Cape Town and Johannesburg

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Our final two destinations before leaving Africa were Cape Town and Johannesburg. The former is famous for its natural beautyand its horrific crime rate, the latter is famous for, well... just its horrific crime rate.

We spent four days in Africa's "mother city", Cape Town. Arriving in the airport at midnight, we had a taxi take us to our hostel on the notorious party street - Long Street. Luckily we were so tired that we slept right through the booming music coming from the street below.

Next morning, the streets were non surprisingly quiet. We dragged ourselves down to a quaint sidewalk cafe and had a leisurely breakfast with real coffee - bliss! We were shocked by the efficiency, something which is decidedly non-existent in most of Africa. The food came out quickly and it was what we had ordered - amazing! I knew at that point that I was going to like Cape Town!

The first thing we did was take the revolving cable car up to table Mountain. It was gorgeous! The views over the city and bay were broken only momentarilt from time to time as the "table cloth" (cloud cover) swept across the top. It tumbled over the edge of the cliffs surrounding us, only to evaporate as it descended. It looked like a Disneyesque waterfall!

In the afternoon, we hung out at the Victoria and Albert waterfront (basically the harbour area). We couldn't do the boat ride to Robben Island (where Nelson Mandela was incarcerated for 17 years) as we were told we had to book it three weeks in advance - silly us! Still, the waterfront was gorgeous, with lots of lovely restaurants and bars overlooking Table Mountain. The seals in the foreground entertained us as we chomped down on a Mediterranean penne pasta - pure bliss! We even managed to make a trip to a super-modern shopping mall to find a replacement battery for our alrm clock. Having been on its last legs for quite some time, it made the alarm sound rather less annoying, but had us concerned that it would finally give up the ghost suddenly, causing us to miss an important flight or bus. As you can probably tell, by this time we were thoroughly enjoying a little break from "real" travel - some Westernization!

Our next day in Cape Town was one of my most anticipated, but ironically the most disappointing. We travelled for 2 hours by minibus and 20 minutes by boat in the hopes of coming face to face with a great white shark. No, I'm not crazy; they put you in a steel cage! I guess I'd envisioned we'd be in the cage watching from behing our masks and snorkels as huge great whites swam right at us , gnashing their rows of razor sharp teeth and occasinally attacking the cage. Unfortunately, visibility was down to about 5 feet, so we didn't see any from the cage. Still, it was a creept feeling, sitting in a cage in freezing cold murky water waiting for great white sharks!

After two hours of sitting on the boat and seeing nothing, we were beginning to give up, and then suddenly the skipper shouted "shark!" All eyes were suddenly looking down at the water intently. We were rewarded by the sight of a great white head coming out of the water to chomp down on the fish heads used as bait. This happened twice more. Amazing, but all too brief an encounter for a 12 hour trip!

The next day was fantastic. We went on an organized tour of the area's vineyards. What made the trip so much fun was the group we had with us - all independent travellers ready for a laugh. Our group often found it difficult to focus on the task at hand. For example, the guide asked one girl to swirl her wine and smell it and describe what comes to mind. Instead of answering something like, "subtle peach aromas", she concluded that, "I just want to drink it!" When pressed, she said she smelled grass, which instantly got misinterpreted by the group with hilarious consequences! At the end of the day, the four single girls on the trip convinced the guide to come out with us to continue the party - tough job!

Our fourth and final day in Cape Town was spent on a tour of the Cape Peninsula. The trip consisted of a mixture of bussing (good), hiking (nice), and uphill biking (not so nice!). However, the best part of the day for me, as i knew it would be, was the African penguins, otherwise known as Jackass penguins (seriously!). They were sooo cute! They gathered in their hundreds on a beautiful white sand beach to nest and easily captivated us as they waddled comically around the beach and tried to get in (and out) of the ocean.

Soon after getting dropped back at our hostel, we noticed that the streets below us were filled with police cars and many roads had been blocked off. Being South Africa, we instantly assumed that a murderer was on the loose. It actually turned out to be a charity fun run - ooops! The streets quickly became filled with fun runners in various costumes, and the balconies were full of on-lookers (some more interesting than the fun runners themselves!). It was quite a party atmosphere and reminded us of New Orleans during carnival.

We couldn't stay out too late as we had a 5:30am flight the next day, followed by 12 hours in Johannesburg, followed by a flight to Cairo - craziness! Our short time in Jo'burg turned out to be great thanks to a tour we joined to the Soweto townships (including Nelson Mandela's former house) and the excellent apartheid museum. One thing that really stuck in my mind from the museum was the information about the black schools during apartheid. Conditions were terrible, with only one teacher to over 100 students, and virtually no supplies and books. There was a photo of a teacher at the end of the school day looking tired and haggered - how come I often looked like that at the end of the day with only 18 students?! I guess we really shouldn't complain in California and the UK!

The museum really gave us an appreciation of how far South Africa has come in the years since apartheid. It still has a long way to go, there's no denying it, but at least there has been progress. A very positive end to our time in Southern Africa!

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Photos

Not a bad spot to eat some lunch!
V & A Waterfront with Table Mountain in the background

Who's watching who?
Looking for great whites from inside a steel cage!

What comes to mind when you smell it?
Erm, I just want to drink it! (oh yes, they are still students!!!)

Cute little Jackass Penguin
(really, that's what they are called!)

Feeling silly!
Not wearing a helmet in South Africa would be the least of our worries!!!

Fun-runners on Long Street
View from our balcony

Comments

[Mum]

Great White Shark!!
I think I'll be content to watch black tipped reef sharks with you, much more relaxing! Are we likely to see any around Ko Lipe in February? Mum xx

[Born to travel]

Black Tip Reef Sharks
I don't remember seeing them on Lipe, but if we all go back to Phi Phi I am definitely interested in getting up for the shark snorkel on Hat Yao (Long Beach) as we still have never made it in time!

[Claire]

Apartheid Schools
hey you 2, great to see your pics of south africa. i spent a year there way back in 1978, arriving a couple of months after steve biko had been tortured to death. you've brought back some wonderful memories. we both have virulent doses of travel lust and restlessness at the moment. i've been looking at my photos of our year on the road, and feeling terribly desk bound. so it's great to see your pics of somewhere that means a lot to me, changed though it is now. i visited some schools when i was living there---it was during the depths of the apartheid years, when even the most fearful recognised that the system had failed. what amazed me was that, in all that hardship and deprivation, all purposeful, and the Bantu knew it, of course, was that will to get an education. i met some amazing black South Africans who had somehow managed, mostly through willpower, to put themselves through university. anyway, better get back to work. ugh! happy trails.

[mum]

shark point on Phi Phi
Maybe we just got lucky but it was around 9.30 - 10am when we saw sharks, so not so early really. The day we saw them we were only staying a few minutes walk away though. Not sure I'd have had the courage to swim out so far if I'd had to trek over the rocks for 45 mins to get there.