Cape Town, Part Two

Our last two weeks in Cape Town were just as enjoyable as the first. My birthday was on the 29th and the day was great. Leon made me breakfast in bed, and then we drove down the road to Constantia to go wine tasting at some of the local vineyards. With the exception of one vineyard, the wine tastings are free, which is great. It allowed us to try some wines that we wouldn't have ordinarily purchased, and we were pleasantly surprised by some of the local whites. We ended up buying a few bottles of wine to drink with dinner over the course of the next two weeks, and some local champagne to help us ring in the new year.

For New Year's we got dressed up and hit the town. There was a local bar in Cape Town that was hosting a New Year's Eve party, and we danced the night away. We enjoyed cheap drinks (less than $1), a big dance floor, and the vocal styling of the latest winner of South African Idol. We were a little disappointed that they don't do the traditional countdown to the New Year though. We did it ourselves, but it just wasn't quite the same.

Our last big trip around the city was to take the Cable Car up to the summit of Table Mountain. The trip up was beautiful, and there were some short hikes up at the top of the mountain that allowed for spectacular views of the city below. We had spent the last week just relaxing, and thought the exercise would be refreshing. Unfortunately we got a little carried away. We bought tickets down the mountain, but when we realized there was a trail we passed them to some nice Brits and decided that a nice walk down would be just right. Going down is supposed to be easy right? Well our "easy" trip down ended up being three hours down a steep, slippery rock face, and by the time we got to the bottom we weren't sure our legs would work to drive our manual car home. The next four days we went back to just laying by the pool. Anything else was sheer agony.

After a month of resting up, we were ready to tackle the world again, and we left for Hong Kong excited to explore a new city and culture. More to come soon...

South Africa