Cape Peninsula & Wine Country| South Africa, Day 4

Tuesday, September 18, 2018
We arranged a check-out time of 8 AM with Lala, our airbnb co-host, for her to return and collect the key. We chatted with her as we gathered our stuff, and she shared with us that she had lived in Johannesburg originally. I asked her what she thought of it, and she outright said it was a slum. She said it had been 8 years since she lived there; she returned for a visit recently, and it had gotten much worse. I was feeling more and more trepidatious about ending our trip in Joburg!

As we pulled up the steep hill to exit the complex where we were staying, Lala pressed the button to open the security gate...and then the car stalled out. By the time Francisco got the car started again and tried moving forward, the gate was already closing. This frustrating game went on repeatedly, and I'm sure Lala must have really questioned our driving ability lol. We can look back and laugh now, but oh, man, did Francisco hate driving that manual car. 🤣

We began by seeking out a toll road, which is something I would usually choose to avoid. Chapman's Peak Drive is a 5 kilometer toll road linking Hout Bay with Noordhoek, and it's known as one of the most spectacular stretches of coastal highway in the world.

For whatever reason, toll roads in South Africa accept South African credit cards only. Obviously, you can also pay in cash, but we always prefer to pay with credit card to better account for our expenses. Slight annoyance, but we try to make a point to always come prepared with enough local currency for situations like this.

I think driving Chapman's Peak on a clear day would have made it more remarkable.

Our first stop was Boulders Beach to see the African penguins. African Penguins used to be known as jackass penguins because of their distinctive braying, and they’re the only penguins found on the continent. Just over a century ago, there were approximately 1.5-million African Penguins. By 1982, there were only two breeding pairs remaining and the aquatic bird was classified as an endangered species. The Boulders colony has grown to over 3,000 birds in recent years thanks to conservation efforts.

We started at Boulders Beach, which isn’t actually the best area for viewing the penguins. We were literally wondering if we were going to have to scale the boulders to see the rest of the penguins, but they were wet and slippery, so we realized there had to be an alternate path. There is a boardwalk to Foxy Beach and there were throngs of penguins here.

One of the other creatures we ran into here was a rock hyrax or dassie. And if you can believe it, they are the closest relative to an elephant. 

Dassie - they kind of look like grumpy old men, but I think they're adorable!

We had followed our adopted tour guide to the beach, but he jumped into the water and abandoned us and left us wondering how we were going to scale the slippery boulders in the rain.

We backtracked and found another trail that took us past penguins throughout the brush. There were chubby, fluffy babies, and some plastic containers that conservationists have provided to encourage penguins to nest safely. 

Our walk ended at this boardwalk viewing area.

We are both huge penguin fans, so we definitely could have stayed here a long time.

We walked by the penguins in the brush again on the way out, and I swear this is the cutest one I've ever seen.

As we drove on to the Cape of Good Hope, I got super-excited to see this sign! But there were no baboons in sight...yet.

Even on this overcast day, the view was splendid!

The Cape of Good Hope is part of the Table Mountain National Park. We had actually purchased the SANParks Wild Card membership shortly before leaving, which gave us one year's unlimited entry to 80+ National Parks around Southern Africa. It takes a couple weeks to actually receive your card in the mail, but we had verified that your Wild Card confirmation letter plus proof of identification will grant you access until you receive the new card. We've been home for months now, and ours still hasn't arrived in the mail.

The Wild Card ended up costing us 3830 Rand, which converted to $256.41 USD. For the number of parks we planned to visit, we had calculated that we should get our money's worth. I haven't actually ran those numbers yet to see if that held true, but I imagine it would or have been pretty darn close. 

Shortly after driving past the entry gate for the Cape of Good Hope, we were absolutely delighted to see baboons.  Like I was basically squealing. We pulled over and watched them play along the roadside for a while.

A common misconception is that Cape of Good Hope is the southern tip of Africa, but this is actually Cape Agulhas (which we visit later). Cape of Good Hope is at the southwest corner of the Cape Peninsula, and it marks the point where a ship begins to travel more eastward than southward.

  We did a little hiking around the area and enjoyed the views.

Rocky mountain cliffs and ocean waves crashing are my vibe.

We worked our way back up the Cape Peninsula and on to our next destination. On the outskirts of many cities, we drove past these areas of what looked like shacks made out of wood or corrugated metal. We had heard mention of townships and wondered if that was what these areas were. Turns out we were right.

A township usually refers to the often underdeveloped segregated urban areas that, from the late 19th century until the end of apartheid, were reserved for non-whites, namely Indians, Africans and Coloureds. Townships were usually built on the periphery of towns and cities. The term township also has a distinct legal meaning in South Africa's system of land title, which carries no racial connotations. During the apartheid era, black people were evicted from properties that were in areas designated as "white only" and forced to move into segregated townships. Separate townships were established for each of the three designated non-white race groups.

It was quite a shock to see such segregation. I know America has tumultuous racial relations, but this really took it to a whole other level.

We were driving through the wine region of Stellenbosch, and we stopped at Blue Crane and the Butterfly for lunch. We started with a delicious Blueberry, Chai & Honey Milkshake and a slice of wine-infused cake. We shared a toasted sandwich as well before heading to prison. 🤣

The Groot Drakenstein Prison was home to Nelson Mandela for the last fourteen months of his long political imprisonment. It's a working prison, so there aren't any tours, but there is a statue out front. A tour bus beat us there, so trust me, we're not the only weirdos who go to a jail on vacation.

We went to check in at our airbnb in Franschhoek, but we'd estimated that we wouldn't be there for another hour, so no one was there to open the gate for us.  Luckily, there was Leopard's Leap Family Vineyards right across the street, so we made it to a winery after all. It was dubious if it would have happened if it weren't for this mistiming of events.

Leopard’s Leap is a leading wine producer situated in South Africa’s famous Franschhoek Valley, sourcing grapes from selected vineyards in the Western Cape winelands.

A standard tasting included 5 wines for R40 - that's less than $3.00 USD. We enjoyed the lighter wines that we tried and picked a bottle of Chenin Blanc to take home with us. The price per bottle for this variety was R49, so it was like $3.50.

After our wine tasting, we headed back across the street to see if anyone was there to open the gates yet. The owner met us and showed us around and told us to feel free to wander the grounds. We brought our stuff up to our room and then headed back outside where one of their German shepherds, whom I called King, met us to give us a tour.

We definitely took note how all of the airbnb owners made a point to assure us that there had been no security incidents at their property (yet). He said that having the dogs around helped.

The place was absolutely lovely with the vineyards and the mountain backdrop.  The interior was spacious and quite lovely as well. 

It was chilly and the rains came back right after we went inside, but at least we had a small heater and heated blanket, so the cold wasn't as bad as the last place.  The walls/floor were a little thin, so some of the noise from our neighbors bled through, but it really didn't disturb us. We munched on some chocolate bars and potato chips - a not uncommon travel dinner for us, particularly on this trip lol - and watched a little bit of TV in the living room before turning in for the night. 

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