March 9, 2025 - Cape Town, South Africa

Dear friends and family,

Today we arrived in Cape Town, and it was love at first sight! The iconic Table Mountain greeted us as we sailed into the harbor, its flat summit shrouded in a delicate layer of clouds. I joined a tour with Rick, Teresa, Lorri, Jeff, and Linda that took us to the top of the mountain via cable car. The panoramic views of the city and ocean were absolutely breathtaking.

In the afternoon, we went to a reserve where there were the small penguins, babies with fluffy feathers alongside their adults, saw horned Eland deer(?, never figured out what they were), ostriches in the wild, even a baboon! We visited the historic Cape of Good Hope, got the Instagram pictures behind the sign announcing THE MOST SOUTH-WESTERN POINT OF THE AFRICAN CONTINENT. Our guide Abdul was so fabulous that we requested him for the next day also with a bit larger vehicle so that more people could join us.

During the summer I had purchased a ticket to go to the Aquila Safari Reserve to see the Big 5 animals (elephants, lions, zebras, rhinos, ??) but the place and time to meet were so confusing and unobtainable, that I got a refund. Found out later that the hotel was a block from the port and the time was later because our exit from the ship was so mixed up. There were only a couple of agents to review our passports. All who went there had a marvelous time.

With love and a spirit of awe,
Chris