Drinking a latte in Cape Town

Drinking a latte in Cape Town

Nothing like a tour cyclist sorting gear to make a mess in a room!

Here I am now, on the road again! Just arrived in Cape Town, South Africa yesterday morning. I left the snow storms and cold weather behind and now find myself enjoying a latte in a really beautiful cafe just across the road from where I am staying near Cape Town.
So far all I can say is that it is absolutely amazing. I heard that South African hospitality is great, but this is almost unprecedented. I am staying with Warmshowers hosts (Warmshowers is an international network of cyclists that host other cyclist for a day or a few days) that are incredible. They picked me up at the airport yesterday morning, gave me a really great tour of part of the peninsula. I saw hundreds of cyclists, riding the beautiful coastal roads, saw Table Top Mountain and other peaks, beaches, etc. It was a great day to arrive as it was Human Rights Day (a public holiday) so the traffic was light.
John and his wife have a lovely property with room for 75 people. I have my own room and bathroom, and there is a communal kitchen but I haven’t had a chance to use it yet. After I had a nap to recover from the flights (and I won’t even mention the great day I had in London as well, and the 5-story bookstore that I visited!), I met William, an Irish cyclist who has been cycling all around the world and is “on his way back to Europe”. William and I chatted while I got my bike ready and then he prepared breakfast for the two of us. Then we went to the grocery store (funny how exciting it is to explore grocery stores in another country!) and sat for at least 2 hours in front of the shopping mall and chatted some more. What a great way to start my trip. It was so inspiring to listen to William’s stories and very relaxing to sit on the ground with my bike all ready to go in front of me, in the perfect weather. We didn’t realize how late it was and soon we had to go because John and his family were taking us out for dinner at a nice local restaurant next to the ocean. It was lovely to share travel stories, talk about our favourite and least favourite places, etc. Warmshowers is such a nice way to meet local people, not to mention all the kindness we receive from our hosts. I went to bed exhausted, with a very distended belly and I will soon need to get going to burn all these extra calories.
So far life is wonderful. I plan to start biking tomorrow or the day after (the way things are going, I don’t look like someone who will be ready to go tomorrow!) and it will be interesting to see how I can handle a FULLY loaded bike on long distances, and with likely a lot of wind!
I’ll try to take some pictures. For now, all I have is a picture of my room. I heard there is nothing like touring cyclists to make a nice room look like a big mess! And I can’t seem to get a good enough internet connection to upload it…

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