop was a little art gallery and store also along the coast. It's in a beautiful villa built by some fancy Italian nobility at some point or other. It was lovely, with a great sea view:
While the art was lovely and the architecture interesting yadda yadda, its greatest claim to fame (at least in my juvenile books) was it's name:
COME ON!
On another day we explored the insanely gorgeous scenic drive of Chapman's Peak -- beautiful and beautifuller.
We also hit Kristenbosch, the beautiful botanical gardens.
I know I'm overusing the word beautiful here, people, but swear to G, this city is flipping stunning.
I don't know if you guys know a lot of three year olds, but pretty much anytime you tell one to pinch someone's bum, it's an occasion of enormous hilarity:
Violet in the mist:
Vi took this one:
She might be the hope for Hor-Tec photography...
We spent more time in Cape Town too, of course... Hit up lots of museums because the weather wasn't great, and the central downtown-y park...
Violet pretending to take part in Carnival
This is the Bo Kaap region of the city. It's the Muslim quarter, with good food and brightly coloured houses:
Mosque:
Andy and Vi hiding in a Baobab tree -- apparently every meter of the tree trunk's circumference represents 100 years. Magic.
Tea at the Cecil Rhodes' monument, another beautiful spot, another incredibly cheap snacking experience... (Side note I am grateful for the British influence in South Africa, because they do good tea -- properly boiled water, giant pot, not some measly bag in a cup situation, good quality tea...)
Finally, no Cape Town Traipsing would be complete without a visit to the its star attraction -Payphone.
Bliss.
Our last full day in Kalk Bay, we hung out in the neighbourhood. We walked to a little beach with a tidal pool in the next town over, St.James.
Guess what? It was beautiful...
Another self-timer photo. We are getting positively expert with the camera.
St. James has all of these adorable, brightly coloured beach huts.
Standard sign at all of the beaches in Cape Town...
You're reading it, and it's like, ok, no camping, no fishing, no staying the night, no broken glass, no bicycling, no loud music, no... WHAT? Was that an option?! Who would bring a handgun to the beach? Are they hoping to shoot sharks?!
The tidal pool -- a little cemented-in area for swimming. Perfect for kidlets or people who want to do laps... I would have been all over it like a rash, except for 1. the extreme coldness of the water and 2. my constantly dislocating shoulder -- damn you, body!
We checked out the fresh fish market:
We then treated ourselves to lunch at the swankiest restaurant in town, where the waves crash up against the windows and they serve you delicious food and extremely generous glasses of South African wine:
... and beer:
Two glasses of wine later, I was feeling no pain until our credit card was declined... Luckily we had enough cash to cover the bill.
I then had to call Visa in Canada to sort out what was going on... I tell you what, though, the painful experience of being put on interminable hold is much less painful when you've got two glasses of wine in you, the sun is shining and you're staring at seals frolicking in the Indian Ocean...
Visa issues sorted, we celebrated our final night in Kalk Bay with ice cream...
A small percentage of the ice cream cone did in fact actually make it into A small percentage of the ice cream cone did in fact actually get eaten by Violet's mouth...
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