South Africa Day 1

After a marathon two days of traveling, we arrived in Cape Town this morning. The trip was not bad. We flew American Airlines from AUS->DFW->LHR, where we had a 10 hour layover. We got a room in the Yotel in the Heathrow airport to relax and grab showers. The Yotel was not bad except that the "free" Internet could not be made to work the entire time we were there, even with help. From LHR, we flew to CPT on British Airways, which had a good 2-3 inches more space per seat (it makes a difference, it turns out), and individual on-demand movie collections that would rival many peoples' home movie collections. One other comment about the trip... the Heathrow airport is one of the most pleasant and efficient we've encountered. Just going through security, there are actually enough personnel on hand: one person helping you load your tray(s), two people working the walk-through scanner (one male and one female at each scanner in case a more detailed check is required), one person running the scanner, and two people to help you gather and collect your things. And on top of that, they had the most obvious scanner innovation... A two level conveyer belt for the trays... the conveyer on top takes your trays through the scanner; the conveyer on bottom brings the empties back.

Anyway, once in Cape Town, we checked into our hotel, grabbed some showers, and then caught up with Alan to head out for some lunch and a (lengthy) stroll. We had lunch on the waterfront (about a mile from our hotel; where we remembered to turn on the GPS) at a local brewery. The boys had some beer; I had some coke. And Tim and I had some tasty pub food. I think the restaurant was good, but one should never judge the quality of food on an empty stomach that was last filled by airplane food. We walked around the waterfront, along Beach Street, past the new football (soccer) stadium, and down to Mouille Point, where the light house stands. It was beginning to get cold, windy, and really foggy by the time we reached the point. We then walked back up along Somerset Street through what is called the De Waterkant neighborhood. We then turned and walked through the Bo-Kaap neighborhood, which is home to artisans and cute multicolored row houses. We then walked back up through the main part of town to our hotel, where we checked in with Maya before she went to school and took some quick power naps. We'll head back out to dinner sometime soon, I think. Here are some photos from our walk.











And here is the EveryTrail mapped version:

South Africa Day 1

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