Simon's Town, South Africa
The dreaded last day in Cape Town arrived with beautiful sunshine and clear skies (though I don’t think they have much else this time of year). True to our tradition, we had to do some kind of big activity on our last day in this new place.
We decided to rent a car (and drive on the left side of the road) and take a day trip to the Cape Peninsula – the south-westernmost part of Africa. There was a Hertz office about a 10-minute walk from our hotel, so we set out with beach gear and hiking shoes in hand.
The drive out to the Cape was stunning. We took the longer scenic route which featured cliffs on one side and blue ocean with mountain backgrounds on the other side. At one point we drove through a half-tunnel like tube that had been carved into the side of a mountain. Josh didn’t get to partake in much of the scenery viewing because he was our driver.
We’ve never rented a car while out of the country before and Cape Town with their left-side driving and crazy city traffic probably wasn’t the best start. My only condition for the car rental was that I did NOT have to drive. So, I rode left-side shotgun and navigated with the gps we also rented. More on this later.
Our first stop was Simons Town, a small town on the eastern side of the Cape in False Bay where the South African Navy is located. Simons Town had a very laid back atmosphere (we arrived around 10 am and many of the stores were just opening) and was less hectic than the city center in Cape Town.
We had pre-booked a 90-minute Whale and Seal Watching Tour. I knew it was a small boating company when I booked the trip, but I had no idea the actual boat would be so small! There was room for six people on the tiny upper deck. Once onboard, Josh and I climbed the ladder to the top deck, joining a Scottish couple and two pre-teen siblings traveling with their family from Kenya. The Captain came up to let us know that there could be “some ocean spray” on the top deck, so we may want to protect our electronics.
“Some ocean spray” was the understatement of the year – I got drenched! The wind plus our captain’s mad-man driving made it so we spent much of the trip with our boat above the water. It was just jumping from wave to wave through the air. I definitely did not sign up for the thrill ride we received, but Josh and everyone else on the top deck seemed to enjoy it.
As we approached Seal Island we could see more and more seals jumping from and diving into the water. Cape Fur Seals come to the island to mate and give birth. Around the island you can often see Great White sharks (though not at this time of year), penguins and whales.
The island reeked of a strong fishy smell of what one might expect a rock covered in hundreds of seal might smell like. When the wind shifted a little and the noxious smell came full force into our direction I gaged so much I thought I was going to throw up. There is really no other smell I’ve ever smelled that comes close to how bad that odor was.
The island is too rocky and too engulfed in seals to go on, but we idled the boat around in the choppy waters for quite a while. It was hard to take any good photos because the sun and rocking of the boat, but we did get to see some fights between male seals and many of the newborn babies, as well. On the way back to shore, we spotted a Bryde’s Whale swimming the bay. It never breached completely, but we did get to see it’s fin popping in and out of the water. It was very cool thing to see, but not as exciting as I had expected. I was very glad we decided against a full day whale watching in exchange for what we had planned for the rest of our day.
After the boat trip, we had lunch at Bertha’s right on waterfront. Josh had chicken curry and I had “The Bertha” which offered sampling of their fresh seafood – prawns (shrimp), mussels, calamari and hoek fish.
After lunch, we made our way to the place I was most excited to visit this entire trip: Boulders Beach. The beach is only 5 minutes from Simons Town and it is home to tons of African penguins who are not scared of humans and will walk and swim right next to you.
The views from the beach with the clear blue ocean and huge boulders (which is obviously how the beach got it’s name) were just stunning. We probably could have stayed there all day with or without the penguins. But, the adorable penguins made it hard to leave.
They were close enough to touch (though, we didn’t!) and didn’t shy away from the people at all. I climbed on the boulders and swam around for a while and Josh waded out to his knees and observed to penguins.
It was probably best we kept our distance from each other and did our own things given the history of me nearly drowning Josh, basically, anytime we get in bodies of water together.
Safe and sound, we begrudgingly left the penguins behind and made our way to Cape Point and the Cape of Good Hope (the most southwestern point of the continent). By this time, it was late afternoon and every tour bus in Cape Town was inside the national park.
There was road construction going on and a lot of delays, so by the time we made it to the bottom of the Cape, we didn’t have any time for visiting the lighthouse, spotting shipwrecks or hiking up the mountains for a better view. We snapped a few obligatory photos and weaved around drunk French tourists until we got back to our rental car.
The car had to be back by 6 p.m., so when we left after 4:30 (with an hour and a half trip) we felt a little worried about getting the car back. Using the GPS, I navigated a faster route. Instead of going back to Cape Town via the scenic costal roads, taking the highway would shorten our trip to 49 minutes.
At first, everything seemed fine as we made our way to the highway. But, after a while things started getting a little more rural – fewer cars, fewer stores, more people walking along the sides of the roads.
At one point the road turned into rough pavement that led through what we later found out were abandoned Navy barracks – now home to squatters who can’t afford housing in the area. Next, thing we knew we were driving right through a informal settlement.
Basically, a holdover from the days of Apartheid when non-europeans were not allowed to live in the cities where they worked. To make do, people would create housing wherever they could find space and informal settlements sprang up all over the country.
Many poor South Africans still reside in these tiny, piecemeal shacks. It was a huge reminder that under the surface of this beautiful country with it’s booming tourism industry are real – largely unaddressed – problems of poverty, racism and the HIV/Aids epidemic.
Though we made it out safely, driving through an area like that was definitely one of biggest bullet points on the DO NOT DO List for South Africa. The GPS finally got us to the main highway and we drove into the city only 4-blocks from the car rental place with over 30-minutes to spare. Traffic was so bad, it took us the entire time to drive the few blocks and we didn’t get back to the Hertz office until 5:56 p.m., four minutes before closing.
That evening, we took an uber to an African Game restaurant called Marco’s. It was a little touristy, but the music and food were great. Well, all but the dish we ordered as a starter. It was a special dish – not on the menu – and was described as “thinly sliced, smoked game meat: Crocodile, Ostrich & Springbok.”
Awesome, we thought, and waited for our dish to arrive. When it came out it was three pieces of thinly sliced, cold, completely RAW meat. Like, totally, uncooked. I didn’t want to behave like a BAWG (our term for ‘Basic American White Girls/Guys’ who are horrible, loud and insulting while abroad). And, I knew there was no way in heck Josh was going to take a bite of any of it after I saw his face as the plate arrived behind me.
So, I choked down half a plate of cold, raw game meat (and have lived to tell the tale – knock on wood).
The springbok was salty and horrible and almost bloody. I couldn’t do more than one bite. The crocodile was a little better, it was white meat and almost – almost – tasted like turkey deli meat. The ostrich wasn’t too bad as it had very little taste and was easy to chew and swallow quickly.
Josh did make a pathetic attempt at taking one ant-sized bite of the crocodile when I lied and said it was good and tasted just like turkey. However, his payback came shortly after when we order a round of drinks.
Josh ordered Mqomboti – which is a traditional beer from Gugulethu brewed by the Transkei tribe. The restaurant makes it over fire, the traditional way, and serves it in a giant clay pot.
Imagine drinking bitter liquid chalk with orange-juice like pulp chunks and surrounded by wet wood campfire smells as you stick half your head into the giant bowl and you’ll have an idea of how this beer tasted.
The poor choices we made at the beginning of the meal, thankfully, did not continue with our main courses. Josh had Umlaqwa Chicken grilled with a blend of African spices and I had Impala filet with umngqusho – a Xhosa staple dish made of a mix of beans and saap. Everything was delicious and we were almost too full for our dessert of Malva Pudding. This is a must have South African dish that consists of caramel sponge cake with a butterscotch custard sauce.
It was a great end to our last full day in Cape Town and we went to bed tired, full and ready to move on to the snow and rain of Berlin.
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