That last two days in South Africa have been amazing! I had learnt Sunday afternoon that my mom had booked a flight for Tuesday night, and at that point really hadn't seen much of what the Cape Town area has to offer. I was able to leave today and feel like I had done all of the things that should be done at minimum. Had I not done any of it, I would have really felt that this whole trip was such a waste. There are certainly other things that I would have really liked to have done, but with what I did and saw the last two days, I feel pretty good.
Monday was my last day of volunteering . . . I am going to do a whole other post about that after this one though. After placement though, Danny and I went into Cape Town to do the hop on hop off bus tour. The only place we knew for sure that we would be hopping off at, was at Table Mountain-- the absolute must go place, in my opinion. If nothing else, I wanted to climb Table Mountain. Aside from that, we were just going to go with the flow and decide where to hop off on the spot.
We took the train into Cape Town, about a 40 minute ride. We witnessed some HUGE racial tensions in our compartment. A "blind" keyboardist came in with another man, playing his keyboard and begging for money. This huge man, who was in what many people think of when they think of the stereotypical African dress, starts yelling for them to get off and go back to the Congo. Keep in mind that the yelling man was also white. So then another man, not white, stands up and starts yelling about how he's from the Congo and takes offense to that. The big, white man-- who happened to be sitting directly across from Danny and me-- just kept going on and on with ridiculousness. It got to the point that they were yelling right in each others faces. Luckily, by that point we were pulling into the Cape Town station. Regardless of what is and isn't true, in my time in Muizenberg I had heard multiple locals put blame on Africans from other nations, for all of the violence and poverty. Based on what I learned about District 6 and the townships, I don't believe that to be the whole problem, but apparently many locals believe it to be.
Once we got to Cape Town, we had no problems! We got on the bus and got to see just about every different aspect of the city. We drove all along the main stretch, to all of the different historical centers, up to Table Mountain, and all along the coastline. There definitely could have been better weather, but it was still so great! We sat on the second story of our double decker bus, with nothing but the sky over us. Being a Monday, most museums were closed. The weekend before we had visited the District 6 Museum and Slave Museum though, so we had at least seen some of them then.
The first place that we got off, was on Table Mountain. The bus literally goes up the mountain, right to the cable cars and trails. Even just going that far up, the views of the city were so great. There was so much fog though. Right after we got there, all of the fog started to cover the city-- we had gotten there just in time! Even the cable cars and top half of the mountain was nearly completely covered-- we couldn't see a thing. And unfortunately for us, or at least me, as Danny still has a few more days, the mountain was closed and no one was allowed up . . . Going to the summit was literally the one thing that I felt I needed to do, but even just being physically half way up it was good enough for me, considering the circumstances. Had we been able to go up, we wouldn't have seen anything but fog anyways. It was the one thing I had really wanted to do, but I didn't leave there in huge disappointment-- having been on the mountain was enough, at least until next time I visit!
Most of the mountain covered by fog:
The ride up:
Cruddy phone resolution, but here's the view from above:
Right after Table Mountain, the bus went over to Camps Bay, and then all the way up the coastline to the V&A Wharf. Danny and I were frigid from being up on the mountain, so when we got off in Camps Bay, we went right to a cafe to get something warm. There are a lot of restaurants and cafes, but not too many shops to check out right by the bus, so we walked down one end of the coastline and then the other before the bus came back. At one point, we noticed this group of four people, who looked like the type of people you might want to avoid. We had walked past where they were sitting, but they were still off in the distance a bit. Danny suddenly bursts across the empty street and told me to follow, because one of the guys from that group had started to follow us. I had my phone in my hand at the time, for taking photos, so I just tried shoving it down into my shirt, out of sight, as quickly as possible while crossing the road. He followed us across the street, but then must have seen that we were on to him or decided to stop for whatever other reason, because he started harassing some people sitting in a car instead. It was scary for those first few minutes, but obviously worked out . . .
Here was Camps Bay:
The next bus came a few minutes later, and brought us all down the coastline. It is so unbelievably beautiful there, and also so clearly a
very different type of Cape Town. It's the kind of place I would probably like to go if I ever do make it back to Cape Town. Beautiful houses and hotels lining the coastline, with crystal clear beachs on one side and part of the Table Mountain range on the other side-- and still so close to the city. Even with the one guy that had followed us, we both agreed that the area just felt so much more safe than in the city, and especially compared to where we live.
The last stop we make, was at the V&A Wharf and waterfront. We were nearing the end of the bus' running time for the day, so we had couldn't exactly spend a huge amount of time there. We went into the Two Oceans Aquarium. It was worth it, but definitely has nothing on Boston's Aquarium. After that, we had about 25 minutes to explore the rest of the area surrounding the wharf. We did a quick walk through of all of it, and ended up running back to the bus-- running to buses seems to be a common theme of this trip . . .
We made it back to our original starting point, off of Long Street, and then went to go get some dinner. We asked the waitstaff about the best area to get a taxi and they were horrified at us for wanting to take one. Apparently, sometimes the drivers wont go anywhere until the car is full, regardless of where you are all going. Other volunteers had never had any problems with that particularly, but they had experienced drivers who would take them through bad parts of town just for a good laugh. The waitstaff really recommended that we take a bus. We already knew that the train was out-- you never take it after 5pm because its so dangerous. We really weren't feeling great about a bus though either. We eventually went outside and just looked for the nicest looking cab we could find. There was only even one decent looking cab out there, the rest all looked sketchy. The driver agreed to bring us straight to Muizenberg for a reasonable price, and we had no problems! Compared to all of the other drivers we had heard about, he was great.
We made it back to Muizenberg by the time it was dark. When we got in, everyone had all the plans for tomorrow set! Dave, a local who works with the volunteers in the surf outreach program, was going to do one off his tours to Cape Point and Cape of Good Hope!
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