Back to the Cape
ByAndrew Evans
April 15, 2012
3 min readWelcome to Cape Town . . . again.
I’m back! So welcome back to this colorful seaside port that I only just recently came to know and which I’ve been desperately missing ever since I left.
Since first landing here two weeks ago (aboard the National Geographic Explorer), I have clocked some 25,000 miles by land, sea, and air, traveling deep into central Africa, then all the way back to America and then back to Africa once more.
Airplanes tend to travel faster than our minds do, so that right now, as I tap out this post in a room above Long Street, in the purple evening shadow of Table Mountain, my brain is pulsating with a hundred thousand Technicolor memories of the past few weeks: a sea of penguins, the stormy ocean, one dead president, the snow-covered Rockies, and one airport after airport: DKR, DCA, SLC, ATL, IAD, JNB and now back to CPT.
Returning to Cape Town marks the end of my five-week journey from Cape to Cape (Cape Horn to the Cape of Good Hope). In that time, I have traveled from Buenos Aires to Tierra del Fuego and the Falkland Islands, then on to the snowy mountains of South Georgia and across the South Atlantic to the rare and remote Tristan Da Cunha island group where I met up with old friends and reached one of the most inaccessible places on earth. I finally made it to Cape Town, on the other side of the ocean, then hopped up to Africa’s warm heart: Malawi.
In the tradition of the old old explorers and those ancient mariners who crisscrossed the globe by sea, I have returned to Cape Town to recharge my batteries, to stock up on provisions, to finally change my razor blade (which hasn’t changed for the past five weeks!) and to ingest enough vitamin C to prevent scurvy.
Cape Town is a city of travelers for travelers and I confess I feel quite at home here–perhaps that’s because the whole world is at home here. Before I go back to globetrotting, I shall trot myself around this one city that embodies the entire globe.
After all, this is the Mother City and I think I need a bit more time here to really understand what that actually means. I look forward to exploring this rich corner of South Africa in depth, and I look forward to hearing all of your recommendations. So, please add your favorite Cape Town travel tips in the comments and I will try to do as much as I can while I am here.
Like all my trips, I leave a lot of the larger details unplanned, but what I can assure you is that as long as I’m in Cape Town there will be quality art and cool architecture, amazing food (and very good wine!), new friends, perfect beaches, happy animals and spine-tingling sunsets.
Does it get any better than that?
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