Table Mountain

My sister and her friends have a saying down here... T.I.A... This Is Africa. Sort of like "when in Rome". Even though we were running on about 6 hours of sleep each in the last 48 hours, our first experience of South Africa was an incredible one. Pictures will never do it justice. After we checked into the hotel it was time to grab some food. We decided on a sandwich and some chips from a deli down the street that got rave reviews in our guide books. We headed up towards Table Mountain which is the tallest peak in Cape Town. Along the way we pulled over to eat our lunch on a bench that overlooked the coast. Beautiful! (above image is the view from our lunch spot).

We then headed up to Table Mountain where we took a cable car up to the top (pictured left). It looked fairly precarious, however it was a must do. The cable car holds about 60 people. The floor inside slowly rotates so that everyone in the car gets to see a 360 degree view of "going upwards". The steep incline is pretty ridiculous. The car drops you at the top where there is a small cafe and shop. You are then free to roam the entire top of the mountain. Table Mountain got its name for a reason, it is essentially a craggy plateau with low lying shrubbery and outcroppings that look to be volcanic in nature. The view of Cape Town from here is unbelievable, simply stunning. We could have sat up there all day. The weather was mildly warm, sunny with a slight breeze. Perfect. We hiked for a good hour and a half around the top of the mountain. There were mostly roughly laid concrete and stone paths that you are told to stick to. We traveled off the path a bit here and there to grab a better view. You can see the next smaller mountain, Lions Head, the coast, the city and Robben's Island (where Nelson Mandela was held in prison for 30 years). We took over 200 pictures, we just couldn't help ourselves. We will post further pictures later on.

We met quite a few animals along the way. Michael, it is your job to positively identify these animals. Amongst these animals were three different types of lizards, several birds, one of which looked to be a type of Red Winged Black Bird, as well as an endangered species that is apparently a relative to the Elephant, however it looks like a ground hog and jumps like a hair. We eventually and reluctantly took the cable car back down, the incline being just as crazy as the way up. We can't imagine anything could top that experience, but it's only our first day here!!!

After that we headed back to the hotel, took a 20 minute power nap and walked a few blocks to the coast to take a look around. We grabbed dinner at the top of our hotel. The restaurant here ROTATES. It moves very slowly, but essentially you get a 360 degree view of all of Cape Town-from the soccer stadium to Lions Head Mountain. We managed to squeeze in right around sunset and enjoyed watching the sun go down over the ocean from 20 floors up. Dinner was delightful. We will talk more about that in our food blog later!

Now we are getting ready to go to the Cape Town Airport to get Rebecca!!!! Her flight was delayed 2 hours, so we are all very anxious. We can't wait to see her! More to come.

Sarah and Justin.