Cape Town Executive Summary

• A city that's a cross between Sydney and San Francisco, in attitude and the way it uses its natural beauty to its advantage.

• We hit tourist hell in the form of a penguin colony

• Vertigo tested at Cape Point and Table Mountain

• Animals spotted: Baboons. Lots of baboons. Oh, and penguins.

We stayed at Cape Grace hotel on the V&A Waterfront in Cape Town - which is the main tourist / shopping area in the city. Think Darling Harbor in Sydney or Fisherman's Wharf in SF, though perhaps a bit bigger and more upmarket. Cape Town is a simply stunning city with its Table Mountain backdrop and idyllic seaside setting. It does have a Sydney vibe about the place - laid back, outdoorsy, and keen on watersports.

The first full day there we took a tour down to the Cape Point National Park, the southern most tip of Africa. Or, the southernmost accessible tip of Africa, I think the guy said something about another place being technically more southern but difficult to get to without several days of hiking. Oh well, close enough. We were picked up by the good people of Thompsons Touring company in a massive 12 seater van for the 3 of us (ugh...) and the guide clearly had a spiel he was going to get through no matter what (ugh...). And he wore a microphone (ugh...). So at this point I would say I could have driven down to Cape Point and back in half the time - and we would have skipped the penguins - but it would be a bit ungrateful of me to complain, yes?

So it was an all-day tour starting with a quick get-out-and-take-a-photo stop of Camps Bay, which looks like a short Bondi Beach. I recognised it from a recommendation of the good Paul O'Donnell to have a drink at Cafe Caprice on a Sunday evening. Here it was Sunday so I thought that was a possibility for later on...

Next stop, Misty Cliffs. Out of the van, take photo, back in van. Are we feeling like travellers yet?

Next stop, some kind of estate whose name escapes me just at the moment. I know it was in the lonely planet, so it must have been worth visiting for some sort of historical significance, but really we were all just happy to be there for the toilet facilities.

By this point Mom was getting a raised eyebrow from me (and she was giving me one back) but Dad was happily chatting with the tourist operator at the front. The tour guide would break conversation to give his standard spiel at certain points along the way ("oh! We've reached point 57, I must talk now about the flora and fauna of the area!"). The worst part was Houts Bay, which allowed us the opportunity to visit a seal colony (we passed) and walk by various craft stalls. To be fair, I did end up buying something, but to also be fair, I saw the same thing in the Jo'burg airport 4 days later.

It was here as well that I confirmed: South Africans Cannot Make Coffee. Seriously, you think American coffee is bad? (And it is, there's no denying that - it makes my top 5 things I dislike about the US, next to the lack of metric system, pennies/currency, and tipping*) Well, in general, your average cup in the US can at least be consumed without making a face that looks like a cats bum and burning the taste buds from the tongue for the next 48 hours. I am pretty certain I did not have a good cup of coffee my entire 3 weeks in South Africa - I had an ok cup (filtered, plunger, whatever) but not a good-someone-was-taught-by-an-Italian cup of coffee. Thankfully next stop Roma :)

*For my American readers out there - I also have a top 5 things I love about the US list, which includes the returns/exchanges policy, Sams Club/Costco and the prevalence of general courtesy in day to day dealings.

Back to Cape Town and the checklist day tour - and onto the main attraction, Cape of Good Hope and the Cape Point national park. The park was the southernmost point in Africa and at the tip was the meeting of the Atlantic and Indian Oceans. Not much by way of wildlife lives there except for about 4.87 million baboons, all keen to get into your car and eat things in shiny packages. They can be vicious things and are actually clever enough to open car doors and work their way in - of course, years of exposure to humans has taught them that chip packets and soda cans contain food, so they go straight for that. So, doors locked and windows up we entered the park.

Sure enough we saw heaps of them whilst driving through the park to the Cape of Good Hope - including 3 on a rock right next to our car and a family (herd? pack? whatever) of them wandering down the road. Parks staff would follow them to essentially herd them away from the crowds.

The cape itself is beautiful - and well worth the tourist traps to get here. We had a good hike up to the lighthouse for a better view (along with every other tourist in Cape Town that day), so some welcome exercise after a few sedentary weeks.

When we got back into the van, we found out our next destination - a penguin colony!!!!!!! My view on penguin colonies is like my view on seal colonies - seen one, seen them all. So unless these are the Antarctic-style emperor penguins, I'm not interested. But, it was included in the tour so...here we go. They were called jackass or african penguins. Jackass because they essentially brayed like donkeys...and sure enough they do.

Aptly named.

And that's pretty much all I'll say about penguins.

We attempted to go to Table Mountain on the way home for sunset, but the cable car had been closed due to wind so we just got to the base. When we felt the strength of the wind - well, all of us were very relieved we didn't need to make the decision about whether to go up on a swinging cable car. So instead we went to another point for a good view of Table Mountain and back to the hotel.

I had suggested this Cafe Caprice, knowing POD has excellent taste in bars but forgetting that his taste usually involved trendy beautiful people. So once we arrived in very hip, trendy, and happening Camps Bay and I saw the queue to get into the heaving Cafe Caprice, which would indeed be 'a great place to have a drink and watch the sun go down' were I not in my travelling clothes and accompanied by my parents. So we went next door and watched a beautiful sunset over a still trendy but much quieter restaurant/bar.

Monday we planned a Table Mountain visit but 3 spaces on the Robben Island tour became available so we pounced on those instead. (Note to future Cape Town visitors - reserve that tour ahead of time). The Robben Island tour could go either way. It could be like Alcatraz - this is Mandela's cell. This is where Mandela ate. This is where Mandela exercised. I'm pleased to say it is not at all like that - they actually have former inmates of the prison leading the tours around the island. The interesting thing about that is that our guide didn't introduce himself as an inmate until well into the tour. He was a political prisoner for several years and spoke very passionately about life in the prison and the crimes for which people were jailed, and at the end he gave a small sermon about peace love and happiness. So - well worth the visit and an excellent and sobering look at such a key part of South African history.

That afternoon we did manage to get to Table Mountain and take the cable car to the top (despite severe vertigo on Dad's part and minor vertigo on mine - I'm ok after I tell myself 'this thing hasn't snapped yet' whereas Dad sat firmly in the middle of the cable car until it reached the top). What a great view once you do get up there though - all the way to Cape Point, plus of course the city, Robben Island, and the mountains/foothills surrounding Cape Town.

The next day, our last full day in Cape Town, we wandered around a bit and went to the District Six museum (Lonely Planet says "if you see one museum in Cape Town make it this one" Sarah says "er...they would do better to have some kind of narrative rather than assuming a level of knowledge and, frankly, the subject matter just isn't interesting enough to warrant an entire museum").

Lastly, the Cape Grace hotel was renowned for its whiskeys and offered a complementary whiskey tasting - so we thought we'd give that a go. It was about an hour and went through the whiskey distilling process and the types of flavours that are in a whiskey, etc etc. Tasted 6 of them all up, a Canadian rye, a bourbon, an Irish whiskey and finally 3 Scottish whiskeys with food- Highland Park, Glenmorangie and Laphroig. Highland Park was the overwhelming favourite, especially with smoked salmon (mmm!), followed by Glenmorangie and the chocolate. All of us, the tasting presenter included, would have preferred to drink lighter fluid than the Laphroig, which was only moderately improved by tasting it with gorgonzola.

But a great way to end an amazing and memorable 3 weeks in South Africa!