This April I had the great pleasure of visiting one of my favorite cites in the world, Cape Town, South Africa. It had been 20 years since I last visited Cape Town, so as you can imagine I was pumped to go back for a visit.
For my accommodations in Cape Town, we stayed at the beautiful Taj Cape Town Hotel. It is located in the City Center and right across the street from the Church that Arch Bishop Desmond Tutu preaches at. We saw the Archbishop one morning while we were at the Taj.
On my first day, Thursday, we went on a Great White Shark cage dive. It was about a 2 hour drive out to Gansbaai, where we got on the boat for our half day adventure. It was about a 20 minute boat ride to Dyer Island and Shark Alley. I think Shark Week on the Discovery Channel has made these places almost household names. The cage hangs on the side of the boat and has room for 8 people. Each group got to spend about 30 minutes inside the cage. We all wore wetsuits and mask and the top of the cage sits above the surface of the water and when the sharks approached you would then dive down inside the cage to get the best viewing while holding your breath. We saw 8 different Great Whites ranging in size from 12 to 16 feet. What a great experience!! We had dinner at the Water Front that night in an excellent restaurant that ended a great first day of my 12 day trip.
On Friday, we drove down to a beautiful spot for lunch on the beach with spectacular views of Cape Town and the majestic Table Mountain behind it. After lunch, we were off for our tour of Table Mountain. We took the Table Mountain Aerial Cableway to the top. I wasn’t interested in the 3 hour hike up the side of the mountain. Once on the top, the views are absolutely breathtaking. The weather was perfectly clear and it seemed like you could see forever. That night we had dinner at Nobu’s at the beautiful One and Only Cape Town Luxury Resort.
Each morning we would get up at 5:00AM for the morning game drive which lasted about 4 hours. We would then have the rest of the day until 4:00PM to relax and do whatever we wanted. They had a beautiful pool overlooking the river and you could watch all the wild game coming down for water. The evening game drives started at 4:00PM and also lasted about 4 hours. On the morning drives we saw beautiful sunrises and in the evening spectacular sunsets. The wild game was plentiful. We saw all the big five except the leopard. We got to witness an elephant pushing down a big tree right in front of our Land Cruiser so that he could better feed his family on the leaves and bark. The tree looked like a toothpick when we came back the next day. There were Lions and Rhino’s, lots of Giraffe, Kudu, Impala, Gemsbuck, Waterbuck, and Cape Buffalo. There was a Hippopotamus bathing in a beautiful lake and a 12 foot Black Mamba that crossed in front on the Land Cruiser, I can’t stand snakes, especially the most poisonous one in the world.
On Saturday, we had an exclusive luncheon at another one Cape Town’s great hotels, the Mount Nelson. From there, I did a half-day tour of the Stellenbosch wine countries. We visited Ernie Els, the famous South African golfer, wine estate and tasted all of his wonderful red wines. He also had a room showing off his many victories, including 2 U. S. Open trophies and 2 British Open trophies.
On Sunday, we were able to journey quite literally to the edge of Africa by taking in the scenic splendor of the Cape Peninsula, featuring Cape Point and the Cape of Good Hope. Here we saw the majestic coastline and the union of the Atlantic and Indian Oceans. Nearby, we had the opportunity to see everything from baboons to African penguins. That night we had dinner at the Vergelegen wine estates, one of South Africa’s top vineyards. It was about a 30 minute car drive to the wine estate and we had a car club from Cape Town that drove us out in old vintage US cars. I was in a 1957 Chevy. As you can imagine with 15 old cars driving down the freeway at once, we created quite a spectacle.
On Monday, we flew from Cape Town to Hoedspruitt, South Africa where we were staying at the Kuname River Lodge, which is awesome. Kuname Lodge is a small luxury safari lodge set in about 23,000 acres of pristine African bush, in the Karongwe Private Game Reserve. It is located about 45 minutes from the world-famous Kruger National Park in South Africa. Bordered by the towering Drakensberg escarpment on the west and set in game-rich and lush vegetation, the Lodge offers a variety of breathtaking views, diverse landscapes and some of the best big five game-viewing opportunities in Southern Africa.
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| View from our patio at the Kuname Lodge |
After our safari, we flew to Livingstone, Zambia for a 3 day visit to Victoria Falls. I had never been to Vic Falls and it was certainly on my bucket list. Words cannot describe Victoria Falls. I could certainly see why it is one of the Seven Natural Wonders of the World. This time in April is when the river is at its peak and the falls are at their most ferocious.
We stayed at the beautiful Royal Livingstone Hotel, which stretches along the banks of the Zambezi River, just a short walk to the entrance of Victoria Falls. They are pathways that you walk down behind the falls and most of the time it is a driving rain storm from the mist that is generated from the Falls. It’s strange to be in a driving rain storm with no visibility when there isn’t a single cloud in the sky. We wore full rain gear in the morning to weather the wet conditions and then went back in the afternoon in only t-shirts and shorts to get the full effect. We also took a 15 minute helicopter tour of the Falls and what an awesome way to experience their magnificent splendor.
As you may expect this was a wonderful trip and the southern part of Africa offers many exciting adventures. A journey to Africa will certainly give you memories to last a lifetime.
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