Exploring the Cape

Cape Town is a beautiful city - ocean, mountains, beaches, great restaurants, wineries. And even though this is our 4th time here, there are still several areas we haven't been to. Sam's mom and dad came down from J'burg for a few days and it's been great exploring and visiting with them. On Sunday we took the hop on hop off bus out to a winery, then fish and chips at Hout Bay followed by dinner at a restaurant overlooking the Atlantic.

Nice view of Table Mountain from the bus.

Monday after breakfast we hopped on a local commuter train for an hour ride out to Simon's Town.
The train was covered in graffiti but seemed pretty clean inside. Coming back into the city in the late afternoon it was pretty crowded.

The trip had some beautiful scenery by the ocean and included a saxophone player, a couple singing hymns and a group getting escorted off (likely hadn't paid).

These are the multicoloured 'change huts' that you sometimes see in promotional photos of the area.

We spent some time visiting the tiny penguins at Boulder's Beach before getting a taxi back to the station.

We were all entertained by the 'discussion' Sam got into with the taxi guy. Taxis in SA are not like you would expect - they developed out of an informal system of transportation for blacks and coloured people. They have 2 operators - the driver and another guys who sticks his head out the window and yells to people on the street to see if they need a ride. The mini bus (taxi) might have room for 12 passengers but will typically carry up to 20. They drive down the road honking and whistling to attract passengers. Sam was insistent that before we got on the guy should guarantee there was room for the 6 of us. He assured us there was but after we got on, he had no where to sit so Sam was more than a bit upset with him. Lucky for us he didn't throw us all out (which is known to happen).

This guy was feeding the seals and holding out a box for donations.

Monday evening we headed up to Signal Hill for the sunset, with some friends of Scott and Sam's. Signal Hill is one of the higher spots in Cape Town, just below Table Mountain and obviously a popular place to watch the sunset. We spread out our blankets and enjoyed a lovely picnic that Sam had prepared.