We manage a decent night’s sleep and then have our book the cook breakfast!  Ed got the Lobster Thermador!  Hey – no way we could have eaten last night, but for breakfast? Ok – game on.  And it was delicious!  I had the pumpkin buckwheat pancake which was very good as well – but oh so totally filling! 

The layover in Johannesburg allows us time to stretch and move around a bit. About 70% of the passengers deplaned here – leaving us with virtually no one in our cabin. We all hang out while the cleaning crew arrives, have our passports checked and then we are off again for a quick flight to Cape Town.  And since the cabin is virtually empty, I got to hop into the window seat for pictures as we land. Perfect.

On the ground, passport control is once again a breeze.  So fast and easy.  Our luggage comes out really quickly and we are out into the arrivals area to meet our driver, Kingston, in a flash. So fast in fact, Kingston is amazed!  We chat with Kingston all the way into the CBD and the Urban Elephant on Bree apartment.  Checking in here, we have our pictures taken for facial recognition – this is how we get in and out of the apartment building.  There is a little confusion about getting into the apartment as the manager is supposed to meet us, but the guard calls him, and they come over after about 5 minutes to show us around this cute little 24^th floor abode.  It’s an adorable place – and it looks brand new – with a fantastic balcony overlooking Signal Hill and the harbor.  A great place to hang for our few days here.

Bags dropped and organized, we walk over to the Spar for supplies and beer and wine.  Since it’s getting close to lunch time, we decide to just buy some sandwiches at Spar for lunch in before heading to the HoHo bus for the afternoon.  This way we won’t have to try to hassle with finding someplace at one of the stops on the bus.

It is a gorgeous day here, cool and windy, with sunny blue skies, but also lots of low lying clouds around the mountains.  Great for pictures, not so great for going up to Table Mountain.  We aren’t planning to do anything though, besides ride the Red line route, just for something to do this afternoon.  We walk over to the main office, get our tickets and hop on the next bus, sitting upstairs just underneath the canopy for some sun and wind protection.  Then we just sit back and watch the scenery go by.  A perfect day to just hang out, relax and watch the sites go by.

We drive through the CBD, then around and up to Table Mountain.  Breathtaking views.  That mountain is just captivating.

The Table Mountain stop is a long one, which gives us time to snap some photos down into the valley and the harbor.  And as we leave, Lion’s Head and Signal Hill.  Just a lovely day and a great way to spend our first afternoon here.

And good call on lunch at home!  Originally, I had thought we might want to hop off at Camp’s Bay for lunch. Oh no.  Thank heavens we changed our mind on that one.  That place was a crowded, expensive, touristic mess!  Think South Beach at its peak.  Yeah. We’re staying on this bus – not fighting our way through the crowds for an overpriced meal at some trendy place!

Completing the circuit, we hop off at the Aquarium and then take the included canal boat ride. We’ve not done this before and quite frankly are amazed at all the canals and the buildings around them. This is another high dollar district, with a huge hotel and lots of condos and apartments that celebrities own.  It is beautiful though, and quite fun to do something a little different here for a change. And as a bonus, we see 2 Egyptian geese along our route.   

After the ride, we head back toward V&A, passing the harbor cruise dock where there are a mass of seals basking in the sunshine. Well, not all are basking, some are fighting!  Which makes for a great show!

It is still early – only about 3pm – so we decide to go to the Zeitz MOCAA, the Zeitz Museum of Contemporary Art Africa.  We have walked past this place innumerous times and never once thought of stopping.  Duh!  What a find.  The museum is housed in a century old repurposed silo with an amazing history all its own. The first 6 floors are art exhibits, dedicated to preserving contemporary art from Africa, on the ground floor is an entire exhibit on the history of the building and the floors from 7 upward above were added on as a hotel, which make for great optics.  We start on the top floor, stopping at the café for a cappuccino with the best view.  A nice little stop to get us caffeinated up for the rest of the afternoon.

Down on the next floor, we start exploring with an exhibition by Tuan Andrew Nguyen – a combination of film and sculpture that focuses on the issues and challenges presented by colonization and war.  The first film is about a woman whose father is a Moroccan who was in Vietnam during the war, wedded a Viet woman and had a daughter. He then died and she is left with the legacy of being half Vietnamese.  The title is “Because No One Living Will Listen.  Moving and poignant – and the film composition is nothing short of incredible.  Split screens with the same audio (and translation in English) but showing 2 different views of the commentary. 

There are more films about children who are fathered by soldiers and an exhibit of old photographs showing mixed families – Vietnamese and Sengalese families formed when the Senegalese were conscripted into the war to fight for the French.  That war.  It is just too awful to even comprehend the legacies it left behind.  Most of which are not in any way positive. He also has these interestingly bizarre sculptures, a Buddha and a mobile made from armaments. 

Another exhibit has these weird little receipt printers that print out automated messages on some algorithm that are meant to be hypothetical conversations between Steven Biko, the late Black Consciousness thinker and Winnie Mandela. 

There is a great collection called Selections – which is basically a smattering of different artists pulled from the MOCAA Permanent Collection.  Works focus on LGBTQ+ issues, some great representations of apartheid or at least Black repression – I’m particularly drawn to the Criminal Laws on Homosexuality Identity in African Nations – all written out in tiny cursive.  There is a bizarre cow tail sculpture hung from the ceiling, a very appealing tree sculpture/painting combination and maybe most bizarre of all – a snake sculpture made entirely out of acrylic fingernails!  I kept looking at it, thinking, nah, that can’t be fingernails – and then when I went to look at the description I just guffawed.  There was a museum guard right there and he just laughed and laughed at my reaction.  Shaking his head in agreement the whole time.  Too funny.

There were odd paintings of what appeared to be dead people, ceramic corn cobs in a nod to the original use of the building and an amazing collection of bizarre pseudo-glasses.  Described as a “new way of seeing and acknowledging the hidden potential of things.”

There was a great big mobile type ceiling hanging, almost like a curtain of beer bottles – right up Ed’s alley, and a whole bunch of posters that we could take for free.  Great concept – we have no use for them, but it was a sweet idea.

To reach each floor of exhibits, we walked down this awesome wrought iron spiral staircase, with views out into the center of the silo.  The building itself was one of the best features of the museum!  At the end of the art exhibits we can go into the basement of the building and walk through the tunnels of the old silo. Even here though there is art, a nice exhibition of local children’s artwork, placed and hung strategically through the tunnels.

Before we leave, we wander through the building architecture and history exhibit which details how the building started in 1924 as a grain silo and continued in use through 1980 when government subsidies ran out and Cape Town was no longer a viable grain port.  In 1987, the silo was leased to a co-op that operated the facility until 1995.  It stood abandoned for 20 years before construction began on the museum.  It took over a year and 3 million person-hours to cut through the concrete tubes of the silos to form the new atrium and gallery spaces.  3 years later the museum opened – with a goal to collect, preserve, research and exhibit contemporary art from Africa and its diaspora.  Totally great way to spend a few hours in Cape Town.

We stayed until almost closing time, which meant it was close to dinner time now.  We decided to just stay at V&A and find some place to eat.  Bypassing Kapstad Brewery where we often frequent, we wandered around a bit, but then settled on the Cape Town Fish Market, on the ground floor below Kapstad.  They had a special on Hake and Calamari that caught our eye, so we grabbed a nice table outside on the patio and dug into a fantastic meal of the aforementioned hake (massive portion) and calamari (most tender calamari we have ever had!) and a huge piece of sauteed kingclip with onion rings.  Fantastic!  Not to mention excellent wine pours and great beer.  Sitting in the sunshine on the patio by the water.  Nothing much better than that.

On the way back to the apartment, we wandered through the rhino statues on the canal side. 

A nice brisk walk back to the Urban Elephant and we were in for the night – watching Netflix and snacking on KFC flavored potato chips!  Kind of did taste KFC-ish!  Finally collapsing into the wonderfully soft and comfy bed for a well needed deep undisturbed sleep.