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Published: January 27th 2008
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Eric and his springbok So on wednesday Francesca left in the morning and I went out to a south african history museum in the afternoon, then got chatting to three fantastic guys on the balcony in the hostel and ended up going out for the most amazing steak in the evening. They got served their nice bits of ostrich, springbok and kudu steak and i went for "stuffed filet" which i reckoned was just beef and it was stuffed with feta and spinach - mine was about 3 times the size of theirs!! Couldn't finish mine so shared it out...! So anyway we're just sat there chatting and I knew they all worked together but didn't know what they did - turns out they're in the marines and were on a spur of the moment holiday for a week in cape town as they had just got back from Iraq!!! That shut me up for a bit!! Ended up going out for the whole evening with them and had a really good night. Our hostel is right on the main street in cape town and is surrounded by bars and is noisy until 5am, so our new attitude was "if you can't beat them, join
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Jake and his ostrich them..."!!!
On thursday I got the train down to the other side of the cape to a town called Simonstown - really nice train ride all along the coast but the purpose of my trip was to go to a place called Boulders Beach where is where all the African penguins live!!! You pay about 2 euros and can walk all along the boardwalks over the beaches and there are just penguins everywhere!!! It was so so windy though and the waves were pretty rough and the penguins are just getting swallowed up by these waves, so funny to watch!! Then you can go round the corner and get down onto part of the beach and just sit and sunbathe or go in the water - and the penguins just waddle around and swim in the water round your feet!! The water was freeeezing though, the current comes from the Antarctic so unless you are super brave you don't stay in for long! In the evening I went out with the marines again (Johno, Jake and Eric) and another guy who had just arrived called Andy, we had some dinner then explored the bars again...having said we would have
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my stuffed fillet! a quiet night!! So another 4:30am stumble into bed(!)
On Friday the boys went up Table Mountain and I was booked to go out to Robben Island which is the maximum prison where Nelson Mandela was kept for 18 out of his 27 years in prison. A 45min boat trip takes you to the island (stunning views of table mountain from the water) then when you arrive it is ex-political prisoners who take you on a bus ride around the island and talk to you about different aspects and about the prisoners who were kept there, we saw the limestone quarry where the prisoners used to work, then you get a tour around the prison itself and you see Mandela's cell which is literally 3 metres by 2 metres and he was kept in solitary confinement for 23 hours a day....pretty horrible!! In the evening we went to the supermarket and bought stuff to do a barbecue (or "braai"), found a huge 2.2kg slab of steak which we cut up and barbecued - was amazing! Had a bit too much red meat in those couple of days though!! So we were going to take it easy that night because
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first class train down to simonstown to see the penguins, i love first class I was leaving on the bus at 7:30am and the boys had to be up at 5am because they were going shark-cage diving, but a few of them were having a couple of drinks while Jake and I were on a strict plan of matching each other drink for drink - on iced water!! However, about 11pm the pact broke (mainly due to our friend Jamie who kept trying to persuade us to go out with him!) and we ended up going out again....oops!! Ended up with them going pretty muich straight out to the cage dive and i got an hour and a half sleep before having to get up and pack and catch the bus!!!!
Honestly though, the hostel is so noisy, we may as well have gone out beacuse we would have had a rubbish sleep otherwise!!
So yesterday I left Cape Town and got on the bus for the first time which is the hop-on, hop-off bus that will take me all the way up the coast to Durban then inland to Johannesburg. I decided to go to a place called Mossel Bay - I wasn't sure what was there but decided to go anyway.
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view from the train And quickly decided I would leave the next day! The place is a ghost town!! Everything closes on a Saturday afternoon and there were no people around, no cars around, no shops open....all I wanted was a bar to watch the FA Cup Liverpool v Havant & Waterlooville match, FAT CHANCE!!!!!! The hostel was ok but only about 4 people staying there - however I had the best night's sleep last night because it was so quiet. This morning I went to the beach for a bit but then the bus came and picked me up from the hostel at 2pm and has brought me to a new place called Buffalo Bay - this hostel is right on the beach nestled in the sand dunes and there are no shops or anything around, it's just a nice place to chill out and there's a pool table and a big fireplace with sofas and stuff to relax in - I'll get another good sleep tonight! Unfortunately I left my camera battery and charger in the last hostel but thankfully tomorrow someone else is coming on the bus here so they will bring it - so unfortunatelty again I can't upload my
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still on the train photos yet!! I will do soon!!!
A massive storm has just blown up outside here - it's now raining really heavily and the waves are going crazy!!!!!!! About to have a bit of dinner here and then play some pool with a girl I met on the bus called Jane who is also staying here tonight.
Tomorrow I am going just a short way on the bus to a place called Knysna (pronounced nice-na), then onto Plettenberg. Dinner is ready - I'm off!! x
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