Staying BUSY in Cape Town

The fun has not stopped even though our bikes are stripped down and in their cardboard travelling boxes; now we're onto a different kind of fun!

After our Table Mountain day our friend Bridget, from South Africa, kindly took us on a driving tour of this gorgeous area.  She has a brand new VW van so a bunch of us piled in and we drove down to the Cape of Good Hope.  It was another amazing blue sky and sunshine day, starting with a nice coffee/pastry stop, then onto Boulder Beach to see the African PENGUINS! They are about knee high and absolutely adorable.  We oohed and aaahed over their cuteness for quite a while, then carried on to the Cape.  The views were incredible and after our 15 minute walk up to the lighthouse, we decided we needed sustenance (again) so off to the restaurant we went, perched on the edge of a cliff, and enjoyed a fine meal and of course more South African wine while taking in the immense panorama.  Very good food is the standard here, everywhere it seems!

Yesterday we were off to wine country and headed out towards Paarl and Stellenbosch.  Along the way, our tour guide took us to a monument which celebrates the existence and success of the Afrikaans language.  It is a pretty interesting evolution combining several European languages, some Arabic, and some African languages, all blended into a language that works and is the first language of most South Africans.  Then it was wine time!  We went to a beautiful wine farm and did a wine and cheese tasting, then moved on to the restaurant for yet another amazing meal.  After that, we were on our way to Stellenbosch and our guide, who had talked to us a lot about apartheid and Nelson Mandela's influence drove us to the prison farm where Mandela had spent his last 18 months of imprisonment.  He talked to the people at the gate who told him "no, you can't just show up and see where Mandela was, you need an appointment". Well, before we knew it, we had a senior prison official squeezing into the car with us, directing us through the prison farm all the way to the house where Mandela stayed.  It will one day be a museum but for now the public is not allowed access.  Except for us!  We were allowed in, saw the whole house, heard some stories from the guard and took a few photos of the ourselves sitting at the dining room table where Mandela and deKlerk discussed the future of South Africa!  

Today, we are going to Robben Island, another prison, where Mandela spent 20 years.  It is a cool, foggy day which will no doubt add to the atmosphere.