I had a terrific “Spring Break” and a wonderful two weeks of classes. It was amazing! But now that I’m back into the flow and have free internet I figured it was about time to update. First of all, I say “Spring Break” because we’re actually entering the fall season down here. The weather is getting a bit cooler, although by cooler I mean I have to wear a sweatshirt over my t-shirt and shorts when I’m in the shade. The days are also getting shorter and the sun rises later and sets earlier. The sun used to wake us up, but today I woke up at 6:10 and waited half an hour for the sun to rise. It’s funny because I know you guys over there on the other side of the world are just starting to escape these kinds of days. Anyway, back to break.
My break started out on Tuesday April 31st when our coach bus took off for Cape Town at 7am. We had a long ten hour journey ahead of us! It actually turned out to not be so bad. We got bathroom breaks every two hours, we drove over the bridge that I will be bungee jumping from in a few weekends, and I read a full book for my literature class, although it was a short book. I did start reading Three Cups of Tea too, which is a very good book. I highly recommend it. Anyway, the scenery was pretty awesome too, but really it kinda is anywhere here. We passed through a lot of green rolling hills and mountains and mostly countryside. When we finally arrived at our backpackers (which had a perfect view of Table Mountain) I went running with a few people. Note to self: Cape Town is very hilly. Yes, my gluteus maximus got quite a bit of a workout that day. That night really wasn’t too exciting, we just went out to eat at an Asian Restaurant (which my Japanese roommate Amina was quite excited about) and played on our free internet (rare occasion) and went to bed.
Wednesday morning we headed over to the District 6 Museum. This museum is inside a church that is on the edge of the old District 6 property. District 6 was an old section of the town where all different races lived, of course except the whites, or at least there were very few whites living there. Yet, at one point, common in most cities down here, under the Apartheid system, all of the races were moved out of this area into the countryside much farther away from the city where they wouldn’t be in such close proximity to the whites. All of the structures and houses of this entire district except of a few churches were then plowed down to the ground until there was nothing left. The museum was really good and had quite a few old artifacts. We also got taken on a tour of the property where District 6 used to be. There is still quite a bit of open land and thankfully a lot of that land is being given back to the descendents of the people who had once lived there. It’s a pretty prime piece of property too because it has a beautiful view of Table Mountain right behind it. I got to talk to a black guy who was observing the tour with us. He is going to school to be a tour guide and he was telling me about how he lives in the townships and how bad the conditions are there. His English wasn’t super good so it was hard to communicate, but it was an interesting conversation. After the tour we headed back to the hostel for lunch and a group headed out to climb Table Mountain. I really really wanted to climb it, but I wanted to take the other option to see the Jewish Immigrant and Holocaust Museum and figured I would climb it later on our free day. The Jewish Museum was pretty good. The director of the museum came and talked to us and it was great just to hear her. She was so passionate about her work and really showed us how beautiful the Jewish culture is. She was also quite excited about the traditional foods served at Jewish holidays. I can relate to any one to loves food! From there we headed out to meet the other group at the top of Table Mountain, but we cheated and took the cable car. The view from the top was spectacular! I would say Table Mountain and Cape Point are the two most beautiful views I have ever seen in my whole life. I saw Grand Canyon maybe too long ago, but this view was amazing! Table Mountain overlooks the ocean and a bunch of mountains all around it. It was also sunset, so the light was just dazzling. We were also able to see Robbin Island, where Nelson Mandela was imprisoned from the top. That night we had a lot of fun too. We went to an authentic African restaurant called the Africa Café. We ate all kinds of samples of African food. We had everything including Malawi chicken, ostrich, etc. and then we got traditional face painting. After two hours I was stuffed and tired and we headed to the hostel to bed.
Thursday was a really fun day; we were heading down the coast to our final destination Cape Point, the southeastern most point of South Africa with various stops on the way. Our first stop was in Simons Town to see the African penguins. The East Coast of Africa has a cold ocean where these little guys swim. They were everywhere! It was a super super windy day and the waves were crashing in, so most were hanging out on the beach. We were able to get really close to them. We even saw a seal swimming in the ocean near the beach. And contrary to popular belief, some penguins I saw were not just cuddling, no, no, they were mating. Lucky me. Then we hopped back on the bus and proceeded to Cape of Good Hope. This was very very pretty, but very very windy, windy enough to blow us over. We stayed long enough to run around on the rocks and take some pictures and then headed on to Cape Point. Cape Town is one of the most beautiful places I have ever seen in my life along with the view from Table Mountain, but I think I’d say Cape Point takes a first. You are honestly on a point pretty high off the ground completely surrounded by ocean. On one side you can see some land and behind you that has these beautiful blue mountains and the water all around is just sparkling. It was extremely windy here, but that just made it that much more fun. We wandered around top lighthouse and then went down a trail to look at the other lighthouse much closer to the water. It is a beautiful view, but I’m not so sure I could live out there all by myself. After checking those out we walked down a bunch of stairs to this secluded beach. Since the water was so wavy there were just piles of the little blue bottles (mini type jellyfish). Then we headed home early because of the wind. That night we went to a play called Coming Home writing by Athol Fugard, a very well known South African playwright at the Baxter Theatre. The play was very good and told the story of a mother who is HIV positive coming home to her old country home where she grew up with her Opa (grandpa). The mother gets sicker as the story goes on and she “marries” her old childhood best friend so that he might take care of her son when she dies. It really brought a personal element of the HIV/AIDS situation to all of us, especially those not volunteering at the AIDS Haven.
Friday started out with a tour of Parliament. In South Africa there are kinda two capitals. Cape Town is considered on of them since Parliament is here and then Pretoria is the other one. Looking through parliament was pretty cool. We saw where the two different houses sit. They have two houses like in the United States. After Parliament we had free time at Victoria and Alfred Waterfront. It was a bit like Duluth, they had a small bridge that would move when little ships came in and they definitely had a greater amount of yachts and sailboats because of the warmer weather down here. The waterfront had quite a bit more shops too for the tourists. We looked around, but I didn’t buy anything except for an iced coffee and that may have been one of the best things I’ve had in a while. It was so good I think because it was totally like I would get in America. It was a bit of a comfort. At 1:00 we all met together and got our tickets to go to Robbin Island. I was soooo pumped! It takes about half an hour to get there and is about 18? km from land at the closest point. The reason I know that is because they told us when they told the stories of the prisoners who tried to escape. There was three time periods on the island. The first was the time period of the lepers. Lepers in South Africa were once sent to live here to protect the other citizens of the country. Then is the war period, during WWII when they placed their prisoners here. Lastly is the Apartheid period where any prisoners lived here from until 1990 many of which were political prisoners including Nelson Mandela. We first had a 45 minutes tour of the island on bus and the tour guide was great! Today people actually live on the island and he was one of them. They have a small school and post office, but a lot of the buildings are from the past settlements. One of the largest colonies of penguins lives on the island so for the second time this trip I was able to see penguins here and there under the trees. We also saw the South African oyster catcher, which is an endangered bird because it only lays one egg per year and often on the beach unprotected. After our bus tour, we headed into the prison and were guided around by an ex-political prisoner known as “Sparks.” He showed us his old room where 60 men were crammed in together. Then we also got to see the courtyard where Mandela did his exercises and planted a garden and the small little cell where he was imprisoned for 18ish years. That was very cool to see, especially because he had described it in his book Long Walk to Freedom that we read. The tour guide was also very interesting to hear from. Here he was giving tours of a prison that he was just free from less than 20 years ago! Then that night we went to the Cape Town music festival. I was exhausted from a whole day of activities, but we saw some really good artists like New York Voices and Goldfish. And I got some deep fried calamari and chips. Oh so good.
Our last day Friday was kind of a free day. For the morning we had an optional tour of the slavery museum and I decided to take that. The museum was pretty good. I had been to any sort of slave museum, so it was good. The temporary exhibit they had on display was on Steve Biko. I mentioned him before when I blogged about visiting his house in King Williams Town. The last part of that exhibit was my favorite. The well known artist Peter Gabriel wrote a song about Biko, I think called Biko. If you get a chance YouTube it. I like it a lot. I’d maybe look up the story about Biko too, incase it doesn’t make sense. When we were finished about noonish, Melissa and I headed out to try and find a pastor of a Methodist church that her sister’s best friend’s mother knew. Long connection, I know. We did find him though and talked with him for a bit. He seemed a bit tired though. Then we wandered through a nearby market and headed home. That evening six of us went to Mass at the Cathedral which was just a 10 minute walk down the road. It was Palm Sunday! They gave us palms which we actually green! When I get them at home they’re always white/brown and dead, but I’m guessing they get these ones down here fresh off the trees. Then after Mass we caught a taxi straight to the Jazz Festival for the second night. We didn’t see as many artists this night, but a few more popular ones like Hugh Masakeba and if you’ve ever heard of Mos Def, who is popular in the states, they were there too. Then we came home and packed. Our stay in Cape Town was over. L
We left the next morning for Port Elizabeth at 8 and endured another 11 hour drive until we arrived. We had to take a bit different of route into town and to our flats this time because the whole road in front of our flats was closed down for IRONMAN SOUTH AFRICA!!! We got in about 6:30, so only the running was going on and it was a bit sparse, but we still had runners running right in front our flats all the way until they got cut off at midnight. Jenny and I walked down to the finish right around the pier and cheered people in. It got dark pretty fast and it was actually raining for part of it. Lightning had been going on for a while too. The finish was really awesome! They had people running in with their families and music playing (Jenny and I were the only ones singing along to the Grease medley), and the finished would shout “You are an Ironman!” into their faces as they finished. We even got to see a blind man finish, who ran the whole race with someone next to him. I’m a bit sad I didn’t get to see the whole race, but I guess that just means I’ll have to do one myself. In all, the trip to Cape Town was great. I would definitely recommend it to anyone who wants to come down here!
No comments:
Post a Comment