Capetown in the rain

We drove those very bumpy roads one last time and then flew from Johannesburg to Capetown where it was GREEN. Our hotel was lovely and we enjoyed the grounds even as it drizzled.

The view from our room’s door.

The rain didn’t deter us and we got to see wine country and miles of lovely views around Capetown on our first two days there.

We spent the morning at the Waterfront mall and in between showers enjoyed the water itself.

This colorful neighborhood was settled by Malay slaves who lived in white houses. When they were freed they painted them like this and the tradition has continued.

The rain was especially hard and the damage was visible all over.

We enjoyed driving around Capetown even in the rain. You might remember what happened at this building — it’s the hospital where Dr Christian Bernard performed the first heart transplant in 1967.

takealot is South Africa’s Amazon. Back at the TEN campus we noticed that they ordered from takealot but everyone shared the job of picking up the orders in town when they went in.

I just liked this pattern. What do you think it is?

After two days of making the best of the rain we got bright sun and headed out to do the really fun stuff.

We headed up Chapman’s Peak road, even though we knew it was closed, to see whatever views we could. And when we came to the closure we did as everyone else did and walked as far as we could to see what had happened. It was worse than we had imagined — it seemed that the whole hillside had come down and the road just dropped out of sight.

We turned around and headed back out another way. Huge trees were down everywhere and whole towns were flooded and without water or power. These had apparently been no ordinary rainy days.