We delivered an angry Maddie to the Cat House Hotel at three PM when they opened and set off for LAX at 4. We encountered bad traffic right away, and managed to get to Carpinteria in 40 minutes! We took the coast route and whizzed easily thorough Malibu, but as soon as we drove into Santa Monica the traffic on Lincoln Blvd slowed to a crawl and we crept along until Manchester Blvd just before LAX. We finally reached Alamo car rental by seven and the Tom Brady Terminal by 7:30. A fairly exhausting way to start a trip! From there we sailed through check-in and security and found that our flight was postponed until 10:30 PM, so we stopped for a snack of gin and tonics and hotdogs.
We finally boarded our British Airways A380 airbus, and climbed upstairs to our nice coach seats - two on the side with a little cabinet/arm rest between my chair and the window! Another nice feature is that the entertainment was available immediately, so I donned headphones and started watching Big Bang Theory and Episodes and hardly noticed that we were still standing at the gate two hours later! We finally took off at midnight and were served dinner at 1:30!
I figured that our internal clocks were so messed up by then that it didn't matter what we did!
I was offered a special dinner which I refused, as I figured it must be someone else's, and had the overcooked pasta instead. I then popped an Ambien and woke up somewhere off Ireland. I was offered another special meal for breakfast which I again refused, and was stuck with a very plain omelet, and then the steward came by and showed me a printout with my name on it... I had totally forgotten when we booked seats last April that I had been so amazed by the huge list of special dinners available that I felt obliged to order something and had chosen Asian Vegetarian.
We landed at Heathrow at 5:30 PM where we originally had a five hour layover, now down to four. We wandered around looking at all the Gucci and Tiffany's stuff until we started to fade. We stepped into a little cafe and had Cappuccinos and split a wonderful warm apple rhubarb which gave us enough energy to find our gate and board our BA 747 and get our two abreast seats in the very back (Once again - yay for SeatGuru.com.)
I got a G&T and my excellent Asian Veg dinner: cold chopped potatoes with spicy lime pickle sauce and a warm savory tofu dish - really good! We flew over the channel, French village lights and saw a beautiful orange last quarter moon rising over the Pyrenees before dozing now and then as we cruised very bumpily down the west coast of Africa.
It started to get light as we approached Namibia and and I got another delicious meal, this time a green veggie patty on top of orange pancakes with spicy potatoes on the side The clouds cleared away as we saw Cape Town approaching. 
Our jet circled spectacular Table Mountain enveloped in swirls of fog and looped over Boulder Beach and False Bay before landing at the airport. We quickly cleared customs and immigration and rented a small Kia SUV at Hertz. Bob daringly took off and we found the N2 freeway east and then transferred up to the N1 and in 30 minutes we found ourselves in the charming village of Paarl - A Cape Dutch version of Napa - lovely vineyards and houses nestled between mountains. We found our hotel, the Pontoc Manor -and pulled in at 1:30 PM. We hoped to be able to check in and the woman at the desk processed the papers and started to lead us outside to our room when she suddenly stopped and said, "What time is it?" We said," It's 1:40"...."I can't let you have the room until two o'clock!!" . We couldn't quite believe it!! All of twenty minutes to go and we couldn't enter our room! Fortunately there is a restaurant next door and we dragged ourselves inside and a charming waiter served us glasses of wine and a grilled chicken sandwich. Then it was past two and we were allowed inside our very pretty and long-ready room.
Table Mountain
One of the main features of Paarl, at least for birders, are the Paarl Sewage Ponds - great for bird viewing!! But Bob's bird guidebook said that the ponds are only open for birders in automobiles on weekdays and we're leaving here on Monday...so off we went and finally found them. As we pulled in a nice lady came up and said they were only open on weekends! Too much!!! We staggered back, and collapsed - although I am typing this - trying to stay up and adapt to this time zone.
Bob wanted to try a local restaurant and he drove a short distance to Terra Mare, a small family-run place with really good food, although I didn't really do more than touch the delicious mussel soup and beef pasta. Bob had pork tenderloin with green bean risotto.
To bed and a new day tomorrow!
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