Cape Town

After a 13-hour delay, our flight finally departed for Cape Town. What was supposed to be an overnight flight became a morning/daytime trip, so our travel clocks were pretty jacked up by the time we landed at 6:00 am Cape Town time.

We checked into the lovely boutique Queen Victoria Hotel and Manor House just after sunrise (they were kind enough to have rooms ready for us at this early hour). We promptly broke a cardinal rule of international travel and took a two-hour nap!

Thankfully, our planned spa day delivered just what we needed in terms of relaxation and rejuvenation. Due to the exchange rate and the depressed South African Rand, we enjoyed four spa services for the cost of one massage back in the states.

Dinner on our first evening was at Belly of the Beast – a small, smart restaurant with one dinner seating and a really cool concept. There are no menus; the chefs source local, in-season ingredients and serve a 9-course tasting menu based on what’s fresh and available that day. Some of the biggest surprises, including dishes we’d never venture to try normally, included a Chicken Liver Parfait with fig compote, fresh figs, toasted hazelnuts, and dill, as well as Pampoenvark Dumplings with pickled relish, dashi veloute with crispy waygu bacon, and celeriac. Pampoenvark is a type of pork from a nearby lowerland district where the pigs feast on pumpkins, known as “pampoen” in Afrikaans. We also tried venison takati dish made from Kudu – an African antelope. But the star of the meal was the final dish of Cookies and Cream – the most delicious cookies made from oatmeal, brown sugar, and Rice Krispies, with a strawberry mascarpone whipped cream. Incredible!

An added bonus was the extra guest at our dinner table. A year ago, I met the most amazing UGA student at a Georgia Women Give event in Athens. We’ve kept in touch and, after discovering we would be in South Africa at the same time (she’s studying abroad in nearby Stellenbosch), we couldn’t pass up the opportunity to see her! Dami Odubola is the type of young woman who gives me hope in the future of humanity – what a beautiful soul.

After a good night’s sleep, we ventured out on Saturday to discover the foods of Cape Town on a private food tour with our guide, Rachel. We clearly didn’t think through the timing of our itinerary when planning this directly following last night’s meal!

Our day started with a stop at the weekend Oranjezicht City Farm Market. What a lovely market, filled with an array of food stalls and local artisan vendors. We tried several favorites here – inlcuding the best beef short rib bao bun I’ve ever tasted, plus Haloummi fries with pomegranate and yoghurt, a kabob of exotic mushrooms, and the famously named Harvey Spector bacon sandwich (IYKYK). We also left with a bag of biltong – South African’s version of beef jerky – yummy bites of dried and air-cooled meat.

We then ventured into the city center to The Company’s Gardens for tea. The oldest botanical garden in the country, it was named after the Dutch East India Company, which founded the city in the mid-1600s as the Cape of Good Hope. The Company owned the city for around 150 years as a company port, before the British took over rule in the early 1800s. It became a cape province and union of South Africa in the early 1900s.

The gardens are spectacular and serene all at once; we saw many varieties of flowers, trees, and vegetation, as well as birds and squirrels – including three albino squirrels, and the largest fig tree we’ve ever seen, a Moreton Bay Fig.

We enjoyed our first taste of Roobios tea, a locally made, caffeine-free tea from the Aspalathus Linearis plant, which is only grown in a specific region of South Africa. The tea has its origins from the Khoisans Bushmen tribes, who used the crushed up leaves for medicinal purposes for years. Today, the tea is considered a staple in most South African homes. It’s filled with antioxidants, has no caffeine, and it tastes delicious. We also tasted a honeybush tea, made from the Cyclopia plant. As the name suggests, it carries hints of honey in every sip.

After a stroll through the gardens, we stopped by St. George’s Cathedral where Desmond Tutu served as the archibishop. We also passed the Central Methodist Mission, a beautiful, accepting-of-all church with a coffee shop – aptly named Heaven!

We walked further through the city to the Bo-Kaap neighborhood of vibrantly painted row houses. This negihborhod was once known as the Malay Quarter, where slaves brought from Malaysia, Indonesia, India, and Sri Lanka, were housed in the mid-1700s. Today, this neighborhood is predominantly Muslim, and many of the homes are descendants of the original slave inhabitants. They are allowed to paint the houses any color they choose, but they must preserve the original structure (in other words, they can’t be torn down and replaced with a multi-story building).

Our next stop was to Faeeza’s Home Kitchen, a shaded, outdoor oasis in the midst of Bo-Kaap, featuring incredible Cape Malay dishes, including samosas (delicious!), Cape Malay curry, roti bread, and koeksisters for dessert – think doughnut meets muffin. So good!

A nice walk back to the Company’s Garden gave us a chance to walk off some of today’s calories, before we ventured back to the harbor area and our last stop at Seven Colours Eatery. This gem of a restaurant features traditional South African dishes and we were treated to a tasting of several of their comfort food specialties, including creamy samp (mealie corn in a creamy sauce), beef potjie (oxtail stew), spiced bean chakalaka (a relish like nothing we’ve tasted!), coleslaw, pickled beetroot, and savoury spinach. Each bite was a reminder of where so many of our traditional Southern dishes from the US originated.

We said goodbye to our incredible guide, Rachel, canceled our dinner reservations and instead walked through the Water Shed, a large building filled with the beautiful and unique wares from local artisans.

All in all, a wonderful day in this beautiful city. Tomorrow, we venture to Table Mountain and see more of the surrounding area.