J.H.B., New York, NY
“Had a wonderful time in S.A. The trip is awful, and if going from the U.S. the fastest way is via SAA, stopping for an hour to refuel in Dakar, Senegal for an hour where you don’t leave the plane, and going to Joberg. Delta also does this from Atlanta (Some 85% of European/US/Asian land there). The problem is that you then transfer to Cape Town if you go there first. Which is kind of a pain. Or you can fly to selected European places, usually requiring an extra day or overnight stay, and fly direct from there to Cape Town, i.e. Amsterdam or the U.K.. All safari flights are from Joberg, so that is a different story. Contrary to rumors, we never had luggage looting and were told that is a most rare occurrence.
Cape Town is superb, there are three great hotels: Cape Grace (brand new, luxurious, at the vital, shop-restaurant infested harbor); Ellerman House (older, smaller, fashionable, looking over the sea but a bit outside of town and somewhat facility limited—i.e. no Sunday lunch); and the Mount Nelson (under Table Mountain, in town, but big gardens, full-service, colonial, huge). We stayed at the first and last, but visited the third, and would strongly recommend the Mount Nelson. Taxis are plentiful and unbelievably cheap—make Paris for the former and London for the latter shameful.
The museums are interesting (Gold, Machis) and the national botanical garden wonderful and very well done – reverse side of Table Mt. fifteen minutes out. The people are friendly and the food and atmosphere terrific. Our two favorite restaurants were Aubergene, near the Mount Nelson, and Beluga, in an alley with lots of young. But the Showroom in the Mercedes sales barn had very good food. Even in the very best restaurants with the best wine and tips, you will never spend near $200 and can spend a lot less.
An hour north of Cape Town is the wine country and a charming, very upscale Huguenot valley where there are two superb hotels, Le Quartier Francais and Montcalmer (spelling?), the latter with a wonderful view over the valley, and the former with beautiful rooms around little pools right in town. There are many world-class shops and things to do. The wineries are many and some of the wines very good (Waterford whites). If you go out past the airport, you pass two of the huge settlements outside of Cape Town, which are well worth driving past, and the mountain scenery as with all that part of the country is superb.
An hour South of Cape Town is the tip of Africa, Cape Point, where the Atlantic meets the Indian Ocean, and the drive there through multiple ecosystems is both beautiful and unusual. Coming back, a stop on the East side of the Cape’s mountains is the Boulders, where there is the penguin reserve—which is a must to see. The penguins there don’t march, just live there year round, and it is fabulous and you have to come away smiling. For this part of the trip, I would take four or five days. A day in the North, and probably three in Cape Town—one of which would be spent in the South.
Back to Joberg for the safari camps, up the East Coast. Regular, substantial (twenty passenger) Federal Air planes fly to the various camps from a special terminal in the main airport—making the transfer easy for incoming or outgoing international travelers. Our experience was with Singita, with one of the largest surrounding properties and three camps, Ebony (oldest and most traditional) Boulders (more swish and modern) and Castleton (smallest and for private groups).All are well-done and travel through the property is in large, four decker, six tourist jeeps with a tracker and a ranger. Tours are at 5:30 in the morning and 4:00 in the afternoon. You go to find the game, and the trackers actually follow things like lions, leopards, and cheetahs on foot with rifles. We had the good luck only four drives (two days) to see every single African animal—although after tracking the leopard for thirty-five minutes we saw his back leaving the boundary of the park and couldn’t follow him. Accommodations are modern and superb—every house at Ebony had its own pool for example, and if you let them the monkeys would come right into your room. The hotels are located near water holes so animals are visible from the lodge.
In summary, S.A. despite being a long way to go is a trip to take, enjoy, and remember. It is cheap, English-speaking, friendly, remarkably sophisticated, visually splendid (the clouds coming over Table Mountain are a real sight), and we never, ever saw or felt threatened by crime or had a power outage.”
