Cape Town,
South Africa
Tuesday, March 6, 2007
Today was a little bit more relaxed, a little more play it by ear. We knew we wanted to go to Cape Point, but we weren't entirely sure how we were going to get there. These are my favorite kind of days, just trying to figure it out as we go along. We were in a large group, Katie and I with Brandon, Victor, Kevin, and Bryan. We'd discussed taking a cab out to Cape Point, but once we got on the street and started asking around, it didn't sound like the most economical idea. Instead, we were instructed to take the bus to the train station and go to Simons Town. From there, we could get a ride to Cape Point. So we shelled out the 2 rand apiece to take the bus from the wharf to the train station. Outside of the station people had set up rows and rows of tents selling everything from shoes to bags to fruit. Trying not to get too distracted, the hunt for the train station commenced. We took a couple of wrong turns because it wasn't very clearly marked. Signs pointed us every which way, and every time we asked someone we got a different answer. Soon enough, though, we made it into the South African version of Grand Central station. We had ten minutes before the next train left, so we ran to buy our tickets and get back to the train before it left. It had started pulling away just as we started running towards it, but we chased it down and it stopped. The doors, however, were still shut. Victor banged on it, but nothing happened, no one came to let us in. A moment later, one of the workers came up and Victor tried to explain to him that the doors wouldn't open, but the worker told us that we could go ahead and get on. Well, if you want to make a spectacle out of yourself, just stand in front of the door and wait for it to open automatically. Don't try the handle, really, unless you actually want to get on the train. Sometimes...I swear. After we all made it on the train, we spent the hour ride playing with our digital cameras. Brandon taught me how to do all sorts of cool tricks I had no idea about, so that was kind of fun. I got some neat black and white photos with color accents of the ocean or my shirt, things like that. In between shots, though, I had a conversation with a guy from South Africa. He said he's been traveling all over southern Africa and Europe as a cameraman, and that he was on his day off and taking the train to go shopping. I tried to ask him what his favorite restaurant was in South Africa, but he said he preferred to cook at home. I asked him about his schooling, and he said after high school he went into the military before going to a college for a year that specialized in media studies, which is how he ended up with the job as a cameraman. He got off a few stops after he got on, so I didn't get much more from him than that, but he was friendly. We'd asked him to take a picture for us, and we just started chatting. I'm still amazed by how willing people are everywhere I've gone to talk. On the subway in New York, you don't strike up a conversation with the person next to you. On the El or the Metra in Chicago, you keep to yourself. At least most people do. Maybe it's just because I'm normally closed off when I'm going about my every day life that I don't take the opportunity to talk to people. Perhaps that's more on my shoulders, because when I think back on times that I do encounter other people on trains or something like that, I'm usually wrapped up in myself, reading a book or talking to friends, that I see other people as an inconvenience. My immediate reaction is the desire to be left alone. However, I did notice that I wasn't as uncomfortable by the interaction as I was with Jorge. When Jorge started talking to me in the square in Puerto Rico, I just wanted to get up and leave. When this man, I didn't get his name, started chatting, there really wasn't anywhere for me to go, but I didn't feel that pang of irritation. So I think I'm starting to open myself up more, allowing other people and new situations in. The world is so big and so interesting; I don't want to intentionally keep so much of it out because you never know who you're going to come across or what you're going to experience. And I think I'm starting to get better at that. After the train ride, which was really exciting because we got to pass run-down towns and wealthy towns, beautiful beaches, and penguins! It was an hour-long tour away from the touristy spots of Cape Town for only twelve rand...I loved it! I wanted to get off and explore all of the different areas, but of course we didn't have time for that. We got off in Simons Town, where we were to catch our rikkie bus to take us to the Cape, and stopped in a little convenience store to get something to eat. This was the strangest little store I think I've been in yet. It was a convenience store that sold the strangest assortment of things. It had one wall covered in beverages, tables along the front window, the kitchen and register opposite the front window, and the menu towards the ceiling of the remaining wall with the random goods covering the shelves, and a magazine stand in the middle with more chairs and tables between it and the wall with the goods. A magazine stand, soup mixes, chips, gasoline, nail clippers. This store was a teeny tiny general store, a grocery store, a sandwich shop, a hardware store, and a drug store all squished together into a fifteen-by-twenty foot room. We had to literally climb over the magazine stand to get to the back tables. The place was clean but old, and it attracted everyone from the hippie to the businessman to the rikkie driver. I didn't quite understand its function, though. I mean, I know it was a general store, but I don't understand why it seemed to be the only one of its kind anywhere in Simon's Town. We had to walk a half-mile from the train station to get there, and it was one of maybe five stores that we saw along the way interspersed between block walls and a park, including a fabric store and a crafts store. And yet, on the hills all the way along were incredibly nice homes. Perhaps the majority of Simons Town wasn't by the beach, at least that's what I hope because it was a strange little town. Or maybe it was simply a town designated for people like us who were simply passing through. Except, why then the random craft and fabric stores? Do a lot of people traveling by train pass the time by sewing? An odd place, Simons Town. We did have some amazing lunch though. South Africa has really interesting flavors of potato chips, like tomato sauce Ruffles or roasted chicken Lays. But more than that, this place made a triple-decker grilled cheese sandwich with tomatoes on it. It was gooey and cheesy, and with the tomatoes it tasted absolutely divine. I don't know why I'd never thought of making grilled cheese that way before, but ooh its tasty. We enjoyed our lunches before taking the half-mile walk back to the train station to hire a rikkie bus, or a van that technically seats seven passengers but there was another woman who wanted to go to the Cape as well so we squeezed all seven of us in the back so this woman could sit in the front. Katie sat on my lap for the ride up, which normally would take thirty-five minutes or so if we hadn't have stopped to see the baboon on the side of the road or again to take pictures of the ostriches on the beach. I hadn't been on a safari, so I wanted pictures of wildlife, and Brandon really has a thing for ostriches so we took a couple pit stops. The beaches on the drive up though were absolutely phenomenal. The sand was white as can be against the brilliant blue water and clear sky. I wanted to be able to lay out all day, except for the wind. The wind was a little bit intense, whipping our hair and skirts around. It had looked like such a nice day outside, and I didn't even think of the wind factor when I put a skirt on that morning. I spent the entire rest of the day with one hand holding my hair (that is now too short to stay contained in a ponytail when the wind is that strong) and the other keeping my skirt gathered at my left thigh. Every picture of me from that day is holding something down or out of the way. We soon made it to the Cape of Good Hope, which will probably be the last time I ever get to touch an ocean for the first time. The first time I touched the Atlantic I was nine, and today I got to touch the Indian Ocean. And since I probably won't be visiting anywhere that will allow me to touch the Arctic Ocean, today was my last opportunity to touch a new ocean. I bent down next to a little pool between the big rocks on the beach, poked the water with my finger, and took a picture. That wasn't quite enough though, so all of us hopped over the masses of kelp that had washed up onto the rocks so we could get our feet into the ocean. The water was quite cold, so we didn't stay long, just long enough to take pictures of each other before heading up to the Cape of Good Hope sign for pictures before heading to Cape Point. We piled back into the rikkie again and ten minutes later, were at the point. You could take a cable car out to the lighthouse on the point or you could walk, or hike more like, and we opted not to take the car. Thirty minutes and countless stairs later, we made it to the lighthouse. Half the way around all you could see was ocean, but looking back towards land you could see the cliffs, the beaches, and both the Atlantic and the Indian wrapped around the isthmus we'd driven on to get to the point. It was pretty impressive, looking at the two oceans at the same time. Like the four corners in the States, but even better. The wind was even worse up at the lighthouse than it was at sea level, so Katie and I were on skirt patrol to the max. After taking our pictures we basically ran back down to the bottom so we could get the rikkie and drive back to catch the 5:00 train. Without the animal pit stops we made it just in time, and we piled in before most of us crashed, sprawled out on the seats for our ride back to Cape Town. We woke up with a start when the door next to us slammed and we heard a shout. The next thing we know, this man's arm is keeping the door open and he's trying to get Katie's attention, as she was sitting opposite the door and he could see her. With his arm still in the door the train starts to pull away, and he yells out "Will you have sex with me?" Just asks her if she'd have sex with him, as if she were going to get off the train to go sleep with him right then. When she answered the obvious, he pulled his arm out and let the door slam shut so we could continue on our route. It was quite bizarre. We were all quite awake after that for the last few minutes back into Cape Town. We wanted to find the bus, but we had a few problems deciding what side of the street the bus would pick us up on. We caught the bus back to the wharf and went to the ship to relax for a few minutes before changing for our second night at Cantina Tequila and on Long Street. I was exhausted and didn't want to stay out very long, so we just got some dinner and went to check out Cool Runnings for a little while before heading back to go to bed. And to think that if I'd stuck with the plans I'd had when I woke up that morning to shop all day, I would have missed the southern-most tip of Africa. Isn't it lovely how things work out!.
Crammed into a rikkie
