Safari Prep Day

Today we woke up to a much cooler day with clouds and wind.  We had arrived with such nice blue skies and warm but today it barely pushing 13C and it feels even cooler than that!  Going from the hot and dry to wet and cool sure changes things.  As we drove around the streets people were in parkas and puff coats so I don’t think they’re overly used to this type of weather either.  We figured today would be a good day to find all the things we need for the safari and Shannon desperately wanted to go hit a hair salon where there were actually women working (all the salons in Turkey had old men in them!).  We dropped Shannon off and the girls and I headed for Fish Hoek to work on the list.

The sunrays from our front window in the morning.

 We found a great little cafe there where the girls found the best hot chocolate of the whole trip.  The locals are super friendly and everyone has huge smiles on their faces.  It’s pretty fun chatting and joking around with the locals, they sure must think we’re goofy tourists but it makes for a good laugh.  We headed back to pickup Shan and Alyssa and I found a dive shop next to the hair salon.  It sounds like the diving is pretty good here and its super reasonable for a day of diving.  Not sure if I’ll have time but it sure would be fun!  Alyssa also discovered that she can take the dive course now so that’s on her things to do list now.  Maybe next summer in Campbell River!

We decided to head back towards Cape Town to a big mall to find our stuff and I’m pretty sure the girls could have spent more time here.  Things are quite a bit cheaper here than at home as we found nice synthetic sleeping bags for $40 Canadian.   We went to this place that was South Africa’s equivalent to Mountain Equipment Co-op which was pretty nice.  We were looking for water purifying tablets and one of the sales guys told us about these drops that you can use and it tastes way better.  They gave a whole website so I’ve got to check it out as it kills bacteria and viruses which you can also use for anything from athletes foot to acne!  Its just a back up for our trip but great thing to discover.

The view back towards Cape Town from the deck.

We headed for home and really noticed how early it gets dark around here, by 7pm it’s completely dark but I guess that’s what happens when you go to southern Africa in their winter.  We cooked up a great feast of marinated pork steak with potatoes and corn on the cob.  Home cooked meals are now the treat and going out has really lost its charm.  I never thought I’d hear that from the girls!

Tonight we also had to make our final decision on how to get to Johannesburg, whether to jump on the plane or take the overland route by train and see some of the countryside.  They both cost pretty much the same its just the train is 26 hours while the plane ride is 2!  We decided to go with the train as both girls were into it and we thought it’s unlikely we’ll get a chance to experience anything like this again so we booked our four person sleeper.  As we hung out debating to go to bed or not you could hear the wind just ripping outside.  Reminds me of the big storms back in Campbell River but completely on the other side of the globe!