2023 Africa Trip: Day 10-11 - The Last Waltz (for now)

Day 10 – The Table

This was our last full day in Cape Town. One odd thing about the city I’ve come to realize in my last three trips here, trips that have all ended with me taking a Monday night flight back and therefore being fully a tourist on Sunday, is how eerily quiet the city is on Sundays. Getting an uber takes significantly longer. The streets are night empty in the mornings, there are a swath of bars that are just outright closed. It’s a bit sad, I guess, but mainly because United’s direct flight back is on Monday and not Sunday, so to some degree we were stuck being tourists on a day the city gets prepped for a busy week of work.

That all said, there was still a lot of fun and wonder to be had. The day started with my dad going for a tour of Robben Island starting at 9am, my Mom taking the opportunity to pack and repack, and me going for a quick hike on the Contour Path. It is a gorgeous hike starting in Constantia Nek, on the back side of Table Mountain (technically another peak called Skeleton Gorge). The normal hike ends in Kirstenbosch National Gardens, with a free entry to the park as credit for a job well done. I needed to do a slightly shorter version to make our various timings work, so instead I took an earlier exit point that ends not in the park. Still the hike was gorgeous, with another cloudless day, a nicely timed one given the main event of Table Mountain later in the day.

From the end of the hike, I ubered back (had to wait about 10 minutes for someone to accept, who was then 10 minutes away) putting me slightly late to return back to the AirBNB and pick up my Mom on our way out to the waterfront to then pick up my Dad who was returning from his tour. He loved the tour, which is excellent if a bit long at 4 hours (including the jetty there and back), but super informative and a must-do at some point in Cape Town. Just it is plainly not something that needs re-doing. 

My Mom and I meandered around the waterfront. I'll say this, they find less innate pleasure out of wandering aimlessly in the Waterfront than I do, which is fully understandable, but I think overtime I'll make them converts. We picked up my Dad and then headed off back to the Neighborgoods Market in teh Old Biscuit Mill, this time for lunch and to buy a matching set of custom made African Wood cutting boards (about $25-30 each). It took me way to long to pick my meal, ultimatley going for a Tanzanian braised beef stew with greens and dhal (more on the Indian-ish African food coming up in much more detail), and a side of two corn fritters that had a lot of other ingredients seemingly well mixed into kernels of corn and lightly fried. Honestly, the corn piece was the star. We enjoyed our time in the Neighborgoods Market, which might be the best new find of my time in Cape Town.

From there, we headed to Table Mountain. It is the singular star attraction of Cape Town proper, one very much unlike Robben Island in that it is worth re-seeing. Granted, a lot fo that has to do with it not taking four hours, but on a busy day with a good line, it can be time consuming. Once again, Sunday is not a busy day, so it wasn't, and we were up in about thirty minutes from leaving the market. I had to tell my parents repeatedly when we were dropped off and even during the cable car ride that the views would only get better. They understandably could not believe that that was possible, but they became believers quick on the summit.

I'm quick to say I find the best view of Cape Town to be from Signal Hill, precisely because Table Mountain is in it, but the view from Table Mountain, to put it in my dad's words "is hard to describe in words." I took a patient route at the main landing space, first having them view Camps Bay and the immediate South, down to the views of the Cape Peninsula, and finally over to the viewpoint of the city from end to end. I hadn't done this since 2018, so even for me the sheer brilliance of the view was overwhelming. Table Mountain remains one of the great singular tourist experiences in the world, one that cannot get overrated.

After, my parents were rather tired so I dropped them back at the AirBNB and headed back to the Waterfront to meander some more, both to go through the Watershed and buy the umpteenth Penguin and a few other random wares and just soak in the experience. Ever since Mitchell's got rid of the Milk & Honey beer, I've had one less place to abscond to, but with Cause Effect and so many others, I truly never do get tired of it.

Dinner was also a new experience, goiung to Gold which is a restaurant of some fame. They serve 14 courses family style (6 starters, then 6 mains/sides, and 2 desserts) over the course of 2h30m, with live music and performances. The one additional piece being each dish is from a different country of Africa, really fron end to end, with Moroccon Couscous and Tunisian Taboullah, down to Cape Malay cuisine. The food was all reasonably good, perfect family style stuff. The one throughline seemed to be fried starters (but not overly oily) my favorite being a Zimbabwean Sweet Potato ball and a Xhosa fried corn and spinach patty. The next throughline was a hint of sweetness in all the mains, from a bit of sugar in a lemon chicken curry (Cameroon), to a hit of sweetness in the South Africa lamb and springbok bobotie. The food is all good (and quite cheap) and the entertainment is quite fun. The most interesting part was a series of giant groups that left coming out of one room that was seemingly one-half of the second floor we were seated on. Late in our meal, we were told a dance performance was going on in the "main room", which once we entered we realized had a capacity of like 200 people, with a cruise like set-up. Gold is huge, it is fine, it is worth doing.

From there we went to Cause Effect one last time, my Dad fully bought in to the pizzazz of it all. They were having a quiet night (truly I've found few places that cater to late night drinking on a Sunday aside from the lowest brow of low-bron Long Street clubs. We took a photo with some of the bartenders and staff, and were soon enough headed back to the AirBNB ending a fully content, if slow Sunday.

Day 11 - The Red Bus

In a weird way, if you said you had a 10-hour layover, you would think that's enough time to do a lot. But if you have a last day of your vacation from 9am - 6pm, it sounds pretty short, We tried to make the most of it, with a few firsts for my parents. The star of the show was our time on Signal Hill, them realizing quickly how special a spot it was. It wasn't sunset, but it's pretty easy to make the leap to how magical sunset would be with the sun descending over the atlantic from the carpeted area built on one side of the cliff. 

From Signal Hill, we went to Bo-Kaap, an area I hadn'[t been over the course of the prior five trips, honestly due mostly to not knowing about it. The first time I really saw it was on Somebody Feed Phil. We didn't time it to have a meal there, but did stop at a coffee shop for a iced cappucino (Bo-Kaap Deli) and then a spice store to pick up za'atar, along with their version of peri-peri. The food is completely secondary in Bo-Kaap anyway. The star of the show is the rows of pastel painted houses, no two side by side houses the same. From greens to yellows to light purples to oranges. They were stunning, and well worth the quick trip there which led us to a walk down Bree street to our lunch at Seabreeze.

Seabreeze is a straight seafood spot on Bree, with great outdoor seating where you can just watch the world go by. They were missing a few items (most oddly, completely out of full mussels, which is something of a specialty in the area) but we split four good starters. The best was probably a salt and pepper mussel dish which was so lightly dusted by a deep fryer, with a great green sauce underneath. Alongside it was an interesting dish of picked fish pani puri, which was tasty that very much missing the liquid component of pani puri. Pickled octopus was a nice accompaniament, as was a really fresh prawn taco with a great mango & pomegranate sauce. Our main was a well cooked cobb (white fish) with a ginger veloute and crispy mussels. Seabreeze consistently has great food (this was my third time there), with a great setting, and a proper final full meal.

From there, we took a hop-on, hop-off bus through the main route of 12 stops (75 min end to end, we did about 45 of it). Some woudl call these double decker red buses the bane of travelers existences - nothing says you are a visitor than getting off and on them. Certainly I too was a bit skeptical, but it was a fun ride from Table Mountain to Camps Bay, and then Camps Bay huggingg the shoreline back to the Waterfront.

Camps Bay is gorgeous, from teh white sand beaches, the great flora, the dominance of Lion's Head, Table Mountain and the Twelve Apostles behind you, and the rows of beautiful villas and houses cut into the cliffs. The line of restaurants on the main road are a bit more corporate (including a Starbucks to my dismay) then both what I would've liked and what I remember from prior dalliances in 2016 and 2018. It does house one special place - the initial location of Cause Effect, which I hadn't yet been. As my parents left to grab gelato, I was there grabbing a last cocktail, a perfectly umami-ized beet and ginger cocktail served in an oyster shell with billowing clouds of liquid nitrogen coming from every direction. A nice final drink to be sure.

On our return to the Waterfront, we took in the sight for the last time. That visual of the city, with Devil's Peak, Table Mountain, Lion's Head and Signal Hill behind it will never, ever, ever get old. We walked back towards the AirBNB, stopping for coffees and snacks at Bootlegger, a chain spot that had a location right next to our AirBNB. We said our goodbyes, all of us a bit emotional and sad to leave the gorgeous city, even me leaving for a sixth time knowing that there will be a seventh.

Re-Post: RTW Trip Day 1-2

This year marks 10 years since I went on a 4-month vacation for what should have been my senior spring semester. More acutely, this week marks 10 years to the day from when it started, with a trip to Cape Town. To mark the occassion, I'll be reposting a few significant entries as they happened in real time.

This one starts with the trip beginning, detailing my flight on South African Airways - seen through the eyes of someone who hadn't yet taken dozens of long-haul flights, my thoughts on Cape Town as a whole (almost immediately positive), and the inception point of the entire excercise, a touchstone moment for this blog, with me writing about these things on a whim because I was waiting for a table at Sevruga in the V&A Waterfront. A love affair with the city, with travelling and with writing about travelling, began that day.

*************************************************************************

 Day 1 – The Voyage Begins

When I started planning this trip, the trip itself served as an afterthought. What pleased me was getting the combination of mileage flights that I wanted, getting the 20-hour layover in Singapore that I wanted (not once, but twice), bypassing the horror of ever having to actually take United, despite using ‘United’ miles. No, the trip itself was far in the future, the green light at the other end of the lake in Gatsby, and planning the trip was what led up to it. But now it was here. The first journey approached. 30 different flights are to come (I wish I was kidding, as I realized that nearly a 4^th of the days of my trip involve a flight), and like any long list, it has to start somewhere. And that somewhere was, coincidentally, the longest flight of the trip, the 14 hour jaunt between JFK airport and Johannesburg, on South African Airways’ beautiful A340-600 (for those of you who aren’t plane nuts and don’t recognize that name, google Airbus A340-600; with the possible exception of the B747, there might not be a more aesthetically stunning plane). It was a strange flight to be sure. 14 hours in a metal tube six miles above the ground is never easy, but having the opportunity to fly on so many new airlines (this one, along with Thai Airways, Vietnam Airlines, Singapore Airlines and All Nippon Airlines, not to mention the budget carriers like Air Asia and JetStar) was actually one of the most enticing aspects going in. At 10:40 AM on February 24^th, in JFK’s Terminal 4, Gate 26, it started. It will end aboard a Singapore Airlines A380-800 (a plane even normal people know because of its two full levels), on a Frankfurt-JFK route, on June 8^th. There is little chance I will ever be on a trip like this again. But after the flight, and the first day in South Africa, there is a great chance I will be aboard South African Airways again.

There is a huge catch-22 in long-haul flight for smaller airlines (and with a lack of connection destinations in its isolated pocket of the globe, South African Airlines counts). Planes that can fly the requisite 7,000 miles are really big (the A340-600 is the longest plane in the world), but those routes aren’t always full. Let’s just say this was one of those times. I was in the last quadrant of the plane, along with about 10 other youths, a couple older singles, and one family of four. The plane was in 2-4-2 configuration, and it became immediately obvious that everyone would get at least two seats to themselves. In fact, even before the plane left the gate, the crew announced that we should ‘wait until after takeoff’ to switch seats. I was situated in the aisle seat of the ‘4’, and because I didn’t want to be selfish and take all four seats in a row (some did do this, but there were still more than enough empty seats to go around), I targeted my coveted window-aisle combo. I could have the window, an attraction I’ve leaned towards for much of my life, and the aisle empty, a feature that I’ve slowly come around to when I realized things like ‘being able to go to the bathroom any time I wanted’ trumped ‘three minutes of watching planes in airports aligned with 12 hours of watching clouds’. Needless to say, I didn’t listen to the crew’s suggestion, and staked claim to 67 H-J before takeoff. It was a great move.

I’ll say a couple things about South African Airlines. First, is that their food service is good but rare, and not that it is undercooked. They served just two meal services in the entire 14-hour flight, a ‘dinner’ and a ‘breakfast’. What irks me is that the flight started at 11:00 AM NYC time, and they served what they called the ‘dinner’ at basically around noon. They could have easily served a lunch, then a dinner than a breakfast, or at least served something more filling than a half-sandwich and chips in-between the meals. This opinion could easily change after taking Singapore Airlines, but out of all the 10+ hour flights I have taken, the gold-standard in food terms is Cathay Pacific. Who along with two full meals, served a round of meat-filled sandwiches and a Raman ‘cup-of-noodles’. This was before the airline industry crashed, so it could be cost-cutting measures by SAA, but either way, the food that came was good but way too little of it actually came. The other takeaway from my time aboard South African Airways was that they had the most extensive movie collection I have ever seen. Touch-Screen On-Demand behind-the-seat entertainment is now basically standard on any reputable airline (I’ve flown Etihad, Swiss and Korean long distance over the past two years and had it on all of them), but I’ve never seen such a collection of movies. They had the standard new releases (Argo and Lincoln), the standard kids movies (Happy Feet & Ice Age 1 and 2), but they had about 20 other English titles, like The King’s Speech, the Avengers, older movies like Forgetting Sarah Marshall, Juno, Little Miss Sunshine, and the movie that I embarrassingly watched and enjoyed, Pitch Perfect (about competing a cappella groups – made slightly less embarrassing by the presence of Brittany Snow, Anna Camp and Anna Kendrick in the film). Bravo, South African Airways. Now just replace some of that budget with more food.

The 14 hours went by quicker than I expected. It is slightly jarring to be in a situation where you have sat down for roughly 7 hours and barely gotten past the halfway mark, but they put the lights out in the cabin for roughly 10 hours of the flight, so it was basically like a cozy little hotel. When we finally landed in Johannesburg, I was a little disappointed. First, to be leaving my floating personal entertainment service; second, and more meaningful, was Johannesburg’s incredibly overcast weather. By the time the plane emerged blow the clouds, we were already just about 400 feet above the ground. It was dark, dim and as I would later find out, the polar opposite of Cape Town.

Four hours later, I entered another plane. This time one about half the size, with no movies to choose from, and packed to the gills. The two hour flight to Cape Town was as quick as a two hour flight could be. I was stunned to learn while watching out my window as we took off from Johannesburg that both Lufthansa and Air France send an A380 on their routes to the ‘Burgh. As much as I am sure the NYC-JNB flight on the A340-600 is never full, I am even more sure that Lufthansa and Air France are sending that big boy out less than full. The biggest shock, however, was that Emirates was not sending an A380 on the route, which is basically against everything Emirates stands for in this modern flying world. The descent into Cape Town was everything the descent into Johannesburg was not. There was no cloud in the sky, and the mountains enveloping the Cape were visible, an stunning welcome party to the Cape.

Day 2 – Welcome to the Cape

 

As I left Cape Town airport and headed towards my hotel (the ‘Altona Lodge’) in Green Point (near the Waterfront), I continued to be marveled at just how beautiful the city of Cape Town could be. The mountains that make up Table Mountain National Reserve are as good as advertised. A nice combination of a long flat mountain reminiscent of Mt. Rushmore (without the faces) and the mountain that stands over Machu Picchu, with the selling point being I don’t have to climb up thousands of feet in Cuzco or trek to South Dakota to see it. I’ll speak more about the Table Mountain experience when I go up it in a few days, but for now and from afar, it is breathtaking.

The hotel is perfectly situated in a quiet, small street away from much of the noise and bustle of the Waterfront area, but walking distance from that same area. I decided due to my lack of sleep and packed schedule over the rest of the week to take it lightly on the first day, and set up a walking route towards the waterfront (the Wharf as it would be better known – and to familiarize it with my imaginary readers from San Francisco), but I took a slightly scenic route through the lasting remains of the Cape Town development project for the World Cup. The first site is the stadium (it hosted the Germany vs. Spain semifinal, among other games) still gleaming in its modern design. Next to the stadium are an in-progress Cricket Field, a beautiful golf course, and an open area with multiple rugby fields. I can’t really think of anything that encapsulates South Africa more than a large public and professional sports complex that is adorned with beautiful trees, lush greenery, and, due to the time of day, a magnificent sunset. That, to me, is South Africa, athletic, modern beauty. 

The waterfront itself was small, but packed with restaurants and shops. It reminded me of a lot of South Street Seaport in its design of its main mall (The Vitoria Wharf Center), and also San Francisco, in its small harbor. I walked up and down the quays looking for my place to eat for the evening, but also to just imbibe this little corner of South Africa. It is a weird feeling, in general, being in South Africa. I realized when walking by the water that this was the same ocean (The Atlantic) that I have walked by in New York, Boston, DC, Jacksonville, Miami; but this was about as far away (literally, not metaphorically) from that as I could be. I was on the other side of the world, closer to the Antarctic than any other main continent. I was in uncharted territory, and it felt great.

 

I finally decided on a restaurant, Sevruga, that had a view of the water. As many of the restaurants on the Waterfront (save for a couple of exceptions, such as the Quay Four Tavern – a place I expect to go to at least once) it was expensive in South Africa terms, but compared to the US, just moderately so. Their menu featured many African staples (Ostrich, Crocodile, Kingklip fish) but done in un-African ways. Probably not the greatest introduction into South African cuisine, but from what I have read, South Africa really doesn’t have a cooking style all their own, but ingredients and meats, so having Ostrich Tandoori Slices (which doubled as my breakfast the next morning), with really good mash potatoes (I forget what was in them) and Miso-Marinated Kingklip with crayfish Mash potatoes in peach suace, was African bases (Ostrich, Kingklip) and despite their foreign-inspired cuisines, they were both excellent in a great, intimate setting. A wonderful dinner to start off my African experience, and although I may never have that pricey a dinner again in Cape Town, it was well worth it. My dad often says how important Ambience and Atmosphere are for a restaurant. Well, quay-side outside on a beautiful night in Cape Town is quite an ambience. I took a cab home, full and content, ready to start my first act of tourism (a trip to Cape Point, the Westernmost part of South Africa and one of the Southern-most points) the next day.

2023 Africa Trip: Day 7 & 9 - The Old & The New

Pt. 1 – The Old

Given this is the sixth time I’m doing this particular trip, fairly little is new. In reality, most of what I did on my first full day and third full day in Cape Town was treading on old ground, with a few small but notable exceptions. The time in Cape Town started in the way I think I’ve started my last two first full days, with a morning to lunch-time hike of The Pipe Track, from the starting point at the intersection of Table Mountain and Lion’s Head, continuing on through the backside of Table Mountain down to eventually Camps Bay.

It's a most trusted 90 minute jaunt. A few periods of uphills, a few periods of rocks, but mostly pleasant terrain and endless incredible views, from Lion’s Head on top of the initial part of the hike, through to the cascading series of peaks I would learn the next day were titled the Twelve Apostles, with the truly glistening Atlantic situated on past Camps Bay. There are enough interesting parts of the hike to keep it moving, from the actual pipe you have to walk on in portions, to the few gorges and couple streams, to the amazing trees that dot all over the Western Cape landscape. The Pipe Track also saves its best gift for last which is a drive back through a really swanky part of Camps Bay back to Cape Town, mainly the first few roads which have expensive homes with garages at Street Level and the houses built into the cliff underneath.

When back in Cape Town, with my parents running late on their tour of Stellenbosch (had about 25% of me regretting not joining them, having not done a Stellenbosch tour since 2016 – my 2^nd trip), I went to Between Us for lunch. It’s a really nice little spot with a large, well crafted if homely menu served with intention. I got a Bean & Almond soup which was interesting but worked really well with a couple really soft bread rolls that accompanied it. For my main, I got an oxtail ragu which was excellent. After lunch I regioned my parents at the AirBNB. My Dad left for Newlands Cricket Ground to watch the semifinals of the Women’s World Cup (completely coincidental timing), and I took my Mom for a tour first of the Waterfront during the day, where she fell in love with it again, and then an unexpected tour of a 6x2 block park in the north end of the city center.

Technically I had been there before, but it was on my very first trip in 2013, since having experienced a combination of forgetting about it, and not finding time. Granted, It’s a skippable spot, but we only reached accidentally after realizing a food market in the area had permanently closed. The park is surrounded by old government buildings and Cape Town’s art museum. It was as well manicured and well replete with views of Table Mountain as you would expect anywhere in Cape Town.

On Saturday (Day 9), the main event was Kirstenbosch Gardens, a place I had been to three previous times, but never really ventured from end to end since my first visit there in 2016. My mom is an avid gardener so she took to it immediately. Honestly, even as for me or my Dad who are not nearly as avid, the allure is quite something. Vast space of well manicured gardens and trees and forest and lush green everywhere, all with the imposing Skeleton Gorge peak (a part of the backside of Table Mountain) overhead. We spent a good two to three hours there, which made sense given it was the main event of the day.

Dinner on Saturday was at Belly of the Beast, a pet favorite of mine. The 30-seat restaurant serves one sitting at 6:45pm, with a 6 course (made to 8 with throw in palate cleansers and petit fours) tasting menu. What I love about the place is that it is food I could conceivably make. There’s no molecular gastronomy at work. It is just great ingredients, worked on by great chefs made with care and precision. For instance, their opener was homemade bread with two dips of a duck terrine and duck liver parfait. Both were so damn good. Their fish course was a grilled bream with cape malay sauce. I could make a version of that dish easily. Theirs was far better than I could hope to match. Their main dish was a lightly cooked lamb rib with pinot jus and asparagus puree and it was great. Belly of the Beast is just a reliable option with such high quality food, and with the current exchange rate, you get it all for $45.

Night both days were somewhat consistent, what with the focus of Thursday through Saturday nightlife in the city. On both days I first stopped at The House of Machines, which is increasingly becoming a go-to on my trips. Both because it is closer to Modular, the remaining EDM club in the city center, than Long Street is to it, and as mentioned previously my feelings about Long Street are on a consistent decline. House of Machines has a good crowd, great service, a great vibe and atmosphere – though granted this is one of the more common positives I’ve noted about Cape Town is how generally pleasant everyone is.

After The House of Machines was Modular. I still prefer the now closed Reset, but Modular has taken full advantage of its unrivalled position, expanding to Bar Lido next door which is more of a traditional club vibe (more tables, larger space, more trendy music) but is reachable down the same alley with the same entry fee. Modular is still way more popular as on Thursday Night it was quite crowded when I left around 2:15, and on Saturday it was already a 15-person line when I arrived at 12:30. The line moves quickly, mostly because there is no real crowd control. Great ventilation, ample bartenders and again the right vibes of people in the place make it all still work though. The options here are more limited than other major cities for sure, but Cape Town’s reliable nightlife is every bit still as reliable.

Pt. 2 – The New

Why did I hop around a bit? Because I want to talk about what new things I did over these two days as well. Actually first, let’s do a quick interlude…

Pt. 1.5 – The Old & New

When I visited Cape Town in 2020, I left my personal phone in an uber. I still had my work phone and through that was able to get in touch with the driver who said it wasn’t in the uber and either (1) the next passenger took it or (2) he was lying. Well, this time around on Thursday I left both my phones in an uber. I realized quickly, but with both phones it was tough to do anything. I tried calling my work number (my personal was on airplane mode) 4-5 times, and when we got back to our AirBNB I tried to no avail to contact the driver through Uber or other means (all 2FA options basically required me needing one of my phones). Somehow, on maybe the 10^th attempt at calling my phone, he picked up. If anything he was cautious, wanting specific details on where he picked us up and dropped us off before agreeing it was indeed me. We scheduled to meet at 9pm, where he promptly showed up at 9:03 and gave back both phones. Anyway, this is a long way of saying we were supposed to go to Miller’s Thumb for dinner Thursday (old, been there, it’s great) but because of this we couldn’t, and ended up at a place called Mano’s.

Pt. 2 – The New, return

Mano’s is right around the corner from our AirBNB, on Main Road in Green Point. It was always full with a mix of young and old folks. It seemed enticing. It also allowed me to stay close enough to meet the Uber Driver with my phones. It was a last minute call, but it was pretty good. We split a smoked salmon salad, a Mozabiquan Prawn Curry and really, really well cooked sliced lamb chops. This was on the face of it the type of place that would mess up lamb chops like that, but they served them confidently with nothing but lemon, and they were great. Mano’s is the type of place I frankly just haven’t gone to in Cape Town, moreso focusing on places that are more touristy and flashy and what not. But if I were to live here, I would need places like Mano’s so its certainly cool to realize that not only do they exist, but they’re pretty great.

The other main "new" these last days was the Neighborghoods Market which is only open on Saturday and Sunday in the Old Biscuit Mill, the same area that The Pot Luck Club is located. The market itself is far better for its food than its good - with most of the wares for sale the same stuff available any day at The Watershed in the Waterfront. However, the food and the great sense of community and living and joy en masse that is gathering there because of the food, is phenomenal. We didn;t to in search of food, but it all looked so good that we already decided to come back Sunday for our lunch. The market has live music, a couple full bar stalls and then a large warehouse with food stalls everywhere and rows of tables in the middle. It was such a cool, vibrant scene, that I truly can't believe I hadn't seen it before. Even on your sixth time, there are a few hidden gems within Cape Town left to uncover.

2023 Africa Trip: Day 8 - The Cape

While I'm in Africa, I am crossing the 10-year anniversary of my RTW Trip. That one started with a flight from New York JFK to Johannesburg on February 24th, 2013, with my reaching Cape Town on the afternoon of February 25th, 2013. Today is February 24th, 2023. On Tuesday, February 26th 2013, I did my first real toursity thing of the trip, which was a half-day tour southward to the Cape of Good Hope. I was a poor college student turned traveler then, not affording the full day tour. I loved that tour anyway, the mental images of cascading cliffs and incredible sights stuck in my mind for a full decade, but in my four visits to Cape Town since 2013, I hadn't done that tour again. That changed today.

Of course, the tour was a bit different. It wasn't a half-day tour in a mini-bus as one person in a group of probably 10. It was a private tour for the three of us. Granted, it wasn't super expensive, but that added bit of luxury was certainly worth it, mostly because of how good our guide, Jean, a Congolese man who moved to South Africa two decades ago and seemed to be a star in the guide game, was. He was incredible, he took his time, he showed us all the sights, gave us all the history, and it was a full day well done.

The tour started at 8:45am with a pickup and initial drive away from Green Point, around Signal Hill and then down towards Sea Point, past rows and rows of beautiful, expensive beach-side houses, as we left Cape Town proper and headed down the many, many incredible towns and views and the rest. The first spots were Camps Bay (where my hike ended yesterday) and the first of many pit stops to take photos. It is as hard to describe the beauty of the sightlines and photo spots on this tour. I'm no better at doing it now as I was in 2013 - but it just the combination of perfect cliffs on one side, sandy beaches and blue water on the other side, that is so rare and so exceptional.

What this tour did really well, and again all credit to our guide, was have us see everything. From driving through various towns and going through their Dutch and British histories, to forcing stops, let alone obliging our requests for stops. The first main stop of the drive was Hout Bay where we caught a 45-min out and back ferry tour that goes by a small set of rocks with roughly 500 seals either on them, adorably hopping off them or spalshing around having a grand old time in the water. It was an excellent little side journey (not included in the main tour) and before we knew it we were off on our way on the Chapman's Peak drive, a 9-km long stretch of highway cut out of the cliffs 100 years ago, in great condition with about roughly 50 incredible photo spots, including the first bit that had a great view of Hout Bay and the mountains behind it. Again, just stunning stuff.

The other side of Chapman's Peak had a stop to see Long Beach, an 8-km stretch of beach known for horseriding, and then our trip across the peninsula from the West Coast (Atlantic Ocean) to the East side (False Bay). We stopped in Noordhoek on the way, to a great little food & arts collective area that could have so easily been in California Wine Country or something. It is these types of places we just didn't stop in the first time I did this tour that were so illuminating this time around. They had a great coffee shop and a nice little boutique grocery - a really perfect stop given the fact the V&A Food Market has closed to be renovated into a Time Out Market that will open late 2023.

From Noordhoek, we drove to Simon's Town which had a nice lunch stop at Bertha's a bay-side restaurant with truly great, fresh seafood, and then had of course the Simon's Town African Penguin colony. On food first, we split a bunch of small plates, from greatly fresh mussels, to grilled calamari in a great thyme-based sauce, to a well grilled linefish and a mussel & fish choweder. All were good, the setting was great. I'm sure this place gets a lot of business from being the standard lunch stop on these day tours (as expected, we saw a lot of the same people at each stop, even as good as our guide was there is more or less a set itinerary beign followed). But really, the food was far better than a tourist trap lunch tour spot would indicate.

The Penguins, man, were just amazing. I forgot how big they are, clearly bigger than the ones in Patagonia, though similar looking. There were a bunch, some lazing on their tummies, some mothers guarding and protecting eggs, a few just lollygagging left and right. A few of the mothers had newborn baby penguins they were protecting, with the babies poking their adorable fluffy faces out every now and then. They also had some juvenile penguins with still some gray fur. It was all overwhelming in its adorableness.

From Simon's Town, we headed to what is in theory the namesake spot of the tour, into the Cape 

Point Nature Reserve, with Cape Point at the very tip. Having gone to Patagonia since my prior tour of the Peninsula, the scenery with the shrubbery, the wide open landscape, the great crashing waves on the sides, the sweeping cliffs, it was all so brilliant. In our time in the park we came across roughly 10 ostriches, some from afar and then a few that nicely came roadside and posed for pictures. We saw some Eland as well, which was nice given we hadn't seen either animal in Botswana. I am a bit surprsied these animals aren't in greater number in teh park since there's no natural predator there, but it did make their presence more enjoyable.

Cape Point itself is stunning. You can clearly see to the False Bay side that there are cliffs in teh distance extending more South than Cape Point, but still you get a sense of being at the tip of a Continent. The water in all directions, the same water I essentially walk or drive past each day in Hoboken. The steep cliffs that are undescribable. The vantage points of the peninsula behind you. It is all so well preserved and presented.

From Cape Point, we went to the Cape of Good Hope, which is about 2km away and at sea level which gave a whole new vantage point for everything, and was our last true tourism bit before the drive back, or so one would think. On the drive back, the driver took a more circuotous route to give us one last brilliant view, which was Cape Town from teh Constantia side, basically approaching the city and Table Mountain from the Southeast, with a panoramo view of the wine regions, Constantia, Table Mountain, Lion's Head and everything else. Just beautiful.

We finally arrived back to our AirBNB at 7:45, eleven hours so well spent. We quickly freshened up and headed to The Pot Luck Club for dinner - maybe the dinner I was looking forward to more than any other. I've been here twice, but either by myself or with one person. With a group of three, you can order 8-10 dishes and effectively create your own tasting menu with their incredibly creative, detailed and plated tapa-style dishes.

A few highlights were a Cape Malay Cauliflower with an incredibly rich sambal sauce, and pomegranates for a little crunch, a perfectly cooked lamb in a great broth, a perfectly lightly seared tuna in another gerat sauce, and even a dish like a smoked beet carpaccio (the veg version of their beef tartare). The Pot Luck Club is truly a great place. I think maybe 2-3 of their dishes are holdovers from prior visits. It was also great to enjoy the place with my parents, but far better was watching them enjoy Cause Effect in more style.

We got to Cause Effect around 11pm, being three of maybe 20 people in the place. They maybe weren't fans of the music but they, specifically my Dad, were as entranced by the mixologists, the ingredients the creativity of it all as I was on my first visit in 2020. The place has many new drinks now and the best part is just how much everyone loves waht's going on, to the other patrons all as entranced as we were, to the mixologists themselves who clearly just love their jobs. My dad ordered a whikey cocktail which was very good but he was sadenned the final presentation was a bit staid, so he requested some pizzazz which the mixologist took back and re-served on a bed of liquid nitrogenized flowers. The place is about as consistent an offering as it comes.

From there I dropped my parents off and then hit up first Long Street, which continues to be busy and "fun" in that sense, but a place I admittedly think I've outgrown, and then Modular, which is a place I have definitely not outgrown. It was full at 1am when I arrived and more full at 2:30 when I left. They've expanded a bit, taking over the bar next door and turning that into a second club called Bar Lido (the bartenders still have Modular shirts on), and I think I'll check that place out a bit more tomorrow night. I got back to the AirBNB aroudn 3am, fully content from a full day. In theory i've done nearly everything I did today before, and that didn't matter one bit.

2023 Africa Trip: Day 6 - The First Time and the Sixth Time

We woke up for our last day in Victoria Falls a bit sad to leave. Granted, I was also madly excited to go back to my favorite city, but Victoria Falls was an unexpected joy. We had high expectations for the sights themselves, from the waterfall that gives the city its name, to the safari, but the little quaint town itself, the quality of its restaurants (nothing tweezery and michelin star, but a bunch of places that put out good food and take great pride in what they do), the fact it has a craft brewery, the niceness of most of the people. I realize that in the context of Sub-Saharan Africa, Zimbabwe and Botswana are both relatively well off, and even within that context, Victoria Falls being purely a tourist driven town (built to capitalize on the wealth of Western tourists) is even more well off, but we leave this part of Africa with only good things.

Of course, this would be maximized by the last stop, the last bit of tourism in our time here - which was a late splurge on a helicopter ride to get a overhead view of the falls. Today is also my parents 35th Wedding Anniversary - more of a nice coincidence than a central aspect of the trip, but it worked well for a day that had a helicopter ride in the morning, and then the most luxurious of our meals in teh evening. 

The helicopter ride was run by a company called mjair, one of many that offer the service. They aren't cheap - 150pp for a 15-min ride (280 for a 30 minute ride, though hard to imagine what more you would see...) but the service is high class all around. We were picked up from the AirBNB in a nice mini-bus for the 10 minute drive out in the park to a clearing with two helipads. Not even 10 minutes later, we were taking off - befit with headsets to hear messages from the captain along with overhearing the discussion between captain and air traffic control, which for an aviation nerd like me was a nice touch. The ride itself was so worth it, with just incredible views of Victoria Falls. The Falls were impressive from ground level, but you get a new appreciation of just how long and brilliant they are as a spectacle from the air. They go in a figure-8 shape to give each side of the helicopter a great photo view. The guide also gave us some facts of what else we can see, like the gorgeous gorge that extends eastward after teh falls, to even spotting a few zebra and kudu in the park. It is hard to describe how great this was, especially for three people who had never taken a helicopter before. Not sure I would've ever expected my first time to be in sub-saharan Africa, but there it was, and it was incredible.

Back on the ground, we were given a show of a 6-minute video somehow quickly pieced together of photos taken of us entering the helicopter, it taking off, and then returning, with footage of the view from the helicopter during the flight. I'm 90% sure the footage in-flight is stock, but what we saw was basically as clear of a day as we had in reality, so it was hard to tell. It was really nicely put together, and we without too much cajoling took their offer to purchase a copy which they load directly into a phone so it can be reshared. From there we went back to the AirBNB, finished packing up and headed off to the airport.

Victoria Falls Airport was a bit barren on the arrivals side, but on the departures side it is a very nice small, regional airport. They had some nice shops selling handicrafts and souvenirs (admittedly, higher priced than it is outside the captive walls of the airport), a well decorated restaurant, and a cleanliness that was impressive from someone used to regional airports in America, let alone a place like India. Both my actual country and ethnic country can learn a thing or two from Victoria Falls - including serving a really nice little meal box (think a normal airplane meal, just 50% the size) on the 2h30m flight to Cape Town. Soon enough we were on our approach, and I got to see my parents on the other side of the aisle get their first look at the gorgeous City, as the flight path into landing gave a glorious view of the brilliant mastiff that is Table Mountain. It was their first time, it was my sixth - we were all equally taken aback.

We fairly quickly got through immigration and into our uber into the city and into the AirBNB. A quick stop at Woolworth's, conveniently half a block away, and we were ready to explore the Waterfront. It might be too commercial for some, but to me there is no better encapsulation of what makes Cape Town special, and I was really interested to see my parent's reaction. The uber dropped us off at the uber pickup point outside the Victoria Mall. As we walked through, my Mom fairly remarked on how so many of teh stores were common to what we have in the US. Needless to say as we left the other side of the mall, which opens out to the Waterfront proper, she changed her mind as they both immediately were engrossed by the beauty. A very much expected and elongated series of photo taking commenced as I spirited them around to see various views of the Waterfront, and Table Mountain behind it. Needless to say, they got how incredible it is.

Dinner itself at Pier was lovely. It was elongated, taking us a good 3h15m to go through the 11 courses, but that was not a surprise with us eating at a slow pace. My parents night would end with dinner, so they took it all in. The menu was about 50% different from when I came last year, including what sneakily might be my favorite course. I'll do a full course by course later, but the notable one to me was seemingly their "bread course", which centered around a really well baked sourdough. But the accompiaments were outrageous. One was a butter topped with crumbed yeast - unsure what that means but it tasted lovely. The next was a paprika emulsion sauce and mussel pate which was insane. The last bit was ghee with added in curry powder and other spices that wass used to poach a broken up piece of hake, being made into something of a dip. Again, this was the bread course. It was incredible.

My parents night ended there, and after I dropped them back at the AirBNB (we were able to get a 2nd key, but that would only arrive tomorrow), I headed out. It was already about 11pm at this point, and Cape Town aside from Long Street which has turned a bit too clubby (in a bad way) for me is not a 4am type city during weekdays. However, I holed up at The House of Machines - I came just in time to see their live jazz music wrap up at 11:30, but they had a good mix of rock and pop playing after that and a great crowd of 20-30 people that cycled in and out. The House of Machines is a really stable place, a coffeeshop by day and full bar known for its barrel cocktails at night; the place just oozes a great vibe. It can get crowded on weekends, but for now this was about perfect a way to end the first day of another inevitably great trip to Cape Town.

2023 Africa Trip: Day 5 - The Animals

I've always been reticent to do a safari. Actually, that's probably a bit too blunt a statement. I've been reticent to rush into doing a safari instead of waiting to do one all out, in Tanzania or something like that. When the opportunity was given to us to do a one-day safari of Chobe National Park in Botswana (conveniently located about an hour away from Victoria Falls), we jumped on it, but I definitely did have my reservations. Would it be worth it. Would we actually see animals or mindlessly chase tracks, dung, smells and ghosts in the chance of a sighting. Would this reaffirm my want to do a proper multi day glaming tpye safari, or push me further in teh direction that such a luxury is not needed. Well, after a day in Chobe, I can firmly say I don't know what the future holds, but man was the one-day safari in Chobe just excellent.

This was the all-encompassing centerpiece of the day, with us being picked up at 7:10 am, joining a group of seven others in a mini-bus for the one hour drive down to the border between Zimbabwe and Botswana. On the ride itself, we saw a couple impala (which would become a very much welcome, amazingly frequent site), and a few giraffe poking their head above fairly tall trees. It was a nice little amouse bouche. The logistics from reaching the border to actually getting the safari proper started were jumbled at best. The border crossing was in two stages, which was fine enough. We were then loaded into an caravan-jeep which took us through a 20-minute stretch of Zimbabwe up to the "Chobe Safari Lodge". Chobe National Park is a huge expanse of land - we saw areas that were generally in the "Chobe River Flood Plain" part of the park, which was good enough to say the least.

The first part of the tour was a river boat cruise through the low-lying Zambezi River, which despite us being in the rainy season (had a pristine, blue-sky day, thankfully!), was at most 9 feet deep. The boat captain / safari guide kept saying early on that during the dry season, when water is far less plentiful and the River bed only a few feet, this is a much more common gathering place. That blunt honesty was, honestly, not needed as we would soon find out. The tour was genearlly us going in the boat betwee4n river bank on one side, and rows or reeds and grass on the other end, slowing down to either a crawl or ashore when nature gave reason. The first few stops were generally to see birds - all resplendent, beautiful and sharp on their own, from kingfishers to African Jacana, to Egrets and the like. But about 20 minutes in, we saw a couple kudu on the river bank, befitted with giant, twisting horns. We parked on the shore literally five feet from them, and they just stood there gracefully. Now we were off.

The rest of the roughly two hours asea were spent just traipsing back and forth seeing various incredible game. First came roughly 50 impala of all ages together in a pack grazing by the bank, again not the least surprised nor annoyed by our camera-wielding presence. From there we turned more to the reed side of the river, which gave us ample opportunity to see hippos barely peeking their bodies and faces out of the river, and a couple creepy crocodiles, and a whole slew of birds of various sizes and species. Finally about an hour in, we saw the first of many elephant encounters. Of course, we didn't know at the time elephants would become a common occurrence, but this was maybe the best set of them all. It was a herd of about 20 elephants, including one just absolutely adorable little guy that the guide said was probably roughly 2-3 months old. The shore had a bunch of grass, but no real trees, so we got a fully unblocked view of these majestic, lovely creatures, out for a mid-day mud bath and graze. We probably stayed there roughly 20 minutes, but left not a second too soon.

That was probably the highlight of the first half of the safari day, and it was followed by a reasonably good buffet lunch at the Chobe Safari Lodge, which had a great wood and ratan covered giant open area which people sat and ate. They had quite good chicken legs, beef salad and an interesting African take on a samosa. It was quite good food to just keep the day going for the main event, the game drive.

A couple things to get out of the way before going into all the brilliance of the game drive. First, there is a difference between this and a proper multi-day safari. Most actual safaris would plan their game drive for either dawn, dusk or night. As this was a rush job to get us into Chobe, see a bunch of stuff, and out all in one day, this was not the best time. Spoiler alert, but it didn't matter in teh slightest. Second, about 20 minutes in, our jeep got a fully punctured tire. Luckily the jeep had a spare and a jack and we were setup for a quick fix, before the driver found out that the jeep was missing its tire wrench. We were stuck. No service, no signal, just waiting for the next jeep to come along. It took 20 minutes, but in that time, we did have a solitary elephant amble across the way, about maybe 200 feet away in an open clearing. A little bit of fun in an otherwise scary time. As the next jeep did come, we got it fixed - all in all it was a 30 minute pause that felt like longer, and I commend the jeep driver / safari guide for not letting it upset the way the tour was held.

Anyway, back to the real stuff. About 20 feet into the safari, we saw a bunch of impala. They truly are everywhere, in herds, alone, with big horns, with little knubs for horns. I would estimate we saw roughly 400 impala over the course of the 2.5 hour game drive, and this was all mostly within 15 feet of the jeep. God knows how many are truly in the park. About five minutes later, we came upon a little watering hole, with a family of warthogs, including 3-4 babies that were just adorable. Admittedly baby animals of any species generally are cute, but you wouldn't have thought that way about warthogs I guess.

After the punctured tire dalliance, we continued on our way, driving close to the riverbank to observe 4-5 mainly solo elephants, many splashing themselves with water to cool down. After driving back up the hill, we drove for about 10 minutes with an elevated view of the riverbank and saw quite a lot of elephants, and more improtantly hippos now fully out of the water just grazing. We weren't really close enough to get a good view, but seeing their lumbering bodies was cool enough. 

To be honest, I don't know how to properly describe the rest of it, so I'll just go with a few hits. First was all the elephant encounters, particularly one where we saw a herd of 15 or so, full with maybe 7 adults, 4-5 youths and 2-3 babies, grazing and then decide to cross over the dirt road right in front of us. Unsure why, but they were quite nice to give us that good of a show. Second, was probably the only real multi-species viewing of the day, where we saw the umpteenth set of 20+ impala grazing, but this time with 2-3 giraffes right behind them. Giraffes are just an astonishing creature up close. Obviously we all kind of know what a giraffe is, and similarly its defining feature, but truly that neck is something else. 

Third, of course, were the Lions. They happened in the last quarter of the drive, about the time we had seen ample of every other creature (save for giraffe, more on them later), but we all were itching to see some lion. Suddenly, the jeep veered off the dirt path into the grass. There was an unfamiliar smell in the air. The driver told us to keep quiet and just don't do anything sudden, if you act normal, they won't care. We all knew at that point. The three lions, two male and one female, with lazing (if not outright napping in teh case of the supine female) under low trees, but we got close and they did not startle. They just were awesome. The series of branches and leaves obscured their faces at times, but at one point one of the males got up and wandered out of the tree directly at us. It was not eight feet away from my face. I was scared - teh driver told us it won't do anything. The driver was right, and I got out of my catatonic state just quick enough to get one good photo of a lion in profile. The day was made.

The final bit of good luck was actually on the drive back from teh border to Victoria Falls, when we came across a series of 5-6 giraffe, this time with only a couple thinned out trees among them. We finally got our group giraffe photo spot. The mini-bus driver obligingly pulled over and we got some great photos of these incredible animals, a perfect little unexpected cherry to a wonderful day at safari.

Dinner back in Victoria Falls was at Marula Cafe, which is a really nicely decorated indoor/outdoor spot on the main drag.  We split two starters, one a lightly fried local anchovy-like fish with a nice aoili, and an ostrich satay, both presented great and quite tasty. We then split two mains (still a bit full from the buffet lunch) of a peri-peri half chicken (good, but far spicier than Nando's), and a springbok shank with polenta and veggies, which was great. The food here is western inspired, but really, really tasty and a great last meal in Victoria Falls. The night ended with us still so giddy from the safari that we replayed all the photos we took (some would say too many, I would say not enough) and star-gazed the cloudless, bright sky. A day that from start to finish wowed.

2023 Africa Trip: Day 4 - The Waterfall

The trip in a sense starts today, with our first real tourist activity with going to see Victoria Falls, the reason that this town exists to some degree. Actually to any degree, see the name of the town being Victoria Falls. Like any significantly tourist driven town, making our way through it took a combination of paying various fees and being driven right and left. In the end, the site itself was great, massive and wet (more on that later). For this being the reason to come here, it was well worth it (along with being the launching point to Chobe Park in Botswana). 

The day started in the AirBNB with an inpromptu breakfast made by my Mom, and then a pickup to head to the Victoria Falls "Rainforest". The rainforest itself was a series of walkways and lookouts across from the main falls that stretch about a mile wide, 105m down, with thunderous, cascading power. It truly is a massive, imposing waterfall, with such everlasting power. They call it a rainforest because the spray caused by the falling water is so sizable and voluminous, it creates an everpresent mist, that expands to a steady rain in some places. We've been gloriously lucky with weather, with the actual forecast today being intermittent clouds, zero rain, and about 80 degrees, but if you saw our clothes during these stretches, it would not look that way.

The first strectch is one side of the entry, which goes towards the closest area resembling a river - the Zambezi River, which in this area cascades down in a sizable flurry, if far thinner a breadth than much of the falls to the other side of the entry. At this point, the spray was fairly standard and light, and we were not yet cursing ourselves for foregoing buying a poncho at the entrance. The view from this side was nice, with such a massive amount of water forcefully crashing down, and just glimpses of the wide expanse of waterfall to the other side. The falls themselves all lie on the Zambia side of the border, with the better viewing points being from where we were in Zimbabwe.

Slowly we started walking to the other side of the falls, which you see this massive expanse of waterfall on the other side, spreading a mile wide, with spray and mist encompassing you. It was a challenge even taking photos - me having to recede to slightly less misty places to unlock my phone. But aside the mist was enough sunlight to make it all worthwhile. It truly is an imposing place, but by the end the wetness of the spray took hold and we eschewed seeing the last five lookout points (we got to #11), and took another route back to the start of the rainforest, fully wet but hearts and eyes filled with some great, imposing sights.

The rest of the Victoria Falls tour was a walk across a bridge that crosses the Zambezi, with Zimbabwe on one side, and Zambia on the other. That was a bit thrilling, adding another country to the list, and had a great view of the Zambezi below it. Off the bridge is one of the multiple bungee jumping points - a lot of these more thrill-seeking activities are on the Zambia side. We briefly went into Zambia long enough to get the passport stamp, but by then were quite tired and turned back.

Met on the Zimbabwe side, we went to see the Big Tree, whcih is a giant baobab tree, aged at over 1,200 years, with giant trunks which begat giant branches and a canopy of green. From there we went to River Brewing Company, after our false start the prior night. The place had a great vibe about it, and decent beer - though there seems to be some sort of unofficial 5% ABV cap. The beers were good, and the food was better. A fairly staid bar menu, livened up by an incredible red cabbage and spice sauce to cover the burgers my dad and I had, and a good IPA-fried fish and chips that my mom enjoyed. The place had the distinct vibe of American's moving to Zimbabwe and opening the place, which after asking one of the hostesses, was mostly accurate, with it being owned by three locals and two Americans. One can always tell, with the IPA-heavy draft list a dead giveaway. The place was really quite good, with the food probably outstripping the beer.

After a brief respite at the AirBNB, the final event of the night was maybe the most beautiful, if not the outright best, which was a dinner cruise on the serene, placid, picturesque, stunningly calm Zambezi River. Far away from the thrashing glory of the falls, the cruise took a loop around the large "Long Island" that technically sits on the Zambia side of the river. The cruise was generally staying 1-2 km upstream of the falls, the closest we got was to see the omnipresent cloud of spray. Fear not, though, despite being far away from the town's main attraction, it was incredible.

The food was excellent, with three canapes to start, from a home made bread with mackerel hummus, a lightly roasted brocolli, and a trio of watermelon, brie and sun roasted tomato. A light start, which was then followed by one of the best butternut squash soups I've ever had - so brilliantly glowing was the thick puree. After a lengthy break - probably to give people time to utilize the open bar, of which I tried three different locally flavored gins (1 - protea & hibiscus, 2 - lemongrass & ginger, 3 - blood orange), we anchored up to watch the last vestiges of sunlight, and eat our mains. Mine was a really well cooked beef fillet (filet mignon), with a great reduced wine sauce, puree and vegetables. Given the chef was cooking in a little tiny kitchen in a really beautiful little barge, the food was really impressive. 

The setting however blew the food away almost. First was the just everpresent placid tranquility and blue-ness of the Zambezi, with beautiful little shrubs and trees lining each side. It was endlessly stunning, and just a great setting for this cruise - which was about six groups, maybe 15-20 people. There were a few notable sights. First was us getting maybe within 10 yards of a group of hippos. We first heard the noise, then saw them bobbing up and down out of the water. A few times a big one popped its whole head out and opened up wide, yawning or stretching or just being imposing. Whatever it was, it was magical. Next to them were a series of buzzing little cute yellow birds. The whole scene was really something. The next bit was us coming maybe 10 feet away ashore of a silent, still but crazy scary looking giant crocodile. The whole thing, seeing hippos then crocodiles (which despite the size are apparently often killed by hippos) was just a "welcome to Africa" moment, ahead of our day trip safari tomorrow.

The final bit of magic was also a gift from the weather gods. The mostly sunny day exploded at sunset into a series of yellows, oranges and purples - us able to watch the sun's slow descent with locked gazes. It was incredible, and when it was finally gone, we were left to enjoy a clear night and an absurd amount of stars. It was mesmerizing, entrapping us for the last 10 minutes of the cruise, to the walk from the shore back to our mini-bus, to finally the backyard of the AirBNB. It doesn't come out in photos, at least those that can be taken by a phone camera - and maybe it's better that way. Somethings are just better left seen and not perfectly remembered.

This whole day was a perfect encapsulation of what we wanted when coming to Zimbabwe to see the falls. There was the spectacular, from the falls itself to the cruise and the wildlife only visible in Africa. There was the inane, like the few hawkers (to be honest, they're worse in India) and the series of odd charges when navigating the falls and the borders and such. And there was the plain weird, like finding a craft beer oasis in Victoria Falls. But in the end, what we'll remember is the spectacular, and more to come tomorrow in the safari.

2023 Africa Trip: Day 1-3

Day 1-2 - To Africa

I've been to Cape Town five times. It's about to be six. Four trips have been on my own, in 2013, 2016, 2020 and last year in 2022. The one time was with one friend in 2018. I've never come with my family. That is changing now - taking my parents there for their first visit to anywhere in Africa that is not Morocco.

I'm largely playing tour guide for the Cape Town part of the trip, but before we head to the beautiful Western Cape, the trip is taking me to a new place of Africa, with us visiting Victoria Falls and the surrounding areas for three days. A tag on to make it a full 10 day trip (including a lot of travel to start). The reason why this is Day 1-3 is because we're leaving Friday, leaving our house about 3:30pm, and will basically be doing our first really touristy thing Monday morning, with a walking tour of Victoria Falls. Not to say there was nothing notable of the Friday, Saturday and Sunday of our trip - highlighted by just the cool feeling of being in Zimbabwe for Christ sakes, but it was a slow to start to what will be an action packed last three quarters of the vacation.

The trip started in earnest at 3:30pm, taking an uber from my parents place to Newark, to start the vacation early with a long stint at the lounge. The whole time stressing about potential upgrades which largely came to nothing - my Dad did get an upgrade to premium economy, with me stuck in steerage. I guess nothing is a better sign of the recovery of travel than me having higher status than I did a year ago, but further away from getting upgraded to South Africa.

The new United Club in Newark is quite nice. It was chocked full when we got there around 5pm, but quickly thinned out by 6:30 or so. We were able to have surprisingly ok food (pasta, a interesting chicken thigh dish), enjoy a drink or two and take a shower. You know - airport stuff. From there we boarded our 14hr flight to Johannesburg, which was about as stress free as 14 hours in economy could be. Watched The Woman King (timely, with a trip deep into Africa ahead), Pacific Rim and Top Gun, and mixed in a 7-hour good sleep. Before you knew it, we were landing in Johannesburg. I hadn't been to South Africa's main hub since 2018, but it was like it was just yesterday, leaving the customs hall into the grand atrium at the heart of Johannesburg OR Tambo airport. I took a photo of my Dad in the same spot that I took a photo of myself 10 years back. It was quite a rush.

My Mom flew into Johannesburg from India earlier that morning, and we met her at our hotel for one night. To be honest, I've continued to give Johannesburg short shrift on all these trips. I spent a nice 1.75 days here in 2016 and a half-day in 2018, but nothing further. We didn't do too much in Jo'burg this time either, but because of the restaurant I picked for us (I'm basically the restaurant picker on this trip) was a nice 30 minute uber from the airport hotel to the other side of the city, we got to see a bit of Johannesburg.

A few clear takeaways - (1) the road conditions on Johannesburg are very impressive. The main highway from the airport hotel to part of the city was pristine, with conditions, signage and greenery that easily could've passed for Europe. The other takeaway was the same as it was in 2016 - every single property has a wall, with most having barbed wire. There are beautiful houses in siome of the posh neighborhoods we drove through, and all were covered with high walls. You get it, sure, but it also seems a bit unneccessary. 

Dinner at Marble Restaurant, in Sandton, was excellent. The place is on the third floor of a nice little commercial building. The restaurant is huge, with high cielings, modern decor, and a buzz and bustle befitting a nice restaurant in Africa's most premier city. For the meal, we split a squash and cauliflower soup, and an octopus starter, and then had mains of beef sirloin with a great burnt tomato sauce, a decadent pork belly dish, and a crisped, custed sea bass with greens. The presentation was great, the food was great. Given how much of importance I give to food, I might be underrating Johannesburg quite a bit.

Day 3 - Zimbabwe Awaits

We woke up early, needing to head back to Johannesburg OR Tambo around 9:30am for our 11:30am flight to Victoria Falls. OR Tambo airport is quite impressive, even if it's largely unchanged from my 2013 memories. Their priority pass lounge was effective, and before we knew it we were boarding our flight on Airlink (new airline, on a technicality as it spun-off from South African Airways years ago) to Victoria Falls (new airport). The flgiht was short, but good, with Airlink finding time on the 1:25 flight to give us a quite well pre-made roast beef sandwhich, and a drink service with wine available to all passengers. After a bumpy descent, we landed in rainy Victoria Falls.

The rain wasn;t a surprise. What was a very nice surprise is that tomorrow and Tuesday seem to be quite dry, and the rain returning one after our flight to Cape Town leaves on Wedensday. Today was mainly going to be a slow day, so no real issue on that. There was a weird feeling when being in Zimbabwe. A lot of factors contributed to this, from Zimbabwe somehow not having WiFi, to the just weird feeling we were in a completely new place, to so much else. Victoria Falls the town is built around Victoria Falls the site. The city Livingstone on the Zambia side of Victoria Falls is a little bit more built up, but also a bit more expensive and with fewer flight options. The one place that was built up really well was our AirBNB, which was a great little 2-bedroom apartment with all the modern trappings, aside from a maddening inconsistency on what type of outlets they have.

Our only real tourism of the day was to drive into "town", which is a few blocks in all directions off of a main road. The real reason to go was to go get some groceries for our breakfasts and what-not. The grocery store itself was quite clean, upmarket and well presented. Zimbabwe has mostly decided to just have people pay dollars, but for some reason the prices were all shown in the local currency with a roughly 1,000 : 1 exchange rate. Anyway, we got our wares, took a little walk aroudn the town and headed back to teh AirBNB to unpack and rest up.

Dinner the first night in Victoria Falls was at The Cassia Restaurant, a lovely open-air, covered under thatched roof spot in the ilala Lounge, a fancy hotel/lounge. The restaurant was really well decorated and presented, even if the prices didn't match the prices of the rooms in the hotel. The restuarant also had a truly talented piano player playing soft piano versions of various old country, blues and rock hits which set a great mood. For food, my Dad and I shared two well made crocodile cutlets, with my mom having another squash soup. Squash seems to be a real thing here. The cutlets had this great, tangy sauce - and like always the presentation was excellent. For mains, my mom had a really well made pork belly, I had a lamb curry served with roti, rice and tomato chutney, which was a bit too Indian than it needed but was absolutely tasty. My dad got an Ostrich fillet with beet sauce which was amazing. So far, we're 2 for 2 in terms of dinners.

This is the low season for Victoria Falls tourism, which impacted my post dinner ideas. Victoria Falls somehow has its beautiful little craft brewery, that most websites (including their own) say is open until 11pm daily. We showed up at 9:01, only to be told in low season, it closes at 9pm. I do want to come back for their brews at some point in our remaining two days in Victoria Falls, but tonight was not one of them. Luckily, down the street was the 3 Monkeys bar, which was a nice open-air, roof covered, bar that was filled with seemingly way more locals (at least when compared to the posh Cassia restaurant). Sadly they only had their local beer - Zambezi - on draft, but it was cold enough to make the night pretty damn cool. We retired then to the AirBNB, ready for our real first day of the trip on its third day. Such is life when you travel all the way to Africa.

2022 NFL Playoffs: Super Bowl Review

Player of the Game: Patrick Mahomes

The numbers won't tell the story, but that was a peerless game by Mahomes. Maybe one bad throw all game, missing MVS on a deep shot. But man, to go 13/14 in the second half, to laser balls into JuJu repeatedly when the Eagles did a better job of covering Kelce. And of course, the running, the scrambling, and doing it all with a bum ankle. That last drive run for 20 yards was amazing. He had a sense of hte moment, he didn't get flustered in that weird first half. That was an incredible performance, the best ever that didn't get 200 yards passing. Patrick Mahomes is doing incredible things, basically having the combination of early career Peyton (stats, MVPs) and Brady (winning) in one go. Historical stuff. GOAT conversations are too early, but if you could draw up a career to threaten, Mahomes is doing it right now.

Runner-Up: Jalen Hurts

I hate just going with the two QBs, but when the score ends 38-35 it isn't too surprising to do so. Hurts was incredible. He got help with his two top WRs playing well (more on them in a bit) but his throws were on point. His throws to Goedert on the drive to make it 27-21 was incredible. He was a beast in the run game, making the Eagles overall rush numbers look good when the RB-led running game disappeared. It was a record setting performance with the three rushing TDs, and his best rush might have been the 2-point converstion fighting through traffic. Hurts was exceptional, both as a runner and an amazing game throwing hte ball with pace, anticipation and placement. Incredible stuff from a truly great QB.

Goat of the Game: The Eagles Pass Rush

I will credit the Chiefs OL later, but many was the much ballyhooed pass rush, the one with teh 70 sacks, the first team ever with four players with 10+ sacks, all of it just went completely sileent. Yes, Mahomes did great scrambling, and yes the Chiefs OL is very good, but this was supposed to be the biggest strength. Everyone on the Eagles side had visions of the Bucs overrunning the Chiefs in theri head. Not only did that not happen, but not even the level of play the 2019 49ers got in their Super Bowl showed up. Reddick had a few plays chasing Mahomes, but man were Sweat, Graham, Hargreave all silent.

Runner-Up: The Turf

Almost thought of making this the main goat. The turf was a disgrace. So many players, on either team, slipping. Luckily we seem to have avoided any huge injury due to it, and more luckily it didn't show up at a key moment, but the amount of players that nearly fell, or did fall, to short-circuit plays was staggering. I don't know how the NFL can let that happen in a Super Bowl.

Surprise of the Game: Chiefs Run Game

A few times this season, the Chiefs decided "let's run the ball today" and it generally worked. Really well. The best example was back ealry in the season when the Chiefs went to Tampa and steamrolled the Bucs, mainly by running at what was supposed to be a great run defense. They did it again here. The Chiefs consistently got positive yards on run plays, from both great blocking, and great speed from Pacheco and McKinnon getting out to the edge. They consistently stayed ahead of the downs - which also helped to reduce the impact of the pass rush. Just a monster game from a really underrated unit.

Runner-Up: Eagles Short Yardage Dominance

I'm not surprised the Eagles did well on 3rd & 1 and 4th & 1 - hell they did that all year. But the Chiefs are a good short yardage defense, and the Eagles did it like 10 times and were successful basically every time. There's a chance the league outlaws plays where you can so blatantly push the palyer forward from behind, but I will never forget how foolproof that play was. It extended drives, it made the Eagles score a bunch of points against a defense that generally played really well in my mind.

Disappointment of the Game: The Officials (for more than just The Call)

Obviously, the final holding call was a bit ticky-tacky (though I'm happy Bradberry himself copped to tugging him) but as much as I disliked that call, I also disliked many other aspects of the refereeing yesterday. They didn't call a more blatant defensive holding / DPI on the Chiefs second drive that forced a punt. They also had maddeningly long reviews on the catch-fumble reviews, even for fairly routine ones. Everyone knew almost immediately the Sanders fumble was not a catch but even that took five minutes to figure out. I get that refereeing is hard, but they're making it seem harder by taking longer and longer to adjudicate what should be routine plays.

Runner-Up: Rihanna's halftime (saved by the baby)

Granted, it made a whole lot more sense when she confirmed to the world what we all kind of saw, that Rihanna is pregnant, but personally I was expecting a bit more from the halftime show. The music is great, because her catalog is great. But it seemed more like just a spotify playlist of Rihanna's greatest (again, I would love that on a car ride) but with little performance, singing or spectacle that the halftime show usually has. For her first public show in half a decade, I was left a bit wanting. But then again, maybe the plan was for a lot more motion, but with her pregnant it changed things.

Team Performance of the Game: Chiefs OL

The whole two weeks the common refrain of the game was that the Chiefs had Mahomes and Kelce and Chirs Jones but hte Eagles are better overall everywhere. Well, the Chiefs showed their overall roster is stronger than people think, specifically their OL was able to outplay and straight-up win the matchup against the Eagles DL. Both in the passing game, but some of that was Mahomes brilliance and good play-calling and stuff like that, but more than that in the run game. They road-graded them, just great blocking especially on the edge, which the Chiefs turned to time and time again. That OL was brilliant consistently, such a marked change since their last Super Bowl.

Runner-Up: Chiefs Coaching

Obviously the plaudits for Reid and Bienamy are clear - the play calling was great, from the two wide open TDs, to them running the same play after a penalty but hitting a hole shot instead of the WR swing screen. But how about the defense. Spags's unit may have given up 35 points, but they also forced 18 third downs. Of course, the Eagles converted a bunch of them, but the Eagles are just a good offense. Spags defense was great against the run all game. AJ Brown beat them repeatedly and they lost Smith on one deep route, but the defense tackled really well and Spags got free rushers time and time again. The Chiefs coaches outcoached the Eagles. Not by a huge amount, but by enough.

Team Letdown of the Game: Eagles running game

Jalen Hurts was good enough as a runner that the overall final stats look ok. But the Eagles run game just disappeared. Sanders, Gainwell and Boston could do next to nothing. Even their good runs came when they had to fight through contact. The Eagles had one of the best running games (including Hurts in this) of the past 20 years by some of the advanced metrics, and were so dominant in both NFC playoff games. There were a few plays where their incredible OL drove the Chiefs back, but those were few and far between. The Eagles lost what on paper was their biggest matchup edge.

Runner-Up: Chiefs Secondary vs. Brown / Smith

This is more of a personal letdown, but after seeing the Chiefs secondary do great work against Chase & Higgins, I was hoping to see a better battle here. Instead, Brown & Smith can of ran roughshod. Browns adjustment on the long TD was brilliant, but McDuffie looked lost at the point of attack. Sneed of all people completely lost Smith on the long pass. Brown routinely just beat cornerns off the line for quick slants. The two WRs did a great job, but to be honest I expected more from this Chiefs secondary.

Storyline that Will Be Beat into the Ground, 1: The refs ruined the ending

I think this is already starting to become a bit quieter of a talking point, what with Bradberry himself admitting the held. Also, let's remember last year in the Super Bowl, there was arguably an even more impactful, even far more ticky-tacky holding penalty that gave the Rams a 1st & Goal instead of a 4th & Goal down 4. I don't think many outside of LA and Cincinnati fans remember that. This will recede to. And at the end of the day, it was a good call. There were other officiating issues, but that one (correct) call should not overshadow that brilliant spectacle of a game.

Storyline that Will Be Beat into the Ground, 2: Mahomes on the GOAT track

It's already started - is he better than Montana, better than Peyton, on track for Brady (not coincidentally, the three other QBs with multiple rings and multiple MVPs). Not that any of these are rushed, but jesus can we jsut not worry about GOAT debates. Mahomes is doing unreal things, combining early career Peyton stats with early career Brady winning. He's a truly transcendant player. But let's give him a bit more time to surprise, to dazzle. Given his longevity, the actual GOAT debate is probably a ways away - let's not overburden and just enjoy Pat's unreal talent, will and successes.

Storyline that Should Be Beat into the Ground 1: Reid on the All Time List

Andy Reid has coached for a very long time. He's also been a good coach for a very long time. 14 years in Philadelphia, with just three losign seasons. Now 10 years in KC, with zero losing seasons (the worst year was 9-7 in 2014). He's now 5th on the all time wins list (including postseason), one behind Tom Landry, with then just George Halas, Don Shula and Bill Belichick ahead of him. Granted, those three are a decent bit ahead of Andy Reid, but Andy Reid has just an insane resume now. Easily the best coach to have great success at muiltiple stops. He has an impressive coaching tree, especially even if we include assistants who were on defense but still praise him to the end of the earth (Ron Rivera, Sean McDermott, John Harbaugh). He's maybe the greatest playcaller in NFL history. He's just special. Good he'll be coming back, maybe for a last hurrah, but you know he'll leave KC in great shape when he eventually moves on.

Storyline that Should be Beat into the Ground 2: The Chiefs are the dynasty

The Patriots were unanimously called a dynasty in 2004 when they won their 3rd Super Bowl. Granted, the Chiefs only have two, but their run these past five years is worthy. Five AFC Championship Games, with teh two they lost being in OT. Two Super Bowl wins. 12+ wins each season in the five. The year the 2001-2004 Patriots didn't win teh Super Bowl, they missed the playoffs at 9-7. And the Chiefs aren't done. They have the greatest similarity with the 2011-2018 Patriots, or 2003-2009 Colts. in that they are just never bad in any given year. They'll be right there with between 12-14 wins next year, with a great offense, with a defense that plays better than the sum of its parts. Will it be good enough to be the first back-to-back team since those same 2004 Patriots? Maybe, maybe not. But they'll be good enough for either it to be them, or someone who beats them in dramatic fashion. They are the standard, and they will be for a long, long time.