Back in Cape Town

I always love getting back to a city I like and am familiar with, (as opposed to arriving in a city or town for the first time, and not having a clue where things are), and Cape Town was certainly no exception there. We settled into the now familiar Carnival Court hostel, getting the same room as before (it had a great view of Table Mountain from the corridor outside the room, but then the mountain is visible from nearly everywhere in Cape Town anyway).

But a day or so after we arrived we got the biggest scare of the whole trip so far. We rang Qantas to try and change the dates of our flight to Melbourne from Perth and were informed that all our remaining flights were probably void since we missed our last flight on Nov. 15th! We had rang them weeks ago to move that date to Dec 10th, but now the girl said we needed to endorse that date change by going to a Qantas office before Nov 15th (something the original girl had never mentioned). The system now showed us as a 'no-show', and so all the remaining flights on our tickets were now completely void and therefore useless. Needless to say I freaked out, thinking it was going to cost a small fortune to get new tickets, but we rang Trailfinders in Dublin (where we booked the original tickets) and the guy there calmly informed us that all our flights were still showing up on the computer, and that everything looked OK to him. But he still recommended that we get to the nearest Qantas office as soon as possible and get our tickets physically endorsed (they just put a wee sticker on your flight ticket with the changed dates). So a couple of days later (this happened on the weekend), we hired a car and headed out to the airport to get it all sorted out. I was a bit nervous that there would still be a problem, but everything was sorted out quite quickly and painlessly in the end. I tried a few times subsequently to get upgrades on our subsequent flights by way of compensation, as it caused serious stress and worry, and the expense of the hire car, and the problem hadn't been our fault at all, but each time I was fobbed off - ah well...

Since we now had the rental car for the rest of the day we headed down the coast to Muizenburg to have a nice lunch in a restaurant situated in the old railway station - Fogeys Railway House Restaurant. After lunch it was a lovely walk along the sea front to St James. We headed back to Cape Town via the famous Chapman's Peak scenic drive that was closed when we were last in Cape Town. It really is a spectacular drive along the coast, although not that long. At the major viewing point along the way we bumped into the motorcyclist guy, Frank, that we met in Windhoek. Also popped into the Rhodes Memorial that we'd missed last time in Cape Town before dropping the car back by 17:30.

The next day I hired a bicycle (while poor Sarah nursed a hangover), and I had a brilliant day riding all over the place. I started by heading up to the lower cable car station (along an extremely steep road), heading down the beautiful beach-strewn coast to the Twelve Apostles hotel and back via Camps Bay, Clifton and the V&A Waterfront. Again it really emphasised to me how a bike is the best way to see any city. It affords the opportunity to take loads of little exploratory detours and to stop anywhere you like along the road to soak up the views - things you don't get the chance to do properly when your in a car really. This way I got to explore many of the fabulous houses dotted around in little cul-de-sacs that clung to the mountain side, quite a few of which seemed to be getting major renovation work done.

That morning just before I headed off cycling I'd bumped into Luke - the young South African lad we met months ago back in Coffee Bay. He hung out with Sarah during the afternoon and met up with us both later that night (along with the motorcyclist Frank and a Dublin guy, Tony, that we met in the hostel). I was quite tried after all the cycling I'd done that day, so I went back to bed quite early, while Sarah stayed out with the guys. I got quite a fright when I woke up at 5:30 and Sarah still hadn't come home - as I knew the latest bar closed at 04:00. After quite a bit of panic and worry I got up to try and phone one of the guys I knew Sarah was with when I bumped into her coming nonchalantly up the stairs. It turned out that they'd met the owner of the Irish bar next door, and after the Jo'Burg bar closed at 4am he'd invited them all back there for a lock-in and a sing song. Needless to say I went back to bed quite relieved, and then had the whole next day all to myself as Sarah slept off her excesses!

The other days in Cape Town were spent just chilling out and strolling about the town. We had a fantastic meal with Frank at the Cabbage and Savoy, one of Cape Town's best restaurants and basically just soaked up the city. I was sorry to leave Cape Town again the second time, but after 7 months in Africa it was finally time to move on.

We flew to Johannesburg and spent a couple of days staying in Kuda's new house. Unfortunately Kuda herself was in Zimbabwe, but we had a great couple of days being entertained by her two great kids, Curtley and Vuyiso. On the day we were flying on to Oz we actually heard that Kuda had been in a car crash on her way back from Zimbabwe. We tried to get our flights changed so we could stay on and mind the kids, but it was impossible to change our dates due to the Christmas holidays. It turned out that the Kuda was actually fine - we spoke to her on the phone and she was just amazed to have survived what sounded like a very nasty crash with only minor leg injuries.

Anyway, it was all a bit of a mad rush to the airport in the end, but we got there with plenty of time and then it was off on the next leg of the journey to Perth.

I have to say that all in all I was massively impressed with Africa. The people throughout were just amazing - in fact, I think that's a common theme in all the places I've been to in the world that I really like - once you love the people, you love the place. I've always loved the people of the Asian Buddhist nations like Thailand, Nepal and Vietnam, mainly because they seem so superbly happy and serene. I'm not sure what the common link is across all the African people we met, it doesn't seem philosophical like the Buddhists, it just seems to be a fun-loving, life-loving happiness and friendliness - maybe it's just the pure simplicity of rural life, I don't know, but whatever it is, I like it!