Day 13, Cape Town- Rudo from Zimbabwe came this morning to do some cleaning up. She works for Christiaan and Trevor the owners and hosts of our apartment.  They have encouraged us to use her services. Although they pay her wages, we leave a tip to supplement her income.  There is a concerted effort to create work for people wherever possible. For instance, almost every block in the city has a parking marshal. The marshal’s collect the parking fees and watch the cars. There are no parking meters.

We were walking down to quiz the car rental places on rates, drop off fees, etc. when we saw the delivery truck above, stopped for a red light.  We both got a big smile out of “Cool Bananas, Vegologists” and “Driving like a monkey, contact 083444….”. The locals are always referring to Veg, as in vegetables.  We had a very interesting conversation with PJ, the executive chef/owner (?) of Euro Haus, our favorite neighborhood restaurant. He hand harvests organic veg or buys them at the waterfront farm vendors. He makes his own duck prosciutto, which is out of this world and was happy to fill us in on the local food scene and where to get the best deals on most anything. He also let us know that Cape Town has a First Thursday when restaurants and art galleries stay open late.

We reserved a car today for the second half of our trip, we will be traveling along the Garden route (southern, coastal) to Durban on the east coast, then up to Kruger National Park (over 6 million acres) for a photo safari. We also reserved it for the end of next week to drive down the Peninsula to the southern most tip of Africa, the Cape of Good Hope, and up into Wine Country, a whole 20 minutes out of Cape Town.

Unfortunately tomorrow is the dentist. We’re not sure how we are going to feel after that. So with that in mind, I thought I’d cheer myself up. It was 95 F today when we hoofed it down to the flower market to pick up some blooms.  The flower market has been run by Malay, Muslim women for 150 years.

We went out this evening to the Labia theater named after Princess Ida Labia. She founded the theater in 1949 for live performances. Her husband Count Natale Labia, founded the South African National Gallery. The theater is now a indie movie house and we very much enjoyed seeing “The Dressmaker”.  A very tragic, and laugh out loud, funny movie. A rare combination…

Last, when we got home this evening there was a baritone opera singer cutting loose below our balcony. A most satisfactory day!