Cape Town, South Africa

Wednesday, February 25, 2009

 

Cape Town was such an amazing time, for sure! I am in love with it, I can't wait to go back. We arrived in Cape Town on Wednesday, the 18th, and left the 22nd. So we had 5 amazing days in Cape Town, but I could have used 50 more. There was just so much to do! South Africa had everything to do from the wine tasting, to shark diving, climbing Table Mountain, visiting the beaches, going to Cape Point and seeing the penguins, and traveling on safaris.

Day 1:

We arrived Wednesday and were supposed to dock at 8 am, but I guess the fog was really heavy. Jaclyn and I woke up early to see us pull into port, but we literally could not see a single thing around us because the fog was so bad. So we just waited around until they cleared the ship. We finally got into port and they cleared the ship (meaning that everyone is allowed to finally get off) around 10:30. We had decided that we were going to climb Table Mountain with a bunch of people. When we got off the ship though, we decided to just go by ourselves, figured it would be a lot easier in a small group. So we took a cab to the beginning trails of Table Mountain and started our hike. Intense is an understatement. It was all uphill, but beautiful none the less. We looked behind us and literally saw the whole city of Cape Town, the ocean and the beautiful shore and blue water, and all the boats in the waterfront. It was an amazing few. The weather was optimal too, it was a foggy and cool, with a little mist. We ended up taking a wrong turn however, and going on the trail towards the lower cable station. So we ended up back at the bottom of the mountain. But we were determined to get to the top, so we took the cable car up to the top of the mountain.

We got on the cable car and there were a million Asians touring the mountain the same day. So we loaded the cable car with them. It was literally a feeding frenzy. We started ascending up the mountain and they all whipped out their cameras and video cameras. So Jaclyn and me just stepped back and let them do their thing. It was still pretty foggy at the time, and at a certain point, we just saw fog around us. We got off the cable car, and at the top of the mountain is a little café. So we got some food, a boerwohr to be specific. It is a type of African sausage that was recommended to us. So we tried it, and it wasn’t as great as I had hoped, but still good none the less. We took some pictures at the top of the mountain, and I was a little bummed that we couldn’t see the view from the top because it was so foggy, but we still made it to the top, so I was happy with that. And I still got some pretty nice pictures of the view, regardless.

After about an hour or so at the top, we went back down the cable car, and took a cab back to Cape Town. We decided to walk around and shop and see all the local markets and such. We stumbled upon a local crafts market. It was huge and overwhelming; I didn’t even know where to begin. They had everything you could imagine. It was filled with some of the most beautiful and vibrant art, all sorts of jewelry, African masks and carvings, and fertility statues. Then we went to a huge mall, which was honestly like any mall in America. Cape Town was vastly similar to San Francisco (not that I’ve ever been, but it’s what they said), but also so different in many ways. There were people everywhere playing some of the most insane instruments I have never seen, people doing acrobatic, weird things, an all male step team, and just plain beggars. We wandered around the mall for a little while and then went to get some ice cream.

Then at night, we went to a local Irish bar (I know what you’re thinking, Irish bar, in Africa? But it wasn’t all Irish) and got some drinks and dessert. Then we decided to go to a local club, which was extremely classy and upscale. We had a lot of fun and the night life in South Africa was unlike anything I had expected.

 

Day 2:

Thursday I was leaving for my safari…at 4:30 AM. But it was okay, I was all hyped up on Red Bull, so it wasn’t really that bad. We had to meet in the Union at 4:15 AM and got on the buses and drove to the airport. We were at the airport by 5 AM. Two people had thrown up on the bus from the night before, and we could all tell it was going to be a long trip. We had a 6:30 flight to Durban, which was about a 2-hour flight. We walked around the airport for a little until our boarding time. Once we were on the plane, I don’t think I heard a single word from anyone in our group. We had all passed out. International flights are so much nicer than American. Apparently, for a two hour flight, they gave two rounds of sodas, tea, or coffee, and a choice of a chicken omelet or vegetarian omelet. I was asleep, so I chose none; in fact, I didn’t even know they offered it until I had woken up. Then we finally arrived in Durban, and we had another 3 hour bus ride to our camp site.

We arrived at our campsite around 1:30 and they had lunch for us about an hour later. The camp site was really nice. It was on a game reserve that had elephants, wilder beasts, gazelle, crocodiles, and warthogs. The reception center had a bar, a restaurant, an outside area for the braai (which is an African barbeque). Our tents had beds in them, and mosquito netting, thankfully. After lunch, we went on our first safari.

We went to Hluhluwe Imfolozi Park for our safari. It is 40 miles of protective game reserve. It was absolutely breathtaking. On first arrival, we saw a whole family of warthogs, and they are definitely not as cute as Pumba in the Lion King, they are actually really ugly animals. But there was a family of about 8 of them just grazing and eating grass. But apparently, warthogs are vicious animals and our safari guide said she’s even seen one take down a lion. We continued through the park. The grass was greener than anything I’ve ever seen, the hilltops were beautiful, and it was all such amazing scenery, I forgot we were even looking for animals. We came across a few rhinos in the distance and even an elephant in the distance. Zebras were crossing the street right in front of us. They were a lot more beautiful than I thought they would be. They all had different stripes, some on the leg, some not on the leg. Then we got barricaded by about 4 or 5 rhinos just grazing in the middle of the road. They stood there for about 10-15 minutes. Then out of nowhere, they started running for the hills. A few seconds later, we heard an elephant distress call, which was actually extremely loud, but our safari guide told us that it was probably about a km out. So we went looking for the elephants. Our safari guide, Caz, was amazing. She took us to a little clearing in a valley so we could watch the elephants pass. About 100 yards away, we saw about 40-50 elephants passing the clearing to prepare for an oncoming storm. It was amazing, there were so many of them, babies and adults. It was definitely a good way to end the day of safari-ing.

We went back to our campsite, and freshened up before the braai. The trucks came and picked us up to take us to the site. The braai (at the reception center) was about a 10 km drive from our actual campsite. We arrived, and the whole walkway and pavilion had been lined with lights and such. It was different, but beautiful. They had anything and everything we could have asked to eat. They had appetizers, wine and cheese, Cole slaw, 4 different kinds of fish, fruit, crackers, potatoes, like I said, anything and everything. And for our main course, they had steak, gazelle sausage, and chicken. I ate all of it, it was delicious. They also had rice and beans, ate those too. And then for dessert they had cookies, brownies, a type of flan dish, a mousse type thing and a Jell-o dish. I had a little dessert, but I was so stuffed that I could barely even move to get back in the truck. Finally, after an extremely LONG day, we went back to the campsite and I went straight to bed, I was exhausted.

 

Day 3:

The next day our wake up call was at 6 AM. And it basically consisted of a guy walking around to each of our tents banging a drum until we woke up. The trucks picked us up and took us to breakfast, which was just as good as the braai. They had 3 different types of eggs, fruit, two different kinds of sausage, potato pancakes, toast, muffins and tea and coffee. Then we departed again for our second day of safari-ing.

We got into the park, and within 30 minutes, we had a herd of 20 elephants walking literally 20 feet from our truck. They were checking us out to make sure that we weren’t going to harm them; they all looked at us as they passed. There were even several babies who scurried across the street; they were so cute! But one of them apparently thought we were too close and began to approach us. She started her charge position and even picked up her pace, but Caz, reversed the truck before any real damage could have been done. But it definitely woke us all up, and we were ready for more.

We continued driving around the reserve and we stumbled upon another group of zebras who are honestly unbothered by anything. They just stood there for almost a half an hour while we just watched them. Then we continued down the road and found dozens of baboons in the trees. They, however, were quite bothered by us, and it was hard to get a picture of them because they kept running away. Caz drove us down by the stream and we stumbled upon a crocodile just wafting in the water. We spotted another rhino in the brush, until we finally stumbled upon a giraffe! I was so excited to see the giraffe. We watched the giraffe for a solid 20 minutes and he wasn’t bothered by us either, he just continued eating the trees and such.
Then it was time for lunch, so we went to the picnic site and gazelle just casually seemed to populate the area. They didn’t even seem bothered by the fact that we were eating and hanging out there. For lunch, they had more amazingness. Sausages, steak, chicken skewers, beans, etc.

After lunch, we found a watering hole with two buffaloes just resting in the mud. Apparently, buffalo are some of the deadliest animals, I didn’t know that. And that scene in the Lion King when Mufasa gets killed, well apparently, buffaloes, really can kill lions. So we didn’t want to disturb them because they looked grumpy anyways. Caz took us to a spot that she thought we would be likely to see some lions. However, we did not see any. L But the scenery from the top was astonishing, so it made for a good photo opportunity anyways. On our way down from the clearing, we spotted a pack of giraffes just standing in the middle of the street. Then we looked to our left and saw about another 6 giraffes, even one baby. We sat and watched them for a little while. And as if we hadn’t had an already amazing day, an elephant trapped us in the street and was walking towards us, so we had to back up until he finally decided to pass us. He followed us 2 km down the road and then finally decided to take a mud bath. He was having so much fun playing in the mud, spraying himself and splashing.

After an amazing day of safari-ing, we headed back to the campsite and took an afternoon swim in the pool before dinner. Dinner was similar than the night before and the people who owned the campsite gave us a cooler of beer and wine and told us we could take it back to the campsite. We went to all sit by the pool, and decided to have a few drinks before we headed back to the campsite.

 

Day 4:

This was the day we departed back to Cape Town. We drove 3 hours to the airport again and flew back to Cape Town. We got back around 2. The weather was beautiful, so a bunch of us decided to go explore some more of the city. We decided to walk to Long St. which has a lot of the cool shops, and is the local street for nightlife. On our way, we saw a bunch of people gathered by the waterfront. We went to check it out and found out that there was a Chinese boat racing thing going on. It was a bunch of teams basically in really large canoes rowing and one person beats the drum. Apparently it was more a ceremonial type thing than more of a race, but it was really cool. We also saw a bunch of seals posted up on the shore and the barrels nearby. They didn’t smell too great, but were definitely interesting to watch.

When we finally got to Long St. we found a local market called Green St. Market, and it had all sorts of local people trying to sell their arts and crafts. We bargained with a few people, but it was becoming later in the day and mostly everything in the area was closing so we took a taxi back to the ship and got ready for the night out.  

The last night we went to Mitchell’s which is a local bar and got some pizza and drinks. It was a really nice local, low-key place with really good pizza. Then we went to a local club called Hemisphere which was located at the top of a local skyscraper. It was amazing, the view from the top. It was a lot of fun and definitely a good last night.

 

Day 5:

Being that it was our last day, we decided to stay local and try the local cuisine. We went and got lunch and got hot chocolate and some lunch, which had all sorts of salads, and lamb, and quiche. It was amazingly good. 

I also stopped by the local supermarket to grab some things, like shampoo and conditioner and stuff that I was running low on. And since we were already there, we decided to go to the internet café and grab some free internet, since it costs an arm and a leg here on the ship.

We went and got some last minute souvenirs and then headed back for dinner so we could be back in time for ship time at 6. 

We didn’t end up leaving Cape Town until 12 hours later because of rough seas, so hopefully that doesn’t mess up anything for Mauritius. Mauritius is our next stop, and we are only there for 12 hours, but apparently it is the most beautiful place in the world, literally. The magazine I read on the airplane from Durban said it was voted “The Most Beautiful Place in the World”. We have a snorkeling trip planned, and hopefully the weather will be nice.

 

We have about 3 more days until we reach Mauritius. And then another 4 days until we get to India. It’s crazy how fast time is flying by. We’ve already been through 1/3 of the trip. I’m just trying to enjoy every moment as it passes. Even though we are only in Mauritius for 12 hours however, it's a nice stop because it breaks up the days to India so we won't be spending all 9 of them at sea, which gets really repetitive and boring after awhile. I had another test yesterday, and it's so strange and hard to get motivated here on the ship. And I have another one tomorrow. But you look outside and the weather is beautiful or something's going on in the Union, so I'm definently working on managing my time and getting motivated. I hope everyone at home is having a good semester, and the weather is decent. Love you all.