Cape Town - The long one

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The Explorer is docked at a bunker in Cape Town Harbor refueling before we depart for Mauritius. We were supposed to leave by this morning, however high winds kept us from moving to the bunker until early this morning. It takes the ship 7-8 hours to refuel.

South Africa is an incredible country filled with culture and beauty. Though its rocky history and the period of apartheid still leaves a very strong mark on the modern country, there is an overall feeling of hope and optimism for a “New Africa”. Cape Town is vigorously preparing for the World Cup in 2010. New buildings and roads are being constructed and the airport is being completely renovated. The event will certainly bring a lot of attention to the country and it will hopefully provide an economic boost not only to the rich, but also the poor who reside in the informal settlements known as townships. Much like Brazil, there is an enormous inequality in the distribution of wealth in South Africa. Whites own almost 90% of the land and hold most of the income. Despite this, there is a feeling of positivity that consumes most of the nation, both black and white. We spent 7 days in Cape Town and we could have spent 7 more, there is so much to do here and all we could do is try to fit as much as we could into the time we had here.

Day 1: Our plan was to go to Robben Island in the morning and hike Table Mountain in the afternoon to make it to the top by sunset. However, Robben Island tickets were sold out until after my safari, so that wasn’t happening. Slava and I bought tickets for Tuesday morning. We walked around the waterfront which is really modernized and touristy. We stopped into an internet café to put some pictures online and grabbed some lunch. We then started walking towards downtown Cape Town and spent the afternoon walking around there and also planning a trip to the winelands for Wednesday through a tourism office. We took a taxi to the base of Table Mountain arriving around 4pm with the hopes of hiking up. Unfortunately, the rangers thought that the weather would be changing for the worse very quickly and we would get stuck hiking in very windy and dangerous conditions. We were pretty disappointed and had to take the cable car to the top of mountain.

As can be seen in my pictures, the view from the top of the mountain was incredible. It was truly the most breath taking thing I have ever seen. You are able to see the whole cape: from the Atlantic Ocean to the Indian Ocean. After spending a little while at the top, we met up with some other SASers who were about to hike down and Slava and I decided to join them. The hike down was pretty rough and my knees took a beating that lasted a couple days after. That night a group of us went out to a game restaurant on the waterfront. I ate a dish of Ostrich, Springbok, and Kudu meat – Amazing! Slava and I finished the night by going to a local jazz club (SA is famous for its Jazz) and we met up with some of our staff and faculty members.

Day 2-4: For these three days I was on a Safari in the KwaZulu Natal province of the country. This area was the home of the infamous Zulu warriors and King Shaka. It is also home to the second largest game reserve in the country. A groups of 40 SASers took a 2 hour flight to Durban, followed by a 3 hour bus ride to our tree “chalets”. We went on an evening game drive as soon as we arrived, seeing lots of giraffe, impala, nyala, and wildebeest.

The next morning we got up at 5am for an all day game drive. We were incredibly lucky and go to see a plethora of animals. Though the lions and leopards eluded our view, we did get to see rhino, hyena, buffalo, elephant, zebra, warthog, kudu, and giraffe. Both our driver and our guide mentioned that we were very lucky to see so much in a day. We got to see three of the famous big five. We had a great dinner in the bush where we were accompanied by a group of native African singers.

On our last morning we took an early morning game drive in hopes of finding some lions, to no avail. We headed off for our 3 hour bus ride back to the airport around 8am.

Day 5: The day started with our 8am trip to Robben Island, where Nelson Mandela and many other political prisoners spent significant time. Though the island was very rich in history, I thought the tour itself was a little less than spectacular because we were left to view much of the island while aboard a bus. We were able to get off the bus at the prison and tour the inside halls. We were able to see the cell where Nelson Mandela spent 18 of his 27 years in prison.

After returning to Cape Town, slava and I headed back to the ship for a quick lunch and headed off to the train station to catch our train to Stellenboch in the winelands. Upon arriving, we rented some bikes and started riding out of the town and into the country where all the wineries were located. Now, I’m no Lance Armstrong, but I thought I was in shape enough to ride a few miles. The cycling was really tough and the terrain was very hilly. We finally got to our destination, Simonsig, after an hour and a half of riding. Once there, we did a wine tasting and some of the wines were great. I wanted to ship some home but unfortunately the shipping costs were outrageous. We realized that we had only an hour to catch our train back to Cape Town, so we got back on our bikes to rush back into town. We rode about 8 miles total this day and my quads weren’t too happy about it.

After the train ride home we stopped and had an Ostrich burger before heading back to the ship for some much needed sleep.

Day 6: Today I spent the day with the Amy Biehl Foundation, which I wrote about in my last entry.

Day 7: I woke up early and headed to Green Market Square with Kyle to do some shopping. The morning was filled with haggling and bargaining and I ended up with some cool gifts and souvenirs. I also found some uniforms for the Bering Sea Pirates (future champions of the sea Olympics). We headed back to the ship around 11 and I spent the rest of the taking care of some things onboard. At on ship time, an African choral group boarded and sang for about a half hour, they were extremely talented.

Cape Town was a great port and is definitely a place I would like to return in the future, there is just so much to this place in terms of culture, sightseeing (or as SAS calls it, sightthinking) and history.