No Homesick Blues

Day 1 (Tuesday 21-Apr-09, JRJ)

We arrived in Cape Town International Airport at around 7:45 after a smooth flight. I watched Quantum of Solace, Bolt, an episode of The American Office, a documentary about the Madrid v Barcalona derby and read some of my book. Natalie … slept! For about 10 hours - I'm sure she's half koala.

Our shuttle from the hostel didn't turn up at the airport, so ended up forking out for a taxi ourselves. Upon entering the city outskirts we were welcomed by one of the many townships South Africa has to offer. Its still amazing how people live like this in a modern world (it's almost as bad as the Gurnos). After the disappointment of seeing the shanty town, it was the awe inspiring Table Mountain which greeted us to Cape Town itself. We arrived at 'The Backpack' at about 9 am, but weren't allowed to check in until 2pm. At this point Natalie had a mad 5 minutes because she realised she had left her pencil case (which contained 3 packs of her pill and the all important double sided sticky tape) on the plane. However after a few minutes she was surprisingly calm again. If you know Natalie - you will understand how amazing this was!

Anyway, after sorting out our bags and stuff we took a walk down to the Victoria and Alfred Waterfront, which took about 45 mins. We had a wander round the shops and quay then had some line caught yellow fin tuna from a fish and chip shop. We then took a city sightseeing tour bus around the city to see the city like a proper tourist. It turn out that apart from Table Mountain, and the V&A Waterfront, Capetown is pretty shit. We got back to the hostel about 5:15 and had a 30 min sleep cos we was knackered!

The room at The Backpack was nice and had a en-suite with a lush shower. In the evening we had a Braai (South African BBQ) at the patio area in the hostel. Food was very nice - chicken skewers, some weird sausage and fresh Snoek (which is like the local cod) which had bones like a cocktail sticks - but was still tasty. We had a few bottles of local Castle Lager which were under a £1 each, and had a chat to a few other backpackers. At about 10pm we were getting really tired so decided to go to bed. When we passed through the bar, I noticed that the Liverpool v Arsenal game was live on TV. I was tempted to watch it but as it was 0-0 with 30 mins gone I decided I was too tired, so went to bed.

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