Heading to South Africa

Heading to South Africa

Cape Town, South Africa, Africa
Ashanti Lodge Gardens

We started our trip with a ridiculous travel day. We got up at 3:30am to get a taxi at 4am, to get to the airport by 4:30am, for a 6am flight to Amsterdam. The initial flight was fine, but the second flight from Amsterdam to Cape Town was beautiful. It was a brand new Boeing 787 and the amenities onboard were great. Each seat had a big touch screen on the back of the chair full of hundreds of movies, TV shows, and games, there was a USB and AC socket to charge your stuff, and the windows didn’t have shades, but tinted electronically! I loved it!

I watched three movies and the time just flew by. We got into Cape Town airport at about 9pm, breezed through immigration and customs, and there was a taxi driver waiting for us when we got out. The driver could barely find his car in the garage, so I was a bit worried about him finding our hotel, but he managed just fine.

We were surprised at how unsafe it feels when we were driving in to the city. There are high walls and electric fences around every house and building we passed, and then our hostel had a guard standing inside their gate, so it’s not the most comfortable feeling place. The receptionist at the hotel had to walk us to our guesthouse, which is around the corner from the main hostel. The sidewalk was pitch black, the guy didn’t have a flashlight, and this made it really easy for Melissa to trip on a pothole and fall right on her knee. Not a great start to the holiday.

I am pretty impressed with the guesthouse. Compared to the hostel, this is really nice, and I’m glad I didn’t book a room at the hostel. We’re staying in an old Dutch colonial house, and the room is nice and big. The only weird thing about it is that the bathroom doesn’t have a door. It’s just open right to the bedroom. I’m not a fan of that, but it’s not the end of the world. We’re going to try to get a good night sleep tonight so we can start off the trip the right way tomorrow. Hopefully it feels a bit safer in the daylight…

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