Spent the morning packing car - dirty and very hot. Dean, Margaret, Craig, and Robbie headed to Table Mountain to quickly take the cable car up and down. Joy and I walked down to the internet cafe, but they were all closed. Weird saying goodbye to Joy, then I walked down to the Waterfront and bought a tent. Back at the hostel found out the others hadn't been able to get up the mountain - too many people waiting. Finally took off about 2pm. It was really hard to leave, we've been at the hostel for a month now, and made a lot of friends. This is the longest I've stayed in one place since starting my travels in April '97. While I'm really ready to get moving again it's still very difficult to leave everyone behind.
Stopped at McDonald's for lunch - probably the last one we'll see until we get to Nairobi. It's a very hot day and as the car got hot - especially under load the engine started missing. As we crossed through several passes this slowed us way down. We stopped a couple times to check the timing, make sure the gaps on the points were right, etc but nothing helped. Ended up getting to our stopping place well after dark since the drive took us a couple extra hours.
We're staying at Marius' beach house. It's perfect, basic but right on the beach and we'll spend tomorrow here getting the car cleaned out and packed properly - something we couldn't do on the street in Cape Town. Before heading to bed Dean, Craig, and I sat up listening to the surf and drinking a bottle of wine. Not a bad first day back on the road.
