Recap Time...

Cape Town at a Glance

Day 1
After waiting over 28 hours on the ship, right outside of Cape Town we went through immigration and were free to get off the ship. Boy-oh-boy did it feel liberating! That afternoon I went to a township for an overnight visit. Everyone was so nice and welcoming. We took a walking tour of the township and as we walked we were stopping in everyone’s homes just to say hi and chit chat. The family that I stayed with has a bunch of family that lives in the same township so we stopped by all of their homes, too. It was so nice to see such a close community :). In the morning, told Noma-Africa (Mama Mavis’ daughter) that I wanted to take pictures and videos of their home. She took it a step further and said, “come on…let’s walk and you can video the whole township.” So, we went on a walk around the whole township! It was amazing and I have it all on film. After getting back, I grabbed my stuff and we all walked back to the home of the owner of the company, Mama Zeet’s home. There we played with children and I was able to hand out some coloring sheets that I had bought and brought for them. They all loved the sheets and kept asking for more. Luckily I had plenty for everyone! Then we headed back to the ship.

I had arranged for a guy that was my driver last time I was in South Africa to take some of my friends and I wine tasting. The wineries were the best that I have been to in life! If for nothing else, you and I must go back just to go wine tasting. SO MUCH FUN!!! And the wine is greaattt! That night we went to a big buffet African Food Dinner and out to a bar that’s at the waterfront (where our ship was docked).

Day 2
I had planned on hiking Table Mountain then ab sailing off of it. Sounds easy enough…I was wrong. That hike was one of the toughest things I have done in life. Everyone estimates that it takes an hour and a half to two hours to do the short hike. Not so bad (I thought). But when you are climbing straight up for an hour and a half reaching 4000ft….ummm you get just a bit tired. I was pooped. My friend forgot her water bottle so we shared mine AND my friend was a bit out of shape. Which made it easier for me because when she needed a break, we took one (allowing me to rest, too). So all in all it was fun and very rewarding!

The down side: when we got to the top we had so little energy left that ab sailing down wasn’t even an option. Ab sailing is repelling, requiring wayyyy to much strength that we didn’t have at that point. So, we decided to go shopping instead. I bought a tank, regular top and a pair of shoes…I was beginning to have withdraws from the lack of freedom to do any sort of shopping (beside the campus store which is the size of my dorm room freshman year). After shopping we found ourselves back out with everyone else. We went to Camps Bay (a nearby beach town)…and bypassed a R100 cover charge (14USD).

Day 3
Two of my friends (Jamie and Lilly) and I went to the Aquarium at the Waterfront. We got in at the South African Student price (my negotiation skills at work) and took a little over an hour to look around. It was really cool. They had sharks, eels, starfish, a touch tank, penguins, tons of fish, etc to look at and a bunch of facts on the walls. After the aquarium we headed to Green Market Square to try our hand at bargaining.

We got there and I realized that I am tired of haggling. It would be so nice to have a set price…to know that the price I am paying is the same price that everyone else is paying. There were a few things that I wanted so I walked around, found the exact item and bargained my way to the price that I wanted. After that we stopped for lunch at a place that had wifi. Let me tell you…I will never ever take the internet for granted after this trip. Super slow internet is better than no internet. Even in port when we go to internet cafés, we still have to pay and are on a time crunch. Some internet places only let you download up to a certain MB and others are just gross. Anyways, after we got back I walked around the waterfront mall (really nice, think South Coast status) then took some pictures out-front.

Jamie has a friend who is studying abroad at UCT. So, we later took a taxi over there with our friend Eric to see her and some of the rugby game. It was great to go back to UCT. I took some pictures on campus and reminisced about studying there. I truly have been blessed to travel the world and experience what I have. I have lived in two of the best places and seen some incredible sights! After the rugby game we walked down to Rondebosch (neighborhood area below the campus) and ate dinner at a little place I hadn’t eaten at before. I loved walking the streets and felt right back at home as though I was living on campus again. I want to go back already! Then that night…yep, you guessed it…we went out again.

Day 4
I still hadn’t uploaded all of my pictures and really needed to catch up on my blog so I spent the morning at the internet café. Then I went to the mall to spend the remaining rand (South African currency) that I had. The last day in port is always a scramble and we have to estimate how much time we need to get back on the ship (we have to go through security to make sure that we don’t have any prohibited items and aren’t drunk, etc). Leaving was sad but I’ll for sure be back…I have said that about half of the countries that we have visited. Looks like I need a big shot and/or a well paying j-o-b!