Our Long Weekend in Cape Town... Part 1

Mozambique has some pretty silly visa restrictions. While Dan's visa is valid for 180 days, and mine for 90 days (work visa vs. tourist visa), they have a rule that all foreigners must leave the country every 30 days. As we were quickly approaching our 30 day mark, we decided to start thinking about what we wanted to do since we had to leave anyway. We were informed that Tuesday, February 3rd was a national holiday in Mozambique... Women's Day (yay, women!). Dan's director said almost everyone will take Monday off and several people will leave early on Friday. Well alright then, we now have a long weekend and are required to leave the country. Let the location brainstorming begin!

I had mentioned wanting to do Cape Town for my 30th birthday in March but this just happened to work out well. Not terribly far and he wouldn't need to take a lot of time off work. So, early Friday morning we headed off to the Mother City. There is so much to do in Cape Town, it's difficult to narrow down what you can fit into your days. Many of the "must-do" tourist attractions are outside the city's limits so you must be prepared to either charter a car, do the touristy sightseeing bus or drive yourself from place to place.

We decided to rent the car and drive ourselves. Well, actually Dan did. Because Esquire Magazine told him that driving a stick shift on the left side of the road is something "every man should experience" (gee, thanks, Esquire). Let me just say that he did a fantastic job. Handled the shifter being on the left, and never once turned into the wrong side of the road. He was, however, outmatched by the turn signal being on the right hand side of the steering wheel. Every time he changed lanes, the windshield wipers would go off, followed by a small outburst of profanity. But he did it! Dan can now check that off his bucket list.

On Friday, we drove to our hotel. Originally, we planned to do the aerial cableway at Table Mountain but there were some clouds and wind at the top and I was worried about picture-taking conditions. And frankly, I'm afraid of heights so any reason to delay hanging from a cable was easily justifiable on my part. We got some lunch at a place nearby and headed to V&A (Victoria & Alfred) Waterfront. This are is the touristy area: tons of restaurants, bars, shops, a sizable shopping mall, a ferris wheel, a couple of hotels and all the docks for any excursions or tours that you may have booked like whale watching, or the trip to Robben Island (the prison where Nelson Mandela was for almost 20 years). We shopped and ate dinner there before heading back to the hotel to crash.

On Saturday, we had tickets to the Stellenbosch Wine Festival. Stellenbosch is one of the wine regions about an hour outside of Cape Town. Think Stellenbosch and Franschoek as similar to Napa and Sonoma. Since we knew we would be drinking, we hired a car to drive us over and back for surprisingly cheap. Despite having been to multiple wine tasting events in San Francisco, we weren't sure what to expect out of this. Turns out it was an outdoor event with fantastic weather, mountains in the background. Over 100 wineries pouring tastings but with a separate wine shop so no one was forcing their wine on you or trying to sell it. About a half dozen restaurants selling different tapas-style bites. The wineries and food were organized in a big circle on the perimeter of the event space and the middle was filled in with tables and chairs, some with umbrellas or under tents for people to just hang out with friends and enjoy the day. We had a nice time. Topped off the day with a nap, a steak dinner at V&A waterfront and explored a bar on Long Street not far from our hotel.

In an effort to not make this a novel, we shall stop here and continue the Cape Town adventure in the next post. I know, I know. The suspense is killing you.