African Tour:Cape Town part 5

Cape Town is one of the world's great outdoor cities. There are ample opportunities for skydiving, paragliding, hiking, running, horseback riding, cycling, kayaking, surfing, kite surfing, diving, snorkeling, swimming, and pretty much anything you want to do outdoors all year round. The rainy season is in winter, June to August, though it never really rains all that much. Cape Town's wettest month barely gets more rain than Hong Kong's driest month. We were there in November, the end of spring. There were a couple of days when it looked like it might rain, and we had a pretty good thunderstorm one night, but it never rained enough to make any difference to our plans.

My travel companions were Taiwanese, who are generally not great lovers of the outdoors. Finding someone to hike with was always easy. Most hiking paths in Taiwan are shaded by trees, so they assumed hiking in Cape Town would be the same. Kayaking and paragliding was a little harder. Getting someone to go swimming was damn near impossible.

We had a backyard swimming pool in Durban. No such luck in Cape Town. The backyard was large enough for a pool. The neighbor to our immediate right had one. We did not. Fortunately, Cape Town has plenty of beaches.

Cape Town beaches are usually divided between the Atlantic side and Indian side, even though the Indian Ocean does not actually touch Cape Town. Since all of the coasts are on the Atlantic, it would be more accurate to divide the beaches between the western peninsula and False Bay. No one does, though. Everything on the west coast is considered the Atlantic side while False Bay is the Indian side. The only reason it makes any sense is because the protected water in False Bay is much warmer than the wide open and cold Atlantic coast.

Boulders Beach
Our house was in Simon's Town, which is on False Bay, the “Indian” side. We pretty much all went to Boulders Beach, mostly because it is near the penguins. The beach itself is small and has far too many rocks to be anything other than scenic. That often means secluded. Unless it is right next to the only penguin colony in Africa anywhere near a city. The best thing Boulders has going for it, other than penguins, is the warm water. Not only is False Bay warmer than the Atlantic, but Boulders and Foxy Beach are in a bit of a cove. They are sheltered from the sheltered water. There are several tiny beaches in the Simon's Town area. Most of them look like Boulders and have the same combination of sand and giant rocks.

Fish Hoek Beach
Just north of Simon's Town is Fish Hoek Beach, a full service beach with changing rooms, showers, lifeguards, and shark spotters. The town of Fish Hoek is famous as a retirement community. Early mornings are when the “golden oldies” come out. They call themselves that, so it must not be too derogatory. The beach is also a popular place for fishing, which makes sense given its name. I saw a few people standing on the rocks with poles, and there are apparently always nets near the shore. That might be one of the reasons Fish Hoek is not all that popular with surfers.

St James Beach
Just north of Fish Hoek is St James Beach. It is too rocky to be useful as a beach, but people like to picnic on the small patches of sand. St James is famous for its colored changing rooms, for some reason. I suppose colored is not the right word in South Africa. It is famous for its colorful changing rooms. There is a Metrorail station at the beach, which is convenient, but the train tracks are right up against the sand. That makes the view better from the train, while it dampens the view from the beach. The only reason to go to St James Beach that I noticed were two separate tidal pools, which are great for children or anyone who wants to swim in the water without any risk of getting pulled into the bay. The southern pool is larger, but looks less natural.

Muizenberg
Photograph by Ingmar Grewar
Just north of St James is Muizenberg. The beaches are separated by a rocky coast, but a road, train, and pedestrian walkway connect the two. Muizenberg is far larger than St James, is more of a traditional sandy beach, and is far more popular. It is supposed to be one of the premier surfing locations in Cape Town. I never saw any waves worth noticing, but maybe I did not go at the right time. Muizenberg has more multicolor changing rooms that get photographed more often than St James, in addition to lifeguards and shark spotters. As a city beach, there is more civilization just across the street. You might want to bring your own food at some of Cape Town's beaches. Muizenberg has more than enough shops, restaurants, grocery stores, farmers markets, flea markets, and hotels. There is even a tiny water park and miniature golf course. Muizenberg is a family beach with easy parking. It is the last place you want to go if you like solitude.

The Atlantic side, the west coast of the Cape Peninsula, is much colder and has more interesting beaches.

Bloubergstrand
North of the City Centre is Bloubergstrand, a long, windy beach that seems perfectly designed for kite surfers. It was too crowded and too close to civilization for my tastes, but everyone who visits Cape Town has to go to Bloubergstrand since it has the best postcard view of Table Mountain. If you have ever seen a picture of Table Mountain, odds are it was taken from Bloubergstrand.

Clifton
Just west of Lion's Head is Clifton, a small cove community where the rich people like to hang out. The small beach is divided into four beaches, for some reason. There are boulders separating each beach, but they are easy enough to walk around. Some of the gaps are large enough to drive a dune buggy through. Clifton beaches are popular, not only because they are geographically removed from the poor people, but because that cove keeps most of the harshest Atlantic wind away.

Camps Bay
Less than a kilometer south of Clifton are Glen Beach and Camps Bay. What looks like one white sandy beach are actually two beaches divided by boulders that are more of a permanent sand castle than border. The Camps Bay neighborhood presses up against both beaches, so privacy and seclusion are never an option. Like most of the popular beaches, there are tidal pools on either side and plenty of places to get food and drinks. What Glen Beach/Camps Bay has over everyone else are the seaside views of the Twelve Apostles.

Llandudno Beach
At the southern foot of the Twelve Apostles range is Llandudno Beach, a tiny patch of white sand next to a tiny residential neighborhood. There are no restaurants anywhere nearby and most of the parking is in front of people's houses. Like most of the Atlantic beaches, the water was ridiculously cold. Yet it was one of the most crowded beaches I went to in Cape Town. I'm not really sure why. There are better beaches, easier beaches to get to, more secluded beaches. For whatever reason, Llandudno is a favorite with the locals.

Hout Bay Beach
Just down the M6 from Llandudno, which is mostly a drive in a valley between mountain peaks, is Hout Bay Beach. Hout Bay is one of the larger neighborhoods on the southern peninsula, with a fishing marina about the same size as the beach. The marina brings a lot of birds that you never see at other beaches and a seal or two. Since the beach sits deep inside the bay, which has mountains on either side, it is not nearly as windy as some of the Atlantic beaches. The water is entirely too cold, but at least you can stay warm on the sand.

Chapman's Peak Drive

Long Beach
Chapman's Peak Drive, which is easily the most scenic car route in all of Cape Town, goes from Llandudno to Kommetjie. Long Beach is billed as the longest beach in Cape Town, which makes sense. Except there are longer stretches of uninterrupted sand at Muizenberg and Blouberg. Those beaches have different names at arbitrary spots, even though you have no idea when you cross from one beach to another. I suppose, from a certain point of view, Long Beach is the longest. There is also a Long Beach at Simon's Town, though it is one tenth the size, if that, and kind of an ugly beach. Kommetjie's Long Beach certainly felt like the largest beach in Cape Town. Probably because it was entirely deserted when we went. I never understood why some beaches were more popular than others when the most popular beaches were often my least favorite. I'm sure timing and location had a lot to do with it.

More than for its size, Long Beach became one of my favorite beaches because we rode horses. With the stables at the north end of the beach, we were able to ride the entire length of the beach, past the skeleton of a wrecked ship, over the river, and through the dunes. It is not entirely impossible to ride a horse in Taiwan, but only one of my colleagues and I had ever seen a horse in person. Fortunately, the Long Beach horses were exceptionally calm and unfazed by foreigners and our unusual language. To horses, all humans speak gibberish.

Sandy Bay
My favorite beach was Sandy Bay, for a few reasons. It had the same white sand and freezing cold water as most of the other Atlantic beaches, but it was more isolated and harder to get to. There was no neighborhood pressed against the beach. That meant no lifeguards, no shark spotters, no restaurants, no arcades, no boardwalk, and no crowds. Llandudno was over a mountain ridge and Hout Bay was a valley away. I can understand why parents like to take their children to busy beaches with ample parking and easy snacks. I prefer as much nature as possible when I go to the beach. The less I see of anything made by man, the better. Sandy Bay also happens to be Cape Town's only nude beach.

Getting my Taiwanese friends to go to the beach was always a chore. They are not beach people. Taiwan is an island in the Pacific Ocean, yet most of its natural beaches are ignored. Kenting is a popular resort town. Most people go for the night markets and food. Whenever I have seen anyone on the beach, they have been fully clothed and hiding under umbrellas. Swimming and feeling the fresh air on your skin are not popular activities in Taiwan.

I went to most of Cape Town's beaches with a handful of Taiwanese. Only two of them ever wore a bathing suit and only one went into the water. The Atlantic side was too cold even for me, but getting them into the warmer False Bay water was difficult. In Taiwan, beaches are to be viewed and photographed. I thought the Cape Town beaches were too inviting to waste.

I took one friend to Sandy Bay. I knew it was a nude beach long before we went and I knew I was going to use it as such. That meant bringing the only Taiwanese who would have even possibly considered going nude. Once there, it was up to her what she was going to do. I was going to enjoy the beach as much as possible, weather permitting. Fortunately, the weather could not have been better. The water could have been warmer, but that was never an option. At least the sky cooperated.

She chose to keep her bathing suit on. There were a few other people at the beach, all bare ass naked. She felt it was unsafe with other people around. The one Chinese woman on the beach was the only person wearing any clothes. She said that if we had been alone, she might have gone nude. I doubt it. She probably would have said it was unsafe without any other people around.

Where I live, people stare at me all the time. I am hardly the only foreigner in Taiwan, but I am most definitely a foreigner. Every once in a while, a child will even point to me and call out, “外國人”. I have never seen a parent tell them not to do that. They are correct, after all. I am a foreigner. In Cape Town, no one stared at me, as far as I know. I was not obviously a foreigner, until I spoke. Even then, foreigners are not such a rare occurrence. There are many white people in Cape Town. Some would say there are too many white people in Cape Town. No one ever stared at my Taiwanese friends, either. The Chinese community in South Africa is much smaller than the white community. Unlike Taiwan, no one is all that impressed by someone who looks different. The exception was on Sandy Bay. My Taiwanese friend got a few glimpses here and there. Not because she was a foreigner, but because she wore clothes. I thought that was interesting. She stood out the most when she was around people who would definitely stand out in any other setting.

African Tour:Cape Town part 4

A few of us went paragliding one fine sunny day. On Signal Hill, we signed some papers. As an American, this made perfect sense to me. The people we were putting our lives into the hands of needed to protect themselves. My Taiwanese friends found it suspicious. They are not from a litigious culture. If you die while doing something risky, that is an unlucky day, not a lawsuit.

Paperwork out of the way, we all strapped into separate contraptions. Since this was tandem paragliding, each of us went with a “pilot”. The passenger sat on a little cushion while the pilot lay back on a much bigger cushion. Had we plummeted to our deaths, I doubt that padding on our butts would have made much difference. Looking up at the wing, I never worried about it. The wing was nothing like a flimsy World War II parachute. It was made of some science fiction material in a complicated structural design. When the pilot explained how air flows into the wing through tiny holes, I knew someone put far more thought into it than I ever would have. I saw a video once of someone paragliding and the straps to their wing broke. The wing kept flying, but obviously they did not. Our harness was attached to the wing by a dozen different lines on each side. That wing was not going anywhere without us.

We left the earth from a large tarp rather than the grass. I still have no idea why. Running off the edge of Signal Hill felt a little counterintuitive at the time, but since everything was designed properly and the pilot knew what he was doing, we started going up before gravity even had a chance to bring us down. Within seconds, we were floating above Sea Point, a beach community separated from the city centre by Signal Hill. We headed straight for the Atlantic, which might sound like a bad idea, but on the highly unlikely chance that you crash, it is better to crash in the water than into someone's house or on a busy street. More importantly, once over the water, the pilot can turn around and face toward Signal Hill, Lion's Head, Table Mountain, and the Twelve Apostles. Superman could not get a better view.

While over the water, the pilot asked me how adventurous I was. There is no way that cannot be a loaded question, so I told him to do whatever he was planning. Before I knew it, we were upside down. I thought he was making a sharp turn, which he did, but then the turn kept going and we did a quick loop. Before we left Signal Hill, each pilot asked each passenger if they were afraid of heights. Our reactions told them how gentle they had to be with us in the air. None of my Taiwanese friends ever went upside down.

Landing required more than a few turns to slow us down. I thought we were going to the beach, but we landed in a flat park on the Sea Point Promenade. Touchdown was surprisingly gentle. Our paragliding trip was outstanding, but that company only launched from Signal Hill and only flew over Sea Point. At least for tandem rides. If you know how to do it yourself, the options in Cape Town are practically unlimited. If you want to hire someone to fly you around, you go where they go.

West Coast National Park Marine Protected Area
Photograph by Peter Chadwick

Langebaan Lagoon
On a completely different day, we stayed much closer to sea level. Just up the coast from Cape Town is the West Coast National Park Marine Protected Area. The park is a birdwatcher's paradise, but we went for the water. Since Langebaan Lagoon does not allow any commercial vehicles, everyone goes there to swim and sail. We went to kayak. The calm lagoon did not provide any challenges, but Kraal Bay and the white sandy beaches were well worth the trip.

The national park ends at the northern tip of the lagoon. There are a few houses and B&Bs before you reach the city of Langebaan. Nature gets replaced by expensive houses, restaurants, and a yacht club long before you reach Langebaan Beach. On the southern end of the lagoon, the only thing you are going to see between water and sky are beaches, rocky coasts, and a lot of green. And boats on the water. We never saw any jet skis or loud boats. The lagoon looks like a great place to ride a jet ski. It is also a bird sanctuary, so maybe noisy boats are not allowed. Every boat we saw that day was a catamaran. There were a few houseboats in Kraal Bay, but not enough to spoil the view. They were nothing like the houseboats of Amsterdam. I never looked into it, but my impression was that they were vacation rentals. Assuming you have daily access to a boat, that would not be a bad place to vacation.

Venus Pool
A different kayak ride on a different day took us down the Cape Peninsula. Or at least down part of it. Rounding the cape in a kayak would be unnecessarily dangerous. Thousands of ships designed to sail around the world are buried at the Cape of Good Hope. Kayaks are not designed to cross oceans.

We were pretty much on our own at Langebaan Lagoon. They gave us the kayaks and let us run wild. The lagoon kept us from wandering too far away. The Cape Peninsula covers a much larger area and is surrounded by much deeper water. This one was a guided tour by necessity. We stayed on the False Bay side for a reason. While you can kayak on the Atlantic coast, it is more dangerous. You only have to go a few kilometers out to reach deep water. False Bay slopes down gradually. You would have to paddle for at least 40 kilometers out of the bay before the ocean floor plummets.

From Windmill Beach in Simon's Town, we went north for a few minutes for the sole purpose of kayaking with penguins. On Foxy Beach, you can look at penguins from a separate walkway. On Boulders Beach, you can build sand castles with penguins on the rare occasion they make their way over the boulders. Out in the water between the two, you can try to swim with penguins, but they are far more cautious than they are on land. That makes sense when their predators live in the water. They are probably unaware of how dangerous humans on land can be.

For whatever reason, penguins are not at all afraid of kayaks. They seem to know that a kayak is not a seal or shark. Like dolphins to boats, they wanted to swim along with us. As soon as we stopped, they lost interest and swam away. They were attracted to the movement of the kayaks, not the annoying people inside. Kayaking alongside a swimming penguin was easy. Petting a swimming penguin was impossible.

Down the east coast of the Cape Peninsula is the Venus Pool, one of several natural tide pools in Table Mountain National Park. Venus Pool is larger than a backyard swimming pool, though not as deep. If not for all the rocks, it would be an excellent place to teach a child how to swim. Had we brought snorkels, it would have been a great place to go snorkeling. You get plenty of sea life in calm water protected from the rest of the bay. My friends were surprised to see so many mussels and starfish in their natural habitat. Back home, you would only see them for sale as food.

Part of the tide pool is bordered by flat rocks that happen to be a great place to sit and take a break. They look like they were built by humans on purpose, but nature constructed them without our convenience in mind. Everything about the pool begged us to stay all day, but we were on a guided kayak tour. We had to hit the open water.

Paddling back to Simon's Town, we spotted several otters. Rather than huddle together in a group, they were spread out over a two kilometer stretch of water. Most of them were swimming with far more grace and skill than any of us were working our kayaks. Some stood on the rocks along the shore and watched us. They were all smart enough to stay away. We knew from their body language alone that we would not have any otters swimming alongside us that day. Petting a penguin is rare, but not impossible. I think the only way to pet an otter would be if it was sick or captive. When dry, their fur looked soft and a little luxurious, not that any were ever going to let us near them. When wet, they looked like tiny seals. Their fur almost resembled thick skin. Their webbed feet were also more obvious. That webbing was not at all noticeable on land.

While kayaking along the cape and in the lagoon, I knew I would probably never do any of this ever again. I could very well find myself in a kayak someday, but most likely in a different location. If I lived in Cape Town, I could go outdoors every day and explore every inch of the city. We were there for such a short amount of time, I never dug below the surface.

African Tour:Cape Town part 3

We all took a sundowner cruise one evening. A sundowner is not some South African slang to describe the sunset, though it does take place at sunset. Instead, it is a social ritual where people drink alcohol and maybe have some light snacks while watching the sun go down. I heard the word in Durban, though rarely. Since Durban is on the east coast, sunsets are not nearly as popular as they are in Cape Town, which has countless scenic spots to watch the sun disappear behind the ocean or mountains. On this night, we were on the deck of a boat in Table Bay.

The sunset cruise was pretty short, but we had champagne, cheese, and the sunset. As a bonus, a few people got seasick. The water was calm. The boat barely moved at all while we were anchored in the bay, and every single one of us lives on an island. Even so, some of my colleagues had a hard time adjusting to the lack of solid ground. It was definitely not too much champagne. We were only given one glass each.

We saw none of these.
On a different day, a few of us were on a different boat in a different bay. The sunset cruises mostly left from the V&A Waterfront because that is at Table Bay Harbour, where most of Cape Town's boat traffic parks. If you want to watch whales, you go to False Bay. Even though the Indian and Atlantic Oceans meet at Cape Agulhas, the warm Indian currents mix with the colder Atlantic in False Bay. That makes it an ideal breeding ground for all sorts of sea creatures. Whales go to False Bay to breed and eat tiny fish. Dolphins go to False Bay to frolic and catch fish. Seals just live there and lie out on rocks. Great white sharks go to False Bay to eat everybody.

Normally, our house in Simon's Town was far from whatever we wanted to do. Table Bay Harbour was more than an hour away without traffic. Sea Point and Table Mountain were barely closer, though a more scenic drive. On this day it was terribly convenient. We boarded a tiny boat at the Simon's Town Pier less than two kilometers from the house. We mostly sailed around the Cape Peninsula in the Table Mountain National Park Marine Protected Area. There was a marine biologist on the boat who told us far more about all the animals we wanted to see than we could ever remember. She made it clear that winter was the best time to see southern right whales, but that a few liked to linger around at the beginning of spring. Humpback whales mostly came out during the summer, but some showed up early. She told us that we might be able to see both if we were lucky. We were not.

Humpback whales are slightly smaller than southern right whales, but more people want to see the humpbacks because they are more flamboyant. Both like to poke out of the water from time to time, but humpbacks jump out with a flourish and crash onto their backs. Southern right whales mostly just stick their tails out. We only saw some Bryde's whales, which are much smaller. They breach like humpbacks, but since they weigh far less, their crashing down is far less dramatic. After seeing one up close, I had my doubts if that was the type of whale I saw from the house balcony. I assume it was an early humpback since I saw so much of it so far away.

We saw a few of these.
The dolphins were more abundant and not nearly as shy as the whales. According to the marine biologist, we saw Heaviside's dolphins and dusky dolphins. I could not tell the difference to save my life. Apparently, the dusky dolphins were the more acrobatic cousins. They did all kinds of circus tricks for us without any humans blowing a whistle or offering fish. Obviously, they did it for themselves and did not care about our amusement, but they were curious about our boat.

And a lot of these.
Outside of the Table Mountain National Park Marine Protected Area, we went to Seal Island. In the water, most of the animals wisely stayed away from us. On Seal Island, we saw thousands of brown fur seals just lying out on the rocks as if a boat full of humans was not something they should fear. Their biggest predator is the great white shark, who likes to fly out of the water at 40 km/h while grabbing seals from below. Fortunately for the seals, we did not see any sharks that day.

On the way to and from the Simon's Town Pier, we passed the penguin colony at Foxy Beach and saw absolutely no penguins either time. Though thousands of penguins live at the beach year round, none were out and about at the time. The marine biologist told us they were probably out fishing. That was the sort of thing that disappointed most people on the whale watching tour, but my friends and I never worried about it. Our house was a ten minute walk to the beach. The first time we went by land, we saw dozens of penguins. The second time, we saw hundreds. From the boat, we would have seen penguins at a distance. On the beach, they were up close and personal.

There was a time when you could swim with the penguins. Today, people are prohibited on Foxy Beach, which is where most of the penguins nest and waddle. Instead, there is a raised walkway to let visitors walk around the beach without actually touching the sand. The penguins are free to walk around without interference. People can go to Boulders Beach, which is separated from Foxy Beach by large boulders. Every once in a while, a penguin or two will climb or swim from one beach to the other, so it is physically possible to chill on the beach with penguins, but the vast majority of them stay on the protected Foxy side.