At seven in the morning we dragged our bags from our apartment to the Nomad Tours office. Thank goodness it was only a block and a half away because the bags ( especially mine) are really heavy.
I forgot to mention, our Cape Town apartment was lovely. We found it on Airbnb. It was right in the centre of things, two bedrooms, very clean, freshly renovated, well equipped and had a gorgeous view of Table Mountain. It was perfect for us.
There are 24 of us travelling on this part of the tour. Most people are from Holland but there are others from Whales, England, South Africa, Portugal, and Italy. People are a mix of late teens/ early twenties and fifties. Just perfect.
Our travelling vehicle is a hybrid of a bus and a jeep. The driver and guide are below and a huge box type enclosure is on top. There are lockers in the back, then 20 bus type seats with an aisle in between in the middle and there is a big chest like freezer in the front which can be used as a table for the four seats ( 2 on each side) around it. There are also overhead luggage bins above the seats.
We are the virgin trip for this particular new vehicle. The vehicle is named Brenda.
Our guide( named Gift) is from Zimbabwe. Alfons our driver is from Namibia.
We had a quick stop to take a photo of Table Mountain ( which unfortunately was behind cloud) and then we stopped for an hour at a very well stocked, North American type mall to pick up any thing we may have forgotten and snacks. An outlet for Shawn’s favourite store, Cape Union Mart, was there so he bought himself a polar fleece top, baseball cap ( to replace the one that blew into the penguin colony) and travel coffee mug. I got long johns and an undershirt.
It’s overcast and the coldest day yet. We are now on our way to our campsite where we will have an orientation and wine tasting tour.
So far I have been very impressed with the cleanliness of the washrooms in both Morocco and South Africa… In many ways they are cleaner than ones in Toronto.
We have travelled through farmland and are now climbing into the mountains.
Our campground today is in an orange grove. It has warm showers and WIFI.
We arrived and I was in the first group who made lunch. We then went for a walk and set up our tents.
Tonight we went for wine tasting and then were served an amazing supper by the wine people. The chicken bbq ( African Bree) was to die for.
I am really enjoying the people we are travelling with. We have two honeymoon couples. So much fun!
It is nice and warm in the complex where we are having supper. Big crackling fireplace. It may be nippy tonight. Glad I bought the extra set of long johns.