This was the place that all sailors were excited to see. Before the Suez Canal was opened in 1869, all ships from Europe that were on their way to India and Asia had to pass by the southwesternmost tip of Africa – the Cape of Good Hope. Today, this was also our destination but we were doing it by land.

While waiting for our bus, we met a wonderful couple from California. They have done a lot of travel and we exchanged tidbits and tips. They were very excited about our adventure and made the comment that they wanted to be us. That made us feel pretty good. Maybe we inspire people more than we know.

Our first stop on the way to the Cape was at Simon’s Town to see a colony of African penguins. There are about 3000 of them in this colony. There were adults and fuzzy babies – some sunning themselves and some swimming. It made me want to watch Happy Feet all over again.

We reached the Cape around noon. We had a bite to eat and then headed up to see the original lighthouse. This was a nice hike up to the top of the point. This lighthouse was eventually replaced with another that was not quite so high up. Apparently the original was too high and was usually enshrouded in fog making it essentially useless. From there, we hiked across and down to the coast and had our picture taken at the iconic Cape of Good Hope sign. We hopped back on the bus and rode back to Cape Town. Along the way, we saw ostriches and a band of baboons. Although baboons are reported to be quite vicious and sneaky, they were pretty cute from the bus window!

Back at the waterfront, we wandered around and stopped in at Mitchell’s brewery for a glass of Pinotage (remember yesterday’s blog?) and Richard tried a number of craft beer samples. After booking a sunset tour for the following day, we got back on the bus and headed downtown for supper at Mama Africa’s.

Richard took some wonderful pictures of this day’s adventures. Unfortunately, we will be unable to post them. Once off the bus downtown and wandering down the street towards the restaurant where we intended to have supper, Richard’s phone was picked. Yup, removed from his person. I have run those 5 minutes from the time that we got off the bus until we discovered it was missing at least a thousand times in my mind (if you think that is an exaggeration, I would not think so). I now remember being bumped, separated from each other and consequently separated from the phone. The first rule of travelling is to always be aware of your possessions and your surroundings. However, after a wonderful day of touring and and feeling comfortable and relaxed, we were not diligent when getting off the bus. We are thankful that it was only the phone and not one of our wallets. It was a hard lesson learned and though we feel violated, angry and a little nervous about venturing out again, we know that it could have been so much worse. Because of this experience we are no longer tourists. We are now officially to travellers.