Saturday, February 6
Many of the buildings in Cape Town have murals painted on them. I particularly liked this one.
Today was a big day. Today we went up Table Mountain. Purchasing tickets online ended up being an adventure (apparently the line can get quite long to buy them there). I added three adults (I thought it said 4) and one kid. Realizing my mistake, I went back and added the correct number: 4 adults and 1 kid. All of a sudden, the total was 7 adults and 2 kids. After several frustrating minutes, realizing you couldn’t delete tickets, signing out and signing back in, we had our tickets (the proper number) secured!
Clouds over the bay and one rolling in from the left.
A picture with Grandma Malcolm. He wouldn't smile, but would make the weird puckering face.
The ride into Cape Town was nice and we were hoping for good weather. It has not been uncommon to see Table Mountain under a cloud and we didn’t want to have bought tickets (read: gone through all of the hassle of buying tickets) and have to skip going up. Thankfully, we picked a perfect day! There were clouds, but they were hovering over other mountains and over the bay. It was quite picturesque.
No fear, this one (not even fear of losing his hat).
Riding up, we held our breath a few times as large tour buses drove quickly past going the opposite direction. After Brian and Roger dropped us off, I decided to take a video of a cloud rolling out between two mountains. Tisetso decided to be in the video. After attempting to take the video again, I gave up. After meeting up with Roger and Brian, we joined the line to get in the cable car. We waited for about 30 or so minutes.
Once in the car, we headed up. It was great because the floor of the cable car turns a full 360° during the ride up and down. It afforded everyone a good view of the ride. Unfortunately for me, Tisetso wanted to be held. I had been separated from Brian through the boarding, so Tisetso and I tried to manage on the opposite side of the cable car. At one point, my bag fell over spreading its contents everywhere while Tisetso made his discontent at being put down made known. I’m pretty sure I exited the cable car looking quite frazzled. It was a rough ride up. Thankfully, it was worth it!
The views were astonishing! We loved every minute of being up there. After looking around for a few minutes, Tisetso asked to get lunch. We went to the cafe and, sadly, found out they didn’t have any food he was interested in. After a meltdown in the cafe area, I had Brian take Tisetso out to the seating area. I could tell our little guy was overstimulated from the crowded room, the high altitude, and was feeling stressed.
I managed to get us pizza slices, orange slices, carbonated juice (their Coke machine was broken, God help me), a Table Mountain cookie, and potato chips. Thankfully everything seemed to be satisfactory. After a couple of spills, a few birds begging for food, and figuring out that dassies are cute animals we are not allowed to feed (signs were everywhere), we resumed our exploring of the top of the mountain.
My Table Mountain cookie.
I miss home.
Tisetso enjoyed climbing the rocks. He loved running ahead then waving down to Grandpa Malcolm and Brian. We even saw a snake at one point! It was the only wildlife we saw aside from birds. Tisetso went over and grabbed Brian around the waist. I (stupidly) thought he was hugging him. Tisetso announced that he was trying to toss Daddy over to the snake. (Brian does not like snakes.) *sigh*
Our little mountain climber.
One special moment we had was Tisetso actually took pictures with me. It is rare for him to let us take photos of him/with him. It has to be on his terms and he usually has to be bribed (we’re keeping the bribing to a minimum as we don't want him expecting them). I asked to take a picture with him. When he said no, I tried a little reverse psychology. I took a self and made it look like the best thing ever. Before I knew it, my little man had barged in and was smiling away. It was really wonderful.
Be still my heart.
I love this kid.
After deciding it was time to head back, we stopped at the gift shop. We saw a mailbox and decided we should mail postcards back to ourselves. Tisetso picked out a postcard and I grabbed one, too. We wrote/drew on our cards, then Tisetso put them in the mailbox. After that, we were ready to head down.
On our ride down.
Another cool mural we saw a couple of times before I managed to get this picture.
Thankfully, the ride down was less eventful. We all got into the car and decided it had been a full enough day. We headed home. After arriving, Roger, Merry Ann, and Brian took naps while Tisetso and I relaxed by watching some cartoons and playing Legos. Tisetso decided he wanted pizza for supper, so we piled into the car again and drove up the road to Romans Pizza. Romans has a pizza deal which ends up being two large pizzas for $5. The pizza is the best fast pizza we’ve found here. We ordered four pizzas and tried to order one Coke Zero and three waters. We ended up with three Coke Zeros and zero waters. After trying to rectify the situation, we walked away with three Coke Zeros and three waters. Thankfully, our pizzas were perfect and delicious.
With pizza consumed, we walked down the street to a frozen yogurt place and grabbed some dessert. The chocolate I got tasted really, really fruity. It was weird. Tisetso only wanted gummy toppings, which we found out after when he didn’t touch anything but the gummies. When we were done, we headed back to the flat.
After a really stressful day, we decided to put Tisetso to bed pretty much right away after getting back. We were expecting a struggle (he did just have sugar), but after jumping it off, he listened to his story and then, he even let us hug and kiss him again. It was good to have the hug after a rough day (the freak outs on top of the mountain and at the bottom, etc).