Amazing African Day

Because we had kind of a late night from the party, Lauren and I failed to realize that the alarms on our phones were only weekday alarms, and of course, Saturday isn’t a weekday…soo we ended up waking up at the time we were planning to leave. Woops. Miles was running a little late too so it worked out in the end. There are two ways to do the drive; we can start on the Camps Bay side and end in Muizenburg, or we can start on the Muizenburg side and end in Camps Bay. We were told about this place called the Olympia Café that was in a small town called Kalk Bay just past Muizenburg. It is a French bakery where we were informed we must stop and have breakfast at, and we were also told to watch the sunset from Chapman’s Peak just before Camps Bay, so we decided it was best to start from Muizenburg. Muizenburg was a small quaint town, but had a very famous waterfront; St. James Beach. I think it is most famous for the colorful bathing houses all along the water, as well as for the world renowned surfing conditions. We stopped to walk along the beach and get pictures. Even though it was early, there were TONS of avid surfers already out in the water hitting the waves. It was turning out to be a beautiful day, which was PERFECT! It had been cloudy and rainy during the week, but the forecast promised sunshine and warm weather for this day only, and we were crossing our fingers! It looked like it was going to end up coming true. Good weather was so important for this trip too, because everything we were seeing was scenery and water, so if it was cloudy and grey and rainy, nothing would look as good, and it would be freezing and no fun! Lucky for us though, the weatherman was right (:

Our next stop was Kalk Bay. We were told that all of the towns along the coast, and the peninsula drive, were small with not a whole lot to do in them. They were kind of just beach towns, which was fine with us. We just wanted the experience of seeing the coast anyhow, and that’s exactly what we got. We found the Olympia Café quite easily, and we were not disappointed. It was amazingly good! We got croissants and parfaits and cinnamon buns and tea. I felt so French hehe. We continued on to Fish Hoek which we simply passed through, and then to Simon’s Town. Simon’s Town is very famous for Boulders Beach, a haven for free roaming penguins. We were told it was a must see. We found the signs for it, and headed to it. Lauren got to see some of the village craft huts along the waterfront as well, which was cool for her since she hasn’t experienced all that Miles and I have yet. We got to see so many penguins up close, it was pretty cool. They were on the beach and in the foliage and on the huge boulders—there is a reason it is called boulder beach. They are insanely massive and everywhere! We also happened to see a giant aloe vera plant, and it was massive! Texas style (; it was seriously probably twelve feet wide and five feet tall. A super burned person would be in love.

The next stop was the Cape Point lighthouse. Cape Point was SO beautiful! We hadn’t even taken the hike up to the lighthouse or the tip, we were just at the base of the mountain and the view was already incredible. I was in awe. We took tons of pictures and played around a bit before hiking up to the lighthouse. The view from the lighthouse once we arrived was amazing as well. You could see the sides of the cliffs and the water below and it was simply stunning. I think this is one of the things that everyone should get a chance to see at least once in their life. It is so amazing—words can’t even describe it, you just have to see it. We then finished the hike out to the tip of Africa; the last piece of land before Antarctica! It was amazing! We got to see the point where the Indian and Atlantic oceans meet—it was so strange. It created like a wave pool circle in the middle of the ocean. It’s apparently some odd phenomenon as to why that occurs, and we definitely couldn’t figure out what it was before we were informed of what it was. You could spin in a circle and all you could see for as far as your eyes could see was the ocean. You could still see water at what appeared to be the horizon—it had a thin line of misty fog all along it, and I wish I could have seen more. It’s kind of eerie to think that there is nothing more from this point on, but quite cool to be there at the same time.

We drove a little further down the reserve to the Cape of Good Hope. This is actually the furthest point in the whole world, and I thought it was Cape Point—I guess most people are misinformed about that. We all got a cheesy picture in front of the big sign just because when else are we going to get the opportunity to return? Probably not any time soon. We didn’t hike up to the tip of this mountain; we had all had enough of hiking for the day already. But, we stopped to walk out on the big boulders to see the water/beach more closely. It was so beautiful! When huge waves would come in, they would hit the side of the cliff just before us, and send the water flying high into the sky. We captured it on camera quite a few times. We were also astounded to see sea weed washed onto the rocks below the ones we were standing on. It was the largest plant I have ever seen in my entire life! They were all huge hollow tubes probably two feet around, and twenty feet long with huge sea weed growing out of the top. It almost looked like a tree! And there was so much of it! We took tons of pictures of the sea weed just because we were all astounded that it was actually sea weed. It was the craziest thing! On the drive out to the beach front, we saw dozens of wild ostriches roaming around, and boy were they huge and ugly. We were warned upon entering the reserve that there are baboons everywhere and to be careful because they will attack you and try to rob your car. Can you believe that?? We saw a few on the side of the road, but then had the ultimate baboon experience.

We drove to the beach just before leaving the reserve, and down the small road to the water, there were SO MANY baboons!! There was around twenty or thirty of them all in this small area. There were even adult baboons carrying baby baboons on their stomach and back. We were kind of scared, but they weren’t near the parking lot yet so we thought we would be okay. We got out of the car to head down the steps to the sand, when all of the baboons started to congregate to the parking lot. There were six cars in the lot including ours. When we were driving in, there was man running around trying to scare the baboons away with a bat. We all thought he was mad until later on…..

We started to head towards the stairs for the beach, but the baboons were already on the stairs a little further down, and we were all too scared to get that close! We didn’t really know what to do—this isn’t exactly a normal encounter for a group of city kids. We kind of hung out in the parking lot for a while deciding what to do, and in the mean time the baboons were all over the parking lot and started to climb onto the cars! There was a surf board on top of one of the cars, and four babies hopped up and started playing sea-saw with it! Then the adults all started to jump on the two cars next to the one the babies were on, just claiming their territory. A few of them even tried to open the trunks and doors of the car to get at the stuff inside. I could not believe it!! The man with the bat from earlier was back in his truck with a friend, and the trunk lid was slightly open, and since I was standing in front of the truck, I saw then a baboon with a baby holding onto its stomach jumped onto the truck and attempted to get inside. I immediately screamed, pointed, and yelled “that thing is in your trunk!!” The guys started the car and reversed to scare it, and it jumped off and stayed away. Later on, Miles and Lauren told me how nuts I sounded—but if you know me, I don’t play around with any type of animal lol, even if it’s an ant.

We decided it would probably be best if we ran to the car and left---the baboons didn’t look like they were leaving anytime soon. But, as soon as we ran towards it, the head honcho baboon ran towards the car and jumped on top of it!!!! He grabbed the door handles to try and get in, and then just sat there so that we couldn’t get in. We had no idea what to do! There were two guys standing back watching as well, and we thought they were just watching to watch, but we later found out that they were waiting to get in their car as well! Haha oh boy. So, I decided to go ask the guys in the truck if they knew what we could do to get the baboon off so that we could leave—they seemed very familiar with the process. The guy with the bat chuckled a little bit, grabbed his bat again, and flew out of the car in a sprint towards the baboons. They have apparently grown afraid of bats, and they immediately jumped off of the cars and ran away, as the man continued to chase them further and further. Miles, Lauren and I, as well as the other two men, all ran to our cars, jumped in as fast as we could, locked the doors, and sped away. I never expected to have such an encounter. I officially hate baboons!!

We continued on our journey, and decided it probably wasn’t the smartest idea to make any small stops along the reserve again. We left the reserve and continued on down the coast. We drove through a city called Misty Cliffs, and it was a very accurate and fitting name. Although it was completely sunny and warm outside, this one city was fully misty for some reason. The next town was Kommetjie, and then Noordhoek. Noordhoek is a bigger town, so we stopped to have lunch at a place called Coco Bean. It was a very cute quaint café just down the road from the coolest beach I have ever been to. I swear I’m in love with Cape Town.

The Noordhoek beach was SO COOL! The front of the beach was very flat for probably a quarter mile with large water pools dispersed between the sand. It was the strangest, and I don’t even know what to call it. After this flat section of sand and water pools, was the actual “shore” of the beach where the water and huge waves were coming in and hitting the larger boulders that were all around it. It was so beautiful! We played around in the flat part of the beach for a long time, and then headed over to the boulders to get pictures. When the tide rolled out, you could walk in the sand to the enxt boulders, but when the tide came in, the water got so high that you would be up to your chest in water if you stepped in the same place. So once, we actually got stranded on a boulder when the tide came in, and usually it would come in for a while, and then go out for a while, leaving time for us to cross. But that one instance that we actually crossed over to the rock, the tide came in and stayed for about ten minutes!! We just took pictures for about five minutes waiting, and then for the last five minutes we tried to plan how we would get over if the tide never fully went down. We didn’t want to get our clothes wet! It eventually went down almost all the way, so we were able to jump over the small amount of water that was still left and get to the next boulders which lead to the shore. We had so much fun! There was a small stream that came all the way up to the top of the beach (the full quarter mile) that we could jump over to get to the car instead of walking all the way around, but it was about five feet wide. Lauren had done the smart thing and walked over when the tide was out, but Miles and I got stuck when the tide was in! So, Miles decided he was going to jump, and took a running jump and made it clear of the water. I was totally scared and tried to find another way over first, unsuccessfully. Finally I agreed that I didn’t want to walk all the way around, and that I needed to jump. I took a running jump just like Miles, but unlike miles, I slipped on the edge of the river sand “cliff” and landed in the water instead of completely over it. Auh!! I knew that would happen! I got the whole bottom of my jeans soaked. Not fun ): Everyone got a kick out of it though, so at least THEY laughed.

Miles and Lauren wanted to get some wine for the sunset, and as we drove from Noordhoek to Chapman’s Peak, there happened to be a conveniently placed winery off of the road; Cape Point Vineyard. We stopped in quickly and they picked out their wine and got glasses, and we continued on our way. It wasn’t quite sunset yet, but the sky was beautiful; just before the sunset it looks a certain way, and it was stunning. To be in the African sun, I’m telling you! As we were driving, we were trying to find a spot to sit and watch the sunset, and we found one we were almost happy with, but decided to drive a little bit further down the coast to see if we found something we liked more, and sure enough, we did. We actually stopped at the official “Chapman’s Peak” peak to watch it. It was very small and off of the highway, but a few cars could park and you could do the touristy thing and walk out onto the gated lookout to see the view. It was so amazing, and we decided that’s where we wanted to watch the sunset from. Past the gate, you could actually climb down the cliff a little more, and there were very wide flat spots that were perfect for us to set out our blanket, with a perfect view of the sunset. A girl was actually already down there, and told us that we should come down too. So, we climbed over the gate and were about to set ourselves up when she told us about a ‘secret Cape Town gem’ just around the corner of the cliff from where we were standing. You can’t see it from the lookout, so nobody would ever know it was there unless they climbed over the gate. It was the girl’s favorite spot and she came there often, so we were so thankful that she shared it with us! Sure enough, we walked a little to our left around the cliff, and we found something sort of like a cave. It was more like a bread bowl standing on its side haha. It was like a huge scoop out of the side of the cliff; some of it covered all sides of us, top bottom left and right, but not right in front of us. And when we had gotten ourselves situated and turned around to see the sunset, it was the most stunning view! It was even better than from the lookout, and the other side of the cliff. We had found the perfect spot on the perfect day to watch the perfect African sunset.

The sunset was guessed to go down about 45 minutes after we arrived, so you can imagine how beautiful it was. We got to see the sun go from the top of the sky, and gradually make its way all the way below the ‘ocean’. And it was probably the most beautiful sunset I have ever seen in my life. I swear Africa is amazing! We could see the ocean, the city, the mountains, and the sunset all in one view; it was absolutely stunning. Our day was perfect in every single way.

Gregg had texted us during the early morning wanting to know if we were interested in going out with him and some of his friends. We agreed, so after our magnificent day, we went home to get dressed up and ready to go out. He lives in Camps Bay, so we met him out there. We firstly met up at a place called Caprice Café, where we met some of his friends that were going out with us. We sat and talked for a good while. Then we walked down the street (this was all along the waterfront), and to a club called YS. Gregg knows everyone that owns the clubs, restaurants, bars and cafes here in Cape Town, so no matter where we go, he knows them all. It’s kind of nice because they do things for you like let you in for free, or give you free drinks (if you drink) etc, and they let you have certain privileges that normal attendees don’t get just because they’re friends. That’s definitely nice (: The dj was a little disappointing, but we had a really fun time. We didn’t get home until quite late, but since we weren’t doing anything huge tomorrow, we would get to sleep in, which was the best part of all (: