Africa - Johannesburg - Arrival Day

We made it!  From Atlanta to Johannesburg, it is a 15.5 hour flight and an 8 hour time zone change.
We got through customs, gathered our bags and headed across the street to the Inter-Continental Hotel for our first night in Africa.

We are settling in and getting our bearings, tomorrow we head to Cape Town and connect with our group.

Our hotel is the Townhouse Hotel located in downtown Cape Town. The hotel has just been newly remodeled and the rooms have a European look to them.  If you are wondering, Cape Town is quite large at 3.8 million people and is currently the #1 tourist destination in South Africa. 

 

 

 

In the evening, we met the other members of our group and we all took a 10 minute walk to an African Dance Theatre to watch their performance.  We all enjoyed the dancing and drums and then went our own way for dinner that evening.  We went along with another couple to a Fish & Chips place located just around the corner from our hotel.  Our fish & Chips were inexpensive at 329 Rand or $3.29 each.

 

 

With an 8 hour time difference, sleep comes and goes for us.  We go to sleep for about 2 hours and then wake up and can’t get back to sleep.  Of course when we need to get up, we had just fallen asleep.

 

Day Two

 

At 800AM we left our hotel to tour the Cape Peninsula.  We traveled to Hout Bay (a fishing harbor), where we spotted a Southern Right Whale from a distance.  This type of whale is a protected species, it was favored by the fisherman because once killed, the whale would float, thus the name “Southern Right Whale”, the other whales would sink.

 

 

We enjoyed a stop at the Original T-Bag Designs, a community project aiming to create sustainable jobs and giving a sense of self-worth to previously disadvantaged individuals.

(www.tbagdesigns.co.za)  All of their products are made or use t-bags – amazing what you can do with an old used t-bag.

 

 

We traveled along the beautiful coast through Table Mountain National Park (Cape of Good Hope) with a stop for lunch at Black Marlin Restaurant located overlooking the ocean.  We had Hake (similar to cod), Calamari, Prawns, salad, rice, etc.  It was a great lunch and more than I could eat.  In this area of the park, there is a population of Baboons; however, we were not fortunate enough to see them.  We did see ostriches in the wild and got a couple pictures of them along the roadside.

 

We continued within the park to the Boulders (located between Simon’s Town and Cape Point) and the home of the African Penguin.   The African Penguin is an endangered species and in 1982, they had just two breeding pairs and now this colony has 2, 200 African penguins.  They were originally named the Jack-Ass penguins because of their donkey-like braying, but were name changed to The African penguin since it is the only penguin species they have in Africa.

 

 

 

On our way back into Cape Town, we stopped for a hotel tour and refreshments at the Vineyard Hotel & Spa.  A lovely hotel that was started back in the 1890’s with beautiful rooms and located along the river and acres of gardens to walk through.

 

Well, back to the hotel with dinner on our own.