After visiting Cape Town, which felt a little like the grand finale of our South African trip, we decided it was time to head north to Namibia, and learn what all the fuss was about.  We had been forewarned that a vehicle was essential to exploration, and yet not worth the hassle unless it was a 4×4. We had been eyeing several camper trucks with envy during our road trip across the tip of Africa, and Dan had managed to convince me that the next part of our journey MUST be experienced as a camping expedition. Unfortunately, we committed to our plans too late to secure our dream vehicle, the Ford Ranger Luxury Safari Camper, so we settled for the next best option, a Toyota Hilux dual cab with two pop-up roof tents. Our truck came kitted out with a mini fridge, one water and two gas tanks, mattresses, pillows, sleeping bags and blankets, a table and 4 folding chairs, and all the cooking supplies required for cooking and eating on the road.  We rented our trusty truck for 26 days, at the total per diem cost of roughly $90, including car insurance.

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Although taking time away from lovely Cape Town is never easy, there are a wealth of nearby places to visit as either full-day side trips or overnight excursions.  We stole three days from city exploration, in order to see the outer sites that most appealed to us. On top of the children’s list was some beach romping at Boulders Beach with a community of penguins, while Dan wanted to hike the Southern Cape peninsula and sleep in a National Park cabin, and I wanted to sample the best of South African wine in the nearby vineyards.

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Whenever we talk travel with other backpackers, vagabonds, journeymen, jet-setters, and fellow nomads, someone inevitably wants to know what your favorite place is. This is an impossible-to-answer question, but we can usually manage to provide a list of best memories or a “top 10” of most beautiful cities (in our own humble opinion). Time after time, Cape Town was almost always featured on this lofty list.  Wild African animals aside, this was the city that had brought us to South Africa, and made the epic journey to get here all the more of a “holy grail” trek. With tempered expectations, because we REALLY wanted to love this city, we circled North around Table Mountain and entered Cape Town with the Atlantic Ocean on our right, and the sun sparkling on its waters and glittering in high-rise windows. Did it live up to our expectations?  Yes, Cape town is all that.

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Sometimes our travel routes are determined purely by how much time we have to get between point A & B. With only two nights and three days before our arrival in Capetown, predetermined by Dan’s birthday and a reunion with our friend, Gavin, we crushed our days full of long drives along scenic roads with the occasional stop. We could have opted for more direct highways, but since they were lacking in tourist interest, and we had just enough time to kill, we chose to zig-zag instead.

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