The Rest of My Time In Cape Town, South Africa

---

FEBRUARY 18th (Later that day)

So they finally let us off the ship. After about 2 more hours of listening to announcements and going through immigration and customs, we were able to walk down the gateway and take in some solid ground.

I have to say this has been the most amazing port so far. The place we docked is called the Waterfront. It is gorgeous. It feels like a California-like shore place (almost like Fisherman’s Wharf meets Disney World). It’s really hard to explain. If you want to I would suggest looking up Google Images or something like that, because it really is amazing. I mean there are restaurants, performers, a mall, little ships, sea lions, a ferris wheel, and not to mention Table Mountain in the background of all this. I've got to admit, it felt really good to see an indoor mall, places with full electricity and air conditioning. We recognized some of the food places and stores and freaked out a little bit.

My trip ended up not being canceled, just post-poned and shortened. I volunteered for an organization called Operation Hunger. We drove about an hour and half by bus to a shantytown Soup Kitchen. Part of our job was to weigh the kids and write their weights on their arms. I thought this was a little weird, but I guess it has to be done in order to see if the child is malnutrioned or not. All the kids were very happy we were there and performed for us. We also played jump rope with them and taught them some hand games.

Because we had already eaten lunch earlier, no one was hungry for their boxed lunches on the bus. We decided to drive to a nearby school and give the food out to the school children. It was really sad to see how they were all so hungry and ate all the food in literally under 5 seconds, but it was also really rewarding to help out.

We headed back and I decided to go back on the ship and figure out what to do for the night. A group of people and I decided to go out this Ethiopian restaurant, called Addis in Cape. One of the girls in our group was from Ethiopia, so it was really helpful because she ordered for us. I had never had Ethiopian food before and I've got to say if you’re adventurous, you should definitely try it. You sit in these small stools around a circular bowl-like table. They put this thin rolled out dough on the whole table and just pour all the dishes on it. We had 13 small dishes. You then just take extra rolls and just eat with your hands. Everyone shares everything. It was weird but really cool! We also got a bottle of red wine for the table! We didn’t get dessert but I noticed at the next table that a couple ordered coffee. When the waitress brought it out it was a cup of coffee on a plate with some popcorn and incense. Apparently that is the custom in Ethiopian….fun fact!

So after dinner we decided to check out the night life in Cape Town. If you are going to go out, you want to go to Long Street (that is where everything is basically). We went to an Irish pub called Dubliner’s. They had a band performing and we got to sing-a-long and dance. It was a good time and then we went to a dance club. That was really fun and we ended up staying there for the rest of the night (probably until 3 am). Overall it was a great first day!

FEBRUARY 19th---

I’m really upset that I didn’t have more time to blog in general during my time in Cape Town. But this is all that I really remember (for short).

After getting about 3 hours of sleep, I woke up to go meet up with Huibri’s (she's a friend from home) parents. They told me and Charli to meet them at the Aquarium and they would show us around for the day. These are the places they took us:

· Cape of Good Hope---beautiful! We climbed up this mountain for a half an hour until we got to a lighthouse and got to look out at the amazing view! We were in a cloud too which was crazy!

· Boulder Beach---a beach that has penguins on it. They swim in the water and sit on all these rocks near you. You can just climb up on the rocks and go sit with them….they are really used to humans. It was such a cool experience. We also had lunch there. I had this salmon and goat cheese meal. Only took a few photos on my camera…Charli has all the photos of us sitting with the penguins (so if you checked my facebook photos, you probably only saw pictures or videos of just the penguins).

· Wine Tour and Museum Visit

Overall it was a great day. Hopefully I can put up pictures soon, but if not you can look up what some of these places look like online.

After getting back around 4:30 we decided to go check out the nearby marketplace and the mall. They had a lot of cool stuff and I bought some really nice jewelry. The nicest thing about my shopping experience here is that they didn’t grab me or attack me in order to make me buy something. It was such a nice change and I finally felt relaxed for once. I mean some of the places we still had to bargain, but overall it was a nice change of pace. It was also really nice to be in a mall. We were like little kids in a candy shop. We sort of acted like we had never seen an indoor mall before hahah! I ended up getting a world cup shirt. We passed the stadium but didn’t go there (the stadium is actually really close to our port). U2 played there our second night.

We decided to go out with the same group again and try a traditional African restaurant again. We went to a place on Long Street called Mama Africa’s. The inside of the restaurant was really cool looking and there was a band playing traditional African music. We ate the weirdest food on the menu. I think I had Ostrich, crocodile, lamb, and some other types of “game”….who knows? It was all really good actually! They were out of warthog but I think I’m okay on passing that up!

Then we decided to go out to the bar and clubs again. We stayed there until 2 am and then I got to go to an internet café!!! I was really excited to finally get online again!

FEBRUARY 20th---

After getting back to the ship around 4:15 am, I was beyond tired! I had to wake up 5:45 am to go to my safari and I was just cranky and miserable. I have never NOT slept this much in my entire life. But somehow I managed to get off the ship in time and check in with my group.

The drive to the reserve was 2 ½ hours long. Luckily I was so tired, that I feel asleep for the whole ride. Once we got there I was kind of taken back. It was so nice and fancy. It felt like a 5 star hotel. I was kind of upset I wasn’t staying in one of their villas for the night.

Once we got off the bus we were all welcomed with some sparkling wine. Everyone is obsessed with wine here. Then we headed inside and all ate breakfast. After breakfast I got to stand next to some ostrich that was just walking around outside of the breakfast building. I got as close as I could to it to take a picture and then backed away quickly. It kind of looked like it was angry we were all near it.

After about twenty minutes we were ushered over to the jeeps to go on our safari. The safari lasted about 2 hours and we stopped halfway through for more wine. Geezzz! Anyways, we got to see the Big 5. The Big 5 in South Africa are: Elephant, Giraffe, Lion, Leopard and Buffalo (one is pictured on each of their bills). Overall it was really cool. After our safari we went back to the main building for lunch. Then we headed back on the bus to go to the Waterfront.

We went out for Thai food for dinner. I went back to the internet café and got to upload some pictures from the first day and a half of Cape Town. It was crazy because I uploaded about 45-50 pictures and those are only from the first bit of my trip. I take way too many photos!

Still got back to the ship around 3 am. And of course just like every other night, I didn’t get any sleep.

FEBRUARY 21st---

Woke up around 8 am this morning to get breakfast and head out for a day of shopping on Long Street. We took a nearby bus downtown. We walked around and shopped for a couple of hours. The stores were kind of funky and had a lot of unique stuff in them. Around 11:30 we decided to eat somewhere. We went to a small restaurant and got to sit outside and eat. The food was really good.

I took a taxi back to the ship so that I could meet up with my 1:15 tour group. My tour was called Animal Whisperers. Basically you go to a Cheetah petting farm and play with them. We only got to pet one cheetah so I was kind of upset. The cheetah outreach program also has a section on the land for birds (called “Birds of Prey Farm”). Vultures, owls and other crazy birds just came up to us and sat on our hands. The owls were my absolute favorite. This cute little white one would just come up to me and let me pet it. I want to upload this video at some point but the guide played some music on his phone and 3 of the owls (Snap, Crackle and Pop) started dancing. After playing with snap, crackle and pop I was dead set on bringing one home with me hahah!

After playing with all the birds we walked down the street to Spier Wine Estate. We got to have a wine tasting. We tried 3 different types of wine. They also showed us how you are supposed to actually perform a correct wine tasting. The first wine was good (it was a fruity white wine) but the other 2 were gross. They were really strong and tastes kind of bitter.

When we got back to the ship I went to the grocery store and stocked up on food and juice. I was so happy to see normal food in a grocery store for once. After showering, we all decided that we had to go back to the Ethiopian restaurant again. We had a different array of food but it was all still amazing. My friend Sydney bought a bottle of wine she wanted to ship home (it didn’t work out). The wine she had was amazing. It literally tasted like sugar and fruit.

Anyway, dinner went on forever because we did some sort of deal where you get all the food and then tea (Ethiopian tea tastes like spice, mint and cinnamon all together). It was really good. They also give you dessert. After dinner we all decided we were way too tired to go out, not to mention that we all literally ran out of cash at this point. We headed back in a taxi and just passed out when we got back to the ship.

FEBRUARY 22nd---

Last day in port and no one on the ship wants to leave. Since we had to be back on the ship by 6 pm we decided to take in a full day of activities. Me, Charli and Sarah decided to take a double-decker tourist bus around the city. You pay 120 Rand (which is $17 US dollars) and go to about 14 different stops. Every time the bus stops you can just get off or you can stay on. If you get off, you just go see a sight and then wait at the bus stop to hop back on. They run on a loop, and one comes about every 10-15 minutes. We decided to get off at the South African Jewish Museum. This was really interesting to see. The synagogue was beautiful….and really big too. After that we were supposed to get off at District 6 Museum but sort of failed at getting off the bus at the right time. We were running short on time so decided to skip all the rest of the museums and just ride out the bus to the last 2 stops we wanted to go to.

First we went to Table Mountain. We took a cable car up to the top. We were REALLY high up. The best part was that you can see the entire city and waterfront from the top. After walking around and taking several pictures we decided to have lunch in the café. After lunch we headed back down to the bottom to catch the bus.

The next stop was Camp’s Beach. These are where the celebrities stay. It was sooo fancy and pretty. It is really rich beach houses on the ocean with the mountains in the background. We walked along the beach and hung out for a half an hour. We were really rushed because we wanted to make sure we got back in time.

We took the bus back to the Waterfront. Once we were there, we went into the mall to do some last minute grocery shopping. We decided that it would be a good idea to load up on some snack food considering the fact that in a little over a week we will be in India (and the food and drinks are probably all going to make us sick). I was so happy to buy some normal food in a grocery store for once. I bought some juice, a box of cereal, granola bars and a chocolate bar. It was weird they didn’t have very many American brands and everything was in such small packaging. I mean in the US if you buy a pack of Oreos it comes with 30 or 40. But here if you get something like a pack of Oreos you only get around 5 or 10.

Anyway, after we bought food, I wanted to exchange my money back to US dollars. Sadly, the two times we went to exchange places it didn’t work out. One place was out of US dollars and the other people were just not there. At this point, we ran to the food court really fast and got some more food and booked it back to the ship. I was so happy that the line moved fast and I was able to get on the ship on time.

I have to say overall, South Africa has been my favorite port so far. Not only was it beautiful, but everything was just perfect. I loved the restaurants, tourist sites, night life, shops and weather. I’m so upset we are leaving. I could honestly stay for another whole month and be completely content. I’m really sad we lost a day because we were stuck at sea, but I still had an amazing time and got to do most of the stuff I wanted to do. I didn’t have time for shark cage diving or Robben Island. But I guess I will just have to come back one day. If I ever come back, I want to also do a helicopter ride, visit the San (Bushmen) tribe and go paragliding off Table Mountain. If you want to travel to somewhere besides Europe, South Africa is really the place to go. It was sooo incredible!!! Anyway, off to Mauritius. We will be there in 5 days.

---