Neither of us slept so great at night after the race but surprisingly, we didn’t feel too sore in the morning. We woke up around 6:30am and got a bit of work done before finishing our packing and cleaning up the Airbnb for our departure. We said good bye to Thys and Hester and left around 8:30am. Today was a travel day for us and included several logistics but thankfully everything went smoothly. We drove ~1 hr to Cape Town. This was our first time seeing the area since we arrived. We dropped off our bikes (in the cases) and luggage at the Best Western Cape Town Suites where we would be staying on Friday after our Safari Tour. For the past month I had been in communication with one of the staff who said we could keep our luggage at the hotel (free of charge) during our Safari. The luggage concierge William said he would take good care of our items while we were away. We then drove ~15 minutes to the Cape Town airport to top off our rental car with gas before dropping it off at Hertz.
With only our backpacks, we didn’t need to do anything at the airport except go through security. We had our boarding passes on our phones with the SAFAIR airline. We arrived to the airport around 11am for our 1:15pm flight which gave us a good amount of time to get some work done in one of the airport lounges. We also enjoyed some great food in the lounge. And the high speed internet was fantastic (the things you take for granted while traveling). Our 2 hour flight was fairly uneventful, although it was a little bumpy and we had to circle the sky for about 10 minutes due to another plane being slow to land. We finally touched down to Johannesburg airport at 3:15pm. I was a little nervous about figuring out the train (Gautrain) but it was super easy. Just swipe your credit card to access the train. We were lucky in that the train was 1 minute from leaving so we quickly boarded the train. The train was very comfortable, clean and quiet. The train made two stops before the final stop at Sandton.
I chose a hotel at this location because I read that it was a safe area and the Nelson Mandela Square was a popular area to visit. We walked a block to the Garden Suites where we stayed the night and then walked across the street to check out Nelson Mandela Square. We saw the tall statue of Nelson Mandela and read about his lifetime. We then spent the next hour walking through the mall. It was interesting to think about what Nelson went through and then to be walking through a high-end mall with designer shops. We came across a bakery with a wide assortment of fresh bread and Karel couldn’t resist a croissant. We had dinner at Pappas – a Greek restaurant overlooking the square, and the food was delicious. I had a bulgur salad and Karel had a chicken kabob.
We also had pita bread and hummus as a starter (it came free with the meal) and a cheese and spinach mushroom appetizer.
After dinner we walked back to the hotel and went to bed around 9:30pm for an early morning alarm at 5:45am for the start of our 4-day Safari tour.