The Long and Short of it

Last night, after a busy day walking down to the Company's Gardens (a large public garden built by the Dutch a century or so ago), and the to Greenmarket Square for a lovely lunch at an Italian Restaurant (I say lovely, but my stomach has been upset all day today, so they may have poisoned me...), we had done it for the day. But there was a bit of hunger left in us. On the advice of Don, our B&B host, we walked a few blocks to the Deer Park Café. And it was terrific, a place to revisit when we can. There was a green space right next to it, with a very nice children's playground as well. So there was a few families with their young children there, having a good time. And the food was very good a a reasonable price. Of course, after being in London on our way down here, anything is a reasonable price, pretty much.

Today was a hop-on, hop-off kind of day. Here they have those open-topped red tourist busses that go around the city with pre-recorded messages. And here, it kind of makes sense (or did to us) to take it for the day. So we went around from the downtown to Table Mountain to the beach, and back around again. We had bought our tickets on-line and had to pick them up downtown. I felt the need for a walk, so walked the two kilometres or so to the office, while Darlene took the bus. Normally, we would go together, but we had a back-up plan for times like this. We both got SIM cards, so we could text each other. So when Darlene was delayed, she texted me dutifully. And I'm sure I got it on my phone. But in my fuzzy state this morning, I left my phone charging in the B&B. So much for Plan B!

However, once we got together, we got on the bus, and had a pleasant time touring the city. Up Table Mountain as high as four wheels will take you, looked at the cable car, and decided that we would not do it today, if ever. (It goes from about half-way up the mountain to the top of it, and rocks a bit with the wind [see previous blog]). So we stayed on the bus and went back to the Waterfront, in Cape Town a tourist area well done. There is music, there are restaurants. There is a museum for Robben Island, there are lots of shops selling interesting things. And the sky was clear, and the temperature warm. So we wandered, had a mediocre lunch, and then went through one of the markets they had there. But we were tired, and decided we would go once more to the beach (this time to Camp's Bay). An interesting weather phenomenon occurred: while we were on our way, a cloud of fog rolled into the bay, as well as over the central city. So the beach looked like this:


And it as cooler. We didn't stay as long as we had thought we would. Back on the bus, and heading downtown to catch the local bus to get home. This took us to the area of downtown along Long Street—a busy, somewhat shady, artsy, multi-cultural area of town which has life all day and night, we are told.

We got there, missed the hourly bus by a few minutes, so sat around and watched a group of about fifteen drummers play a hot rhythm for many minutes. And during all this, there was a parade of unusual people. Some were sad to us: children of six to ten begging; some were well-dressed and clearly better-financed; young couples, old folks like us; black, white, yellow; lots and lots of taxis (we have been warned not to take most of them, because they will bilk you on the ride); cars double-parked; street sellers bundling up their wares and pushing them to the night-time storage areas—heavy, heavy loads of push-cart being shoved by strong young men up the hills around us. So the time went slowly, but not boringly. And then the bus got us home again.

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Location:Florida Road,Cape Town,South Africa