Bo-Kaap was one of the first things I discovered when Googling about Cape Town when Fiance and I were talking about moving here. And it definitely helped win me over.

Bo-Kaap is also known as the Cape Malay Quarter. The Cape Malay people are descendent of slaves from Southeast Asia brought over by the Dutch during the 16th and 17th centuries. Although the neighborhood was originally built to house low-income families, properties in the area are now sought after. It’s well known for it’s brightly colored houses and beautiful architecture.

This excursion was for more than just goggling at the pretty houses, though. I had read about a spice shop in the neighborhood called Atlas Trading Company and really wanted to pick up some of the good stuff for the Chicken Tikka Masala recipe I was writing.

The shop was fairly small but packed with tons of spices. The place smelled amazing!

They had their own pre-packaged spices and spice blends on shelves.

They also had huge bins of bulk spices. Fiance had to remind me that I didn’t need a one pound bag full of smoked paprika.

I would have gone home with all the varieties of masala without a little guidance, so I asked for a little help. I saw that there was a “Mother-in-law Masala” and a “Father-in-law Masala” and asked what the difference was. The man responded: “Mother-in-law is much spicier” with a smile and a wink. Although this alone made me want to get those varieties, he told me their Leaf Masala was the most popular so I went with that, and it was incredible.

Our short trip to Bo-Kaap was really fun! We’re definitely going back to try the food at Biesmiellah and to explore the museum.

South Africa produces some amazing wine. Like, really, really good. So good, in fact, that it’s turned two staunch beer lovers into wine enthusiasts. We drank wine occasionally before moving here, but now it’s our drink of choice.

Hey, hey. I’m not saying we prefer it to beer. We love them both equally. Beer, it’s not your fault. Wine is just really affordable here (I’m talking $5 for a totally solid bottle) and we never knew just how good it could be. Pinotage has changed my adult beverage world. But the craft beer market in South Africa is coming along and we still love a good pint.

While our friends from the US were visiting, we made a trip out to Stellenbosch, where a lot of South Africa’s vineyards reside. The views on the drive out there are absolutely stunning. The view out your window looks more like it has to be a painting- there’s no way something so beautiful could be real life.

We didn’t quite go with a plan, you can see most signs for most of the wineries from the highway that goes through Stellenbosch. Our first stop was a winery called Meerlust.

There were some cute doggies that followed us around the winery, a few South African breeds included!

I really liked the decor of the area we did our tasting in. It was both eclectic and rustic, and I hadn’t seen much us like it!

The wine, of course, was also really great. We bought a 2011 bottle of Meerlust Red and our friends got a Pinot Noir. The tasting is free when when you buy a bottle, so it was a great deal.

And it was all just really pretty. Stellenbosch is a very quaint town.

We stopped at a winery that has a few zebras, ostriches, and antelopes!

We made one last great stop at a winery called Rustenberg. Unfortunately by this point my empty stomach and far too many tastings had me feeling less than great, so I didn’t tout my camera inside. We did have a great time chatting with our wine tasting guide and she was able to answer our many questions about wine (What does unwooded wine mean? Why is it called “straw wine”? What exactly does the year on a bottle refer to?) and we took a stroll through their gorgeous garden when we were done.

If you’re ever lucky enough to get to take a trip out to South Africa, a stop in Stellenbosch is absolutely necessary! It’s absolutely stunning and there’s so much incredible wine to be had.

WARNING: This is a long blog post. I wrote way too much. But there are tons of pretty pictures of super neat African animals to make up for it.

I never thought I’d get to say this.

Fiance and I went. On. An. African. Safari.

Just another incredible reminder of how cool our lives are right now and how fortunate we are to be having this experience in South Africa.

We got to host two of our good friends from the US for a couple of weeks and play at being tour guides, so we thought it would be really fun to do our first safari with them. We unfortunately didn’t have the time or the cash to go all the way out to Kruger, the big National Park in South Africa that’s home to most of the country’s safari animals, so I started researching our options in the Western Cape (where Cape Town is located).

We narrowed it down to two, but ended up choosing Inverdoorn (note: they haven’t given me any compensation to write this, nor do they even know I’m doing it). We decided to do a one night trip that included two game drives and three meals.

We set off giving ourselves an hour long buffer for travel time. We’re driving a rental Mercedes that saw its best days long, long ago. One of its more tame (and common) quirks is that it takes at least ten minutes to warm up and will often die at stop lights after we leave our flat. Recently, it died while our car was turning right. We were in the middle of the road. Literally hanging into both lanes. Fiance drives us everywhere because I’m an anxious wreck whenever we’re in the car. His last job involved a lot of high stress driving, so he’s used to coping with this. Oregon is known for its polite drivers who never honk their horns unless a crash is imminent. That’s where I’ve learned to drive, that’s pretty much the only place I’ve ever driven, and it’s really the only place I ever want to drive again. The driving here is much more chaotic, to put it gently. Pedestrians pop in and out of the street, people stop in the middle of the road with little warning, and everyone drives fast. Too fast for the many unpredictable obstacles.

All this to say that I’m a very nervous driver in South Africa. We started our trek north into the middle of the province, expecting the drive to take a little over three hours. Funnily enough, our GPS told us we’d be arriving about an hour and a half before we expected to. We thought this would start changing as the GPS recognized how slowly the car was moving, but it stayed steady. This was odd.

The first leg of our journey was passing over the Cape Fold Belt and started off with a bang- mostly because the drive through the mountains and vineyards is jaw-droppingly stunning. We also saw a big group of baboons, including some babies, which was especially fun because our friends hadn’t seen any yet. As we started getting higher and higher up we entered a stretch of road called Bain’s Kloof Pass. (A few fun facts: Bain’s Kloof Pass was built in 1853 by convict labor. It was the first inland passage to the north. The pass is within a natural heritage area.) Eventually I started wondering when the bumper along the side of the road would show up, since there was a scarily steep drop off just a few feet to our left. But it never came. The thing about our tank of a car is that it tends to take wide turns and has some trouble stopping quickly, which was super not good for this stretch of road. So, despite the incredible views out our windows, I sat wide-eyed, staring intently at the road, gripping the door and grinding my right foot into the floor, or as I like to call it, my invisible brake. Not that Fiance wasn’t driving well, but if I had been driving, it would have been faster to walk to Inverdoorn.

When we finally got to a stretch of road that wasn’t cut into a cliff, we found out the trade off was that it would be dirt off and on. It was still well worth it. I could go back to snacking and pointing to things out the window instead of living in terror.

We finally got to Inverdoorn, much earlier than expected, and found out we’d taken the “unrecommended route” to get there. Which explained why we’d gotten there so quickly and why they’d said on their website that “any car” could handle the trip from Cape Town. The few minor heart attacks I’d suffered were all for naught. Obviously I insisted on the “slow way” for the way home.

The place was beautiful. Relatively small and most of the accommodations are individual small cabins. Our room was gorgeous and very comfortable. There’s a pool, fire pit, and TV/gathering room. Our only complaints were pretty minor: we woke up to discover the hot water wasn’t working (just meant more sleep before our 6 a.m. game drive!), the pool wasn’t heated and it was too chilly to swim, and the telescope mentioned on their website wasn’t working. All in all, we were very well taken care of.

We started the afternoon off with lunch, which was an excellent buffet that included leek quiche, paprika chicken, and the South African classic “bobotie”. The perfect fuel for our first game drive! AAAHHH! I was so excited I had to jump around a bit to make sure I could sit still for three hours. They took us out in giant safari trucks that made us all feel super cool.

Our first stop was to see cheetahs. Inverdoorn has a special cheetah rehabilitation project.

Our guide’s (who was great!) walkie talkie went off loudly while we were looking at the cheetahs (and probably only 10 feet from them) and it spooked one of the gigantic cats. Our guide had a stare down with the cat to calm her down for far longer than my pounding heart could take, but luckily I live to tell the story.

They took us to see how they help the cheetahs needing rehabilitation get regular exercise. They have a lure on a track that the cheetahs get incredibly excited to chase, just like a cat toy with a tiny cat that can’t run faster than any other living thing on the planet.

It was incredible to see a creature moving that fast. And really, really fun.

Next, we went into the rest of the reserve.

We saw wildebeest, which have been called the ugliest animals in Africa. They have super skinny legs.

Then we stumbled across a watering hole with SO MANY RHINOS AND ZEBRAS.

We also saw a group of Cape Buffalo (one of the big 5!). These things are scary. The big male buffalo can easily overturn a car. A guide told us one once charged him. One of our friends responded “And?” He said “And… I’m alive.” He was stoic. Or something.

We saw so many different types of antelope. I wish I could tell you the names of them all.

We saw hippos, too!!! They went into the water as soon as they saw us coming, but we saw them poking their heads out and spraying water. I totally thought they looked like whales, but didn’t voice that opinion for fear of sounding silly. But of course I’ll voice it here because the internet is a safe space.

And ostriches. Wild ostriches are ENORMOUS. And terrifying. Oh, but ostriches are delicious. (Side note: after I wrote those last four sentences I spent about an hour reading about ostriches on Wikipedia. They’re super cool.)

The view from any where in the park is amazing, especially as the sun started to set.

After our first amazing game drive, we got back about 20 minutes before dinner. We gathered in the dining room a little early and had some great pinotage, South Africa’s signature wine, and cucumber, feta, and cherry tomato kebabs. So tasty. They’d told us we’d be having couscous, so I assumed we were going to have a vegetarian meal. Not so. We had a goat cheese salad. With the best goat cheese of ever. Then a buffet line that included said couscous, but with meatballs, paprika chicken, and stewed lamb. For dessert, we had some kind of chilled, baked cream with chocolate sauce underneath. All in all, an awesome meal. I can’t believe I didn’t take pictures to share.

The next morning, we were up bright and early for our 6:30 a.m. game drive. They put coffee, tea, and biscuits (cookies, to you Americans) out at 6:00 a.m., which I couldn’t have functioned without. I think we all managed to get four cups of coffee each down in about ten minutes.

The first twenty minutes or so was spent shivering under blankets driving around in the dark. I forgot to mention- our guide was great, but he clearly really enjoyed driving the trucks. He drove as fast as he could out on those narrow dirt roads and whipped around corners. This was fine, and kind of fun, but it was freezing cold outside and this meant the wind was whipping us in the face.

But the sunrise was super pretty.

And then amazing things happened.

First, we stumbled upon some bizarre water antelope but it was too dark for me to snap a photo of them. I wish I could remember what they’re called. They spend a ton of time in the water and use it for protection.

Then. Oh, and then. We came upon several giraffes.

The giraffes were so cool. And HUGE. I wish a photo could evoke how amazing they were.

I took about a million giraffe photos. They just hung out with us! I learned something about the big, untouchable African animals. They couldn’t care less that you’re a few feet away from them snapping some photos. They will keep going on with whatever it is that they’re doing (eating or sleeping, mostly). If anything, your presence might be mildly annoying because they have to walk around you, but you are certainly not scary.

And then more amazing. ELEPHANTS! Huge adrenaline spike. So much excitement. Real life elephants.

We saw elephants, guys! WILD elephants. This ain’t a zoo.

They were so beautiful and incredible and all the other good adjectives.

After goggling at the elephants for as long as possible, our guide took us to what he called Jurassic Park. The lions that Inverdoorn has had been raised for “canned hunts”. This means they were raised in a cage, fattened up to be the biggest trophy possible, and were destined to be hunted in a contained area. Inverdoorn took them in before they met this fate, though. These lions are kept separate from the other animals, not because they’re necessarily a danger, but because they don’t know how to hunt or protect themselves and could be susceptible to predators. They have to be fed by humans and Inverdoorn isn’t trying to breed them because they couldn’t teach their cubs to hunt. This doesn’t mean they don’t have a killer instinct, though, and we were given some heavy duty warnings before entering the lions’ part of the reserve.

They have two females and one male. Real life lions were way bigger than I had imagined.

Yes, they were totally eye-balling us. It was only a little terrifying.

Then we headed back to the housing area for breakfast. Not before catching one last glimpse of South African’s national antelope, the springbok, though. They were everywhere.

We had a great buffet style breakfast before heading off, taking the “recommended route” home, of course.

It was an incredible adventure! If you’re looking for a safari in the Western Cape, I highly recommend Inverdoorn. Great bang for our buck and we had an amazing experience!

Fiance’s sister is an elementary school teacher in Seattle, WA. She told them that her big brother had, oddly enough, picked up and moved from Portland, OR to Cape Town, South Africa and they had a bunch of questions about the place. Here is a little of what they asked us and our responses, which were written by both Fiance and I. I thought they asked some pretty insightful questions – the last one is by far my favorite!

How is daily life in South Africa different from here?

Daily life is different in many, many ways! There are countless “little things”. For example, “now” doesn’t mean “now” the way it does at home. If someone says they’ll be with you “just now” they mean in a few minutes, but if they say “right now”, they mean “right now”. People drive a lot more aggressively, and on the other side of the road, for that matter! Pizza here has been a huge disappointment, it’s nothing like the pizza at home. We buy our electricity in line at the grocery store and people here are a lot more careful with it because there’s not as much to go around. Sometimes our power goes out simply because there isn’t access to any. The thing that affects us most on a daily basis, though, is very, very slow internet.

Although most of the people in Cape Town speak English, the cities and roads often have Afrikaans (a local language) names, which can be really hard to pronounce! For example, we went to a beach the other day called Bloubergstrand (bl-ow-berg-strand) and another one called Smitswinkelbaai (smits-vink-ell-by). Lots of household objects have different names and that was hard to get used to at first. Ketchup is called tomato sauce and tomato sauce is called tomato puree. A barbecue is called a braai, a sausage a boerwor, and Diet Coke is Coke Light.

There are lots of good things about daily life here, too! The weather is almost always great: “cold” here is 65 degrees and windy. Everything is a little slower which forces us to sit back and enjoy it more. I’ve noticed this the most at restaurants, which was annoying at first, but I like it now. The US’s currency is worth a lot more than South Africa’s, so we get more bang for our buck. The best thing of all is that there is always something new to do, like going to the beach or waterfront, hiking, game reserves, and festivals.

Do they have any unusual foods?

We’ve eaten lots of food that you wouldn’t normally see in the US! Since we’ve been here, we’ve eaten ostrich and springbok (kind of like a deer) and seen meat like warthog and crocodile on menus at restaurants. They have different varieties of fish than we do at home. The most popular fish eaten are hake (pronounced hay-ck), line fish, and snoek. The sausages that they call boerwors are eaten regularly, and are absolutely delicious. There are tons of different fruits and vegetables: cape gooseberries, dragon fruit, litchi, baby marrows (tiny squash!). They eat a lot of avocado, mangoes, and corn. Corn is relied on very heavily here and a staple food is called maize meal or “pap”, which is kind of like grits. South Africa’s cuisine is really fun because it’s influenced by so many different cultures: the Dutch, the Malay, the British, different local African cultures, and tons more.

What are the animals like there? Have you seen any wild animals?

The animals here are really fun! There’s a beach not very far from our house that has penguins on it! It’s a beautiful, warm beach and the penguins are just roaming about with all the people picnicking and swimming. It’s so much fun to go there!

The other day, we were stopped while driving to let baboons cross the road, which was really exciting. A lot of the areas we have been hiking in have baboons and there are warning signs not to feed them.

What are the houses like?

A lot of the houses here are really pretty. In our neighborhood and the ones surrounding us, there’s a lot of “Cape Dutch” architecture, named for the Dutch colonists who constructed many of the area’s oldest buildings. The buildings are typically made of cement and painted white, with really pretty details.

There’s a famous neighborhood in Cape Town called Bo-Kaap that is known for its brightly painted houses. The Bo-Kaap neighborhood is the center of Cape Malay culture (one of many unique cultures here!) in Cape Town.

Not far from Cape Town’s city center are a number of “townships.” Townships, urban residential areas largely populated by low-income black South Africans, are characterized by serious underdevelopment; residents often have unreliable access to clean water, electricity and waste treatment. They are a very visible legacy of centuries of economic, legal and political racial inequality in South Africa, and, in particular, the laws which regulated where people of different legal racial classifications were allowed to live. Millions of South Africans reside in the the country’s many townships.

What is the culture like?

South Africa is a very, very diverse country, and as a result, it has lots of different cultural traditions rather than a single “South African” culture. Rather than try to summarize each of them, lets say this: South Africa has 11 official languages! The most widely spoken include many with roots throughout southern Africa (Xhosa, Zulu, Sotho and Tswane are examples) and a couple that come from parts of Europe (Afrikaans, English)! Its cultural diversity is one of the things that make South Africa such a unique and wonderful place.

What is the coolest thing you have seen since living there?

Chelsea: The coolest thing I’ve seen since we’ve been here is the city from the top of Table Mountain. Cape Town is shadowed by a mountain that is stunningly unique: it’s completely flat on top! That’s why it’s called Table Mountain. They have a tram that takes you up to the top, which has it’s own unique set of wildlife, including lots of lizards and beautiful flowers. I’ve never experienced something like getting to view a city as beautiful as Cape Town from such a cool vantage point. (The penguins are a close second, though!)

Fiance: Cape Town is at the very southwestern-most tip of South Africa and the African continent. In fact, the city sits on a peninsula (a large land feature which sticks out into a large body of water, usually an ocean!) called the Cape Peninsula. Chelsea and I visited the very tip of the Cape Peninsula. It was a very exciting sensation to be entirely surrounded by ocean and to know that there was nothing but water between me and the South Pole! It’s also been fun to see wild baboons and penguins, too!

What do you miss most about the U.S.?

Chelsea: Besides my family and friends, of course, I really, really miss a fast internet connection. I never knew how much I depended on it! Often times, our internet will just go out without warning or get so slow that we pretty much can’t use it. It’s hard because that’s the only way we can communicate with friends and family at home, and we’ve pretty much only been able to text or email because our internet connection can’t support a phone call or Skype very well. I’m also blogging full time, so I really depend on the internet to keep me busy! I also miss TV more than I thought I would. We only have four channels, and they’re often showing TV shows that are in a different language or soap operas, which I don’t really enjoy.

Fiance: Boy, doesn’t Chelsea sound a little bit spoiled?? (Kidding!) I miss my folks and friends mostly. It would also be nice to watch with my favorite basketball team, the Portland Trailblazers, in the NBA playoffs, but I’ll have to settle for reading about their games online!

What is the money called?

South Africa’s currency is called the Rand. When prices are displayed, it looks like this: R17.99. About 10 rand are equal to one US Dollar.

All the paper bills in South Africa feature a portrait of the country’s first democratic president, Nelson Mandela, on the front. On the back are pictures of “the Big Five” animals that live here: the lion, leopard, Cape Buffalo, rhino and elephant.

What is the government like?

South Africa’s government is very different. The biggest difference is the fact that the country is more-or-less what is called a unitary state, which means that almost all authority is held by the national government. On the other hand, the US uses a federal system in which power is shared between the national (or federal) government and the states (like Washington or California).

Another major difference is that South Africans don’t actually elect their president! Instead, voters cast their ballots for a specific party. Seats in the country’s parliament (like our Congress) are then distributed to each party according to the proportion of the vote it received. Finally, the parliament elects a president!

This kind of “electoral system” is called proportional. One side effect of this kind of setup is that, unlike in the US where there are only two parties represented in Congress, the South African Parliament has 13 parties represented!

Are there different jobs?

There are the same jobs, for the most part, it’s more that there are a lot more or less certain types of jobs than at home. For example, here there are a lot more security guards employed than at home, because people rely on home and business security a lot more. Most public parking areas even have “car guards”. Fiance and I didn’t know what these people were doing when we first got here, and it was very confusing. They guard your car and help you park and hope for a tip when you come back to your car.

There are also a lot more people employed on “private game reserves” than at home! These reserves are privately owned places where endangered species like lions, rhinos, elephants and cheetahs can be protected from habitat destruction and poaching.

Still, for the most part, jobs are similiar!

Are the schools like schools here?

The elementary and secondary schools here are a bit different. A lot of schools here are separated by gender and most require that students wear uniforms each day. A lot of the schools, especially those outside the big cities, are a bit run down and need fixing up. Some schools don’t even have access to toilets.

Do they play different sports?

Yes, they do! They don’t have professional football or basketball here. The really popular sports are soccer, rugby, and cricket. Cricket is a weird, distant cousin of baseball, and rugby is like a mix of soccer and football. We’ve been fortunate enough to attend both a rugby and cricket match and believe me, South Africans love their sports!

What pets do people have?

People here have the same pets as in the US! Mostly cats and dogs. We haven’t seen any exotic pets yet, but if we do, we’ll let you know!

Did you watch the Seahawks win the Superbowl?

We didn’t get to watch the Seahawks win the Superbowl 🙁 I so wish we could have! We had just gotten to Cape Town a few days earlier and didn’t have internet set up yet, and they weren’t showing it on local TV. We did read plenty about it after, though, and look at lots of pictures!

Fiance and I went to the Kirstenbosch National Botanical Garden a couple of weeks ago, and once again Cape Town managed to knock me off my feet with it’s beauty. It sits at the foot of Table Mountain, which is enough for an incredible view right there. This is one of the more famous botanical gardens in the world, in part because only plants indigenous to the area are grown in the garden.

The garden is GIGANTIC and took us about three hours to explore entirely. There are so many beautiful little exhibits within it and so much variety. We really wanted to take our time at each spot, learning as much as we could about the group of plants being displayed.

This post is mostly photos, and a lot of them, because I think the beauty of the garden speaks for itself.

The sculpture below was at the entrance to the gardens and I adored it.

I was kind of obsessed with the orange flowers below. They were so striking and almost velvety looking. Hence a lot of pictures of them.

There were several little ponds throughout the gardens and lots of duck-looking birds near them.

This is the view of the city from the gardens.

Plenty of excellent resting benches were sprinkled throughout.

These palm tree looking trees are called cycads.

The palm tree below is one of the last of its kind- it’s critically endangered. It’s called an Albany Cycad. The seedlings from this group have been sold to gardeners and planted in the wild to help keep the species alive.

This was the entrance to a gorgeous little bird bath.

There were peacocks everywhere! And they had no fear of all the people roaming about.

Oh, and turtles, lots of turtles! I apparently have excellent turtle spotting skills, just ask Fiance.

The Garden of Extinction at the end of the trail was really cool. It was made up of plants considered extinct or near extinction and had little red signs with inspirational quotes like the one at the beginning of this post.

We stopped in the shop at the end and bought some King Protea seeds for our moms for Mother’s Day. They are South Africa’s national flower and the country’s cricket team is named for them. Unfortunately the protea garden was not in bloom while we were there. I also found these bizarre brain looking plants and I totally would have bought one if I had a more permanent garden for it.

A couple of weeks ago, Fiance and I drove down to Hout Bay for the first time. First of all, it’s a beautiful drive. We saw a lot of pine-like trees that made it feel a lot more like Oregon than beachy Cape Town. The town itself is very cute and quaint and was fun to drive through.

After passing the parking lot a few times, we managed to get ourselves to Hout Bay. At first glance, it was a beautiful little beach with cliffs towering on almost all sides. We started to walk along the beach, which was unfortunately the dirtiest we’ve seen. There was a lot of litter and tons and tons of dog poop, which I managed to step in. Better yet, I didn’t even notice until we were in the car.

We also noticed signs along the beach discouraging would-be swimmers; the water is polluted. That was very sad, because, just like all the other beaches in Cape Town, the water was a gorgeous turquoise and was so calm thanks to the bay. This didn’t stop dogs and a few daring swimmers, though.

Even with the few disappointments, it was still a beautiful beach. The marina was fun and the background stunning.

This little beach also provided much more to do than other spots. There was a seafood restaurant that made me wish we hadn’t just eaten, a few shops that we explored, and a little ice cream shop.

Overall a fun trip, but I really wish the beach was better taken care of! It’s so beautiful and deserves as good of treatment as all the other magnificent ocean-fun spots.