A Holiday in the South

I apologies for the lack of posting and the length of this message, a lot has happened my first week in Cape Town.

After a very difficult goodbye to Arusha I hoped on a plane to begin my journey to the South. I arrived in Cape Town at 6 pm and found Nolo and Jess waiting for me outside the baggage pick up. The drive from the airport had my mind spinning; flat roads with multiple lanes, street lights and signs, cars that were not manufactured by Toyota, and lights all over the city. I knew the culture shock was beginning. After dropping my bags at our very nice bed and breakfast we went out for an amazing sushi dinner. The restaurant we ate at was just opposite a shopping center, the whole area was alive and bustling, I had forgotten what western cities were like. Dinner was amazing; I had forgotten how much I missed sushi. I also drank water from the tap, paid for my meal with a Visa card, and the food took just minutes to arrive, I had a hard time believing that I was still in Africa. After dinner we went out to a party hosted by one of Nolo’s friends, the bar scene was nothing like what I was used but I pushed past the culture shock and had a good time.

The next morning we went for a delicious breakfast at a café down the street from the bed and breakfast and took a public taxi (cape town’s equivalent of a dalla dalla) to a shopping center. The shopping did not last long, as none of us had anything we wanted to buy and were not in the mood. We were soon on our way to see Nolo’s residence before lunch. We had lunch in a section of Cape Town called Observatory, which seemed quite funky and artsy, it was a very neat environment. The rest of the afternoon we rested at the bed and breakfast reading, playing cards and planning out the coming weeks.

On Sunday we headed down to the area called Waterfront. As soon as we stepped out of the public taxi I was reminded of Granville Island; the whole place was alive, there were shops and street performers and delicious smelling food. We ate our fish and chips and wandered around before hopping on a boat for a tour of the harbour… oh I forgot to mention, Sunday was the day that Cape Town decided to show us how windy it can get. The boat was caught in very choppy waters and the wind made it a rather cold and wet harbour cruise, but we laughed and had a good time. We took a public taxi back into town and ate dinner on Long Street. Long street is where all of the action happens in downtown Cape Town, during the day it is a street for shopping and dining, and at night the restaurants apparently turn into night clubs, it was a Sunday though so we did not see this happen.

Monday morning we lounged by the pool at our bed and breakfast while Nolo studied for her exams, we met up with her and a couple of her friends at lunch and all decided to go on an adventure to Simonstown. Simonstown is about a 45 min drive away from Cape Town and is one of the Navy Bases of South Africa; it is also home to a large colony of South African Penguins (yup, penguins!!). After visiting the penguins we had dinner and drinks at a restaurant on the water. The entire town was so beautiful and quaint perched on the rocks next to huge crashing waves of the ocean.

Tuesday was a rather dreary day so we decided to check out some of the museums in town. We started with the District Six Museum. District Six was a busy and lively section of Cape Town that housed people from all different racial and religious backgrounds. The people of District Six lived harmoniously together until the apartheid regime forcibly removed the 60 000 residence from their homes and divided them among different townships in the Cape Flats. The entire district was then bulldozed; two religious building were the only structures spared. The area is still an undeveloped piece of land. The museum was amazing, it told the stories of a lot of the old residence of District Six and showed pictures of what the area used to look like. After spending some time at the museum we made our way to The Castle of Good Hope. This is the oldest building in Cape Town and used to be the Castle that defended the city. We had an interesting tour of the Castle and made our way to a delicious lunch near green market square (the large craft market in the center of town). After lunch we caught a taxi and met up with Nolo for the evening.

Wednesday we made our way back to the Waterfront to explore a little bit more. We wandered around the shops and made our way to the Two Ocean’s Aquarium. We decided to spend a few hours at the Aquarium and it was time well spent. Soon after we arrived we watched the penguins being fed and learned about the Aquarium’s program to increase the penguin population in the wild. The population of South African Penguin’s rapidly decreased before their habitat became protected, so the aquarium started a program in which they have been successfully introducing the penguin pups that are born in captivity back into the wild. After the penguins were fed we made our way to the predator tank to check out the sharks and dangerous fish. It turned out it was lunch time in their tank as well… scuba divers entered the tank to selectively feed the rays and turtle; due to different feeding schedules divers go in to ensure the slower and less aggressive animals are fed, most of the others are fed once a week by having their food dropped into the tank. We spent a while looking at the sharks and then toured the rest of the aquarium. Nolo met up with us at Waterfront for dinner and then we continued on to a going away party for one of her friends (it is the end of year for Universities here so a lot of her friends are graduating and leaving).

We enjoyed our rest on Thursday morning and went to the Kirstenboch Botanical Gardens for a picnic in the afternoon. The gardens were absolutely amazing; they contained hundreds of flowers and trees as well as herbs and plants used in natural medicine. We chose a nice spot of grass to eat our picnic while looking out at Table Mountain, the only disturbance we had was a gimped pheasant who decided to continuously hobble up to us and try to steal our food… Jess chased him away at one point and he continued to come back.

I have finally reached the past two days. Yesterday and today we went on city bus tours that took us all over the city and the surrounding area, it was a great way to get from one place to the next, and had some interesting commentary, haha. Yesterday we got off the bus at Table Mountain and took the cableway to the top for lunch. The top of the mountain had the most amazing views of the city and the Cape; it was definitely worth the trip up. Today we got off the bus at a bird and monkey sanctuary and Camps Bay. The bird and monkey sanctuary housed over 3500 animals from all over, people used to bring injured birds to the man who started the place and he would nurse them back to health at his veterinary practice. We were able to walk through some of the aviaries with the birds flying freely around us… slightly nerve wracking at times, as the large birds can be startling when they take off. After the sanctuary we hopped off the bus at Camps Bay, one of the wealthiest parts of Cape Town and home of some of the most beautiful beaches. We had a late lunch/early dinner on the main drag and people watched while we sipped our cocktails, it was a lovely end to the day. We got back to the bed and breakfast about an hour agao and are contemplating what to do on this Halloween evening.

Cape Town is a very beautiful and diverse place, I still cannot believe that it is a part of Africa, but I have accepted that and moved on. I am excited to continue to explore over the next few days before heading back to Canada.

xoxo