The true tourist

cape town - 34
Originally uploaded by brisegalets

If you were an experienced and seasoned tourist, you would visit museums and shopping malls on a rainy day and do the outdoor when the weather is perfect.
Well, we did exactly the opposite. On Sunday, basing our plans on the weather forecast, we went for the red tour on the CitySightseeing bus, planning to get off at stop 13 and go up the Table Mountain on cable car. We did the first 3 stops on the uncovered top of the bus and enjoyed the beginning of the rain, drizzle at first, then real heavy rain. By the time we decided to escape the rain and go downstairs, everybody had come to the same conclusion and were crammed in a space with twice as many people as there were seats available. So, we decided to get off, have lunch, and then surely the rain would stop and we could continue touring. We had a nice kurdish lunch and went back on the bus just in time for the rain to start again. The rest of the bus tour was done staying downstairs and hanging on like in a subway on a traffic hour, with fog to add to the misery. There was a commentary, but nothing to see.
On Monday, there were still clouds covering the top of the Table Mountain, so we decided to be wise, and we went for the Maritime Museum and checking out shopping malls and supermarkets. That day, the weather was nothing short of perfect, with blue sky and sunny weather.
That is the hard life of a tourist !
On Tuesday, we gave it another go. This time we had the weather and we could see what we had been through on Sunday on the red tour. But once we got to stop 13 (cable car to the mountain), we realized that everybody else had had the same idea and there was a two hour line to get on the cable car. So we gave up and decided to have a walk along the beach, have lunch, and then go back to stop13 as we were told that the line was much shorter in the afternoon. Only we got off the bus one stop too early and walked nearly 10 kms in search of a restaurant that we never found. In the end, we hopped back on the bus one more time to go to the Waterfront, have lunch, and then taxi back to the boat, exhausted by another touring day !
Today, no more touring. Another very nice member of the club had offered to drive us to a good shopping spot and so we did. We went with him to a shopping center and did most of the provisioning that we need doing before leaving for Saldanha and then Luanda.
Tomorrow, time will go fast when we have to do immigration formalities out of South Africa, then top up with fuel, go back to the Waterfront for fruits and veggies, and hopefully some time with Manuel who is landing tonight late. There probably won't be any time to spare to do more touring in Cape Town. Pity ! I feel that you probably need to plan for 3 to 4 weeks stay here if you wanted to visit everything worth visiting. One more time, I almost forgot to smell the roses !