After our convenient little red flash brought us home safely (remarkably red is a very rare colour on South African cars, they are mainly white or silver, about 80% of them), we wanted to take it a bit further to see the southernmost tip of Africa, called Cape L’Agulhas.
We chose
the scenic Whale Coastal Route, which brought us to Hermanus, the best spot on
earth to watch whales from land… unfortunately we are about 2 weeks too early,
as breeding season for whales start in June and they apparently prefer to do
that in THAT bay. About 70 of them can be watched during the season. For us it
was just a nice stopover for lunch and a little walk along the cliffs.
Hermanus,
like many other towns along the way is very “white”. You see a lot of rich people’s
houses, guests in restaurants are white and so are most of the people we saw on
the streets. There seem to be less black people than in Cape Town and if, they
were working as Parking Guards or waitress. So, the Africa feeling didn’t kick
in and especially not, when we looked at the landscape. For me it looked like a
mix of New Zealand (soft green hills, curvy streets, beautiful coastline) and
any other rich people’s retirement village in Europe. We didn’t see any mammal wildlife
(except the inevitable little dassies, some rat-like tail-less animals,
more like guinea pigs, preferably lazing in the sun and eating tourists’
rubbish)…
and of course no marine wildlife as it was out of season, birds from time
to time but too far away to identify them (especially not when you have no clue
like us). So, what was left is the landscape… which got quite boring after 4
hours of driving… But along the streets there were always black people, trying to
get a lift home from work, or just walking there, working on the street, trying
to sell stuff or just hanging out because there’s nothing else to do.
But okay,
we made it to the southernmost tip, we chose to stay there in a quiet hostel as
it would have been too late to go home the same day and enjoyed being at the spot
where the cold Atlantic Ocean meets the warm Indian Ocean. However, nobody
tried to prove it with the toe-test ;-)
The next morning we went to that Cape again for a bit of a longer walk along to the coast to an old shipwreck, enjoying the warming sun, the constant breeze and looking out at the waves, with absolutely no tourists around us,
The way back towards Cape Town we chose the route via the winelands and wanted to stop for wine tasting and cheese tasting. Unfortunately the vineyards that we passed didn't look very inviting and when we reached Stellenbosch, the wineregion no. 1 it was almost too late for the day. However, we stopped at a winery 15minutes before knock-off time, tested our 4 wines each and bought a bottle of red each. With the waitress being super-friendly and explaining lots of little details about the wines we've tested. Defintely an experienced that you wished you had the whole day for.
We re-entered the city during sunset became a new view on things in the outskirts, where there are townships and poor people along the streets. Black people came back from work in these minibusses that would take 9 people in Europe but can be filled with up to 40 people here. They stop on highways or intersections just to let people in and out and seem to be the most popular means of public transport in this city. Proper public buses apparently are on strike for the last 3-4 weeks and that explains why we have seen quite a few bus stops around but never an operating bus line...
At the end we were quite happy to be "home" again. Yes, we already consider our double room in the hostel home as it provides us so many nice features like a big bed, a hot shower, a spacious room... things we should better not get used to but I'm afraid it's too late.
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