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Selwyns PhotosDay 1: Cape Town, Table Mountain, and Camps BayDay 2: Carte Blanche, Downtown Cape Town, and Victoria and AlbertDay 3: Tour of False Bay, Cape Point, Cape Hope, and Chapmans Peak Day 1: Cape Town, Table Mountain, and Camps BayFlight time. Christina dropped Ian and I off at the airport. Everyone was fighting sleep as she dropped us off at midnight.

We checked in, had the standard “best seats” discussion, and headed into Changi for the 2:15 am departure. The airport was rapidly closing around us since we were the last flight out for the evening. Ian was beat from the end of Q1 frenzy and I wasn’t sure he was going to stay awake to make the flight. I had just put in my last day in the SunGard AP office and was excited to move on to something new. Basically I was chatty and Ian was wishing I would shut up so he could get on the flight and sleep.   Ian was out like a ’90’s Tyson opponent as the plane took off. The flight to Johannsberg is about 10 hours and was bumpy the whole way. When I looked out over Africa near the end of the flight it was an adventurous feeling. Something about being able to see high over the land makes you want to stare out the window and wonder what’s going on down there. I’ve been on about a thousand flights (that might be literal) and I never get tired of a clear view from the plane. 6:30 am arrival in Johannsberg and then we resume the trip to Cape Town where we landed at 10:30am.Day 1: Cape Town, Table Mountain, and Camps Bay

We moved through customs where Selwyn was anxiously awaiting our arrival. Right as you leave the airport you are confronted with a large township that is next to the highway. The townships are shanty towns packed with shacks created mainly from metal roofing materials. It didn’t really phase me (that would change) as I have seen similar places in Manilla and other SE Asian cities.  We drove to Camps Bays which was to be our posh home for the weekend and Selwyn gave the rundown on Cape Town on the way. Selwyn is a tour guide by trade running “I love Cape town” tours in South Africa and he knows more about the place that can actually be known. He’s the kind of tour guide my mother would kill for on any trip. He was taking the week off to show us around and help publicize the boxing challenge.

We arrived in Camps bay which is a quaint seaside suburb town to find we had an amazing condo. 2 bedrooms, deck, small pool, and the best ocean view I’ve ever seen. This place was awesome. The general plan was to sightseeing a bit on the weekend, promote the boxing challenge, visit and stay in a Kayamandi (township), and try to visit Robben Island. I didn’t really know much more than that but Selwyn had it all sorted so it worked out great. We dropped our bags in the condo and decided it was time to see something and Table Mountain was the place to start.

Cape Town is between Table Mountain and the ocean. It’s about 10 minutes up in a cable car with a rotating floor. Rotating floors are good for viewing but a bit sketchy on the stability feeling. Table mountain is pretty amazing. It gives you a full view of the entire area on both sides of Cape Town. We had a really clear day and could see for miles. The huge views and scenes test the limits of your peripheral vision. Not just table mountain but everywhere. This basically means a photo doesn’t accurately capture the feeling.After a short afternoon on the mountain we head back to relax after the long flight. I had started the Mandela book “Long Walk to Freedom” the previous week before we left so I dug back into that while Ian took off for a run. We finished with dinner at Blues restaurant, I had a killer calamari steak, in Camps Bay and then crashed out.Day 2: Carte Blanche, Downtown Cape Town, and Victoria and AlbertDay 2 was Saturday. We had planned to have a relaxing weekend and see a few sites because once the week kicked in it was going to be pretty much non-stop.

We started the morning having breakfast with a man named Mike Duffett who is a independent producer trying to sell the story for a TV show called Carte Blanche in South Africa. It’s their version of 60 minutes and is pretty big stuff. Mike was very interested in the Boxing Challenge and Kayamandi. He gathered plenty of information from Ian and was going to try and sell the idea to the show. If he could a camera crew would be following us around for the next couple days. Ian was hoping it might generate some interest in South Africa as so far he hasn’t received and pledges from South Africa. Everything was very positive about the meeting and it seemed like a good chance that we’d be on TV!! Wahoo. However the British Lions getting a kicking from the All Blacks on TV in the background while we met was a clear foreshadowing event. Mike called Monday, and though surprised himself, the executive producers had decided to pass on the story.

After breakfast Selwyn took us downtown Cape Town for a look around. We walked the streets for a bit, looked through a market full of crafts in an old building, went to an open air market near the center of town, and checked out the Cape Malay Area. Selwyn mentioned that Cape Town looks a bit like New Orleans downtown. I actually think it looks like Melbourne a bit but of course, in 80 trips over the last two years, I don’t have a good photo to show it.The outdoor market wasn’t huge but had a few cool things there. I was liking these paintings of people at the beach which we obvious copies of a well known style. It was more of an import market as most of the people were selling items you see at all the tourist stops. Selwyn mentioned that they were all owned by a few people and that most people working and selling in the markets were from other parts of Africa.

We left the market and headed to the Cape Malay section of town. Housing areas are where the effects of Apartheid are really visible. There were three classifications. White (Afrikaans), Black (African) or Colored (Indians, Asians, etc). Colored was anyone who wasn’t black or white. Each group was segregated into their own area of town. The colored area was higher standard than the townships. Like low income housing but still real houses and not shacks. Today most people still live in their segregated area which should be rather obvious as changing laws doesn’t make people wealthier or start them moving yet it was still surprising to see the disparity in person. Stellenbosch was the most obvious but I’ll get to that later. The Cape Malay section houses most of the Muslim population of Cape Town and is a pretty colorful area. Cape Malay were people brought from Indonesia, Malaysia and other countries as slaves in the 1600’s.

Selwyn dropped us off at the Victoria and Albert to Finish off the day. It’s a pretty posh mall which is fashioned after Darling Harbor in Sydney. We walked around the mall and picked up tickets to Robben Island for Thursday so we wouldn’t miss out. I hadn’t yet gotten to that point in the Mandela book but I was working on it. We caught a taxi back to the Condo and headed out for a run. It was cold as the sun started to set but the run was pretty enjoyable. Especially since after I knew it was my last one of the week. Ian is boxing, not me. After Dinner and some Mandela reading it was time to crash. Early start tomorrow for our trip to Cape Point.Day 3: Tour of False Bay, Cape Point, Cape Hope, and Chapmans Peak

Holiday mode. We’ve been in Cape town for a few days now and today is official Cape peninsula siteseeing day. The plan is to start off going west around table mountain out of cape town, head down the eastern peninsula along false bay, visit Cape point, head back west along the atlantic side, and then come around table mountain on the west side to camp’s bay. The pictures tell the story of this day even though they really don’t do it justice. The views are too big and too amazing to photograph, this is a place you have to see for yourself.After driving past Muzienberg, the start of false bay, we stopped in a small town at the pier to see what the fresh catch was. The boats roll in and people wait on the pier to purchase them for their restaurants or home. Moving down the bay we stopped in to see the penguins.

These guys in theory sound like donkeys so they’re named Jackass penguins. They didn’t seem to make much noise for us but they were pretty funny to watch waddle around. They were also a good excuse for tour buses and trinket sellers to meet up. As we headed closer to Cape Point we passed many houses along the coast that were very cabin like. It reminded me of the north shore of lake superior. The village in the photograph has houses similar to ones we were seeing. This town is only accessible via a steep slope and a narrow path so you’re either boating it in or hauling it down.

Cape hope and Cape Point are in a nature reserve at the southern tip of the Cape Peninsula. This is not the Southern tip, that’s further west, but the South Western point of Africa. Cape Hope is the one that looks spectacular as you hike up to a lighthouse and look down on some amazing cliffs. It is the bottom part of False bay on the west side.Cape Point is the real south western tip of South Africa. Cape Point has an amazing beach right beside it that I could sit and watch for hours. We also saw some gazelle and zebra in the nature reserve. There are also troops of baboons here but luckily we didn’t see any. I am not a fan of monkeys/baboons who interact with people.

After a visit to the point we headed back up the west coast along the atlantic side. There we a few little towns with nice surf beaches. Along the way was the tallest lighthouse in the southern hemisphere. I forced a car stop for a photo as my mother is a big lighthouse fan. We drove through Chapmans peak which is on the other side of table mountain. It was late afternoon and the cliffs were showing some great color.

We stopped to watch the sunset along with a number of other people. Perfect ending to a day of touring around enjoying the scenery. We rolled into Camps bay to have a bit of a rest before dinner. Time for more Mandela reading and to pack up for tomorrows move to Kayamandi. It was also the beginning of the work week. Press interviews, boxing sessions, tours of the township, and all the other reasons we were really here. I think both Ian and I were anxious to get on with it.