Feb 18, 2011 So today I was supposed to go on an all day tour of a township and out to Robben Island, the place where Nelson Mandela was imprisoned. I thought, as an African Studies major and a lover of all things history, there is no way I can miss this when I come to Cape Town. But I wasn’t thinking about that amidst all the shots last night, and I wasn’t thinking about that when I woke up at 9 instead of 8 to catch the tour. So I missed it, but it ended up being a blessing in disguise. We didn’t want to sleep away our day in Cape Town, so we hopped onto a group that was going to the Cape of Good Hope. I went with Jenny, Haley, Cassie, Jenna, Molly, Natalie, Patrick, Burke, and Jeff and we headed out intending to catch a cab. We ended up finding a guy who had a van who agreed to drive us around all day, stopping at all the stops, for 130 Rand each (about 20 dollars) which was an awesome deal. So we piled in and headed first to a market called the Biscuit Mill Market, which had been suggested by one of Patrick’s friends who is studying abroad there. It was very similar to a farmers market, and we were all so thrilled when we got there. There were adorable shops, very cute clothes and jewelry, and beyond delicious food. Molly and I got something really similar to eggs Benedict, except instead of an English muffin it was a bed of hash browns and instead of ham it was fresh salmon. I was in heaven. After we did some souvenir shopping we met back up with everyone and got back into the van to head to Boulder’s Beach. We stopped at a lookout point on the way there and watch the waves roll in on the most beautiful beach. The waves were breaking 4 or 5 times on the way into the sand, and it was so clear we could see everything from up high. We talked to a woman who sits up there all day shark spotting, and whenever she sees one she radios it down to the lifeguards who get everyone out of the water. Pretty cool. I asked if something was a shark, and she giggled and told me it was seaweed- thanks eyes, you suck. After about 10 minutes we continued on our way, and like 5 minutes later we saw a troop of baboons in the middle of the road. Our driver, Charlie, explained that baboons are all around that area and that they’re a huge menace. If you leave your car unlocked or the window down they find their way in and destroy everything. But I though they were cute. We finally made it to a little town called Simonstown. It reminded me so much of the little towns on the southern coast of France- blue water rimmed with post-card towns framed by mountains. It was beautiful, and we explored the waterfront with its sailboats, got some postcards and then went to Boulder’s Beach, about 5 minutes away. Boulder’s Beach is this (obviously) rocky beach where penguins live. Yes, PENGUINS. They just run around, and there’s no one there telling you how close you can get or whatever, you can just walk right up to them. It was a dream come true. As some of you know, I love anything that waddles, and these are extreme waddlers. We spent about 30 minutes there, attempting to play with them and generally just amazing at how lucky we were to be there. Then, theme of the day, we piled back into Charlie’s van and drove for about 30 minutes to reach the Cape of Good Hope. The Cape of Good Hope is the most southwestern point of Africa, where the Atlantic and Indian oceans meet. It’s situated in a national park, which reminded me a lot of Estes Park except for the ocean. It was beautiful, and the actual Cape was amazing. We hopped around on the rocks and got as close as we could to the water without getting sprayed from the huge waves. At one point, Jenny and Haley walked pretty far out onto a point, and while I was watching from afar I saw this huge wave hit the rock behind them. They were facing us so they didn’t notice it, and suddenly this huge wall of water hit them from behind. They were soaked to the bone, it looked like they had gone swimming, but it was HILARIOUS to watch. We got back into the van and we drove to another part of the national park where we could get to the highest point. Cassie, Jenna and I were lazy and took the cable car up to the top instead of walking, and when we got to the top we just pretended like we had walked (lol) and joined the rest of the group. It was really high up, but if you looked through this viewfinder at a little secluded beach you could see that someone had dug a huge heart into the sand, and it had two names and a question in another language. We couldn’t tell, but we guessed it was a proposal, and my heart melted. It was so beautiful. We had a little snack at the café up there and had some great conversation then got back into the van for our drive home. Cassie fell asleep with her head on the back of the seat, and about halfway through Jeff gently moved her head from the seat to his shoulder. It was the sweetest thing I have ever seen, so I snapped a picture. I was just gushing the whole day, I’m sure the rest of the group was getting really tired of me. On the way we stopped at a beach and tried to swim, but it was freezing, so we just waded and played with some local kids. Then we got back to the ship, showered, and our group met back up to go out to dinner. We ended up at this awesome restaurant named Karibu on the waterfront. It was a little chilly outside, but it was okay because the restaurant provided us with little blankets. I got mussels to start and an ostrich steak as my meal. Us gals had a couple bottles of wine and some mojitos, and the boys ordered “Cape Town” Iced Tea. It was super strong, but it looked so funny because the drink was huge, blue, and had little umbrellas in it. I ordered a round of the national shot, the “Springbok” shot, which was peppermint liquor with a kahlua-type alcohol on top, and it was super delicious, it left an aftertaste very similar to an Andes Mint. Then everyone started ordering rounds and we ended up taking about 5 rounds of them at dinner. After dinner we went to Long Street, the street where all the clubs are, and tried to find one to go to. Cape Town has pretty strict dress codes, and we couldn’t get into any nice places because some of the boys were wearing shorts. So we ended up at a place where it was dubstep night. I had never heard of this, but I found out that it was dance music with really heavy bass and a certain kind of dancing. I wasn’t really into the scene, but Cassie and I had a few shots and then went outside onto the porch and attempted to make friends. It wasn’t really that great of a group, so Molly, Haley, Patrick and I decided to head back. We took our time walking through the Waterfront and came back to the boat and crashed. We had to catch a safari the next morning!
