Steve and Cathy's Blog

At 1:00pm today, we are to arrive in Cape Town, South Africa, the most European of South Africa’s cities that lies at the southern tip of the continent.  We will spend two nights and three days here before beginning a Rovos Rail journey for the next four days.  This is also the terminus for approximately 300 of the passengers, with a similar number, we assume, boarding here.  Steve takes the morning to catch up on the blog posts.  Steve is always “catching up” on the blog posts.  Cathy goes to Needlepoint to say goodbye to those friends who are disembarking.

Around 10:00am, an announcement is made by Cruise Director Leslie Jon that iconic Table Mountain, the symbol of Cape Town, is now in view.  We head for Horizons on Deck 10 (it’s in the bow), and the place is packed.  Steve tries in vain to get some good photos, thwarted by the glare in the windows.  He heads up to the shuffleboard court/putting green area right above Horizons.  Still no perfect photo ops available, but one adequate to show what Leslie is talking about.

Our plan is to have lunch, and then disembark and take the shuttle to the Victoria and Albert Mall, a huge, modern shopping area.  We need a few things, and this will be our only opportunity to shop in an area that is comfortably familiar to us Americans.  I know we should be more intrepid, and welcome each new strange encounter as a wonderful learning experience that will broaden our horizons and make up more polished, sophisticated travelers.  But sometimes we just say “To hell with that!”

Our stateroom is on the port side, and we have been lucky so far in that the ship has docked port side to the dock.  Today not so much.  We watch as the pilot guides us in, and then we see the ship slowly turn to the left, putting its starboard side up to another container area.  So we buzz up to Waves Grill for lunch to watch.  It is indeed a container yard, and there are two enormous tall cranes used to load/unload containers.  They are in the way, so Steve is thrilled to watch them fired up and moved about 100 yards down the dock and out of our way.  Oh, Mikey and Karl (and maybe even Sarah and Andy) would love to see this!

In typical ultra-organized fashion, Oceania has the entire immigration process down to a science.  As in Namibia, each passenger is to have a face-to-face immigration interview with passport in hand.  The cruise terminal is located about one hundred yards away from our ship, but there is a line of safety cones pointing the way.  We are given our passport by a member of Reception, go though the very short interview process with South African immigration, and then turn our passports back over to Oceania.  This is a smart move on their part, no doubt born of years of experience untangling the mess created when a passenger loses the darn thing.  It’s kind of like summer camp. We are the campers, and they are the counselors.  We do what they tell us to do, and they keep us out of trouble. Trust me, this is just what we need.

Around 2:30, we finally get the word that Deck 7 can disembark and we go through the process, which takes all of twenty minutes, including the friendly interview.  On to the shuttle bus and, in another twenty minutes, we are shopping.  First stop: a Walgreens-style pharmacy absent the food available for sale. Cathy needs a decongestant, and, after much research, we find that the medicine she needs can only be dispensed by the pharmacist.  Because it contains I-don’t-know-what-but-it-can-be-abused, she is handed the medicine in a wire box with a handle the size of a small purse.  Shades of California.  We get our other stuff and are back in this giant two-story, pretty upscale mall.

Finally it is time to exchange money, or, better said, get a cash advance in South African Rands.  We are directed to a machine and in ten minutes the process is complete.  We wander the mall, find a very nice store full of genuine African stuff to buy as gifts.  We go in there to buy post cards and end up handing over 365 Rand in exchange for some nice presents for our grandchildren.  Cathy then spots a book store.  Of course we must stop, and she finds her book club book in paperback.  Another find.

We have an excursion this evening that will last until, gasp! 9:30!  Time for us to prepare, so we stop for a latte and muffin to fortify us for the fun ahead.  Time to head back to the ship to prepare for the tour ahead: Sundowners on Signal Hill.  We are to meet in Insignia Lounge at 6:45 for a trip up Signal Hill, one of the mountains that form the backdrop for the city.

We head down a few minutes early, and everything is ready at 6:45pm.  On to the bus and we dive into city traffic at 7:00pm in our very nice bus for the trip through Cape Town center and up to the top of Signal Hill.  This is an 1,150-foot promontory that is one of the three geologic features that make Cape Town unique.  It gets its name from the period when the military would shoot off cannon to warn residents of incoming enemy vessels, announce  that a ship was in distress, or assist vessels in the harbor to adjust their chronometers needed to perform accurate navigational fixes.  Today, there is a Noon Gun, not a real gun but a very loud “BOOM!” sound, that is fired off at noon.

Our first glimpse of Cape Town gives us the impression that this is a very modern, growing urban area with many, many well-healed people.  The actual metropolitan area population is 4.5 million, and because mountains rise up right in the middle of the city, it reminds us a bit of Vancouver BC.  The traffic is thick, as it is in any modern urban area and, because of those mountains in its midst, it is very hilly terrain.  Our guide describes the neighborhoods we are passing through, and speaks specifically about an area in Cape Town called Long Street.  This is an area full of bars and restaurants, where the young crowd heads around 10-10:30pm to meet their friends.  Sounds very much like the Old Port in Portland, Maine to us.

After clearing the city proper and starting up some steep hills, we hang a right on the the access road to Signal Hill.  Around 7:30, we finally arrive at the top, having seen dozens of tantalizing views of the city already out the window of our bus.

Hundreds of people are here.  Every parking space is full, and we are one of at least dozen buses.  This is apparently normal for sunset time on Signal Hill.  It is not only a popular event for us tourists, but locals as well.  It’s a pretty young crowd, from what we can see.  The sun will set in about twenty minutes, and people are seated everywhere possible.  Additionally, there is a huge rubber mat that is put in place on the slope of the hill on which people can sit to watch the sunset as well.

Our excursion comes with champagne (well, sparking white wine) and canapés.  With real champagne glasses.  Our group of fifteen or so are each given a glass and Cathy gets a plate of the canapés for us to eat.  While she does that, Steve is running around all over the place snapping photos and looking for an ideal spot to photograph the sunset now only a few minutes away.  He joins Cathy and we enjoy the food and take in the scene.  The first thing we notice is the good manners of everyone there and how subdued they seem.  It’s almost what you might call quiet.  Capetonians (yes, they call themselves that) are a courteous lot. The sunset itself is absolutely gorgeous, as good as it gets.

Well, the sun does indeed set, but the crowd remains.  We chat with our fellow Oceanic tourists and the catering staff refills our glasses.  There are stunning views of this huge city all around us to take in.  We begin hearing singing and cheering, and then observe a happy, laughing group of about fifty students heading toward one of the buses.  Cathy gets the attention of four young women boarding the bus and ask them where they were from.  They are delighted to be asked, and tell her that they are students from the University of Cape Town.  They invite Cathy to join them and promise that they will take us to Long Street.  It’s a brief but fun conversation with these four very polite black (or Coloured- there’s a difference)  students.

It’s around 8:30 now so it’s time to go, but, in the meantime, the bus had to move off the top of the mountain.  Cathy and I start down the hill, and it takes about fifteen minutes or so to finally find the damn thing.  It’s a traffic madhouse as everybody exits Signal Hill, but it is well worth the effort.  We drive through the city and see a lot of the nightlife our guide has talked about on the way up.

We arrive back at the ship and crash.  Our first taste of Cape Town has exceeded our expectations.  What a beautiful place.  We can’t wait to see more.