Basically, what you've learned in this post about Cape Town (and South Africa in general) is that many merchants will accept your American Express card, but you're far safer bringing along your VISA or MasterCard (just in case you can't use that beloved AmEx one).
Many of the expensive properties on the Atlantic Seaboard, if not most, aren't owned by South Africans. Many are owned by UK, German or Dutch citizens, and many spend most of the year empty (which is such a shame). A few years back our government started making it more difficult for foreigners to purchase property in South Africa. The good thing about that is that it prevents our foreign friends from quietly turning Cape Town into a part of Europe ;), but it's bad from the perspective that it reduces foreign investment in the country.
Kind-of a catch 22; don't you think?
I've never seen a whale in off Camps Bay beach before - not that they don't enter the larger Table Bay area - but they're just more prolific on the False Bay side of the peninsula where the water's just that little bit warmer. I spent a long time watching this one roll about in the water until I finally got bored waiting for the perfect breach, or tail fin.
Sorry about that. :)
I always find these small fountains to be a reminder of the origin of the Cape Town we know today. As you no doubt already know, Cape Town (aka The Cape of Good Hope, aka The Cape of Storms) was once a replenishing station for trading vessels sailing around the bottom of Africa - often between Europe and India.
The water from this fountain no doubt comes from the slopes of Table Mountain, where rainwater drains into the ground and makes it's way to the lower-lying areas. Don't you think we're lucky to live in a city that backs onto such an awesome mountain?
It's common knowledge to South Africans, but perhaps you're unaware that the world's first successful heart transplant was done in 1967 by South African doctor, Dr. Christiaan Barnard. The hospital that you see in this photo is Netcare's Christiaan Barnard Memorial Hospital (map) - which is not the one in which the first transplant took place, but rather one named in memory of Dr. Barnard.
The actual transplant took place at Cape Town's Groote Schuur hospital (directly translated at large barn) and, as you'll no doubt read, the patient survived for only 18 days, passing away due to pneumonia. In light of this, don't you think it's interesting that Dr. Barnard passed away from a severe asthma attack while on vacation in Cyprus? The first transplantee and transplantor both passed away due to lung conditions.
Before telling you about Saul's Taverna, let me say that Saul's Saloon's burgers weren't gourmet burgers by any stretch of the imagination, but they were the most fantastic 3am snack that I'd ever had. While clean and well run, the restaurant isn't pretentious at all - and certainly doesn't even try to present itself as an upmarket restaurant. That said, especially at 3am, the burgers, chips and coffee was wonderful, and very well priced.
So, as I was saying, we tried out Saul's Taverna for lunch. While the Mediterranean decor created an interesting atmosphere we left feeling somewhat ambivalent about the food. My warthog ribs were fine, and Kerry-Anne's lamb schwarma was OK, but in our opinion neither anything special and while not expensive, not cheap either.
Perhaps it was just that our previous visit to Gourmet Burger was still fresh in our minds, or perhaps it was because we were the only patrons in the restaurant - who knows?
In all seriousness, wheel-clamping (apparently known as "booting" in the US) involves some authority attaching a large metal clamp over the driver-side front wheel that results in a large fine being paid over in order to release the vehicle (unless of course you happen to carry a bolt-cutter with you).
There's good reason for wheel-clamping - some people have extremely little regard for road laws, other drivers, or privately-owned parking spots, and simply park wherever they please. Fines on their own aren't good-enough deterrents, but a fine coupled with the inconvenience of having to find the official who's able to release your vehicle - that's something that people tend to take more seriously. :)
Kerry-Anne had a chicken burger, covered with Camembert cheese and cranberry sauce. I had a traditional beef burger with a creamy mushroom sauce. (menu). Both were pretty darn good, but what made the outing great was that our waitress was friendly, smart, and efficient.
I don't think they're normally as quiet as the photo portrays it is. We visited on a Saturday afternoon, which appears to be the perfect time for a quiet lunch out. (map)
Although Cape Town has plenty of pine trees like these, over the years of my existence in the distant suburbs of the city, I remember many beautifully huge trees like these being cut down - for various "legitimate" reasons of course. The reasons range from the need for new roads, new homes, safety, and simply whether or not a particular land owner likes the tree in the place it is.
I'm being a little melodramatic - there are plenty of good reasons to remove certain trees, but sometimes people do seem to remove them for no apparent good reason. A case in point are our new neighbours who, a few weeks ago, removed almost all the trees on their property - and yesterday removed another huge tree.
Granted, the trees that they had weren't the most magnificent, but they were large, green, and provided good shade. Their garden looks so barren now. :(
I took this photo in the very leafy suburb of Tokai - one of the beautiful areas of Cape Town's Southern suburbs.
At the same time the government launched a campaign that provided an amnesty period, during which time illegal firearms could be handed over the the police without fear of prosecution. During that time thousands of guns were dropped off at local police stations - everything from standard hand guns to high-powered AK-47 machine guns.
Perhaps we don't see the fruit of that exercise, but I believe that it must have had an effect. We'll never rid ourselves of violence - people will always kill people by whatever means - but I do believe that the new laws must have reduced the number of impulse killings and the number of accidental deaths. Guns kill so quickly and it's better not have them at all, or to have them locked safely away - especially from little boy's hands.
Boys will be boys and we do so love things that shoot.
Click here to visit the website of Gun Free South Africa - an organisation aiming to reduce the number of firearms in South Africa to nil.
It's really easy to keep my own pool clean during the cool winter months. All that I do is dump a cup of chlorine into the water once or twice a week and run the pump every second day (I don't have one of those fancy salt water chlorinators). However, now that the air has warmed up again I'm back to adding chlorine daily and running the pool pump for hours on end.
I wish there were a more energy efficient way to keep pools clean. It often feels like we don't make enough use of the pool to justify it's existence. This mindset however changes quickly when the heat of January an February strikes us in Cape Town. :)
I can't claim to be a wine connoisseur, but I'm very reliably (and perhaps biasly ;) ) told that Cape Town produces some of the best wine in the world. So, if you're not from these parts but would like to try our wines check out wineweb, a local site that allows you to order a huge variety of our glorious wines over the Web.
While browsing I spotted this, well-priced, pack of 6 different wines from the Spier wine estate - doesn't it sound awesome?
Don't get too excited - I'm sure the chocolate brownies were made from carob. I mean, read the notes below the Date Crunchies - I think the only thing that they left off the list is fun-free. :) This and the spelling violation aside, doesn't the menu look awfully healthy?
Back in the day there were two movements, the Boy Scouts and the Girl Guides, but these day's it appears as though they've amalgamated into the Scouting Movement. Personally, I have mixed feelings about this one - on the one hand it's the politically correct thing, but on the other hand, I'm sure merging the genders creates a whole host of other problems - especially at camps! When boys and girls had separate organisations boys could be boys, and girls girls, without the complications that puberty brings. That said, I'm fairly confident that for the most part the Scouts would have it no other way. ;)
The Scouts had build the structure in this photo to provide a high-point for a zip-line. If you look carefully, you'll see a growing queue of kids waiting to get dressed in a harness and climb the ladder to the top. I watched for a while as the most responsible of the Scouts, manning the top of the structure, carefully attached each kid's harness to the structure as they reached the top. He did his job with surprising focus - he reminded me of a friend that had been involved in the High-Angle Rescue team a few years ago. Nicholas always took climbing and safety extremely seriously.
I can't say that I didn't wish that I was just a little smaller and able to join the queue of kids. It looked such fun! :)
Did you know that the Scouting Movement was started in 1907 in the UK by Robert Baden-Powell (as a result of his military service in South Africa) and that he and his sister, Agnes Baden-Powell, started the Girl Guide movement two years later?
It's simple - apparently the Mayan's are part of a J&B's Start A Party competition which will have winners will be flown over the Atlantic ocean to a huge party that's happening in Mexico on 27 November. How Mandy managed to pry this information from the guys, I don't know. Apparently they're are under strict instruction not to talk.
Click here you'd like to see a few more photos from the whiskey festival. Alternatively, if you'd like to read a more detailed account of the various whiskey's at the event click here to read Mandy's article.
Visiting Assembly is plenty of fun. What's awesome is that they have a slick website that's constantly updated with information about future events. As an example of slick, check out the upcoming Discotheque & Arcade: Mr Majestic's Cirque de Fantastic. Doesn't the event description sound just awesome? Did you notice that the page links to the individual artist's respective pages with detailed information and a calendar to let you know on which other nights they're playing? I found this site refreshingly different to the outdated and unmaintained sites I often encounter.
Check out their contact page for contact info as well as a map to the venue.
"In true Arcade fashion you’re invited to enter the world of enchantment where you will experience mischievous wonderment in marvelously epic proportions. The magic will course through your body overwhelming your senses, luring and bewitching you into the world of circus carnival, a world of charm, temptation, charisma and splendor." - Mr Majestic's Cirque de Fantastic
There were for so long so many of these cars on our roads that it seems a rental company, Best Beetle, has bought up as many as they could afford and now specialises in hiring out these cars for long periods of time. Depending on how long use hire the car for, according to their website, one of these will cost you between R1950 and R1450 per month. The problem is, and I don't mean this about the hire-cars specifically, but the cars are getting on in years and, well, they're certainly not as reliable as the new vehicles you'd hire from, say, AVIS.
That said, there are many privately owned Volksies still running around just fine on our roads and I guess they are fun. Perhaps the reason is that they do have a very beach-going care-free-student feel about them - which does actually have some appeal.
Don't you just love the sign? It's so bold - almost aggressive. Hell, I'm almost afraid to deliver my post to it... oh, but wait - when exactly was the last time I posted a letter?
I love these traditional round and red post boxes (and hope that they never disappear) but really, who uses them? Do people still post letters? Do they send post-cards perhaps? Who uses them? Do you?
I've never given much thought to how disabled people, or (in this particular case) folk in wheelchairs, get around Cape Town. I'd never thought much about how easy, or perhaps difficult it is to navigate our many tourist attractions, visit our shopping malls, or roll to the edge of a sandy beach (can one ride wheelchairs onto beach sand, and if so, as with 4x4s, do you have to deflate their tyres a little?). :)
I guess now that Kerry-Anne's been making her way around on crutches it's caused me (and perhaps us both) to consider how easy or difficult it is to get around. I've given it some thought and if I think about the places that we mostly frequent, many of them and most tourist attractions in and around Cape Town cater for wheelchairs and people that find it difficult to get around.
I did a little research and found (amidst the sea of tour operators, hotels and B&Bs) two South African companies that specialise in tours for disabled travelers. The first is RollingSA, and the second (Cape Town-based) Flamingo Adventure Tours. Do you know of any more that specialise in disabled travel? Please share them in a comment below.
You may wonder why Cape Town Daily Photo is nearly a week behind on it's... well... daily photos. Kerry-Anne recently underwent a hip arthroscopy and has been slowly recovering the use of her left hip joint. So, you can imagine that we haven't been getting around quite as much as we'd otherwise like to have been; and your's truly has been playing the role of the devoted husband, providing for her every whim instead of keeping the daily photos coming. :)
In case you're concerned, the operation went pretty smoothly and I'm pleased to report that she's nicely on the mend and will soon be hopping, running and skipping.
If you're in the Northern Suburbs and on the hunt for a skilled orthopedic surgeon who specialises in hip joints, leave a comment here and I'll send you the doctors details - we'd certainly recommend his services.
To be honest, we're not big on television, so I can't comment on the quality of the broadcasting. I quickly scanned the stations website and found a fairly comprehensive television schedule - which lists the time and name, but regrettably doesn't offer much detail around the nature of the program listed.
Tune in - perhaps you'll enjoy some of the programming!
PS. You don't *really* have to be able to see the tower on the hill... seeing the hill will be good enough. ;)
William (our over-loving and extremely fluffy Syberian kitty) loves shiny things - especially jewellery. Kerry-Anne once lost her wedding rings for a few hours, only to find them in his food bowl - where he's taken to leaving his precious loot. The funniest thing is when we spot him about to take a necklace or arm band. He eye-balls us for a moment, grabs it, and dashes down our passage like a pickpocket would down an alley.
He's naughty - but, like any good thief, too adorable to punish. :)
Next weekend you could sip tea and eat cake in the gardens, listen to green-thumbed enthusiasts talking about plants, participate in photography workshops, or simply walk around the gardens at your leisure.
Don't miss the outing, it'll be awesome and costs only R20 per person - here's a map. :)
Some may be wondering what I'm going on about but perhaps it's clear to others that I've simply just watched a Sherlock Homes movie. :)
In 1992 there were about 2000 of these animals across the country, and today I guess there are many more. I came across this young Bontebok on Tygerberg Hill (at the picnic spot I mentioned) lying in the long grass - close to its mother. Mom got a little nervous as I approached, eyeballed me for a little while, and then must have signaled to her baby that it was time to leave. I can't say that I was too upset - those long horns looked pretty intimidating!
I never realised that we still had wild buck on the hills among residential areas in the Northern suburbs! Pretty awesome, heh?
Don't be fooled - this isn't Cape Town's Noon Day Gun. (You know, the cannon on Signal Hill that's gone kaboom at noon almost every day since it's placement in 1902). To be honest - I last visited the Noon Day Gun when I was a young kid. In fact, I can actually hardly remember the visit! Since then Kerry-Anne and I have made two attempts to see the cannon fire - the first was on a Sunday, and the second on a public holiday... the two days on which the Noon Day Gun takes a break!
This particular cannon is found on Tygerberg Hill and was presumably used as a signaling cannon to alert farmers as to the presence of new ships in the harbour.
Fortunately, we struck it lucky this weekend with both Saturday and Sunday holding the most beautiful weather suitable for relaxing at the beach and sipping on sundowners, or spending the day at the swimming pool and braaing in the sun.
This is Cape Town folks. :)
The number of professionally printed signs hosting incorrectly spelled words, or ambiguous writing, is simply astounding. My spelling isn't very good - but this is why I use a spell checker. So the question is; is there an excuse for sign-writers? Signs are short and professional sign-writers should surely notice incorrectly spelled words or sentences that clearly don't mean what was intended.
In this case, I wonder why the commissioner of this sign, or owner of the property, or in fact, anyone involved hasn't notice the clear problem here. This sign has been up for years. How strange...
