Cape Tour for Visual Impairments 2010: 9-days

This tour was specially designed utilizing the basic senses of smell, touch, taste and hearing. Concentrating on using these 4 senses, allow us to show you some of Cape Town’s hidden environmental & cultural treasures.

The focus of this tour is completely ‘hands-on’, where clients partake in all the excursions on offer, whilst local guides and story tellers paint visual pictures for you in order to complete the all-round sensory experiences.

Some of the local sensory highlights that await you include a visit to Botanical Gardens to learn about the famous Cape Fynbos and unique Cape Floral Kingdom – some of which are utilized in various different industries.

Also allow yourself to be entertained by traditional story tellers and join in African drumming and Cape Malay cooking with wonderful spices. Listen to San people talking about traditional survival techniques and explaining their unique language to you. Taste wonderful local wines combined with other culinary highlights and specially created chocolates.

This tour is both informative and entertaining and you will leave South Africa having gained valuable insight into our local environment.

Day 1: Arrival in Cape Town

Be welcomed to Cape Town by your guide. Travel to your accommodation. In the evening enjoy a welcome dinner.

Day 2: Cape Malay cooking & Two Oceans Aquarium

Following breakfast you will start with your Cape Malay Cooking Safari.

Perched on the slopes of Signal Hill, overlooking Table Bay, the Bo-Kaap is as idiosyncratically ‘Cape’ as the spicy scents and flavours that waft downhill from its eccentrically colourful cobbled streets.
Our walk through the historic Malay quarter of Cape Town takes us through its nooks and crannies, its legends and secrets, as we hunt for the sources of those wonderful aromas and discover the distinctive cuisine of the Cape Malay community.

Your guide will lead you towards the scents of ginger, coriander, cardamom, cinnamon, and chilli which drift tantalisingly from the storefronts and cafés, as we shop for ingredients to make a typical Cape Malay dish.

It’s “hands-on” during the informal cooking workshop which follows in a Bo-Kaap family home. We learn how to mix Masala, fold Samoosas, and how to balance the delicate flavours of a Cape Malay curry.
Over a mug of faloodah (a traditional, lightly rose-scented milk drink) our hostess and cooking instructor will tell you more about the ways in which food, history and religion are interwoven in the Bo-Kaap culture.Then it’s time to sit back, relax, and appreciate your handwork as you dig in to a full course traditional Malay Meal.

In the afternoon head to the Two Oceans Aquarium.

The southern tip of the African continent is the meeting place of two mighty and bountiful oceans, the Indian and the Atlantic. The Two Oceans Aquarium is ideally positioned to showcase the incredible diversity of marine life found in these two oceans.

Here enjoy a hands-on experience in their discovery room – exploring the wonders of the Southern African Ocean. Touch some of the unique marine life such as sea stars, kelp, anemones, fish, crustaceans and shark skeletons and much more whilst a marine specialist explains interesting ecological facts.

Day 3: West Coast: !Kwha Ttu San Culture Centre – Table Mountain

This fascinating insight into the culture, heritage, knowledge and modern-day life of the San of southern Africa entails accompanying a group of our qualified San guides, who will lead you through a truly exceptional experience.

During a three-hour tour the San will demonstrate their skills, share their ancient knowledge about oral history, tracking animals and identifying plants with you. They will also teach you words in some of their languages and enlighten you about recent achievements in obtaining their rights to land and intellectual property. The San-guided experience provides a unique opportunity for you to listen to accurate accounts of the past and present lives of the San.

Tour will include:

A tractor ride
An easy walk on the nature trail, focussing on stories about San hunting, gathering and tracking.
A visit to a replica traditional San village – touch traditional Ostrich shell jewellery, bows and arrows, skins used for making clothes and listen to some San music.
An introduction on the San languages – hear the different, unique clicks in these languages.
A refreshing drink at the boma

Also enjoy lunch in their beautiful restaurant with the option of eating typical West Coast and South African meals.

In the afternoon we will make our way to Cape Town’s most famous landmark - Table Mountain. A visit to Cape Town would not be complete without a cable car ride to the top of this massif (weather permitting).

Day 4: Kirstenbosch Botanical Gardens, Robben Island & African Drumming

Kirstenbosch Botanical Gardens – Braille Trail and Useful Plant Garden

The Fragrance Garden features plants with aromatic properties and unusual textures. The plants are grown in waist-high, raised beds to enable visitors to touch them, feel them and smell them. Since this garden has been designed to highlight the interesting scent and texture properties of plants, a special effort has been made to enhance the experience for the sight impaired visitor. The Fragrance Garden is surrounded by a guard rail and contains plant information labels in large print, as well as Braille.

Here are to be found plants whose leaves, flowers, roots or stems are used for their medicinal, culinary or aromatic properties by the many different cultural groups in South Africa.

In this small herb garden many traditional medicinal plants are displayed, your guide will explain their and encourage smelling the different plants. One familiar herb grown here is rooibos, Aspalathus linearis, which occurs naturally, mainly in the Cedarberg mountains of the Western Cape. The plant is used to produce rooibos tea, a popular South African beverage that contains no caffeine and has very low tannin content.

After a walk in the gardens enjoy a light lunch here.

In the afternoon we will join a cultural excursion to Robben Island.

From the 17th to the 20th centuries, Robben Island served as a place of banishment, isolation and imprisonment. Today it is a World Heritage Site and museum, a poignant reminder to the newly democratic South Africa of the price paid for freedom.

Evening activity:

Drumming at the vibrant Africa Café where dinner can also be enjoyed.

The Drum Cafe provides each person with a traditional African drum – an accessible musical instrument for non-musicians. The team of master facilitators and musicians will teach participants how to play and how to listen to one another. Within 15 minutes, the group will be making music together.

Day 5: Community Tour

Township Tour, Community Work and Drumming

All activities include the service of an AA guide

Township Tour and Community Work

Today brings us in touch with the people of South Africa and we will do a township tour through one of the neighbouring townships. A history of the township, South Africa and its struggles will be painted as you make your way through the area stopping at a local restaurant for lunch. In the afternoon we will visit an organisation that work with people with disabilities and have time to interact, share and learn.

Your outreach activities with the blind include an interactive drumming session lead by local drummer steaching you how to play the djembe (African drum), you will also play blind cricket or 'doelbal' or you can opt for the quieter games of cards, dominos, monopoly or scrabble. (if the group is interested they can bring out walking aids, brail books, audio books, brail games etc to donate to the place we go, its a nice way of feeling like they're contributing to 'giving back'. Roughly 50%of the fee will also be donated by us to the organisation that we visit)

Drumming

Learn the rhythm of the African heart, become a rhythmic symphony and experience the high energy of unified drumming. Discover musical talent you never thought you had.

Day 6: Drive to Hermanus – Visit Harold Porter Botanical Gardens and Stony Point Penguin Colony along the way.

Along the beautiful False Bay Coast line stop at the Harold Porter Botanical Gardens. Pollination, seed dispersal and germination - there is always something happening and a story to be told.

Also visit the Stony Point Reserve - a great place to experience the rare African Penguin as well as four cormorant species (two of them endangered southern African endemics) and several other marine bird species which you will hear as you walk along the boardwalk. Your guide will share valuable information regarding this highly endangered species with you.

Overnight Hermanus

Harold Porter Botanical Garden and Stony Point reserve entrance fees included.

Day 7: Hermanus

Morning marine boat tour - In the summer months after the Southern right whales depart, Dyer Island Cruises runs shorter trips to Dyer Island and Geyser Rock. These trips take in Geyser Rock and Dyer Island. Geyser Rock is home to thousands of Cape Fur Seals. The stretch of water between the two islands is Shark Alley. The colony is thriving and there is always lots of activity, and you will be able to hear and smell the proximity of these wonderful animals during this wonderful boat trip.

In the afternoon enjoy the Hemel & Aarde Valley for an interactive cellar tour – tasting from the barrels, as well as a combined food and wine pairing (not on a Sunday).

Between the gifted JC Martin and the talented Christoph Kaser, they boast 30 years' international winemaking and viticulture experience. Expertise, which they now bring to bear transforming Nature's rich bounty into wines reflecting our unique terroir.

Overnight Hermanus

Day 8: Winelands Day –Chocolate & Wine tasting, Township experience (not on a Sunday) Cheetah Outreach and Cultural Dinner

We start today by going to Kayamandi, a vibrant community on the outskirts of Stellenbosch for some traditional local music, singing, dancing, and tasting some local snacks. A colourful local storyteller will lead the group through the community, talking about highlights along the way.

Next we enjoy a chocolate & wine tasting.

Waterford Estate has introduced a unique concept to the Stellenbosch winelands: a one of a kind Wine and

Chocolate tasting menu. Kevin Arnold, Waterford’s highly acclaimed winemaker and Richard von Geusau, of von Geusau Chocolates, have innovatively crafted the chocolates by adding pure flavours to the chocolates to highlight the subtle aromas and flavours naturaly present in the award-winning wines.

THE TASTING LINE-UP INCLUDES:

Waterford Cabernet Sauvignon and Rock Salt Dark Chocolate
Kevin Arnold Shiraz and Masala Chai Dark Chocolate
Waterford Heatherleigh Natural Sweet and Rose Geranium Milk Chocolate

Ending the day, we head to Spier Wine Estate for Cheetah Outreach and Moyo Cultural Dinner.

Cheetah Outreach

Cheetah Outreach is an education and community-based programme created to raise awareness of the plight of the cheetah and to campaign for its survival. Here you get the opportunity to touch these magnificent animals, feel the vibrations of their purr and learn about their amazing abilities of speed and agility. If there are cubs you have the option of spending time with these cute little creatures instead.

Moyo Cultural Dinner

Under the starlit African sky, set in a garden in the Western Cape Winelands, moyo at Spier is unlike any other restaurant. Bedouin tents and gazebos are placed throughout the garden and create a setting similar to a nomadic African village. This unexpected delight in the Winelands is set to the humming and ululating voices of Third World Bunfight, a performance company known for pushing the boundaries of African art to the limits.

Overnight Cape Town

Day 9: Departure

Departure from Cape Town International Airport.