We had a direct, overnight flight from London to Cape Town and arrived at about 11 am. The immigration area was divided in 2 lines, and we waited in the international line for about 20 minutes. It was calm, orderly, and moving well. When Andrew and I approached an immigration officer together, he looked at our passports, asked what airline we flew, and stamped us for a 90-day tourist visa. He didn’t ask why we were visiting, where we were staying, etc. I feel guilty about passport privilege, but it’s also makes certain things so easy.
We picked up our bags, breezed through customs (we didn’t speak to anyone), and found the Uber pickup area outside. Our driver (in a BMW!) was friendly and recommended some things to do while we were in town. He also gave us his card so we could contact him directly if we needed other rides, which I think we’ll do. Message me if you want his info!
It took about 30 minutes to reach our apartment, which is up a steep hill in the Sea Point area of Cape Town. We can see down the hill to the ocean and up the hill to the iconic Lion’s Head mountain from our balcony. We’re about a 10-minute walk to a grocery store and the main street with tons of restaurants, coffee shops, and other shopping. It’s a nice apartment with 1 bedroom; a full bathroom; in-unit washer/dryer (one machine does both); and an open kitchen, dining, living space. We also have a big balcony and 2 desks for us both to work. It should be a great home base for the next couple of months.
About 4 hours after we arrived, our neighborhood lost power for 12 hours. We knew before coming that Cape Town does “load shedding” when they are short on electricity (essentially planned, rolling blacks-outs, where different parts of town have their electricity cut off for a pre-determined amount of time), but we hadn’t planned on a transformer blowing. Hopefully it was a one-time issue. We used it as an excuse to light a bunch of candles (the apartment already had some and we bought some more) and host a 2-person wine tasting (South Africa is known for producing wine). And then we both slept like logs and woke up to power in the morning.
