Cape Town is the oldest city in South Africa and the second largest city – Johannesburg the first.

The V & A Waterfront is the happening place. 2.4 million people visit a year and I think they were all here when we arrived on March 31st!

*click photos to enlarge

We asked a couple of locals if the crowds here were typical and every person responded with “month end”. Paycheck time! Apparently a good amount of people get paid at the end of the month and were out having a great time.

Click link to hear: https://youtube.com/watch?v=mvP0Lap0_lE&feature=share

We were drawn like a magnet to the beautiful song being sung by the Ithemba Youth Choir.

The Waterfront named for Queen Victoria and Prince Albert has tons of restaurants and stores. It was packed to the gills! It was a worse than Christmas but wonderful to see after the nothingness they experienced during Covid.

We explored the downtown area where hideous 1970 type concrete buildings are interspersed between stunning colonial designed gems. The 150 year old Adderley Street flower market has an abundance of Protea – South Africa’s national flower.  Fabulous restaurants line Long Street. We noticed that their places of business and restaurants have such creative names.

We took an Uber up to Table Mountain to hop on the tram that goes to the top. It was packed. The line to get on the tram was a minimum 1.5 hours wait. 65 people cram into one tram. We had previously scheduled a guided walk that wouldn’t allow us the time to wait – not that we would have. Of course up close and personal my mind went nuts thinking of the dead trap the tram was so we decided to walk back to the waterfront stopping along the way for our tour. Sounds easy but we probably walked an elevation change of 3,000’ and 3 miles.

BoKaap, known as the Malay area, has colorful homes and cobblestone streets. I wanted to remove all the cars and position of the sun for photos but what’s a girl to do?

We took a ferry to Robben Island where Nelson Mandela spend 18 of his 27 years of imprisonment in solitary confinement. A ex-prisoner gave a tour of the prison area. This is the last generation who will get to experience that uniqueness. I hope they record their voices for the next generation.

Our calves and glutes are in utter distress from the downhill walk. Those muscles have been on pause for quite some time. You should see us using the stairs now. It’s a crack up.

We boarded our cruise ship yesterday – steerage – an inside cabin where it is nighttime 24/7. Our commitment to only use the stairs makes each step a painful reminder of walk from Table Mountain. Tomorrow afternoon we’ll be on our way…