Safrica Day 9

Because of the semi-debacle surrounding our trip up to Addo, we decided to make an effort to leave the park early in hopes of arrive back in Melkbosstrand at a decent hour. We were able to organize ourselves and be on the road by 9am. Since we had already visited a winery on the way to Addo, the only remaining tour stop we had was to do some whale watching before sunset.

The trip back was fairly uneventful. We had some visual exchanges between the vans, but I think I will blame that on the monotony of the road. As time passed and we noticed the sun drifting closer to the horizon, it appeared that we had grossly underestimated the time it would take us to reach our destination… again. When it became apparent that we had missed our opportunity, we blazed forward toward Cape Town. The new plan was to have dinner at The Africa Café.

The dinner promised to be a unique experience with courses from all over the continent. We started with a soup and some small finger foods. After that, we enjoyed a couple of main courses including a chicken and ostrich dish. At this point, there were also a group of workers that were parading through the eating area singing and dancing to the beats of dueling djimbe drums. The dinner was concluded with a delicious dessert and hot tea. After we settled the bill, which was about $20 per person, I looked through the gift shop. I was pleased to find a cookbook with all of the recipes and quickly purchased a copy.

From there, we traveled back to the familiar confines of the Melkbos Backpackers Hostel and Betsy’s welcoming promise of hot tea and a warm fire. We didn’t have much time to enjoy either as it was nearly 10pm when we had gotten back and we had to get back to work tomorrow morning.