Day 5

Today was a beautiful sunny day, perfect for our trip up Table Mountain and tour of Cape Town. We met in the lobby with our fellow explorers minus 2 that had just arrived and had to go back to the airport for their luggage. Our first stop was a cable car ride up Table Mountain - wow what spectacular views and the top was quite flat so you could explore along the top for over a mile. The Atlantic was quite calm today so the waves weren’t as great as yesterday but it was so clear you could the Cape of Good Hope ( which we will travel to tomorrow) and the Constantia wine region we visited yesterday. We took a lot of pictures and saw several lizards. After we descended the line to go up had lengthened to about a 2 hour wait. Our next stop was the Malay district and it’s beautiful pastel painted homes. We also visited the Houses of Parliament ( they meet in Cape Town for 6 months and Praetoria for 6). We visited a park that has previously been a vegetable garden for the Dutch East India company used to provision ships. From downtown we proceeded to a diamond tour, which very interesting. We saw diamond cutters at work and had a glass of wine while folks shopped in the store. The company, Shimansky, specializes in Tanzanite, which is mined in only one mine on the slopes of Kilamanjara. The mine only has about 12 years of life left, after that, no more Tanzanite. After a snack and rest we met to go to dinner. The dinner was at the Gold restaurant which features a native drum lesson and a 14 course meal of traditional African dishes. The drumming was fun and the meal was delicious. We also Saw a floor show and had our faces painted. If I get ambitious I will post the full menu. After dinner we headed back to the hotel for a nightcap (a gin and tonic to chase the malaria away) and off to bed. Tomorrow - Penguins!