Cape Town, South Africa
Trip Start
Feb 19, 2008
1
Trip End
Feb 24, 2008
Cape Town,
South Africa
Monday, February 25, 2008
After shopping and getting lunch I went to hike Table Mountain. It was a 2 and a half hour hike to the top. Parts of it were basically rock climbing too. It was hard, but well worth it. Once I reached the top I felt so accomplished. The views of Cape Town were gorgeous and I have great pictures. Sorry I haven't been able to post any pictures but I only have a certain amount of MB transfer with my Internet on the ship so I will try and get to an internet café in Mauritius and post some pictures
Sunrise - Table Mountain
. I should have more time there. It's going to be like our spring break and probably pretty lax. Although I doubt anything on this voyage will be that lax. Every port I don't sleep and I cram as much in as I can.The second day I had a flight to Gorge (pronounced George) South Africa. This is home of the world highest bungee jump at 216 meters. A group of us planned to get up at about 4/4:30am to get to the airport and catch a 6:50am flight. My friend Erica was supposed to call my room and wake me up. At 6:10 I got that call... She asked if we should go. Even though I got in at about 2:30 from Long Street and was probably still a little drunk, without hesitation I said let's go now!
I threw on some clothes, grabbed my wallet and camera and was out the door running. We ran to the taxi stand and were screaming airport, airport! Our taxi driver started running to his cab where we took a death ride to the airport. We made it in about half the time it should have taken. Needless to say he got a nice tip for that. We ran through the airport and made our flight at the last possible second. Thank god!
So now we're in Gorge and we take an hour long shuttle ride to the Bloukrans Bridge, the highest road bridge in the Southern Hemisphere and the largest single span concrete arch bridge in the world
Tallest Hat?
. On our journey we got to see so much of South Africa. It is more amazing that you can even imagine. We saw Cliffside mansions, rivers, gorges, and great views of the Indian Ocean. The jump was unreal. It was the most terrifying and mind-blowing experience at the same time. I can't even describe the feeling. We returned to Cape Town the same day and had a great sushi dinner at the waterfront. The next morning my 3-day safari began. This was another early flight, but I made it without a problem. This time I set my own alarm clock, haha Erica. When we arrived we took an afternoon safari drive while drinking wine in our jeep. There were 3 jeeps on this organized SAS safari and my jeep was by far the best group of kids. We had a blast. We didn't see a lot the first day except for some impala, monkeys, and warthogs. That night there was a great dinner set up for us with a performance from some of the locals. They performed something called a gumboots dance. There were drummers and people dancing in tall rain boots, stomping and clapping against the boots. It was similar to what we would call stomping in the states.
The next morning we began our all day safari at 5am. I was watching the sunrise from my jeep while driving through the savannah. This day we saw a lot of different animals, including hippos, rhinos, giraffe, zebra, crocodile, various antelope, and baboons. I think that's most of what I saw. Unfortunately our group wasn't lucky enough to see any of the felines, such as lions or cheetahs or leopards. That night we partied at our lodge and it was two girls 21st birthdays. We got a little rowdy since another SAS group arrived that night. There were about 50 kids from Semester at Sea at this lodge and we were all drinking and went in the pool and had chicken fights
Peak Table Mountain
. It was great. The next morning we went on a township visit. This is where the blacks were sent during the apartheid to live in ghettos. The village we were in was nicer than most, but still didn't have running water in the individual living areas. There was a local watering hole for the village. Everyone lived in small huts no bigger than my cabin on the ship. We got to see a traditional healer. They use this method of healing for various ailments in the village, minus broken bones. It's a spiritual method involving chanting and a process of examining bones and other objects that they drop on the ground. The objects are supposed to tell the healer something. It was almost voodoo-like. After that we went to a different part of the village where two groups of children performed for us. A group of girls sang different songs including the South African national anthem. Then a group of boys danced for us and brought us in to join them and taught us some of the dancing. It was a great cultural experience. What was most shocking besides the impoverished lives they lived was that I even saw people on cell phones in the village. These people didn't even have running water and they were talking on cell phones!
That day we flew back to Cape Town and I had dinner at a place called Moyo
Lake
. It was an African restaurant located outside in the trees and tents. Areas of it were even up in the trees. It's a very well known place for the cultural experience and ambiance it provides for its guests. The food was amazing. I had so many new types of food including impala. Then we went back to Long Street for our last night in Cape Town. It was quite a show. The last day I woke up at 9am, which was a real treat. The first time I got like 4 or 5 hours of sleep in a night. I took a speedboat ride around the cape with a couple friends after getting breakfast. We got to see sea lions, seals, and dolphins on our ride. After that we went to the aquarium. It was a pretty nice aquarium with a large diversity of marine life. After the aquarium I ran into some other friends at the port who said they were going skydiving. Ding ding ding! Clearly I also had to go. So then I went skydiving which incredible. I jumped out of a plane at 9000 ft. in the air!! My instructor did tricks in the air and even let me fly the parachute.
My trip to South Africa was quite memorable to say the least. I will not forget this place for as long as I live and I hope to return one day, possibly in 2010 for the world cup.
