L'Agulhas: It's Only 6:00 p.m.

Today my parents and I flew to Cape Town, rented a car and drove to L’Agulhas. L’Agulhas is a small (very) and quiet (very) seaside town. It is the southern most tip of Africa where the warm currents of the Indian Ocean meet the icy cold currents of the Atlantic.  Many people think the Cape of Good Hope is the southern tip of Africa but that’s not the case. The turbulence caused by these ocean waters led to many shipwrecks from the time when Europeans were trying to find new routes to India and China. In the late 1400’s, the Portuguese decided that the best route to India and China would be around the coast of Africa, not across the Atlantic, the route the Columbus was proposing. L’Agulhas or Cabo das Agulhas means the cape of needles in Portuguese. Right now, you might be thinking about your elementary school history of the explorers and wondering if Vasco da Gama had anything to do with the “discovery” of this area. Funny, because we can’t find even a mention of Vasco in any of the books in our apartment. And trust me, we have a lot of time on our hands to conduct some thorough research.

Before we arrived, we were a little concerned when, after booking our accommodations online, my mom received an email stating that payment would only be accepted in cash. My parents and I have slept in some bad (very) motels and firehouses over the years and my mom and I are a little scarred. My dad however, has a motto that “you’re not going to spend any time in the room anyway except for sleeping” so he was not worried at all.

Lucikly, the Agulhasbestview apartments are very lovely, clean, charming and really do offer the best view of the coast from high on a hill. We have two rooms, a kitchen and a balcony.   

When we arrived we met two ladies, Frances and another woman, whose name we can’t remember. They are the caretakers and were very welcoming and enthusiastic, showing us the entire property and telling us all about the town.  Frances and her friend told us that two women own the apartments, both of whom are artists, and there are lovely mosaics, paintings and photos all over the property.  

We were really hungry after traveling all day so we walked down the hill which has a path that is covered in a lot of brush. Not to worry, one of the women told us the snakes are sleeping of this time of year. What a relief!

We went to a small fish and chips restaurant/market and had a deep fried lunch extravaganza and then walked down to the water. None of the three of us had seen the Indian Ocean before!

Beach rocks and a sponge

View from our apartment at sunset

A wall made with bottles 

The bottles up close

The question is now what do we do? We're not hungry, there is no wifi and no TV. There are no other guests and possibly no one else in this entire town. While this is probably a popular summer time destination that draws a lot of tourists, right now it is winter so it is quiet, dark and kind of cold. So we are sitting on one of the beds writing this post together.

Our feet