Cape Town

I went out to the front deck to watch the sail-in to Cape Town. Stunningly beautiful. Table Mountain dominates the view. After 8 days at sea, I would have been happy doing just about anything as long as it was off the ship, but as it turned out, today was full of breathtaking beauty.

We had a wonderful tour guide, Chris McWilliams,

and he had asked Andrew Jacobs, Head of Information Visitor Services, to give us a VIP tour of the world-famous Kirstenbosch Botanic Gardens. I lost count of how many times I climbed out of the electric cart in order to take pictures of birds and curious indigenous plants.


The petals of this flower, king protea, were very soft and covered with soft “hairs” and almost felt like velvet or a feather.

At one place, Andrew took me out into the garden to show me a special protea. He has a delightful personality and a wonderful sense of humor. I was so glad he had taken the time to be with us.

These are Cape sugarbirds – there are 3 in this picture.

This ibis was just outside our cart and seemed totally unconcerned we were so nearby.

This sculpture, Tree Woman’s Spirit, immediately reminded me of the sculpture I saw on Sugarloaf in Rio.

From the botanical gardens we started a scenic drive around the east side of Table Mountain. We stopped for dinner at a local dockside restaurant.
I ordered prawns (shrimp) and was a little surprised to see them in all their glory – including eyes, feet, tails – on my plate. It didn’t take me long to figure out how to get the meat out of the shells, and it was very good. There were seals swimming among the yachts and boats in the little harbor of Hout Bay but they were too quick for me to get a picture.

Today’s sunset was even more beautiful than the one I saw yesterday, and it gave the perfect ending for the day.

Tomorrow I depart the ship and transfer to Cape Grace, a Virtuoso hotel in Cape Town.