Just a couple of days after new years eve, we flew to Cape Town and found it much more exciting and interesting then we expected. Of course we had a to do list before we arrived there and we knew what we can do. But, doesn’t something unexpected or not planned make the trip more exciting?
Cape Town is one of the capital cities of South Africa. More than 4 million live there. As far as i learnt, like 1 million people still live not in good conditions. But we were informed that Cape Town is the safest city of S. Africa. To tell the truth, we felt the same during our 6 days there. Everybody was so friendly. You can spend EUR, USD and mostly their currency ZAR. Exchange offices are everywhere and there is no difficulty about it. But i must say that Cape Town is not cheap. Get ready about it. I think those boring information is enough. Here is what we did and what you can do.
Just after we landed and arrived to the hotel, we headed to Waterfront, which is in city center. There are plenty of nice shops in a mall, good restaurants, a few bars to listen to good music. We walked around a bit, made some shopping from souvenier shops, listened to street musicians, danced with them on the street and had a good time. This is at Waterfront. Behind is the huge Table Mountain which can be seen from everywhere in Cape Town.
In Waterfront, there are plenty of good restaurants. First night we decided to eat something different and found a good table with a nice view in a seafood restaurant. I ate snail for the first time in my life. It was delicious. And wine of course. You should try local wines and take a few to home. Wine experience in Cape Town can itself be a different story.
I strongly recommend you to eat seafood in Cape Town.
Next day, we headed to the Table Mountain. I learnt that some people are trekking to the top of the maintain but it was a bit hard for us at that point, so we planned to climb up with the ropeway. It is on the opposite side of the city center and finishes about 5 o’clock, to make everybody down the mountain before the sun goes down. Let me warn you that it is summer there in January and you should have your protection creams with you! The view on top of the mountain is stunning. You can see the Atlantic ocean on the right and Indian Ocean on the left.
Be aware that you are in habitats of some other friends there.
We had a dinner and a couple of drinks at a sushi restaurant in Canal Walk shopping centre. It was also great. There are good restaurants there as well.
I am not giving you details about the nights, not be ashamed, but just go to the city center, to long street and nearby. You will see lots of good places and people to hang out.
If you are in Cape Town, visiting Cape Point is of course a good idea. You have a chance to go with a tour and a guide, but we went there with a rental car ourselves. It took us a couple of hours to go there because there were lots of interesting things on the way to stop by. The most interesting place, of course, was Boulders Beach. Full of penguins !! You may see below how happy i was . The penguins are swimming there in the water.
We didn’t prefer to do so but you can enter the beach and be very close to them. We preferred not to disturb them. But this guy was out of the fence somehow and we had a chance to pose together.
Then all the way to Cape Point, Cape of Good Hope. I think it is not the southernmost point but you know, it has a meeaning. You stop at the entrance of Cape Point. You need to climb up to the Lighthouse. You can pay and use a funicular if you want.
It is Antarctica what you see in the horizon. :D
So far so good!
But there is much more to do. And i promise, some really exciting stuff.
If it is summer, abour 35 degrees celcius and you are by those wonderful beaches, you may want to swim. Camps Bay seemed us so good for that will. It is not so far away from city center. There is a very nice, sandy beach, good places to eat, nice bars and fun everywhere. When we arrived to the beach, it was really hot. The sand was burning. My friends from Cape Town warned me about the coldness of the water before we arrived there but i didn’t mind. I don’t like warm sea. There were like hundreds of people on the beach but just a few kids in the water. To tell the truth, i didn’t notice that at the beginning. Then i slowly walked to the water. The wet water just by the sea was very cold. I said yes!!, cool water like i wish. Then i entered the water, having some pain until the depth was about my knees. I suddenly realized that i couldn’t feel my legs below my knees. It was like you put your legs in a tub full of ice and stayed in it like 10 minutes. I just jumped out of the water and postponed my swimming experience to a warmer water.
Do you know about big five in South Africa? The african lion, the african leopard, the rhino, the elephant, the Cape buffalo. Those five are called the big five. It is a good safari marketing phrase i think. We have been to a quick to tour called mini safari. Honestly, i didn’t like it much. The animals were not in their nature and of course you can’t get close to them. We made pictures of some animals as below. I don’t recommend the mini safari thing.
The day before we were leaving, i met a friend of mine living in Cape Town. She told me about a very interesting thing that can be done in Cape Town. An experience that may be done once in life for me.
But something a bit scary. To be honest, none of us was sure about it. But somehow, we fired each other up and the next morning we found ourselves in a van that took us like 2 hours away from Cape Town city center. We came to a nice cafe next to a beach and had breakfast at about 8 o’clock.
We got on a boat and went into the sea. We were about just a mile away from the seashore. There were similar boats around about 300 mt away each other. The guys at the rear started pouring minnows and bloody fish heads into the water. We were expecting the blood to be smelled and get surrounded by them. Yes, this was Shark Cage Diving! For the big white.
It was a paradoxic feeling. You are very afraid of sharks but you are expecting them to come close and watch them in the water. We waited for about an hour. Nothing around. Then we heard some screams from the boat next to us. Yess, she was there. Oh, they were there, turing around the boat next to us. People started to get in the cages. Some sort of action there lasted about 20 mins. Then our captain made a phone call and directed to the place that they just left.
There were four of them. Smallest one was like 4 metres long. The biggest was like 8 metres and about 400 kg they said. That’s the tiny one. She was very hungry i guess. She jumped out of water to get the fish head.
We put on our diving dresses and settled in our box in the cage. There were 7 boxes in the cage and we made two shifts. The guy was throwing the rope which had a big fish head at the edge and watch if they were close or not. When the big white approaches, he shouted “down down down” and pulled the fish head towards to the cage to take her in fornt of the cage. Then we dived down to see her under the water. Silly I forgot to take my gopro with me to take a picture or video under water. It was a windy day and the water was not so clear. That was not good. Do you know why? You are under water and can see just about a meter far. You see nothing then suddenly see an 8 meter wild creature just in front of your nose!! Thank god she passes by so fast. :)
Then shift changed and we had a chance to see the action from above. Let me introduce you two of my friends i met there. :)
When we landed, we were some kind of happy. I realized that the excitement of seeing them first in my life prevented me from being afraid of them. Thank god there was an iron fence between us. Hope not to swim with them again.
I have some videos that i recorded during Shark Cage Diving. I will compile them and let you watch it as soon as i can.
This is the end of our nice trip to Cape Town. Go there, you won’t regret.