Into Capetown...

I am now in the beautiful city of Cape Town and have a chance to share some pictures with you!

Penguin-siting on the Garden Route

First night accomodation near Swellendam

World's Highest Bungee (look close at the middle of the bridge for the ropes)

Stop at a National Forest on the Garden Route in Eastern Cape

Elephant Park

Enjoying some beers at the Waterfront at sunset, with Table Mountain in the background.

Table Mountain and its well-known Tablecloth.

Morning game drive and some zebra-spotting

Our last couple of days on the Garden Route went great. I ended up not riding an ostrich, because the "ride at your own risk" signs had me a little nervous, given that I need full functioning limbs for my climb in a couple of weeks. I also found the ostrich park a little sad and opted to just sit on one for a couple of minutes rather than go for a full ride.

After the Ostrich Park, we headed to the Cango Caves. The caves were impressive, but I learned after my adventure tour that I don't really LIKE caves. We ended up having to crawl through three very tight spaces and only didn't chicken out after the encouragement of a couple of South Africans that were in front of me on the trip. Needless to say, I think I've been there, done that, seen the caves. Not all that jazzed about seeing caves again :)

After the caves, we drove through some mountains to the Game Park, the last stop on our tour. The Game Park was beautiful - just what I would picture it to be, and we had an evening Game Drive that started at 5:00 p.m. On that drive, we saw an ellie, zebras, springbok (kind of like a deer), impala, and wildebeast. We had a really great dinner in this huge dining room looking out over the Park in a newly built lodge, and then we all crashed somewhat early after a long few days. On Monday morning, we had another early morning game drive, on which we saw five lions and two giraffes in addition to the same animals from the evening prior. The giraffes were definitely my favorite - such beautiful, graceful animals.

We then headed to Capetown, with a very quick stop en route to pick up my bag! It had been dropped off at the first stop of our trip, but hours after we had departed for the next leg on the Garden Route. I had been getting by on a few clothes purchased and my change of clothes froim my carryon but am now VERY happy to have my full bag, complete with all of my toiletries and the things I had packed over a week ago. I will admit, though, that it was a bit liberating to travel with only one smaller backpack for a week, and now I feel like I have a whole new wardrobe for the next six months!

We arrived in Capetown, and five of us (three Aussies, one German, and me) decided to take the trip up to Table Mountain, the mountain that surrounds and overlooks Cape Town, even though it looked a bit cloudy. We boarded the cable car in sunshine and warm weather and stepped off on top in what felt like a February day in Chicago - cold, rainy, and cloudy. The top was covered in clouds, what the locals affectionally refer to the "tablecloth," which limited the breathtaking views we had heard about. We were able to take some snapshots in between the clouds but ultimately returned back down to the city where we ventured to the V&A Waterfront. The best comparison for the Waterfront is the Inner Harbour in Baltimore, as the area is full of restaurants, shops, and bars surrounding the bay in Cape Town. We walked along the water front and decided to stop for a drink as we watched the sunset over Table Mountain. The evening finished with a dinner at the top of one of the hotels that had a revolving restaurant - although it sounds pretty touristy, we had a beautiful view of the city, ocean, and mountains at night and was definitely a good way to end our first day in Capetown.