Our weekend in Cape Town was a welcome retreat from the working pace in Port Elizabeth. We celebrated David’s birthday with champagne and cake and had dinner at the home of Sonja, someone Aleen (David’s daughter) met on a previous visit here. She prepared a beautiful meal and we shared it with some of Sonja’s friends.
We stayed in luxury at the Westin Cape Town. Our room overlooked Table Mountain and the Sea and no amenity was lacking. We even had heated tiles on the bathroom floor.
In our rented car, we spent Sunday driving down the coast to Cape Point where the Indian and Atlantic Oceans meet stopping to see the penguins in Simon’s Town and marveling at the absolutely breathtaking scenery. Hugging the road, David successfully swerved around many hundreds of bicycle riders training for a long distance ride.
On Monday before returning to PE, we took a boat to Robben Island, visited Nelson Mandela’s prison cell and continued to learn more about the horrors of apartheid.
On a lighter note, on a hotel shuttle we encountered some travelers from Turkey who spoke no English. With David’s inimitable talking addiction, he began communicating with them by naming every place in Turkey he could remember. “Istanbul, Ankara, …” You get the picture. With each name, they laughed and applauded. One large woman was especially enthusiastic and vibrant. After running out of city names, David suddenly remembered another Turkish word: “karpoozee” and said it loudly to great applause. I then learned that karpoozee means “watermelon” and said quietly to David “That lady has “nice karpoozees” and burst into uncontrollable laughter”. Everyone in the shuttle continued to laugh hysterically and fortunately didn’t hear my comment.
NICE KARPOOZEES!
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