After almost two eventful weeks of traveling the Garden Route on the morning of the 24th of December we all were really looking forward to finally arrive in Cape Town. We had already heard so many people enthusing about the "Mother City" that we were very curious to ultimately experience it ourselves. Only Marina already knew Cape Town and even lives there as she is doing her voluntary service in a garden in one of the city's townships. Lea, Louisa, Stella and me, all living in Johannesburg and Pretoria, hadn't been to the city before but with Marina we luckily had our personal city guide with us.
Full of expectations we set out for Cape Town early in the morning following the coastal route to our destination. Even during that drive our expectations weren't dashed because the route was one of the prettiest we had followed so far leading directly along the coast in narrow curves and offering a beautiful view.
Having arrived in Cape Town we were welcomed by many other volunteers from SAGE Net - Marina's sending organisation - with that we wanted to celebrate Christmas. We were all staying into a volunteer apartment and with so many people it was quite packed so that we had to sleep on the floor most of the nights but that wasn't a big problem and it was nice to have so many people around even though that meant that sleeping before 3 or 4 am wasn't really possible. The apartment is situated in Observatory, a slightly alternative student neighbourhood, and from the front door we could even see Table Mountain.
When we had introduced ourselves to all the new people we directly started cooking for our big Christmas dinner! We had planned to cook a lot of food and as we were cooking with many people into a rather small kitchen - additionally we had some problems with the electricity - the results weren't all perfect but all in all it was still a very nice Christmas dinner. Even though it didn't really feel like Christmas - probably because of the warm weather - we had a great Christmas Eve in Cape Town.
In the following days we started exploring Cape Town. To get a nice overview of the city we planned to start with climbing Table Mountain what didn't work out exactly as planned. At first everything was fine, the weather was nice and sunny and we enthusiastically started our way to the top. We didn't even have to climb far to already have a really beautiful view over Cape Town, but when we had finished half of the way up unfortunately a lot of fog came up... We could't see further than some metres anymore, it got really cold and the paths got slippery soon. Hoping that the fog would clear again we continued to the top but that day we dind't have a lot of luck so that we were relieved when we were all safely down again.
The next day our program was a little bit more relaxed: We went to a concert in the Kirstenbosch Gardens, a pretty Botanical Garden right at the foot of Table Mountain.
Another tour led us around the Cape Peninsula. We started driving along nice beaches such as Camps Bay or Hout Bay and then we followed the Chapmans Peak Drive that again led us directly along the coast and offered a beautiful view over the sandy bays surrounded by gentle mountains. Of cause we also couldn't let out to visit the South African Penguins, that are mainly living at the eastern coast of the Cape Peninsula, and to make a stop in Muizenberg, a surfer beach with the popular coloured changing rooms.
Then of course we had to go on exploring Cape Town itself and so we went to town and tried to visit the most important places: Long Street, Castle of Good Hope, the city hall, the Company's Gardens, Bo-Kaap, the University of Cape Town and a lot more.
And then it was already New Year's Eve. With 12 people we decided to celebrate in Langebaan, where the aunt and oncle of another volunteer own a house near the beach. Even though in the beginning we were not completely sure if we wouldn't miss something leaving Cape Town for New Year's Eve we didn't regret our decision for a second! The house was amazing, we had a delicious Braai and even the firework that we could watch from the roof was bigger than expected so that we had a great start into 2015.
Back in Cape Town a visit of a vineyard, for which the Cape region is popular, was part of the plan for our last day in the city. After that we enjoyed our last evening at signal hill watching the sunset above "Mother City".
Then, a lot quicker than we would have liked, it was already time to say goodbye, not only to Cape Town but also to Marina and all the others that had spent the holidays with us. So after 3 great weeks we headed back to Johannesburg with a heavy heart, hoping that it wasn't the last time of being in Cape Town and meeting everyone again.
All in all I had fantastic holidays and all the anticipation was definitely legitimate. For me Cape Town indeed is the most beautiful city I've ever seen. Even though the city itself maybe isn't even that breathtaking it is the combination of the city surrounded by the mountains and the sea that give it its very special charm. Furthermore compared to Johannesburg everything seemed to be so clean, the streets weren't that crowded and generally the cities are entirely different. Therefore in Cape Town the difference between the city and the townships seem to be even bigger than in Joburg. Also along the Garden Route we almost only saw comparably rich and touristic areas and it was striking that we saw a lot more white people than in Joburg. That's why I think that Cape Town and the Garden Route as the top tourist attractions in South Africa can maybe give a wrong impression to tourists and you can't claim to really have seen South Africa if you only traveled that small part of the country. In the meantime it was amazing how diversified especially the Garden Route was. Sometimes we had to drive for only ten kilometres to see the landscape change from flat beaches into gentle highlands and only minuits later we already were surrounded by the semi-desert of the Karoo.
I hope to see a lot more of these different sides of South Africa in the next months and I'm already looking forward to my next trips.
But for now it's time to get some work done while a lot of things concerning our work here changed. Anyway that would be too much for now so I will keep you up to date in my next post!
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