17/07/2011: Traveling to Cape Town part 2: Arrival and Table Mountain

My flight to Cape Town left an hour before the girls' so went to the airport earlier to catch my plane. On the flight over it was just me and a kid who looked about 12 in our aisle and after a while, we got talking. His name was Divon and he was an avid fan of Top Gear; he had several magazines and a sizable deck of cards and we spent a good part of the flight with him teaching me how to play. His family had originally lived in Johannesburg but when his parents divorced, his mother moved to Cape Town and since then, Divon had been traveling back to Johannesburg by himself to visit his dad every holiday. He was the first person I had met to have something negative to say about Cape Town: "it's fun at first, but then you do everything there is to do and it gets old." I asked him whether it was true that Cape Town was much safer than Johannesburg and he said of course and nonchalantly counted off the three times his house had gotten broken into in Joburg: a brick through the window, a child fed througha small opening and then unlocking the door from the inside, and a gun held to the maid who was forced to give up the keys. It's the way that locals (even a twelve year old) can talk about the crime in Joburg so casually that frightens me the most.
After the girls' flight got in, we took a taxi to the apartment where we would be staying the first few days until Scooter and Ann took their test. The logic was that, while the apartment was more expensive than the backpackers we'd be staying at later, it would be more private and quiet and better for preparing for the test). At the time however, it was hard to not wish we could afford to stay there the entire 10 days of our trip; it was a very nice apartment with prime location.
If you ever go to Cape Town, or even just google image it, the first thing you'll notice is the immense mesa in the middle of the city. Table Mountain is easily one of the major landmarks and tourist attractions of the city and recently there has been a push to vote one of the 7 natural wonders of the world. While the hiking trails would always be open, our trip happened to be timed so that the cable car would only be open on our very first day (after which they would close it for maintenance) so we decided to make our trip to the top the very afternoon we arrived. It was a truly awesome experience with breath taking views that my pictures simply won't do justice. We spent a good few hours traversing the different trails that wandered over the expansive flat top.