THE GENTRY JOINT II: CAPE TOWN, SOUTH AFRICA

On November 26, 2011, we flew from Duban to historic Cape Town, South Africa. We spent a week there (until December 3) and had an incredible experience. The pictures in this blog post tell the story of our many Cape Town adventures.

Cape Town is located at the Southern tip of Africa, where the Atlantic and Indian Oceans converge.

A prominent feature of the city is the Victoria and Albert Waterfront, a working harbour with lots of shops and restaurants situated around it. This was our first walk around the Waterfront district.

It's windy a lot in Cape Town, but the first day of our visit was extremely windy!

The red Clock Tower was built in 1883.

Inside the Robben Island museum, which tells about Nelsen Mandela's imprisonment on the nearby island.

Lunch at the Waterfront.

We visited the Two Oceans Aquarium, which features the sea life of the Cape Town area.

I'm such a happy penguin!

The aquarium has a giant kelp forest tank.

In Cape Town, we stayed near the Waterfront district at the Protea Breakwater Lodge Hotel. This hotel has an interesting history as the original Breakwater prison, built in 1859. It is now a college campus and hotel. The picture above is a model of the whole complex. We stayed in the building to the left.

Inside on of the towers of the Breakwater.

The Wheel of Excellence, located in the V & A Waterfront.

The V & A Waterfront with the landmark Table Mountain in the background. There is often a cloud on the top of the mountain, as it is pictured above.

The boat we took to our visit to Robben Island.

It is of particular note that it was here that past President of South Africa and Nobel Laureate Nelson Mandela and past South African President Kgalema Motlanthe, alongside many other political prisoners, spent decades imprisoned during the apartheid era. Among those political prisoners was current South African President Jacob Zuma who was imprisoned there for ten years.

Another incredibly windy day.

The Anglican church Robben Island.

Today, a number of people live on Robben Island. Here are some of their residences.

The view of Table Mountain and Cape Town from Robben Island.

Inside a courtyard of the prison.

Former political prisoners now lead tours of Robben Island. Here, our tour guide explains life in the prison.

Reportedly, Nelson Mandela hid the manuscript for his book under this tree in the prison yard.

The window outside Mandela's cell.

The block of Mandela's cell.

The cell where Nelsen Mandela spent 18 of his 27 years of imprisonment.

Another prison yard.

In one of the blocks, they allow visitors to go into the cells and read about the prisoners who were held there.

Our guide holds a sign explaining how different prisoners were fed different foods in order to provoke jealousy among them.

I greeted our guide at the end of the tour of the prison.

This seal was just hanging out by the boat.

The boat ride back to Cape Town with a view of Table Mountain.

The boat ride was so windy, we could hardly breathe.

Coming back into the harbour.

The Volvo Ocean Race was going on while we were there and the V & A Waterfront was one of the ports for the racers.

We went on a hike at Table Mountain National Park.

The trail up the mountain.

The view of the city and ocean on our hike.

Along the coast with a view of Lion's Head.

Cape Town lighthouse.

The World Cup Coliseum in Cape Town.

We got a kick out of all the prohibited items (including spear and shield) at the coliseum.

To get a good look around, we took an evening ride on an open air bus.

The beach with a view of the Twelve Apostles Mountain Range, of which Table Mountain is a part.

During our bus ride, we stopped at Signal Hill to watch the sun set over the ocean.

The tremendous view of Table Mountain we enjoyed from Signal Hill.

The sun finally slipped into the South Atlantic.

A view of Devil's Peak and Table Mountain.

Child beggars, like the one above, were common on the streets of Cape Town.

St. George's Cathedral.

The unfinished highway!

Here I am with the open air bus after our evening ride.

The outside of our hotel.

The next day, we took a half day tour down to the famous Cape of Good Hope, where the two oceans can be seen converging.

Hout Bay on the way down to the Cape of Good Hope.

Me with the beautiful Hout Bay.

Chapman's Peak Drive.

Our tour guide letting us out of the van.

We stopped at the Boulder's Beach Penguin Colony, one of the few places in the world where you can get close to a breeding colony of African penguins. There are some 3,000 penguins that live here. When we visited, most were out fishing. Still, there was a lively collection of penguins for us to adore.

See how close the penguins were to me?

The tip of the Cape of Good Hope is a part of Table Mountain National Park.

We had to look out for baboons on our hike up to the peak!

Here we are up at the lighthouse at the Cape Point.

There is an extraordinary number of plant species at the Cape Point. William captured a few of them.

Back to the V & A Waterfront for lunch.

It was such a perfectly clear and non-windy day that we decided to take the cableway up Table Mountain.

Views of Cape Town and the area from way up on Table Mountain. It is about 3,500 feet above sea level. The entire top portion is about two miles and you are free to wander around up there.

Looking out toward the rest of the Twelve Apostle mountains. At the very end is Cape Point, where we had been earlier that day.

Yes, I'm on top of the world!

The lizards all enjoyed the view, too.

Here, you can see Devil's Peak and Signal Hill, where we'd been earlier.

A view of the flat top of the mountain.

We saw some of the adorable rock hyraxes on the mountain. They resemble guinea pigs, but surprisingly their closest modern day relatives are the elephants.

On our ride back down.

Just for the adventure of it, I opted to have us take one of the notorious "Minibus Taxis" back down the mountain to the Waterfront. These are known for driving too fast and too recklessly. You can see our fear here!

Sunset over our hotel and Signal Hill.

The courtyard of our hotel.

Where the highway ends.

We walked to the downtown district to see a number of museums.

Our first stop was the Slavery Museum, which is housed in a historic building originally used in the slave trade.

An exhibit with names of former slaves

The old guard quarters are still in the courtyard of the Slavery Museum.

A view inside the historic St. George's Cathedral.

There is a labyrinth inside the courtyard of the cathedral.

This is the House of Parliament, as Cape Town is the legislative capital of South Africa.

A view inside the Methodist church.

Outside the Methodist Church.

Then, we visited the Castle of Good Hope. Here's the moat.

Inside this portion of the Castle is a dining table with 100 seats!

Workmen on the roof of the castle.

We found a section of artist studios within the castle and bought this original painting from a Ugandan artist.

The fortress door.

Back to the Waterfront for the evening.

Another courtyard in the complex of our Protea Breakwater Lodge Hotel.

We visited the Lutheran Church of Cape Town. It was converted from a barn because in the early part of its history, people had to worship in secret. Only the Dutch Reformed Church was allowed for more than a century.

The organ of the Lutheran Church.

Throughout the church, the swan symbol is used for Martin Luther. According to the story, just prior to being burned at the stake, religious leader John Huss (whose name literally means "goose") was asked to recant his teachings. He responded by saying "You are now going to burn a goose, but in a century you will have a swan you can neither roast nor boil." Almost a hundred years later in 151, Martin Luther posted his 95 Theses on the door in Wittenberg and effectively launched the Reformation.

Notice that there is no altar like a regular Lutheran Church. It is styled in the reform style and at the top of the pulpit is a large swan.

The sculptor also included Greek mythological characters, who hold up the pulpit (a very strange site in a Lutheran Church).

Our church tour guide, whose father was the pastor of the church while she was growing up.

Then, we visited the National Art Gallery of South Africa.

Courtyard of the National Gallery.

View from the National Gallery.

One more look at the National Gallery, where we enjoyed a major exhibit called Listening to Distant Thunder by renowned artist, Peter Clarke. To view some pieces from that exhibit, click here.

To combat the HIV/AIDS epidemic, these bins are found in many restrooms.

Tribal shields found at the National History Museum.

Whale skeletons at the museum.

No, these are not aliens. They are giraffe skulls.

One of the dinosaurs that used to roam South Africa.

The Cape Town Train Station, where we would later depart for Johannesburg.

We went to a modern dance concert at Artscape, the largest art venue in town. There are two theatres inside. This is the larger of the two.

This is the smaller stage where our performance was held. We were riveted by the performance of the Cape Dance Company.

The outside of the theatre.

The next morning, we decided to try to contact, Peter Clarke, whose exhibit we'd seen the day before at the National Gallery. His address was shown on one of his art works, so we looked up the phone number on line. Here I am speaking with him. Somehow, I convinced him to invite us to his home in Ocean View that afternoon.

We then called the cab driver who had had taken us home from the dance performance the night before. He drives the oldest cab in Cape Town and he was happy to take us half way down the cape for a visit with Peter Clarke. Here I am on the ride down.

Because John was driving for us all afternoon, he took his Taxi sign off.

John driving us down to Ocean View.

John and I going into Peter Clarke's house in Ocean View.

Here's Peter Clarke visiting with us in his home.

Here I am giving him a gift of my book and CD.

He showed us some items his father had made and explained that his parents were creative.

When we asked Peter when he got his honorary doctorate degree from Taiwan, he had to look it up in a book!

Peter has been given six South African awards for writing and art, including three since 2000, not least Order of Ikhamanga, silver class (2005), and the Molteno Award (2000) for services to the visual arts. In the picture above, Peter is being presented with this award by former President Mbeki.

Here I am in Peter's house.

Peter showed us some of his recent work, including these hand made collage books.

We got a picture together with Peter.

We said farewell to Peter after almost two hours of visiting. It was a most inspiring encounter.

This is the view of the ocean from Peter's neighborhood.

On the way back, John stopped to visit with a friend in Ocean View.

This is John's taxi, of which he is quite proud.

John waited for us as we went into a gallery to buy one of the last copies of Peter Clarke's exhibition book, Listening to Distant Thunder: The Art of Peter Clarke.

At the gallery, I also bought this original ring.

We said farewell to John and thanked him for the great journey down to Ocean View.

Then off to dinner at the Waterfront.

Our waiter who was originally from England.

Then we decided we just had to take a ride on the touristy, but fun Wheel of Excellence.

You can tell it was touristy because they took our picture!

Table Mountain was covered by a cloud again. It made us even more glad we were able to go up it on a clear day.

We took in the interactive exhibits for the Volvo Ocean Race. William got to play a game in which he was "operating" heavy machinery moving rocks around.

Our tour guide from Sweden who showed us around the Volvo exhibits.

Then we took the Volvo Ocean Race virtual reality ride, in which you experience what it's like to sail around the ocean. They even spray you, so you have to wear rain jackets!

We enjoyed our silly rain gear.

Next, we went to the 3D movie that Volvo was showing of the Ocean Race.

The V & A Waterfront is especially lovely in the evening.

This is another area of our hotel. Because it used to be a prison, they have kept many of the bars around.

Just across the street from our hotel was a historic hospital with a museum of the history of health care in Cape Town. On our last full day in town, we took a tour of this museum.

An old operating room.

The porch of the museum.

For dinner, we met up with Rajan from Durban, who was visiting Cape Town while we were still there. This is a friend of his who also joined us for dinner.