Cape Town Hollow Boutique Hotel

... with the early trip out to Robben Island. short trip of about 30 minutes by fast catamaran. Very emotional journey with a two hour guided trip around the island (5k x2.5k) its compounds, village buildings and max security jails from last century.<br>The whole Island is a museum now of course and one of the former political prisoners gave us a guided tour of the cells where they were so unfairly treated in those dark days of apartheid ...

... onward or leaving on the truck to continue up to Jo'Burg. We were having 2 ½ weeks there because Peter &amp; Angie (Han's dad and his wife) were coming out to meet us on holiday. We moved out of the hostel we were staying in and into a studio apartment in Sea Point nearer the beaches and near to Peter &amp; Angie's hotel. (Its called 'Planet Africa' BTW and we found it cheaper than a hostel never mind a hotel) We really got a good feel for CT in that time and by ...

... and her boyfriend went to a bar in downtown Stellenbosch and it was all white blondes playing heavy metal and she kept having to do double takes to make sure she wasn't in Nazi Germany or something like that. Obviously that's an extreme comparison, but I see where she is coming from. Of course it is not that extreme at all anymore, but many of the local whites I have met here have been snobby and I have certainly heard my far share of racist comments. However, I ...

... to take off the 'tourist polish' that is present on us thus far, making us more susceptible to such things. Overall its so great here, everyone in my program gets along so well and we all also want to make friends with more South Africans, although we already have been hanging out with our RAs and their friends as well as some of our security guards. Classes don't start for two weeks but I'm sure I'll get a chance to meet more South Africans then as well.

... English and Xhosa (pronounced K "click" oh-sa) Xhosa is the "clicking" language. It is one of the 11 languages spoken in South Africa. The most common languages are English and Afrikaans. Afrikaans is derived from dutch. There are some whites that only speak Afrikaans and from what I understand, they are the biggest supporters of the former Apartheid government.<br><br>There are basically 3 races in South Africa. The whites, the coloreds and the blacks.<br><br>I use ...

... Cape Town. We totally missed our opportunity the next day to climb the mountain. It took 36 hours from us arriving to actually be able to see the thing and then what do we decide to do......we decide to ignore everyone's advice about getting up there at the first sign of a clear day (weather changes so quickly you see)....we went shopping instead. Well, we are girls after all! Ho hum.....we should have known it would rain the next day. We ...

... to the shelter and are already starting to really love and connect with them. Every day we just come home and say 'wow'. Its the greatest feeling. Some of them are so cute and funny and some just really need affection. They come from all kinds of backgrounds and have such different personalities. I am already going to miss them! Outside of our volunteering this week, we had a beach day on Wednesday that was much overdue (I guess speaking to you guys with four feet of snow that ...

... cant survive in the wild because they are too white and are a target, so they breed them in captivity to try to protect the very rare species! We got to stroke (pet!) a baby cheetah, and giraffe amongst other things, then as we watched the tigers (which they have in africa apparently!!) our phone rang! It was the people from the Farm (Mark and Elbe). They were in east london, where were we? They wanted to collect us. So we told them that we were out and would be ...

... more will come about our school very soon (probably some time this weekend). I have lots of interesting tales to tell and I've just been dying to share them with you all but I really just have not had the chance the past few weeks. I hope everyone is well back home. Safe and sound in SA- Melody

My inadvertent New Years Resolution appears to be getting up early as I was up at 5am again this morning. I reckon it is the transition from tent to bed which is causing the problem. However the 5am start had a purpose as I was off to cage dive with the sharks. I was picked up from the hostel, driven down to the docks and then fitted for wetsuits. After that it was out into the boat and out to meet the sharks. There were ...