Treve & Katrina Travel The World

Sorry it's been a while since the last update but, quite frankly, we've been too busy enjoying ourselves! We've actually just arrived in Bangkok and we're looking forward to lots of adventures in this crazy looking city about which we've heard so much.

Anyway, back to Africa and a chilly couple of weeks spent in Cape Town...

After our first night spent at the Ashanti Lodge, we moved down the road to a slightly cheaper lodge called Carnival Court with Jesse and Romaine from the overland truck (Jane stayed put at the Ashanti Lodge). It was situated in the trendy "Soho" area of Cape Town called Long Street and seemed to be the mecca of nightlife for the young and hip (so what were we doing there then?!)

The hip & happening Long Street

The guest house itself was Victorian colonial style, above a French-style cafe and complete with an intricate balcony where the weekly braai (BBQ) took place on a Sunday night.

Beetle mania

We spent a really good few days with the others, touring around the surrounding area in Jane's hire car. We got tipsy swigging wines in Stellenbosch (spitting out the fine wine is such a waste!).

Wine tasting in Stellenbosch

The vineyards of Stellenbosch

We then took the coastal path to Simons Town, where we got up close to the penguins of Boulder's Beach - very cute, although we got soaked in the process. Jane chauffered us around Cape Point in her wagon along the death-defying road around Chapman's Peak - the views of Houts Bay below were stunning!

The gang with glorious view of Houts Bay

Cape Town itself was a really interesting city. There was a real sense of regeneration following the end of apartheid in 1994. The Victoria & Albert Waterside development, with the impressive backdrop of Table Mountain was the prime destination for tourist, full of cafes, restaurants and America-style shopping malls (oh, and a fully-working dock). It was fantastic to watch live jazz musicians playing on the promenade and seals swimming & sun-bathing below.

Jazz... nice!

Sunbathing seal at the V&A Waterfront

However, there was still an obvious divide, economically-speaking. This was particularly evident when you drove East out of the city to the Cape Flats, home to the huge township areas. We learnt about an area of the city centre called District 6 which was bull-dozed during the apartheid era because it was multi-racial. The blacks and "coloureds" (a term widely-used in South Africa to describe non-blacks and non-whites) were pushed out to squatter camps on the far limits of the city where living conditions were difficult and transport into the city centre almost impossible. These days, the Cape Flats (& many other similar areas) are still very much in existance and even have streets with lighting.

A visit to Robben Island, where Nelson Mandela was incarcerated for all of those years, was an unforgettable experience. As we crossed the choppy seas and saw Cape Town's skyline disappear into the distance we imagined how it must have felt to have been a prisoner arriving for the first time. Very poigniantly, we were shown around by an ex-prisoner who served 10 years for instigating a student protest in the early 1980's.

Our guide on Robben Island

We were shown Mandela's cell - the spartan, cramped conditions were quite unbelievable.

Mandela's cell

We also learnt how blacks and coloureds were treated differently, in terms of food, clothing and privileges (to further demoralise the in-mates). It felt strange to think that this was all happening as we were riding around on our new bikes and pogo sticks back in Britain in the 80's.

We grabbed what turned out to be the only opportunity to climb Table Mountain on a clear day. We had been pre-warned about the Mountain and it's famous "Table Cloth", the veil of cloud which has a habit of hanging around for weeks on end. As we approached the top after only 90 minutes (God, we're so fit!), the clouds gathered in, but not before we had a stunning view of Cape Town to the north, the 12 Apostles to the west and Robben Island in the distance.

On top of the world!

After nearly 2 weeks in the city centre (still shacked up in Carnival Court) we escaped along the coast in our own hire car to Hermanus - home to the best land-based whale watching in the world. It was an incredible experience to see whales leaping out of the water barely 50 metres from the shore.

A whale's tale...

We passed along the stunning coast road through Camp's Bay and Gordon's Bay - full of glamorous people and flashy cars & a bit like Monaco on a summer's day. Nothing looked as cool as us though, chugging along in our 80's style Mazda 323 saloon (with alloy wheels, no less!) We finally had some perfect weather here and began to see South Africa in a completely new light - we definitely need to come back here in the summer!

Early morning in Hermanus Bay

So that's about all for Cape Town - we had a fantastic time and felt quite sad to leave the African continent behind after our long journey south from Nairobi. Onwards then to new adventures in Hong Kong and Thailand (please now read our next report about the amazing Hong Kong)!

Treve and Katrina xxx