Durban's a great city! We drove in from Swaziland in just about four hours. Nice scenery, lots of cows and goats in the road until we hit the N2 which speeded things up for us.
Durban is a very metropolitan city, spread over hillsides along the Indian Ocean. We stayed in the old part of town at Africa Regent Guesthouse. It was in a wonderful location, close to a quaint part of town where restaurants and a few shops are located. We took the small room right off of the breakfast room, room #2. The host and hostess were just lovely people. They do tons of traveling on their own and have some great stories to tell. They’ve decorated the home with African motif, very tastefully done with lots of interesting artifacts, real and fake (though you can’t really tell the latter).
We arrived early afternoon and not wanting to miss a meal headed right into town. We had salads and snacks at a little Portuguesa restaurant, delicious! We wandered around town just a bit then headed back to our room for a rest and to repack for the flight the next day. That evening we walked back into town (didn’t want to miss a meal) and most of us had Bunny Chow. It was delicious!! None of us were really hungry but that didn’t stop us from polishing it off.
Early night, prepped for our early morning flight to Durban. The airport was uneventful and so simple. Vinnie accidently kept his leatherman tool in his carry on and they were kind enough to let him go back to the counter and check it through.
We arrived in Cape Town after a two hour flight. What a beautiful city and the weather was perfect! We headed straight for Table Mountai,n where we parked and took the cable car up to the top (I elected to not go up the cable car). I understand the views were fantastic (I had great views too…)! We finished up there in record time and then headed to the Victoria and Albert waterfront where we had a nice dinner. We sat and watched the people, boats and other fascinating going ons. Everyone in the city seemed to be there Christmas shopping and just having a great time. That evening we staying at Mountain Manor, which is located somewhere in downtown Cape Town…sorry, the city is HUGE! It’s a lovely old home that has been turned into a guesthouse by the proprietor. She is a wonderful lady named Michelle, who raised her two daughters while running this establishment, very personable and filled with great information. Breakfast was yummy and the staff just excellent!!
The next day we drove to Cape of Good Hope, down the winding scenic road, stopping along the way at lovely view points to snap great pictures. We wandered out to the light house, climbed up to see the view, had lunch, and then drove to see the penguins. The penguins are beyond adorable! They have pink near each eye area giving them sweet faces. All in all it was a glorious last day spent with our guide Hayden. We do want to thank him again for everything. He was always willing to go the extra mile to make sure we saw the best of his country! If anyone is interested his company is called Outdoors Africa and can be found by googling that name or looking him up on TripAdvisor.
We said our goodbyes the next morning, sad to see everyone leave. Vinnie and I hung around the guest house until around 10 a.m., then took a taxi over to the Westin which is within walking distance to V&A waterfront and easy to get to the boat the next morning. We spent the day down at the wharf just exploring. It’s a huge place that has been redone and is fantastic to explore. We had planned on just relaxing today but it was so much fun walking and exploring that we got lost in it. Again, there were tons of people due to the holidays but I think it just made it more interesting! We spent the evening meeting up with a couple, Inge and Uwe, from California. They will be on the boat with us, very nice, very interesting and lots of fun. (Small world tidbit: I met them on a cruisers blog, they have a daughter living in Covington, GA, next to us in Madison. They live in Pismo Beach, but lived in Petaluma from 1958 to 1963. That tiny German restaurant on Kentucky Street was owned by Uwe's aunt!)
