This is Africa?

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For some reason our seats on the Johannesburg to Capetown flight weren't together, but it was kinda lucky cause Aaron got to talking with the guy next to him and after we landed the guy let Aaron use his cell phone to call a hotel ahead, as it was already 11pm or so and we had no hotel booking. The guy was so nice and even apologised that he couldn't give us a ride there! We finally got a hotel with some availability and took a fast driving taxi there. The hostel was beautiful, and we were in a room for 4 paying way too much, but there were chocolates on the bed! We stayed there only one night cause they were all booked up otherwise, and promptly moved to another hostel right on the main drag, Long Street. Our hostel there was real nice too, with a long balcony to overlook the craziness below. I was still recovering from the bad safari food and so we took it easy that first day. Capetown was amazing. Its not anything like you'd imagine, its completely first world metropolis. We found ourselves looking around and thinking "this is Africa?" We went out to the waterfront area, which really reminded me of a nicer South Street Seaport in NY. There were malls, restaurants, lots of people milling about. We went to one place with a live band playing jazz and then booked dinner reservations at another place with live jazz as well. The food was great, the wine was great, and the music was great. It was such a treat. We got back to the hostel and there was madness all along the street's bars flowing out into the pavement. I believe it was St. Patric's day and the Irish Pub across the way was blowing up.

The next day I was really sick, recovering from the bad safari food as well as the bottle of wine we had the night before, and so we didn't do much of anything other than browse the absurd bookshops along Long street. These bookshops are like ancient libraries, selling old, sometimes used books, in a totally unorganized way with dusty stacks all over the place of books no one has read, or will read ever, with titles like "The Flora and Fauna of Swaziland, 1972". I really don't understand these bookshops, who shops there? There were at least 5 of these similar style bookshops within a short stroll of our hostel, it was so strange.

We spent the evening on the balcony once again marvelling at the chaos of the partiers below and had a good dinner across the street at a swanky burger joint. The next few days were far more productive and we did all the tourist stuff. We started off by renting a car, once again forcing me to drive on the other side of the road, and this time it was a manual! It was somewhat difficult to use the stick shift with my left hand, but luckily the petals are still the same, or we'd be in real trouble. And only once did I turn on the windshield wipers when trying to put on the blinker, but I did however put it into 1st when going for 3rd an uncountable number of times, apparently cars don't really like that. After we got the car settled we ate and did the beautiful drive out to the Cape of Good Hope stopping to see the African Penguins on the way back, followed by a fun Sunday evening ska concert in the botanical gardens overlooking Capetown. And for dinner we saw some more Jazz, and ate some amazing nachos actually at the Irish Pub, best pub food ever! The next morning we went up to Table Mountain and instead of doing some arduous hike, we paid top dollar for the rotating glass gondola. Table Mountain is great though, beautiful views of land and sea, and totally windy. From there we headed out to the biggest shopping mall on the continent to get some necessities, like books, pants and soap. We felt like home in this massive mall, it was sparkling. Then we drove on to catch our boat out to Robben Island, which is like Alcatraz, but bigger and its where they had kept all the political prisoners, including Nelson Mandela. Our tour guide was actually an ex-con and had loads of great stories to tell us about his time there. You'll have to ask me, its too much to go into like this... We went to the Irish Pub again that night, basically because the nachos were so divine.

The next day we left Capetown, (after purchasing a brand new Canon camera which is awesome, check out www.pairedhearts.com for the new section with the Canon) for our trip up the east coast, but our first stop was out in the wine country. Stellenbotsch looks so much like California, we thought we'd driven all the way home. The wineries are beautiful, and wine tasting was cheap. We had a great time sipping and learning all about their local wines, we went to 4 different wineries over the day and even got a cheese platter at one. The town was nice and chill, thanks for the recommendation Slocum!

From there we were out to Hermanus for 2 things, the beach and the sharks. It was totally socked in at the beach and you couldn't even see the water from the sand, so we went back to the hostel and enjoyed a BBQ or Brai dinner and played some pool. The shark dive we did was crazy! We went out to the spot and had a great breakfast with anti-motion sickness tablets for free and headed out into the choppy sea. It was cold, choppy and luckily sunny, and at first we didn't see anything. But after moving to some more choppy water we were surrounded by great white sharks! What to do then, get in the water of course!! We got in our thick wetsuits and jumped in the cage. It was insane, they bait the shark with a ball of fish guts and the shark attacks it as we watched, sometimes they would even slam into the cage. Great white sharks are massive, it was such a great adrenalin rush. The water was completely freezing and our hands were numb the whole time, but we loved it. A highlight of our trip for sure!

We spent the next few days driving up through their so called "Wild Coast" actually a town called "Wilderness". Out on Robberg Peninsula in Plettenburg Bay we even saw some kids skinny dipping after a long hike around the reserve. I have no idea how they could go into that freezing water! Plett was beautiful and we spent the evening around a campfire in the back of our hostel chatting with other travelers. Eventually we got to Jeffery's Bay, surely my favourite place in South Africa. J-Bay as its called, is a famous surfing spot and hosts a Billabong surf competition in the winter. After getting turned away by 2 different hostels we finally got a beautiful room at a place called Beach Music. It seemed random to end up there, but it backed right onto the famous beach called "SuperTubes" for the great waves you can catch there. The whole place was great, our room was comfortable with a ocean view and small back porch, the kitchen was stocked with good utensils and pots and pans, not that crap you usually get in hostels, and the back balcony gave a perfect view of the surf. Apparently the whole place gets rented out by the Billabong team, and they all stay there hosting the competition from the backyard! It was so nice that we decided to stay an extra night. We spent the morning shopping at the massive Billabong Factory store and fretting over the weather. By the time we got our suits on and layed down on the beach the small amount of sun was gone, and it started to rain! Dang! We chilled out for the rest of the day and watched surfing from the balcony. We did our own brai that night and even showed the locals how to make smores! It was a big hit. The next morning was beautiful and we decided to stay even longer. SuperTubes was starting to pick up and all the good surfers at the place were heading out. We watched from the beach and the balcony until we finally pulled ourselves away and drove inland to Gramstown. I could really have stayed in J-bay forever.

Gramstown was recommended to us by a fellow traveler who had spent some time there going to school. He told us about the jail you can stay at, so we had to find out what it was. The Old Goal was the old jail there in Gramstown and we slept in a tiny cell. It was really loud there and the echo of someone's voice carried all throughout, needless to say we didn't sleep too well in jail. Gramstown was really just a stopover on our way out to another bay, Coffee Bay.

On the map Coffee Bay looked like it wasn't too far, but we had been warned by our friends in J-bay that it took way longer than you'd think. So we set out early for the long drive. We finally got through all the hills and valleys, still reveling in the beauty of the landscape, and made the turn off towards Coffee Bay. The road out there was insane! The whole way was super curvy and dotted with potholes. For an added bonus there were cows, goats, sheep, and dogs hiding in the road around every turn and blind hilltop. As if the pothole dodging and livestock herding weren't enough there were hundreds of school kids running about all over the street along with the occasional adults strolling past. This was the most stressful drive I have ever done! Also because I had already been driving for 4 hours before we started in on that madness. Maybe you're asking yourself "Why isn't Aaron doing some of the drive?" well, his license is expired and so therefore can't drive the car legally, so for the whole time I had to. He did provide lots of moral support and fueled my Doritos habit by feeding me whenever I asked. We finally arrived in the tiny bay, only to find that our preferred hostel was fully booked! We tried to call ahead from J-bay but the guy there said, in a very surfer-ish accent "naw, braw, you don't need a booking there, its totally empty, I was just there last week." We were able to get a room at the place next door and began to relax just as the weather turned bad. Aside from playing pool on a severely water damaged table and staring at each other between meals there wasn't much to do. We tried to do a highly recommended hike but right as we got to the starting point a monsoon rolled in and we had to turn back. Of all the places in South Africa this was the most African in feel though and we spent some time chatting with some of the local guys, and Aaron got to play some drums with them too. From there we did the long drive back to East London and flew from there to Johannesburg and then up to Accra, Ghana for our month of volunteering.

As of right now we are in France and tomorrow Spain, Europe has been fun, I would say a welcome change from Africa. But its been cold here, so wish for some warm weather for us!

I know there arent enough photos, I will try to upload some more, but check out http://pairedhearts.com/Gallery/album72 for some more as well as http://www.travelblog.org/Africa/South-Africa/Cape-Town/blog-153141.html for some more pics.

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Photos

it was windy at the cape!
no this is not an illusion, aarons hair is really that long

Capetown view from Robben Island
Table mountain is cool!