In Cape Town

We’re here in beautiful Cape Town, right across the beach with stunning views.  Yesterday, we went to the V&A waterfront, got on the hop-on/hop-off bus and went to the Kirstenbosch, one of the national botanical gardens.  The audio on the bus said it was ranked 7th in the world, I thought I read 3rd in the world.  Whatever its rank, it is a stunning garden!  Sandy, I couldn’t stop being sad that you weren’t here with us — you would have loved it.  We’re going back on Tuesday, I think, to see more of it.  You have to come with me in a spring when the whole place is flowers, flowers, flowers!  You’ll just have to take a Valium or ambien and get on the damn plane!

After that, we were too tired to get off at the next stop, Constansia wine — the oldest winery in South Africa, started in the 1700s I think.  Maybe Tuesday.  So we just stayed on the bus and rode to Hout bay and back through Clifton and other seaside hamlets — narrow road, with houses plunging down the hillside to the rocks or grasping the hillside above the road.  Some people have personal funiculars to take them up the hill to their house.  Rich, do you think?  Why, yes, they are!  Nobody poor lives along the coast, I don’t think.  For one thing, they couldn’t afford the cost of infrastructure — those houses have to be pinned to the deepest bedrock, I think.  We still have to go down to the waterfront to buy some art and go to Woolworths for, please, please, I hope, several packages of Mother-in-Law’s spice.  I bought some last year, but never got to try it because Molly found it and tore it up and scattered all over the rug.

Today, we’re doing a braai for our Capetown friends, Jannie and Freda.  Unfortunately, they couldn’t round up their daughters on such short notice, but we’ll have a lovely time nonetheless — lots of laughing, for sure.  They are the multi-talented family I’ve written about in other trip posts.  Singers, musicians, painters — they do it all.

Tomorrow, who knows.  Maybe we will go to Franschoek to the Allee Bleu winery for lunch or dinner and to buy their magnificent wine.  Or maybe to see something else somewhere else — the week is spread out like a blanket on the beach!

Hope your day is as swell as ours!