Dubai

Dubai was only a short stop on our way to Nepal but it was still certainly memorable. Our flight from Joburg to Dubai was with Emirates. I had never flown them before but had heard much about them. This plane looked like it had the first class individual suites with beds, but we boarded well behind their location. The economy class was quite spacious with a really nice entertainment system. The highlight of the flight was when they turned the cabin lights down and they had lights in the ceilings to give the plane a starry sky effect!

Given we had just spent five weeks in Africa and were on our way to another five in Nepal, we decided to live it up a bit. I used my credit cards points to get us a room at the JW Marriott Marquis, which bills itself as the tallest hotel in the world! All my flying last year gave me status with Marriott which led to a club level upgrade which gave us access to the lounge as well. From our room on the 64th floor we were able to see out over the gulf and if the haze was cooperative, all the way down to palm island and the Burj Al Arab!  

The view from our room

Looking back towards downtown from the lounge

Our room was not ready when we arrived, but they let us up to the lounge where we got to have some breakfast. Once the room was finally ready, we were able to get some rest as we didn't sleep much on the flight. After our brief rest, we started working on some trip admin for Hawaii (I won't spoil our plans. You'll have to read about it). After enough work, we decided to reward ourselves with a drink. We headed to Vault, a bar in the top floor of our tower. We had a view of the Burj Khalifa and some amazing drinks. Their old fashioned with a twist was great. It was served in a box. When you opened the box to pull your drink out, smoke that was used to enhance the flavor came rising out, slowly revealing the glass. Their twist on it was the addition of cinnamon which added a nice warmth and got the thumbs up from Jess. One of the chefs stopped out to see how we were doing and brought us a sample of their chicken slider which was delicious. This was service at a whole new level. 

The view from Vault, our drinks, and the door to the bar

The unveiling of my Old Fashioned, which was served in a box

After our drinks, we went down to the Thai restaurant for our dinner. After three months of traveling with no Thai, the flavors of Thai had our palettes very excited!! We decided on the binge option: all you can eat and drink from a set menu. While the view wasn't much (just a construction site), the atmosphere was still very lively as the lighting cast a red glow over the room and a house DJ had the perfect EDM (electronic dinner music) going. After stuffing our faces full of delicious food, we somehow made it to the elevator to get back up to up to our room. All in all, an amazing day without having to leave the hotel!

The lighting produced a red glow over the whole dining area

Our starters and first round of drinks

The next day started with a great lay in, followed by another delicious breakfast in the lounge. Hawaii trip admin was the task of the day once again. We took a short break to have high tea in the lounge before deciding to finally venture out of the hotel. We caught the shuttle bus from the hotel and headed to Dubai Mall. I don't know many malls that have a large bus terminal. The mall was enormous and had just about every store you could think of. There were even sharks in the mall! They had both an aquarium and an ice rink. I'm sure there was more in spots we didn't see. 

Sharks in the mall!

This mall was attached to the fountains that sat in front of the Burj Khalifa, the current world's tallest building. Every half hour, the fountains would light up and there was a water show synced to music, just like the Bellagio in Las Vegas. It drew quite a crowd as people would end up watching two shows just to have a good view for the second one. After watching the show, we made our way back through the maze of people in the mall (very few had actual shopping bags and we did see some tour groups) to catch the shuttle back. Dinner was once again at the lounge (there's a trend), and once finished it was back to the room for a few loose trip items. 

The Burj Khalifa with surrounding water feature

The water show at dusk and then when it was darker

We sadly had to depart the next morning, but not before one last lounge breakfast. As we were packing up, there was a knock on our door. One of the lounge managers and staff had brought down a plate of fruit and a thank you card signed by some of the staff. The service received at this hotel was absolutely amazing. Everyone wanted to know how our stay was, if we enjoyed Dubai, etc. Only a few times did it get annoying as it felt like more of an interruption when we were having conversation. After our thank you card, we caught a cab to the airport to head to Nepal. Dubai airport bills itself as having one of the most sophisticated baggage handling systems in the world. Much to our chagrin, when we went to check in, the counter agent could not check our backpacks in unless they were in a box or wrapped in plastic. The backpack straps apparently did not agree with their amazing system!! After getting our bags wraps, it was smooth sailing and we were off to Dubai.

I've never received a thank you card for staying at a hotel before.

Dubai is such an interesting city. It reminds me much of Las Vegas, though the vices are driven far, far underground. It's an over the top city that doesn't look like it belongs in the landscape. Perhaps that was the point. It's definitely worth a two or three day stopover if you had to transfer there, but I can't see how it's a vacation destination.

- Nick

Cape Town: Part Deux

After saying goodbye to Nina and Charlie (and hoping their car would start), we hopped in our Uber to head off to our next destination. Uber is very popular in Cape Town so it made it very easy to get around. Our new home for the remainder of our time was to be in Bloubergstrand. It turned out that not only were we right on the beach, we were across the street from where we had stopped on our final day of the tour! We were in the 9th floor looking directly out over the water towards Robben Island. We didn't have much time to take in the view as we had to make our way up the beach to get to our first kite surfing lesson. 

View from our apartment. Kite surfers were everywhere! It was very fun to watch.

Cape Town is very well regarded for kite surfing so we thought we'd join the crowd. Our instructor was Olly, a fellow Brit with Essex ties. Our first lesson was all about the kite. Setting up and taking down, how to steer and just getting comfortable with it. We took turns trading off until we were comfortable with it by the end of the lesson. It was very amazing the power you could produce with the kite and there was only one incident of note with Jess, who quickly learned about the power zone as she was suddenly dragged down the beach. Despite that, we were both excited for our next lesson. We stopped at the store on our way home (it was about an hour walk) and had a nice home cooked meal while we watched the kite surfers on the beach below which then turned into a beautiful sunset viewing.

Watch out! We're ready to learn.

One of many beautiful sunsets we caught from our balcony

The adrenaline was flowing the next day. We fixed ourselves a nice breakfast and readied ourselves for day two. Today we would get in the water! We changed into our wet suits and bright neon green shirts that read student. They were less for us and more for other people to know to stay away from the beginners. We practiced more kite control both on land and in the water before beginning to learn body dragging, in which you use your kite to drag your​self through the water. It was trickier than I thought but we both had successful drags before the lesson was done. We were exhausted after the lesson so we had a quick dinner and a chat with Jess' parents and called it a night.

 Friday was the day of us. There was no wind in the forecast so we didn't have a lesson scheduled. Our final one would be the following day. We had an amazing lay in followed by a nice breakfast. With this forecast, it would be a great day for Table mountain. We took an Uber across town to the base of the mountain. We felt guilty about not hiking up and instead taking the cable car, but it actually turned out to be quite a hot day. I was sweating just waiting in the ticket queue!!

A view of Cape Town from the base of the cable car

The cable car station blended in well with the rocks

The cable car was fantastic. People were queuing to try and get prime photo spots only to have the floor revolve so everyone got 360 degree views. The view from the top was spectacular! We saw the quickest way down, which was to abseil down. You could see the small side towns. Since the clouds were low, you could also see out to cape point on one end and up past where we were staying to the north.  After many photos, we took the cable car down and headed into the city. 

Looking down on Cape Town

Beautiful views from the top

Looking down on Camps Bay

Panoramic view of Cape Town

We stopped for drinks at the house of machines, a biker/hipster/music bar we had stopped at on our food tour to judge the quality of their old fashioned. The verdict was delicious!!! The best old fashioned I had tasted since Buenos Aires. After leaving very satisfied, we went around the corner for dinner at IYO Burger and had another great meal. We were gassed by the end of dinner so we headed back to the beach for our earliest night in a while!

Inside the House of Machines

Saturday was our last full day in Cape Town and this was our chance to finally put our newly acquired kite boarding skills all together. The three of us headed an hour up the road (90 min after we got lost) to shark bay (which conveniently contained no sharks) to try and get up on the board. After we got into our wetsuits, set up the kite and got out into the water, there was a puncture in the kite and we lost the wind. While Jess' spirit was deterred, I was still ready to go so we packed back up into the van and went up the road to the public beach in town. The wind was great and there were all sorts of kite surfers (of varying ability) out and about. It was a bit intimidating as I went out for my first few body drags with the board surrounded by those much more competent than I. Eventually I was comfortable enough to try and get up onto the board. Unfortunately the wind had picked up beyond my comfort level and I was fighting waves trying to get the board on my feet while trying to keep my kite stable above my head. I even lost the board at one point and had to body drag to get it back. I moved to shallower water to make the board easier to put on but in the end, I was unsuccessful in achieving a launch. Jess found a renewed spirit and got in some great body drags at the end of the day. You haven't seen the last of us attempting to kite surf. Just look for us in our neon green shirts and run the other way!! 

Getting a feel for the kite and wind

Attempting the start (it didn't work)

Jess takes the kite...

...and heads out for an excellent body drag

After cleaning up, we headed back downtown​ for our final evening. We headed down to the waterfront, an area we hadn't explored yet to meet some of our Nomad family members that were still in town. We had drinks and dinner at Den Anker. I had a glass of Kwak served in its special glass, but due to the popularity of the glass and difficulty replacing it, I had to give up my left shoe which was then suspended in a basket above the bar until I had finished and returned the glass. After dinner we had a night cap at Mitchell's Ale House where more folks met up with us. After saying goodbye for the second time, it was back to rest up for our travel day. 

The next morning it was a short flight from Cape Town to Joburg with a long layover before our flight to Dubai. Two continents down!

We thoroughly enjoyed Cape Town. It was a very cool city with a nice energy and great nature. It was the first place where we felt we hadn't spent enough time, so we'll surely be back at some point!

- Nick

Cape Town - part 1 - with special guest appearance

With hardly any time to catch our breath we moved on to the next chapter of our trip - a week in Cape Town. 

Our friends, Nina and Charlie had coordinated their holiday with our arrival in Cape Town and had flown over from Stockholm. We were sharing a recently renovated Airbnb in downtown Cape Town for the first 3 nights. Conveniently we arrived at the apartment within 30 minutes of each other. Nina and Charlie in their "rentacheapie" (a popular rental company in the Cape Town area) a fairly old VW Gulf. We caught up over the wine, bread and cheese from Fairview before jet lag caught up with Nina and Charlie. 

Nina and me with the "rentacheapie"

Feeling refreshed after a quick nap we headed off to explore Long Street, a road with lots of bars and restaurants, although we were surprised to find quite a few were closed on Sundays. We accidentally ended up in the bar across the road from the rest of our tour group who we observed from afar! Nick was particularly disappointed by his Old Fashioned - look out for further updates on the topic of Old Fashioneds in later posts. 

The next day Nick and I were booked on a tour which we had received as a freebie for booking our overland Nomad tour. We thought that it was a half day tour of Cape Town, but we found out on the Sunday evening it was going to be a full day tour of the Cape Peninsula which included a bike ride and a short hike. After a quick trip to a local cafe for a delicious breakfast sandwich we left Nina and Charlie asleep and headed off on our tour. 

The drive to our first stop, Hout Bay, took us along the coastal road and through Camps Bay, just on the outskirts of Cape Town, with a big sandy beach and array of bars and restaurants it looked like a place worth returning to! Hout Bay (for anyone planning to travel in this area we're told there is a good market with live music on Friday nights) is a small fishing village where we had an optional boat trip out to an island that was advertised as home to lots of seals (but they were actually sealions). Having been on a few boat trips in Patagonia we decided to stay in the harbour, take photos and people watch! 

Views of  Hout Bay

Once the boat was back we piled into the minibus and headed further round the coast along Chapman's Peak drive which had a sheer drop down to the ocean on one side and the other side had a steep rock wall upwards which was prone to rockfalls and had led to the closure of the road on a number of occasions. We stopped at a couple of view points, one along from Hout Bay looking back over the village. The whole city was preparing for the Cape Town bike race at the end of the week - the biggest bike race in the world which is 109k long and goes around the peninsular leading to many road closures. Sadly the race had to be abandoned (for the first time in its history) right at the last minute due to high winds, click here to see just how windy it was!

The coastal road

We continued the drive with our guide giving a summary of every village we passed through, each one had their own distinct character. Our guide also told us about two ecological issues. The first involved a frog whose home and annual breeding location had been intersected by a road. As a result at breeding time nets were put up at the sides of the road to capture the frogs and at night volunteers would check the nets, stop the traffic and help the frogs cross the road. The second issue was the baboons that were terrorising the locals in their hunt for food. The baboons could let themselves into vehicles and houses and had even worked out how to turn round doorknobs. The solution to this issue was to have guards on patrol with paintball guns! When they saw baboons would aim at them and hope the pain from the paintball hit would encourage them to stay further up the hills away from the villages! 

We arrived at the national park which covers the area around Cape Point. At the first opportunity we jumped on to bikes (we had been driving around with a trailer attached to the minibus). Fortunately for us (neither of us are big cyclists) the ride was only around 10km and the first part was quiet flat with views of the sea ahead of us. We stopped about half way for a picnic lunch at a visitor's centre and then jumped back on the bikes feeling refuelled. Apart from a small up hill part most of this route was downhill (and quite steep) so we just pointed the bikes towards the beach and down we rolled. At the end of the hill we encountered our first baboons who were busy investigating some parked vehicles. We found more baboons and wild ostriches on the beach (not your normal seaside wildlife). We saw one baboon spy a picnicking couple and run at least 50 metres to their picnic blanket and went right for their picnic basket. The couple had to just watch as the baboon went through its contents, reject their taste in food and then move on. I briefly dipped my feet into the ocean (the Atlantic) and it was as cold as i expected, but I didn't linger too long.

Rolling down the hill

the beach at the bottom of the hill

Wildlife on the beach

We then drove along the coast to the Cape of Good Hope (which had originally been called the Cape of Misfortune, but in the 18th century the Portugese king, an early marketing guru, decided to rename it so that his sailors wouldn't be discouraged from going there). It is the most south westerly point in Africa and there was a long queue of people waiting to have their photo taken with the sign.  

Then we were driven to what is the main attraction of the national park - Cape Point and its lighthouse. Cape Point is where it is said the Atlantic Ocean and the Indian Ocean meet. When looking out from the point (we hiked up in the blazing sun rather than take the funicular railway) you can see a constant line of foam which one could imagine was created by two oceans of different temperatures meeting, however, our guide explained that it had subsequently been decided that the coming together of the oceans actually occurs further to the east. 

Cape Point 

Where two oceans meet?

Our final stop on the tour was another small coastal town called Simonstown, which has the feel of a quaint English seaside town. We were there to visit more penguins! These Cape Penguins are in the same family as the penguins we had seen in South America. They are also know as (unfortunately for them) Jackass penguins, due to the donkey like noise they make. Unlike their South American relatives they spend their time sunbathing on the sand in a purpose built home (before the home was built residents would find penguins and tourists in their gardens and it was felt it would be better to keep them all in one place!). We also spotted several dassies, a marmot like creature that tries to steal Penguin eggs. We didn't take quite as many photos this time and had time to purchase an artisanal ice cream on our way back to the bus. 

More penguins!

A dassie

It was a whistle stop tour of the Cape, but it was a great way to see a lot of places that we otherwise wouldn't have seen if we had just stayed in Cape Town and we would happily go back and explore this area further.

We got home to discover that Nina and Charlie had been busy! They had purchased important supplies such as gin and tonic and booked a table at a restaurant called Fork for dinner. The restaurant specialised in small plates with each plate having four fork sized pieces. The dishes were all delicious! I particularly enjoyed the ostrich filet, pan seared tuna, mini kudu filets and roasted broccoli and cauliflower. We enjoyed the food so much that having ordered a dish each we had to have a second round and found room for dessert (we were so busy eating we didn't have time to take photos).

The next day we were back on our favourite topic - food! We had booked a food tour of Cape Town to allow us to explore the city and to try some new foods. Our energetic guide, Anine, collected us from the apartment - we had been pre-warned that we should be hungry. Our first stop was Bree Street, a road off the main tourist drag that had developed a hipster vibe with many niche restaurants. Bacon on Bree is a shop that specialised in bacon and related bacon products and provided a bacon sandwich which still makes us sigh when we think about it! The bacon was delicious and crisp with just the right proportion of bread, tomato, lettuce and bacon mayo. 

Bacon on Bree

We then moved next door to Culture Club for a quick cheese tasting. Like Bacon on Bree this was a shop that doubled up as a cafe/bar. There was an enormous range of cheeses (and a good selection of craft beers), some influenced by the British roots of one of the owners. One of the cheeses we tasted was made by an old cheese maker who only made small batches and had sadly died the previous month.  the cheese would soon be extinct as it was from her last batch as the skill hadn't been passed to the next generation.

Culture Club Cheese

We jumped back in the car (the rest of the tour would be by foot) and headed to BoKaap, an area of the city that had a lot of Malaysian influences and many brightly painted houses. The house colours seemed to have started by accident and then continued as no one wanted to be outdone by their neighbours. Now bus loads of tourists arrive each day to view the houses. We visited a spice warehouse with every spice you could think of in packets large and small. Nina and Charlie were quick to buy two different types of salt as they like to over salt everything they cook (I'm just saying this to see whether they read the post!). We bought some BBQ seasoning which we would end up using later in the week. We also sampled some mebos - apricot pulp turned into sweets/candies - and a similar bag of sweets made from other random fruits.

the colourful houses of Bokaap

After a brief, much to Nina's disappointment, stop in Bo-op a shop that had areas for up and coming designers to display and sell their wares, we headed across the road to a grandmother who sets up a small stall each day on the side of the road selling, for just a few Rand each (less than 50c/50p) doughnuts, Cape Malay biscuits and samosas. She gets up every day at 5am to make the fresh produce and has a strong following in the neighbourhood. We were lucky to get the last samosa at around 11am. 

A local entrepreneur

It was now time for a visit to a community project called Streetwires. Around the Cape area we saw lots of art work made from wire and threaded with coloured beads. Streetwires was set up to provide better employment conditions for the people who make these items. We had a tour of the studio where they make everything from small pieces of jewellery to life size animal heads (some of which take months to make). Nina and Charlie had a go at threading the beads on the wire and found it was harder than it looked! There was then time to head to the shop and make purchases based on the space we each had in our luggage. 

A sample of the bigger wire and bead projects

Our next stop was closer to the main downtown area and was a trio of businesses in one location - a butcher, a wine bar and a restaurant that specialised in food cooked on charcoal (a great combination). We were just calling in ahead of the lunchtime rush to buy biltong from Frankie Fenner meat merchant (the butcher of the trio). Until now, my image of biltong had been dry, salty, chewy pieces of beef loved by South Africans and only eaten by others when desperate! However, this biltong was life changing! It was a bag of tender, slightly salty, moorish, medium rare beef pieces that almost melted in the mouth. Delicious!

A trio of complementary businesses

We continued our walk through the downtown area with Anine pointing out bars, restaurants and places of interest along the way. One of these was a proper barbers shop that offered hot towel shaves, beard trimming (have you seen the recent pictures of Nick's beard?!) accompanied by a brandy or whiskey (both Nick and Charlie made mutterings of needing to visit a barber but this did not come to fruition) and another was House of Machines which was a combined coffee shop, bar, music venue and motor bike repair shop (Nick did make it back to this one). 

The sign says it all!

There was then time for a quick shopping stop at the African craft market (it does what it says on the tin) in one of the main market squares before we headed to an area rarely frequented by tourists - the market on top of the train station and next to the combi van station. This was where Africans from other countries went to buy home cooked food. We visited a small unit which was run by a man with quite a history of cooking having worked at several large institutions in Cape Town but now was delighted to have his own restaurant where he proudly served traditional South African food - we had a large plate with pap, spinach and cabbage, semp and beans, meat stew and chakalaka (we had a detailed explanation of each dish). It was quite similar to the traditional meal we'd had on Whitney. An enormous plate of food was only 30 Rand (around £2/$2). Next door was a similar stand selling Nigerian food and further down was an Ethiopian stand. 

A traditional South African lunch

We walked out of the market and back into the main downtown, passed the town hall and library. We stopped at a bar/cafe called Haas which was an old warehouse with high ceilings that was quirkily decorated and doubled up as a sale and display area for upcoming artists (whilst the owner ran a marketing company from the upper floors). This was a drink stop for us with Nina, Charlie and Nick sampling local beers whilst I tried a refreshing local cider.

Haas - the grey building

Just what the doctor ordered!

We continued up the road and round the corner to Charley's bakery. A large detached building decorated in pastel icing colours. The smell of sugar hit you as you walked in and there were large decorated cakes and brightly coloured biscuits everywhere. On the wall there was a detailed explanation of the love story that led to the opening of the bakery which is now run by the next generation. We each had a delicious slice of cake and reluctantly offered each other a bite! My hummingbird cake was delicious!

Sugar and spice and all things nice!

By this time we were in the same neighbourhood as our apartment. We had one more tasting stop left but before that Anine showed us (all in the space of one street) Kamili Coffee (artisanal coffee is v popular in Cape Town, Starbucks is not!) where they have a roaster on the top floor which is used to roast the coffee before distributed to their coffee shops or sold to restaurants; a bagel shop; the best rib place in town and a good ramen restaurant.

Kamili coffee's small roaster

Our final stop was Truth, a coffee shop round the corner from our apartment that didn't look anything special from the outside. However, on the inside it was a steam punk themed coffee shop with a giant, German, 1920s coffee roaster in the middle (the owner purchased the building on the basis the roaster would fit inside) which generated steam, noise and heat as it roasted. As a non-coffee drinker I was impressed by the jasmine tea which arrived in its own teapot with a candle underneath to keep it warm. The coffee drinkers had a surprisingly tasty espresso shot blended with orange and milk and served in a martini glass. 

Steam punk coffee and a giant roaster

We get the message!

It was at this point that we parted ways with Anine, who had been a fantastic guide. During one of the stops we took the opportunity to quiz her on which restaurants were best for types of food we hadn't sampled along the tour. Her broad local knowledge set us up for the rest of our time in Cape Town! Throughout the day she also talked proudly about her city (picking up rubbish as she went) and introduced us to the many people she knew along the way. She talked about a number of community initiatives put in place by the town and community groups to support the people of the town. By the end of the day I felt we had really started to get under the skin of Cape Town, its people, its history and its current trends. 

After a nap and a gin and tonic we were all surprised to find we still had room to eat a bit more! Anine had highly recommended the Italian restaurant at the end of our road, which we had walked by several times and not paid much attention to, and we headed of their to almost complete our culinary experiences of Cape Town (the grand finale was a cooked breakfast cooked by Charlie and a fruit salad made by Nick the next morning). 

The time with Charlie and Nina flew by too quickly and come Wednesday morning it was time to go our separate ways. 

- Jess