Day 86: Road Trip Six Hours West Back to Cape Town and… LOBSY!
Jeffrey Gettleman, longtime Africa correspondent for the NYT, writes in his memoir, Love, Africa: “My feeling is you don’t really know a place until you drive it.” (Teddy’s reading it right now – I’m still on the James Michener SA book).
We by no means “know” South Africa. We have only scratched a specific surface of the country — the Western Cape. But by driving so much of it on our own, it has helped us get to know this small part of the country better for sure.
Today we pulled away from the ol’ Old Rectory Hotel — which has rocketed to the top of our hotel/accommodations list (more on that below) — and began the long drive westward back to Cape Town.
Poor Teddy did the whole damn drive because I’ve lamely not taken on any of the left-side of the road driving. I’m a good driver. I’m also a space cadet. I feel like I’d be one at-the-wheel daydream about puppies away from a terrible crash.
One funny thing: Our soccer ball had gone missing this past few days at the hotel. We called on housekeeping, reception, our babysitter Miranda, everyone to help us find it again. We did a top to bottom search of our rooms. No ball.
Three hours after we left, I got an email saying they’d found it under the kids’ toilet in their bathroom. Wulp.
We did end up stopping again back at the Afrikaner antique/junk shop near George. I just had to see it again and I needed to get pics. I got some cool old brass salt and pepper shakers. By the way, the original “salt shaker” I bought at the place is, actually, a powdered sugar shaker. But you probably already knew that.
(Thank you to regular reader Leslie for pointing it out. 🙂 What if I was like, NO! I just realllly love salty food and need those big holes.)
We listened to kid podcasts of international fables and about animals we’ll see on safari until we couldn’t bear it anymore. After a lunch stop the kids got their iPads and the grownups listened to an all-Trevor Noah stream: Bunch of Daily Show highlights, an Oprah interview at the Apollo and his Adam Grant/TED “WorkLife” podcast episode.
We are such big fans because 1) he’s the most charming human, especially when you know his story and 2) he’s taught us so much about this country.
Cruised into town around 6 pm at golden hour, so excited to return to such familiar turf. The real excitement?
LOBSY LANDED TONIGHT FROM DC!!
Lobsy is Teddy’s mom aka Lobs aka grandma. She loves to travel and isn’t afraid to set off on her own — she joined us in Peru and will join us again in Spain AND in Copenhagen. It took her 24+ hours to get here, and looked like a million bucks when she landed.
We wish we were back in our little house, but we’re in a good spot in the same neighborhood: More Quarters — apart-hotel duplex with kitchens but also housekeeping and a breakfast buffet in the building nearby.
We got the kids to sleep – finished Charlie and the Chocolate factory – welcomed Lobsy with a glass of Sauvignon Blanc (Teddy picked her up at the airport) – and went to SLEEP.
Why Old Rectory Hotel was such a hit:
Checks so many hotel boxes we didn’t even know three months ago needed checking:
- Small hotel, you know everyone who works there and it’s easy to get from room to reception to breakfast to car. The kids could take our key from the restaurant and go grab a forgotten sweater out of our room, all by themselves.
- Brand new. Felt clean, up to date.
- Suuuuper comfortable bed.
- Amazing setup: Two adjoining rooms.
- Quiet and safe. It was a peaceful place.
- Half-full, if that. There was a feeling that we were the only ones there.
- Close to the action. We could walk to the beach but we could also hop in the car and get to 20+ kid-friendly things in under 10 minutes.
We had such a nice time there.
