My first activity – even before unpacking (simply because my luggage had not arrived at my cabin yet) – was “Tea Time” … a nice tea on the deck, watching table mountain and the loading of the ship.

Once I had my luggage, I started unpacking – only disturbed by the safety briefing and sea rescue exercise. The same was quickly followed by immigration and being stamped out of South Africa.

The ship nevertheless still was not cleared; we had dinner (and a first taste of what superb food was ahead of us) in the port. We only left Cape Town after a number of drinks (for me mostly with cucumber) and well after the midnight snack.

We concluded the city tour with a stop at the V&A Waterfront; here we also had lunch, before being transferred to the ship – MV Hanseatic.

At the port a committee was waiting for us handing out sparkling wine to welcome us.  After luggage identification, we were finally allowed to board the ship … I probably had been the first passenger in a while to board the ship in flip-flops 😉 .

The next day included a quick city tour, before finally getting to the ship in the later afternoon.

The city tour itself seemed a bit odd with some more questionable stops, nevertheless for me it was nicely complementing my tour, as it stopped at places, I did not really get the chance to have a look at on Monday.

We first left the buses at the Castle of Good Hope to witness the daily key ceremony and firing of the canon, we also had some (very limited) time to check out the castle. From here we continued downtown to visit the cathedral, have a walk through Company Gardens (with a high focus on botanics … (:| ) and finally end up in the South African Museum to see the exhibition on whales.

I left Frankfurt on a snowy December evening – heading for Munich and then on to Cape Town … the beginning of an epic journey touching three continents and some of the remotest lands on the planet … and certainly one of my crazier trips (it not THE most crazy one … so far).

The start though was not that spectacular … I made it into Cape Town in the early afternoon the day after, dropped my stuff in a hostel and kicked if of with a stroll to the Victoria & Alfred Waterfront to enjoy the scenery, the sun and do a first little boat trip.