Plettenberg Bay, South Africa

One week later and we are about 400 miles east of Cape Town on the “Garden Route,” a scenic drive through forests and ocean front towns.  We stopped for a night in the whale-watching town of Hermanus.  We did see a few whales’ blowholes off in the distance and enjoyed a great meal in the sunny seaside downtown.  Meandering up the mountainside through ostrich farms, we ended up on a dirt road shepherding sheep with our car (look of fear from Ken: where are you taking me?).  Oudtsthoorn had three highlights: eating ostrich steaks (Nostalgie restaurant), petting lemurs at a conservation park (Cango Wildlife Ranch), and hiking through a magnificent 20 MILLION year old cave system (Cango Caves).

The last few days we’ve been in the high-end beachside resort town of Plettenberg Bay (picture Africa’s Malibu – huge cliff side mansions and very “Carryn-approved” restaurants).  We’re in off-season and we found a stellar two bed condo for $50/night with great beach access.  Everett has been buried alive so many times – the amount of sand in his hair and clothes is next level. 

We hiked the Robberg Reserve, a rocky peninsula, which was much tougher than advertised (look of anguish from Hillary: that was NOT mild!).  The hillsides were covered in the most amazing succulents (reminder: spring here) and the seals entertained us from the coast.  Playing on the beach, Everett practiced and successfully did his first backflip so he re-named it: Backflip Beach.

Online school has been a bit of a slog (surprise we are not great 4th grade teachers), but luckily Ken found some engaging online teachers on Outschool.com, so we are hopeful it will keep our family from imploding. 

 

A few oddities so far:

We stayed at a country lodge and the doorway to our room was so low (5’10”) Ken repeatedly hit his head. By the time we left the owners put up a sign above our door that read “Mind Your Head.”  

 

Every gas station has attendants and we are not allowed to pump our own gas.  They even squeegee the windshield and check oil and tire pressure.  After driving back down the mountain our car was particularly dirty, the attendant washed our ENTIRE car with his squeegee. 

Cape Town, South Africa (week 2)

Our second week in Cape Town we started to feel a bit more like locals.  Ken joined the gym for a week and the coffee barista even asked if we wanted “the usual” – success!  

We took two trips to the world-famous Table Mountain: first the boys hiked up (wind delay on the gondola) and the second trip we rode the rotating gondola vertically up 2,500 ft.  It’s a very unique and prominent landmark overlooking the city that we highly recommend.  

Our apartment was located on a popular promenade that rents bicycles, so on two occasions we rented bikes and rode to Camps Bay (about 5k).  The boys ran back to Sea Point (uphill in the heat!).  

 Everett was missing kids so we visited an indoor trampoline park.  We thought, it will be great to have him meet some South African kids and maybe even make some friends that live in SA.  We head to the park and guess who is the first kid he meets?  Rainier, as in Mount Rainier.  He is from Seattle.  Can you believe it, the very first group of kids he met on the trip thus far… and his Dad even grew up few blocks away from us in Queen Anne…Crazy!  We figured we would never see them again though.  Three days later we lined up at the Robben Island tour (where Nelson Mandela was imprisoned) and who was in front of us in line?  The same family!  Needless to say, the kids were all happy and it made for a more enjoyable day.  The actual tour included a ferry to/from the island, bus tour, and most importantly, a tour of Mandela’s cell by a former prisoner.  Getting a first-hand tour from an immediate eyewitness made us realize just how recently apartheid existed. 

At the end of the week Carryn took us to Kirstenbosch Botanical Gardens, where we learned about the Cape Floral Kingdom and their unique Fynbos shrubland.  After we stopped for ice cream and wine at Groot Constantia winery.  That night, Ken and Carryn watched the South Africa vs England rugby world cup semi-finals – the city was on fire after a last-minute comeback.  Ken knew nothing about rugby but he’s now on the bandwagon.

Cape Town had endless, amazing food choices but we spent most our time at Mojo’s Market, Kauai and Bootleggers.  We did try a few local dishes – cape malay cuisine, salmon rose sushi, and Sparletta cream soda (its green!).

 

We loved you Cape Town, but it’s time to move on and venture up the coast!

Cape Town, South Africa

Forty-eight hours before our flight to Israel, our plans completely changed.  With war breaking out we reluctantly canceled our trip, not yet knowing how the conditions on the ground might unfold.  Still in LA visiting family, we booked a last-minute flight to Cape Town, South Africa.  We had vaguely planned to traverse Africa from north to south (Cairo to Cape Town), so without much thinking we switched to the reverse direction (south to north).

After a 14-hour red eye from Atlanta we landed into the modern, cosmopolitan city.  Opting for the quickest accommodations we booked an Airbnb in the Sea Point neighborhood and were pleasantly surprised.  Cape Town is perhaps the most breath-takingly beautiful city we have ever visited (tied for first place with Rio de Janeiro, but we can’t seem to decide?). 

Side Note: During our previous travels (Gili Air Blog) we met a dear friend, Carryn.  We have stayed in touch all these years.  We forgot that she worked for years in SA tourism.  Well, lucky for us!  

Carryn has treated us like a VIP client: showing us the sights and sounds, which have yet to disappoint – an ocean-front promenade, Nando’s (our longtime favorite fast food chicken), sea glass filled beach at Hout’s Bay, exceptional and cheap food (and wine!), an ostrich farm, a penguin colony, the rocky and very windy headlands of Cape of Good Hope, lots of Uber rides, a cave of gemstones, a sort-of-illegal join up with a 10K, a hike up Table Mountain, white sand Camps Bay, and an evening of singing by Ndoluvu Youth Choir (a trip highlight thus far – of America’s Got Talent fame).  

Oh, and Everett is home-schooling so he’s taking online classes but also learning by experiencing and interacting with the world around him.  Latest discussions: the metric system, time zones, apartheid, and the history of Israel… not bad for week 1.  

 

The everyday vibe is comfortable and a bit like a laid back European feel, so it’s been a low-stress transition.  The city is affordable, well developed, safe, and bustling with things to do.  We just haven’t gotten enough yet, so we are extending our stay for a second week.

 

Check out Ndoluvu Choir!

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XpLdMeHhrYQ

 

Random Quotes & Notes:

Everett: “I still can’t believe we’re in Africa!”

Hillary: has been unconsciously speaking with a local accent and doesn’t realize she’s doing it

Ken: “I love the Dollar to Rand conversion rate.  Shouldn’t be we suffering more?  I could definitely live here (Is Omar right???).”

Safe and Sound - Never left for Israel

We have been hearing from many of you who have been concerned.  As we mentioned in our last blog, we were planning to go to Israel on 10/10 from Los Angeles.  Obviously, the tragic events that unfolded in that region have forced us to change our plans.  We are very sad for what is occurring, but we were able to avoid the region. We quickly changed our plans and we are now safe and sound in Cape Town, South Africa.  We will provide more updates soon, but we wanted you to know we are ok.

10 years since we last spoke

 

Are we really restarting this blog?!?! Yes. Do we have an itinerary? No. Are we mildly irresponsible? So they say. And yet, things happen and it makes us who we are. It’s not expected but we learn to lean in because it’s in our nature. Thanks to our supportive family (you know who you are) who understand…our love for travel might be karma playing out? They tell us how the story is supposed to go and things change, but yeah, we’re doing our own thing. We’re (temporarily) leaving our loving Seattle home, family, friends, dog… but not to worry…it’s our genuine pleasure to include you on our travels. Again.

We’ll be in Israel Oct 10-20, so look for our first update sometime mid Oct.

Postscript: Are blogs even still relevant in 2023? According to Google: Yes. According to our son: No. We are old school and should be doing these updates on TikTok/Insta/X/Facebook/YouTube/Weibo/Discord/Snap and sharing our realtime Snap Map location. Alas, I am terrified of becoming a viral meme, have excessive anxiety posting anything personal, and don’t know how to use said “applications.”

Post-Postscript: Ken says message him on WhatsApp because this is not 2010, ok?