Day 18: June 25, 2026 Cape Town, South Africa

Having fallen into bed exhausted last night, we were grateful not to have to get up until around 7 AM. One of the latest morning times we have experienced since we’ve gotten to South Africa.

We gathered our things together for a busy sightseeing day in Cape Town. Our hotel has a lovely breakfast buffet, and we filled our tummies, grabbing  a little leftovers in our backpack for later and caught a cab to go down to the waterfront. We had  a very nice discussion with our cab driver, who is also a tour guide. He gave us recommendations of things we should see, most of which we had already booked, so Patti was feeling pretty proud about that. He would have been happy to arrange other activities, but we were already set for the next several days.

We were dropped off at the waterfront for our tour of the morning going to Robben‘s Island, the place where Nelson Mandela and many many other political prisoners were held captive for many years. There was a fairly quick moving line to get us on board the boat and we congratulated ourselves at arriving in perfect time to get a nice seat on the upper deck. The trip out to the island was around a half an hour, and it was a very bright sunny blue sky day. So sunny we wish we had brought our hiking hats along, but at least had sunglasses. 

The tour itself was very powerful. The first part of the tour was a bus ride to see where the prisoners had to mine rock using picks and shovels. Our tour guide, Kennte, a very knowledgeable young man who set the stage for the later parts of our visit. After the mine, we stopped to see the isolated African Penguin colony on the island. It was strange to know we were visiting a prison when Cape Town and Table Mountain were in plain sight across eight miles of very cold water. No political prisoner ever escaped from this island. 

Then we returned to the front of the actual prison where we met, Themba, our tour guide who was a former political prisoner. He mixed in his personal experiences being a political prisoner there with more general facts. We had the opportunity to see a sample of a room where 40 prisoners had been held. Next was the block of cells for those being held in solitary confinement. This included seeing the cell where Nelson Mandela had been held captive for 17 years. He also was inprisoned  for an additional 10 years held elsewhere. It was a very sobering and meaningful experience. All the more so to know if there was somebody who could have justified being really embittered and forever angry, it was Nelson Mandela. Instead, he was able to find the power within to come out the other side, having seen the humanity of his captors, and having negotiated his release without ever giving up the rightness of his cause.

Those who survived imprisonment on the island referred to it later as an intensive political training time. Political leaders from all over South Africa were forced into the same space and every night there were political discussions and debates. These leaders were much more aligned when they were finally freed.

Following a tour in Robben's Island, we were back on the boat and landed in the waterfront area. We looked around a little bit there as a place full of shops and museums. Cape Town is quite a beautiful city. It’s about the waterfront and the amazing Table Mountain that overlooks everything.

We found the place that you could catch the hop-on hop-off the bus with the ticket that came along with our tour. We road it around a chunk of the city, listening to commentary and noting the various sites. Hop-on hop-off buses are sort of a cheap person’s tour of a place and we have enjoyed those as orientation to several cities in our travels.

But, our goal was to get to the cable car going up to the top of Table Mountain. We arrived at about 2 o’clock and went up on this beautiful beautiful day. Our taxi driver had told us some days it is so windy and cloudy that they close the cable cars down, but not today. We enjoyed the beautiful view of the city as we went up and at the top it was spectacular looking over this amazing place. We are nearly at he most southern tip of South Africa. There were hiking paths, a store and restaurants and a number of things at the top of the mountain. But, what we were most interested in was the view which we saw.

As in so many National Parks, as soon as you got not far from the parking lots, the crowds thinned out considerably. We spent a couple of hours wandering, chatting with people, exchanging photos with some photographers, and just noticing what a beautiful place this was. We ran into several of the folks who are on our tour.  So funny to be so far away form home, and to see people we knew.

As the afternoon was going by and we’re getting ready for sunset at 5:30, it was time to go down the mountain. We caught the next to the last half-on hop-off the bus and the route included a long stretch along the Atlantic coast..

Although there were probably lots of other interesting places to eat dinner, we were happy to just grab some food at our hotel very satisfying.

Day 17: June 24, 2026 White River to Cape Town South Africa

Another very early morning on this last day near Kruger Park. We were wide awake at 4:00 am,  and had packed up and were at breakfast at 6:00am. Nice breakfast time chatting with fellow travelers. All reported having had some very fine experiences.

It was about a five-hour drive back to the Johannesburg Airport. Dick was able this time to watch the land change on this over 200 mile bus ride. We again made the with a quick stop at the petrol station with the animals. Having spent much of the last day looking for rhinos to no avail at Kruger National Park, it was fun to see them in this a little less wild area of a sanctuary at the gas station; eight beautiful rhinos. We were so appreciative of how gorgeous they are and sobered at how endangered they are. We happened to be at the gas station when they brought out food and hay for the animals, which was really fun to watch.

Then, back on the bus for a little snoozing and snacking until we arrived at the Johannesburg airport shortly after 1 o’clock. Because our flight didn’t board until nearly 5 o’clock, there was time to hang out, purchase a new power plug adapter which we needed.  Then, we had a lovely chat with a couple other Americans from Boston, who just got back from their safari. They had also some wonderful experiences in quite an exclusive resort.

 

We were traveling with another couple, Mark and Donna, in our group who we have had good chatting with. We’ll see each other in the hotel over the next several days.

We grabbed a little food and then got on the plane for a little under 2 1/2 hours flight to Cape Town. It was a very long time to wait at the airport and then the flight was crowded with very narrow seats and nothing was given out complementary, including water. By the time we were waiting for our check luggage, we were both very very tired. Dick remarked it felt like one in the morning. Everybody got suitcases and then we were met to go to the hotel. A long travel day and now here we are in Cape Town. We found the guy holding our sign to get us to our hotel.

It was good to have arrived at our next place where we could settle in for four nights. It continues to be interesting to be in South Africa.

 

Day 16: June 23, 2026. White River to Kruger National Park, South Africa.

Well, we were getting to be old hands of getting up so early. Another day that we needed to be ready to pick up our breakfast at 5 AM. Both of us had gone to bed so early that we were awake more like 3:30 and got up in time to go up and pick up our sack breakfast and our second lunch . It wasn’t reasonable to think that hotel staff would have a hot breakfast ready for us when we were hopping on the truck at 5:15. So we consolidated our breakfast and lunch. Some of it was delicious and some we held in suspicion, including perhaps meatloaf sandwiches, and some other dried beef of some kind. We were uncertain how some of these things would hold up over hours being out of the refrigeration. But we definitely had enough food to munch along on that. We were not hungry while we were out on another day's hunt searching for animals.

Today we consolidated to two pickup trucks rather than three from the day before since several of the group were doing something different. Dick and Patti hopped on one with a delightful crew of people from Europe and Canada. Our driver today was a 20 year veteran guide, Derrick. He told us at the beginning that he doesn’t make promises of which particular animals he can find for us, because he said that breaks peoples hearts. He did guarantee he would find us some animals as well as point out a lot of trees and birds which he did.

It was a little less novel and breathtaking to arrive at the park after about 45 minutes and then head off on some different dirt and paved roads that we were not on yesterday. We all had hoped being in the southern area of Kruger Park that we might see some rhinos which we had not seen earlier. Derrick shared with us that they used to see rhinos basically every day, but due to terrible poaching 10,000 rhinos had been killed in the park in the last 10 years. There are some Asian cultures which hold that the horn of a rhino had strong medicinal or magical powers. We learned that just one horn cut off of a rhino could ultimately bring $50,000 worth of profit. In this land where there are many people living in poverty, one can understand how people can be swept up in this poaching , even though the poor people who did the killing and cutting off of the horn would receive only a small fraction of the money. It used to be that poaching elephants for ivory was the big money, but that is no longer in fashion. So it is the rhinos who are now suffering.  

During the course of the day we saw quite a bit of rhino dung and evidence that there were rhinos in the area. But not a glimpse of a rhino in person. Disappointing and in some ways, it became a running joke when we would see anything that perhaps this was a rhino. But, as our guide said, he believes the rhinos know that they are being killed and that they have turned much more elusive and hiding from people.

A highlight of the day was lots of elephants, including a troop of probably 20 elephants with lots of babies and teenagers and moms. And we saw several large bull elephants. The elephants are just magnificent and such a joy to see them.

There were also lots of zebras and giraffes. And then sometimes it would be something small such as dwarf mangooses. And there were a number of really, really interesting and glorious birds.

It is clear you have to take what you get when you are on a photos safari. Even the most experienced guides cannot make animals appear on command. There’s a lot of camaraderie among the guides and when we would pull up on a jeep that had been stopped, there would be lots of conversation in English and in Zulu about what people are saying. All of them wanted to have their guests have a good experience.

And one of the areas we saw a couple of young hyenas who were tucked away and probably waiting for their mom to return with food. It is just so amazing to see all of these animals to know that there were ever so many more of them for so long before they were mercilessly killed.

After a late lunch break, everyone was tired and ready to head back to the resort. We felt like we had had a very positive and wonderful experience in Kruger National Park

Because we’ve been waking up so early, both Dick and Patti took a good late afternoon nap, and then got up and had a lovely dinner talking with a number of people from our trip. We were the only ones from the United States and we are known as the people from California. But everyone was friendly and lovely with us.

Time to head to bed early early again. We wondered if we’ll ever be back on a normal sleep schedule but sound asleep by 9 PM. Tomorrow will be another traveling day at this time. Will take us from Johannesburg to Cape Town.