The Kindness of Strangers in Cape Town!

So as I mentioned in the last post, Iain and I came to Cape Town on Saturday. We spent the entire day on Friday trying to find a place to stay. It turns out there are two different races in town (a two week biking race, and some running race), along with the opening weekend of Rugby. Everything was booked! We even called Bed and Breakfasts an hour outside of town and they were all booked until mid March!

Now what? We already bought our plane tickets to get there.

Well, we found a hotel equivalent to a Best Western for $250 / night or we could stay for five days at a small self catering bed and breakfast far out of town and try to take a train in everyday, but who knew how much that would cost and they didn't have availability the first two nights we were there.

Finally as a last resort, Iain's Godmother (who we were staying with last week in Joburg) called an old friend of hers that she lived with in London in the 70's to see if she could put us up for a night while we figured out what to do once we got there. Not only did she graciously allow two complete strangers to stay in her home, but she also came and picked us up from the airport.

We've been staying with her two nights now and she's insisting we stay as long as we like, at no cost to us. We have our own clean, comfortable room, own bathroom, tons of freedom, a place to cook, watch TV, and is centrally located to town. Not only that but she spent her two days off taking us to different wineries and attractions only the locals know about. She has been exceptionally kind to us.

We found that Marcia (the nice lady we're staying with) is not the only kind person in town! Yesterday I went to Church with her and one of her friends from Church (who Iain and I had a coffee with because that's what they do after mass on Sundays) insisted that we take his extra cell phone. He came and dropped it off at Marcia's home later that night and pre-program it with his phone number, his wife's phone number and Marcia's phone number in case of emergency and then offered to take us up to the Table Mountain for the day on Wednesday so we wouldn't have to take a tour bus.

I don't know if this is human nature to want to try and help complete strangers (something that I sometimes find is lacking back home) or I maybe Iain and I did something right in our lives and we are being taken care of because of it. Either way, we are very, very grateful for the help we've received. Because of it, we are now enjoying Cape Town (which so far I have to say is my favorite city, after Vancouver of course;) and are planning all the great activities offered in this region.

Oh, and one major highlight from yesterday with Marcia - Iain and I got to hold an EAGLE! It was so awesome. I'll post some pictures next time we come to this internet cafe but it was SERIOUSLY cool. The one we held was rescued from some injury it had and weighed about 1kg. I was a little nervous it was going to pluck out my eyes so you'll see in the picture I'm holding it back a bit. Don't judge, I'm not used to holding eagles. She was beautiful though.

We're off to find some lunch now around town. I haven't had a chance to see much of downtown yet so it's be fun to see what we can find. As for the shark diving and bungy jumping, the thought of both of them is freaking me out! You'll just have to stay tuned to find out if we do it or not...