last weekend in south africa

For our last weekend in South Africa we made the trek again to Cape Town. After picking up our 10 person van (thank you S. for doing such an awesome job driving us around, even if you did feel like you were the bus driver from the retirement home because we wouldn’t sing and dance enough in the back) we headed to the coastal town of Hermanus. We arrived in time for a late dinner and after some wine we all headed to bed.

Our reason for going to Hermanus was for the whale watching. The hotel booked us a 2 hour tour for noon so I loaded the Wife and Marco with Dramamine and we headed to the dock after breakfast. I, personally, don’t get seasick. Even though I suffer from motion sickness in the car if I read or sit in the back I’ve only suffered severe nausea.

As we started out on the boat I was concerned Julie was going to feel bad. I kept telling her to focus on the horizon and not to think about feeling sick. Apparently she had nothing to worry about and I on the other hand had everything to worry about. After 20 minutes I decided I felt a little off and took a Dramamine but shortly after that I knew I was a goner. I won’t go into gory details but I had to quickly head to the bottom of the boat and that is where I stayed for the remainder of the ride praying that somehow the sea would become still or a nice helicopter would drop out of the sky to rescue me.

As I was in the rear and lower deck of the boat I didn’t see as much as the others. I did see whales but focusing on them was a bit much for me. Really I should force the Wife into writing about the experience because they all had a wonderful time. I, on the other hand, was praying to God to get me off the boat before I died or just to go ahead and put me out of my misery.

We did run into a school of about 1500 dolphins though and the incredibleness that was this experience gave me the only relief I had for the 3 ½ hours I endured on the boat. We were completely surrounded by these playful creatures as they raced the boat and showed off their jumping skills. It really was mind-blowing.





They saw a lot of whales up top which is why the guide kept us out for an additional hour and a half. Again, Julie should write about it but since you know she won’t you should check out the slideshow. She took some unbelievable shots. I may relinquish the camera duties to her from now on.



After getting back we hung around until some of us got our land-legs….or stomachs for that matter and headed into the little town. We shopped at the little craft market and then had an early dinner. I was still a little green around the gills so when we headed back to the hotel I was done for the night.

We had a late breakfast Sunday morning and then spent the day stopping at various beaches on our way back to Cape Town. The coast in South Africa is really gorgeous.






Our mission for the day was to go up Table Mountain. On all previous trips the mountain was covered in clouds so we were all really happy to have a perfectly sunny day to take in the views.





Outside of the outrageous seasickness on Saturday I enjoyed the weekend a great deal. I’m glad everyone else enjoyed it even more and I think it was a pretty awesome weekend to close on. I will definitely miss everyone as we scatter to the winds this Friday.

I’m planning a “wrapping it up” entry for South Africa…hopefully I’ll get to it before we leave for Argentina.