Cape Town Arrival| South Africa, Day 2

Sunday, September 16, 2018
We had a very short layover in Ethiopia, arriving at the Addis Ababa Bole International Airport at 7:15 AM and departing at 8:20 AM. I was worried about this being a tight connection, but since we had a connecting flight with Ethiopian Airlines, there were no security checks to get through.  Boarding was inexplicably delayed, but finally we were on our way to Cape Town.

By God's good graces, we finally had some luck. I was in the window seat, Francisco in the middle, and there was a girl on his other side in the aisle seat. There were some empty seats in some of the middle rows, so the girl ended up moving to one of the middle rows that only had a guy on the opposite aisle seat. I could have cheered. Or cried. I was very tired.

Francisco moved over to the aisle seat, and I had just enough room to lay across the two seats, and we were both able to get some blessed sleep. We had felt so ill towards the end of our previous flight that we didn't even try any of the breakfast we were served - although we did pocket the fruit cups for later.

It was a 6.5-hour flight to Cape Town, and we dozed as much as we could. That really saved us from arriving in South Africa just utterly exhausted.

 At some point, the flight attendants came by with sandwiches, and I snagged a couple for us; sadly, we realized they had meat, so we just set them aside. About 2 hours outside of Cape Town, they served lunch. Something had happened with our vegetarian meals and I think they gave them to a seafood passenger, so we were told we would get a business class veg meal, but it appears they were able to scrounge up a standard veg meal.  I was disappointed and wish they hadn't even mentioned the possibility of a higher quality meal lol. 

CPT Airport

The car rental pick-up was a short walk from the airport, so we headed through a tunnel to get there. We would be crossing borders to visit two other countries while we were in Africa, so we knew we needed to get authorization letters from the car rental company. Apparently, the registration for the first car they were going to give us would have expired too soon to meet the cross-border requirements, so they had to switch us to a different vehicle and re-draw up the paperwork. Needless to say, I was getting very anxious to hit the road already!

Francisco was really put to the test with his first time actively driving stick-shift. Even with the base level of comfort that taking a brief driving lesson stateside provided, that was no match for driving in a foreign country where everything is on the opposite side of the car and road! There was a lot of cursing, a lot of the car getting angry at him and shutting off, and a handful of driving on the wrong side of the road.

We have come to love staying in airbnbs when we travel in other countries since you get a more realistic idea of what homes are like in these places. The one downside is coordinating check-ins. We had messaged Lala, our Camps Bay airbnb co-host when we were about to leave the airport so she could meet us at the apartment.  Of course we got lost, and she was probably watching us parked across the street puzzling over whether we were at the right place for an embarrassing amount of time lol. She was very nice and helpful and savvy enough to begin the apartment tour by pointing out the view of the ocean from the outside deck. It was lovely, and we enjoyed this sleek, cozy apartment for the two nights we stayed there (link to the listing here). 

Camps Bay airbnb: $36.20 nightly

Lala had recommended enjoying the sunset from our deck, but (a) we were already hoping to head out right away for food and (b) there were some clouds moving in that looked like they would obscure the view anyway. After Insta-stalking The Dairy Den for months, it was no surprise where my priorities were.  While I didn't post much on social media while we were traveling, I have been posting photos since we got back, and I was incredibly pleased when they reposted my photo on their Instagram.

Our primary order was the Belter, a Cinnamon Sugar Donut ringed around a black cone and topped with Honeycomb Crunch. We also selected three donuts - mint, fudge, and Kit Kat. These were the spongiest, tastiest donuts. Unfortunately, they are closed on Mondays, or you better believe I would've been back here the next day. There were still so many things on their menu I would've loved to try! 

After a brief stop by the ocean and some failed attempts to find a grocery store with a parking lot, we decided we would just wrap up the evening by grabbing some dinner and going home. Our first full meal was at Nando's, an international casual dining restaurant chain originating in South Africa. We had a Veggie Pita with french fries, and this became one of my fave recurring meals of the trip (although the fries at Steer's are WAY better.)

We took our food home with us and attempted to eat dinner on the deck until I got too chilly, so we moved inside to our little nook to eat by the window overlooking the ocean.  After all those hours in travel, you know I was definitely looking forward to luxuriating in a hot shower. It wasn't a fully enclosed shower, so it was a tad chilly in the bathroom. I was suddenly plunged into darkness as I was in the midst of my shower, and it turns out Francisco had fried our power strip when he tried plugging in our electronics for charging. He found the breaker box in the cabinet above the fridge and tripped it back on. I think we needed to bring some kind of voltage converter? IDK, I usually leave the electrical considerations up to my electrical engineer husband...a questionable move, I suppose. ;)

I crawled into bed a little before 9:00, and I was looking forward to using the heating pad I had brought with us. I had a tummy ache, plus it was the end of winter in this part of the world, so it was definitely chilly. Well, we had the same issue when he plugged this in and turned it on. That was a bust! Now we were down a couple of key electronics. At least we were able to plug the laptop in without issue, and multiple things could be charged off of that.

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