Waka Waka

South Africa!

Well, it may just be paradise. In the city center you are surrounded by mountains and the ocean. There are a number of things to keep you occupied for days on end and its just stunning and awesome and I don't have the energy to think of bigger/ more impressive ways of writing that besides totally freaking awesome and so pretty and stunning and cooooooool. Ugh. When we had our pre-port meeting about Capetown they told us it was one of the most dangerous cities. Crime there is apparently high but just like any big city you must be cautious. I didn't know what to expect and had no real plans but it ended up being one of the best ports so far. We had five days which is longer than we have had in any port and I think I slept less than I have in any port too.
The first day in port was off to an early start as we were called out of bed at 6am to get off the boat, go through customs, get back on the boat and then get off the boat. All part of some new system that the port had just started called being obnoxious. Amber, Sumi and I left the ship in the morning and headed to V&A Waterfront, a huge mall and area of restaurants on the bay. It was really beautiful spot, there were even some seals playing in the water. Picture perfect. We stopped at a great restaurant for sushi. You seriously start to miss some things after living on the boat, one of them being sushi! So that filled a serious hole in my heart. We also shopped around a bit and then headed to a more local market in the city. The only thing about the waterfront is that it just feels like you are back home. I wouldn't have been able to tell the difference between a mall in the US and this one. The local market gave us a better feel for SA. They had all sorts of great crafts and things, and I definitely got some Christmas shopping done, whoop whoop! We hung out, got some drinks and saw a parade of people dress like zombies (early halloween thing?). The taxis are crazy cheap in Capetown which was was surprising. I thought it was going to be really expensive but it never really turned out to be. We walked from the market to Long street, the "place to be" for going out at night. During the day it is nothing special, almost creepy, but we stopped for early dinner at a pizza place before heading back to the ship. We got back and got ready to go out. We had a heard from a friend's friend who lived in Capetown for a semester the cool places to go, one of them being Bob's Bistro. We started there and had a great time dancing and then these two guys from Capetown we had met took us to another cool place. It was a small place upstairs and they had a DJ and I imagined that this is the type of place cool people hang out. It was kind of like that except the people weren't that cool, but it was still fun. I got to quiz the the two guys from Capetown on what race relations and politics were like now in South Africa after the Apartheid ended. He said that it was a really bad thing to be racist now, it was the worst thing to be and no one was like that. In apartheid times white people were guaranteed a job and now there are white people that don't have jobs. I think thats what he was getting at. I find that theres no racism now hard to believe. But Ill just let that one go for now.
Anyways, we got back to the ship late and woke up bright and early to go to this great beach we heard about from our cape town friends! Yay for mornings! We had a late breakfast at a nice place in the city and some delicious croissant french toast and bacon. When you get off the ship you just eat because the food on the ship has just gotten so old. We went about 45 - 60 minutes away to this beach and I can't remember the name right now but I will eventually. Just kidding I remember, its called Boulder Beach! It looks like a screen saver, it's that gorgeous! Its surrounded by these huge boulders and it creates this little protected lagoon and I just want to live there. Not to mention the PENGUINS that live right next to it!!! You walk down a ways and there are just hundreds of penguins. We hung out at the beach and had great fun looking at the penguins. Both these places were close to cape point, the southern tip where you can see the Indian Ocean on the left and the Atlantic Ocean on the right, and had I known this we would have gone. But I found out after so now I tell you all this so that you won't find out after you go. We stopped back at V&A Waterfront to go the grocery store and then dinner. We sat outside right in front of the performance area that kept having these interesting Indian fusion dancers. There are a lot of Indians in Capetown. Some of our friends had rented a villa in town and invited us to hang out. Amber was spending the night there but I had to be back on the ship that night because I had a trip the next day that was leaving at 3:45 in the morning or something ridiculous. We went to the villa and hung out, and I finally fixed my phone! So now I have pictures again, but I put them all up on Facebook and didn't have time to put them up here. But you are all welcome to add me on Facebook to see them! Im hoping Ill eventually put them all up here but it may or may not be in December. The villa was in Camps Bay, a really nice area of Capetown, put that on your list of things to do when you visit. I got back to the ship around 3am, and when I got through security I see the ship and it is on the other side of the canal. The opposite side. This is a bit of an issue as I wish to get back on the ship. I saw a bunch of people sitting down outside. They weren't letting anyone on the ship. I asked what was going on and apparentlyyyyy a baby humpback whale had lodged itself in between the ship and the dock. They had to call the sea rescue team and everything and move the ship so the baby whale could leave the harbor. They finally got the ship back to our side at 4 am and I was super late to meet the girls I was going with on the trip. Luckily I ran into them on the way out on the way in and told them to wait for me.
We finally make it on the road and drive for like four or five hours to Botlierskop Private Game Reserve. Botlierskop means Lion's Head in Afrikaans. My friend Laurel had set up this day trip that included riding elephants, a safari, and shark cage diving and thats where SA can get kind of expensive as I found out. So we got to the game reserve around 9:30 am and we had just missed the elephant ride. We were really pissed because our guide had stopped the car on the way there three times even though no one had to pee, and had we not stopped we would have made it. But he said we could come back later and squeeze it in before our safari. We then got back in the car and went 30 minutes to the coast where we had snacks and a safety briefing at the shark cage dive place. The safety video is really quite self explanatory.. they were like yeah just don't try and touch the shark and keep all body parts in the cage. Thanks for that captain obvious. So we head out on this surprisingly small boat for 25 people and the day is perfect, it made me so happy to just be out on the water. We drive out to seal island, and I think its the actual seal island, the one on animal planet and discovery channel and everything. They anchor and start chumming the water and they throw this huge fish head in the water on a rope. We wait for about 10 or 15 minutes before we see the first shark. It was a medium sized one ( So they said, it looked huge to me) and they got the first group in wetsuits ready to get out there. I was not in the first group. I went in the first group surfing back in Lisbon but that is the extent of my bravery when it comes to going first. Sharks were involved, it was different. So I watch as everyone gets into the cage and they start teasing the shark with the fish head. They never actually let the shark get it and I learned later that its against regulations to ever feed the sharks. I sat in the tower and took pictures while the first two groups went in the cages. Then I had to put the wetsuit on and it was the hardest damn part of the whole experience. Just imagine Ross when he tries to put his sweaty and shrunken leather pants back on in Friends.. I get in the cage and the water isn't too cold. They just give you west suits and a mask and drop you in. You put your hands on the inside bar and your feet either go in the back of the cage against the boat or on the front of the cage on a lower bar. You first see the dark shadow in front of you and then they tell you to go down. It was really hard to see the shark unless it was right in front of you, I actually thought I could see everything better with my head above water. They just drag the fish head around and when the shark goes for it they bring it super close to the cage so you can see. Its not scary when you are out of the water but once you are at the the sharks level it is terrifying. These things are huge and I forgot to mention two other, larger sharks came to the boat a bit later and they are attacking the fish and sometimes start thrashing against the cage. Its so scary. You know they can't get through the cage but just imagine 16 ft man eating sharks 2 inches away from you! It was exhilarating and just plain frightening but I really liked it and am so glad I went through with it. We get out and back to shore where we walk back to the shark diving place and eat lunch while we watch this really cheesy video of our dive. I think at this point it was around 3pm and we were in a hurry to get back to the game reserve. When we get there our guide somehow manages to talk the place into squeezing in two more elephant rides in for us before our safari. It was really interesting to ride the elephant. It was not a smooth ride at all and the skin is not even skin. Its so rough and cracked and chafes your leg the whole time haha. The elephant ride was cool but it was scary too because when you think about it you could get really hurt if it decided to throw you off or if it got upset or something. We started our safari at 5:30 and they said it would be done by 7. We ended up being done at 8 but Im not complaining at all. The safari was truly amazing. The game reserve is full of these huge hills, and being from Florida I always think hills are really interesting, like woah.. hills. What a concept! Anyways, the sun was setting and we just drove along and saw a bunch of animals. We saw zebras, rhinos, ostrich, wildebeest I think, dassie ( a little furry thing which is the closest living relative of the elephant funnily enough) and others. It was just getting dark when we got to the lion area. We drove right up the male lion. Our guide was like yeah he's really playful he may follow us as we leave. Sure enough we drive away and he leaps up and starts chasing us! This safari truck isn't protected in any way, the driver just has this long wooden stick. I thought he was insane but we made it out alive. The whole day was amazing. When our safari was finished we still had a 5 hour drive back to Capetown. We stopped for a quick dinner. Now.. our guide had this really obnoxious thing he started doing. In the morning he had played wrecking ball, and naturally the car full of 8 girls began singing along. He then would play it frequently and when he did he would blast it. I am 20 years old and I play music loudly, I can dig it, but this guy was playing it just way too loud. And only when wrecking ball came on. Hey continued to do this the whole five hours home. We would just be drifting off to sleep and then you would be wide awake because wrecking ball would be playing louder than I could scream! Wtf!!! Most annoying thing I have ever had to deal with. On top of that he still managed to stop three times on the way home. I finally realized why.. he had to stop and smoke a cigarette every hour or so..
I get back to my room at 1 in the morning highly agitated, extremely tired and pretty dirty and salty. Just a hot mess. I shower and crash. The plan the next day was to hike table mountain. We had heard the best thing to do was hike in the morning because it was cooler. I had set my alarm for 8 but my roommate hadn't gotten back yet from the villa so I got to sleep longer. She gets back and after we catch up its already 11 and really cloudy. We make plans to meet with everyone else at three on the ship to decide if we would go to the top or not. Meanwhile we went to a different mall farther way at the suggestion of a cab driver. It was 15 minutes away and we got overcharged and we felt pretty stupid. The mall was huge and uninteresting but we got lunch and then went back to the ship by 2. We met up with everyone and decided we wouldn't hike to the top but we would just take the cable car. The top of table mountain is supposed to have the best views of capetown but we got the best views on the way up in the cable car. Once we got high enough we were in a cloud and couldn't see anything at all. Walking around up at the top was like being in a different world. It was foggy and freezing but they had a gift shop and a good coffee shop so I wasn't too disappointed. lol. My phone died so I will steal someone else's pictures from table mountain and post it for you all. The view really was amazing. That night I was determined to see a music performance because it was required for one of my classes. My teacher had recommended The Crypt for jazz so Amber, my friend Monica and Amber's professor came with me. We had a nice night and good food. Amber and Monica went to the villa and I went back to the ship. I had to be back by 12 because I had a field lab for my Marine Biology class the next day.
Our field lab included whale watching and a visit to the south african shark conservatory in Hermanus. Hermanus is only an hour and a half drive from Capetown. On the way there we passed some of the townships. Townships are areas where only black people lived during the Apartheid. People still live there today. They consisted of some government housing but there was still a scary amount of shacks. Metal pieces were just put together as shelter. It was the only time I had seen that while in Capetown. It was similar to what was described in Kaffir Boy, a book we had to read for Race and Ethnic Relations. I really recommend the book for anyone, it was great. It described the life of a boy who lived in the township of Alexandra until he moved to the states on a tennis scholarship and the horrible conditions black people lived in under apartheid. The tourist areas are really good at making you forget the nastiness of apartheid. The nice areas of capetown are really nice, but there are some really devastating areas still. SAS offered tours of some townships. This raised some questions within our community. I personally think theres and issue going around a township in a bus and taking pictures out of a window at the place and the people, it reminds me of a zoo. South Africa still seemed really separated to me.
We got to Hermanus and its just as stunning as Capetown. Mountains are right next to the ocean and the water is beautiful. We were whale watching for about 2 hours. We look out and see rocks, but the rocks were actually whales. The Southern Right Whales are in South Africa to give birth to their calves and rest in the warmer water. They didn't do anything particularly exciting until we were about to leave (naturally). They started jumping out of the water and playing around. We then when to the shark conservatory and watched them dissect a shark. We also visited a penguin colony on the way back to Capetown. We couldn't leave the ship after we got back on so my trip ended with that.
Capetown and all of South Africa is stunning. The landscape and the mountains are amazing. I would recommend this as the best place to visit out of everywhere I have been so far. It has everything. You can stay somewhere really nice and it feels like you are in Europe or the states but you can also go out and hike and shark dive, go to Krugar national park or Botlierskop (the place I went) if you want to stay closer for a safari. I didn't get a chance to go to the botanical gardens but I heard that that was amazing. Go to cape point and see the where the two oceans meet, go to Boulders beach and go see penguins. Go shopping at V&A waterfront, eat really good food, go out to long street, go to camps bay for more amazing beaches and a cool beach walk. Drive around town, but be careful at night. Go to the several markets they have, one in particular on Sunday morning is nice. Look up more things to do before you go and then do all of it in Capetown and then go to Hermanus. It was stunning and they have so many beautiful places to stay and a great little town and whales to watch. Go to Capetown!!