The South African Spectacular Tour

It’s always hard to find some catchy phrase to catch the attention of my blog readers, so if I ever fail to really grab your attention with my first line, e.g. this one, please get over it. haha.

Well, Yesterday wasn’t a very eventful day; I didn’t feel it was worthy of a blog, so I didn’t write one all for itself. We went to a couple film showings at the Victoria and Alfred (V & A) waterfront—this really “posh” mall in the middle of Cape Town--as a part of a film festival going on. The films weren’t great and nothing else interesting happened. It was a chill day.

Today, however, was the complete opposite of yesterday. We did all the “touristy” things today, and it was exhausting. It was a ridiculously long day; starting at 9 am in the morning and ending at 7 pm. I have pictures of mostly everything that we did, but I must warn you that you may need to wait until I get back to The States until you can see them because it takes to much damn time to put up pictures.

First, we took a driving tour through the city, Cape Town, to see the famous buildings, beaches, and sights. It was pouring most of the time and it was cold, so it was pretty impossible to see anything, which kind of made the whole thing pointless. After that we went onto the peninsula (look up Cape Town and that is the little hook) to look at the mountains and all of that jazz. Luckily, the weather began to clear up as we got to the harbor and we went on a boat ride to Seal Island, but damn the water was crazy. We were bobbing up, and some of the people had never been on a boat, so there were plenty of them scared out of their minds. I have to say I was a little worried, but mostly because South Africa has the highest density of Great White Sharks in the world, so there was no freaking way I was going in that water. I wasn’t too amazed by the seals since I grew up on the coast of northern California and I heard them every night, barking their throats away. Pictures: (Stacy, my friend and cohort member, and I at a beach, the harbor, and the seals on Seal Island)

After the boat ride, we made our way to another wine estate for some wine tasting. The wine glasses were huge! After my five allotted glasses I was buzzed for sure. The people weren’t really friendly and thankfully we didn’t stay too long because I was half-way drunk and really hungry. Luckily, our next stop was lunch. We went to another “posh” seafood restaurant, but the food really stunk. They have seasoning problems here, i.e. they need to spice their stuff up. Even though the food stunk, the restaurant is really famous because it is really really close to the penguins! Yes, that’s right. There are penguins in South Africa: the South African Penguin. Unfortunately, it was just like a zoo, but outside. There were trails and railings, but they were running around wild and all that, so that was cool. I had hoped I could have touched them and walked next to them, but NO! Either way, I got close. They were freaking cute, no matter how macho you may be, there is not better adjective for penguins that just plain ol' darn "cute." Pictures (the winery and the penguins)

Our last stop was the Cape. First, we went to the top of the mountain. We had to hike up a 45 degree angle for 20 minutes to get to the top. I almost quit half way through, but damn the view was really freaking amazing. My legs will be sore tomorrow! After my hike down the mountain, we drove to our last and final destination: the south-eastern most point of Africa. Unfortunately, I didn’t take any pictures. There was nothing to see except a sign. LAME. What’s so great about that? Pictures: me on top of Cape Point, the end of the peninsula.

Well, I am really freaking uber tired. I have been meaning to buy people things, but everything here in Cape Town is really freaking touristy and unauthentic. My professor, Helena, urges us to wait to get the “real” stuff later on our trip when we travel inland more. The rest of this week we will be working at Lwandle, you guys remember, right? We won’t be doing sight seeing or anything like that, but it will be really cool to start interviewing the community people and actually getting to engage with them, rather than just talking about doing it. We have been planning to interview them for a week now. It’s already been a week, damn!

Shout outs:
Michaela: I am coming back soon. I tried to steal a penguin for you, but I would have been arrested. Eeek.

Katie & Balta: Thanks for the love!