Lunch at Moyo

'Moyo' is a loose translation of the Swahili word for soul. Moyo is far more than a just a restaurant; it is a experience of sense saturation, as you are immersed in African culture.

Authentic dishes from the north, south, east and west of the continent fill the air with their aromas and entice your taste buds. Artists of every description are showcased; from face painters, musicians and dancers who provide the entertainment to the feast, to a wide variety of handmade goods made from recycled products, available for sale. It all takes place in an enormous Bedouin-style tent, with an abundance of rought-iron furniture, lanterns and sculptures. Blankets and cheery braziers are provided to keep you warm, until the various spices kick in. Outside there are unusual water features made from wood and metal, little tree houses and large sofas for use in the summer or for gazing up at the starry sky on a clear night.

This was our treat on Sunday and despite the cold and showers of that particular day, we were not disappointed.


Here are the patterns painted on our faces. There seems to be an infinite variety of patterns.

Some of the entertainment was very energetic drumming and rythmical dancing ( I liked the bright materials sewn onto ordinary jeans)....

...some of it was quirky, like the these people who danced around with glasses piled up on trays

...and some of it was very touching; a small group moved around the tables and sang gentle songs in tribal languages.

These photos do not really show it off, but I hope they give you a little taste...

Close up to Aslan

This is one of three lions at Fairy Glen Safari Park. The lions have a large enclosure but are not free to roam the park. They also have a covered pen, with permanent open access to their enclosure. The day we visited they did not want to come out of the pen. they were due to be fed later in the day. They are given half a cow once a week, so that although they do not catch their food they do eat the meat off the carcass.

The male reminded us of Aslan, from the Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe, by CS Lewis.

We were able to get really close up - they are huge and in really good condition. We wondered if this was because they don't have to fight and kill their food.

Stewart encouraged us to touch their fur through the bars. It was very soft and we felt very brave!

What a super safari!

On Friday we travelled to Worcester, an hour's drive east of Cape Town, to a safari park called Fairy Glen. It was a very early start, but as the sun rose in the sky, burning off the mist, it became very warm.

This is the safari truck we travelled in, along with about 12 other people. It is a converted army truck and most suitable for the rough terrain of the park.

Our ranger and guide was called Stewart. Here he is standing on a termite mound. He offered us termites to eat, but I think everyone declined. He said that termite mounds serve at least two purposes for those who are lost in the bush. Firstly, the top always points towards north (in the southern hemisphere) and secondly, a handful of termites can provide an emergency meal.

These tiny red-coloured any-like creatures have a minty taste and are very nutritious. I did get as far as having one on my hand but couldn't bring myself to eat it!

We saw many different types of antelope - this is a hemsbok. The long horns can grow over one metre in length.

This is an ostrich family. The male has black feathers and three females have brown feathers. There were also five chicks about two months old.

The Ostrich keeps laying eggs when they are taken away, thus supplying eggs for ostrich egg decorating, which is big business here. Ostrich meat is very low in cholesterol and delicious.

Giraffes are so graceful when they walk. They watched us the whole time. They have hair at the top of their ears, but the males usually rub the hair off, when they are fighting for dominance, so you can tell the males by their lack of hair on the ears.

There were lots of Zebras. These were black with white stripes. Stewart told us mountain zebras are white with black stripes. How do you tell the difference?

Did you know that Zebras have stripes, not to blend in with the trees or other plant life, but to make themselves look bigger to predators? A group of them blend into one, so that when the predator chases they then break up making one of them harder to catch.

The white rhinos were enormous and came really close to the truck. They have very poor eyesight, but excellent hearing and we noticed that the closest ear was always turned towards us, even when walking away. It seems incredible that such a huge creature lives solely on grass.

The African elephant has larger ears than the Indian elephant; each one having the same shaped ear as their name. In this photo you can clearly see that the left ear is the shape of Africa.

This was a wooden statue of an elephant at the entrance to Fairy Glen. It was carved by an unknown artist in Zimbabwe. The wood was also unknown, but had water constantly trickling over the outside keeping it from drying out in the sun.

A mountain leopard had devoured this hemsbok, leaving the carcas for the vultures and other carrion-eaters. Fairy Glen has six leopards with collars, but they have no control over where they roam or what they catch. They are immensely difficult to see; Stewart has only seen one in the last five months.

A four or five metre crocodile lay immobile in a pen near to the restaurant!

Cape Point - not the most southerly place in Africa

Cape Point is the most southerly point in Cape of Good Hope, being 34 degrees south, but the most southerly point in Africa is several hundred miles east of Cape Town, at a place called Aghulas. Technically speaking, Aghulas is the exact point where the Atlantic Ocean meets the Indian Ocean, but generally speaking the Western Cape (which includes both Cape Point and Arghulas) can be regarded as the meeting point.





As Boulders is half way down the Cape Peninsula, after our visit to the Penguins, we decided to continue driving down to Cape Point. When we arrived, it was 4pm and most visitors were starting their journey homeward. Also, the day had been quite showery and although this did not spoil our trip, it did reduce the number of visitors to this rather bleak outpost.





However, having travelled this far we tried to make the most of the hour and a half of daylight still left.

From the visitor centre, there is a fairly sreep climb up to the lighthouse, beyond which no one can go. For those unable to walk there is a funicular railway.

As we walked up to Cape Point a rainbow suddenly appeared, falling into the sea.

This is the place where Cape Point can be seen. The cliff drops steeply into the sea and small look outs have been built leading up to the lighthouse.

As we descended, the railway and visitor centre had already closed and our lonely car stood in the middle of the car park.

Trekking on Table Mountain

We took advantage of the good weather on Wednesday by walking on Table Mountain. The near vertical cable car ride gives a close up view of the structure of the rock. It is a very hard sandstone which was laid down as coastal sands. As the continental rock has been uplifted, or sea levels have fallen, over time, the sandstone is exposed. So the flat top of Table Mountain that we walked along was once on the sea shore.

As you can see, although the top looks flat from far away, when you walk across , it is very uneven, with jagged rocks, boulders and lots of plant life, called fynbos; a term first used by Dutch settlers to refer to the finely leafed plants they found growing in the Cape mountains and coastal lowlands.





Near the summit we came across these enormous proteas, the national plant. The head was about 8 inch (20cm) across, with stunning colours, contrasting with greys and greens of the other plants. The surrounding vegetation had been pressed flat by numerous visitors doing exacxtly the same as us - taking photos.

As we approached Maclear's Beacon, a triangulation point marking the highest point on the Table (1087m), we met a young man from USA who asked us to take a photo of him, so we asked him to take one of us in return.

We also added a small rock to the thousands of rocks which made up the beacon.

This is Platterklip Gorge. It separates the Western Table from the Central and Eastern Tables. People climbing up Table Mountain emerge onto the Table via this gorge.

We needed to climb down into the gorge a little way and then up onto the other side, using these chains to help us. I felt very proud of my 81-year-old Mum at that moment.

We saw two young men preparing to absail down from the top. The peak on the left is called Lion's Head and from certain angles it looks like that - or say they say!



After a welcome hot chocolate at the cafe, we posted our cards in the British red pillar box and then returned in the revolving the cable car. Sandra was relieved that it didn't sway at all on its five-minute descent.

Penguins at Boulders

On Monday Mum, Sandra and I went to the small seaside town of Boulders, where a pair of African Penguins first came ashore in 1984, onto one of two public beaches. Since then they have bred and multiplied, and probably others have joined the colony on the beach. Boulders is situated in False Bay, which is sheltered from the harsh Atlantic weather. A few years ago the BBC made a film called 'City Slickers' following a pair of penguins called Henry and Margo over the course of a year. Then the penguins were allowed to roam at will anywhere in the town, hence the name 'City Slickers'. Now, a penguin sanctuary has been built on the beach, and the locals have exclusive use of their other beach.

The African Penguin is the smallest of all the penguins, being only 50cm tall, with a very distinctive black line across its chest. They waddle across the beach, over the boulders, in and out of the sea, picking up seaweed to take back to their nests.

Many dig a burrow on the beach and eggs hatch after 30 days incubation at the end of summer. Now, well into the spring the baby penguins have a brown downy coat and are not much smaller than their parents. Each pair have one or two chicks. There is a pair of chicks in the centre of the photograph and several other chicks, if you look carefully.

This brown coat keeps them warm throughout the winter. It then changes to a blue-grey colour which is waterproof, ready for them to take their first swim in the autumn. The youngsters then leave their parents to swim for many months in the oceans. They only come ashore again after a couple of years to breed.

Penguins are monogamous, staying with each other for life. Increasingly, a mating pair use one of the man-made burrows to incubate their eggs. Before the sanctuary was constructed, with its boadwalks for viewing, the penguins would find all manner of places to build a nest and breed.

Girls on tour in Cape Town

As you can see my Mum, Barbara, and my sister, Sandra, have arrived! Sunday was a glorious day and we spent some of it down at the Waterfront, in front of Table Mountain. Here we are about to go on a catamaran yacht called the Tygresse.

We sat on the front deck, where a net was stretched between the two hulls of the catamaran. Once we were out of the harbour the enormous front jib (front sail) was unfurled and the engine turned off. We then sailed out towards Robben Island enjoying the very calm sea and gentle breezes.

My dad, who was a very keen sailor, would have loved it, although he may have thought it a little too tame!

When the catamaran turned back towards Cape Town, this panoramic view of Table Mountain was our backdrop.