Jazz and Stellenbash Reds

Jazz and Stellenbash Reds

Wow, how lucky am I? Cape Town is… well I don’t really know because I’ve technically only seen the waterfront and hiked a mountain, and I have not seen the townships so far, but Cape Town is great. Today was one heck of a day. I got up early to watch the sun rise as we saw the first glimpse of land in 6 days. It rose right over this wonderful mountain range as we watched seals play around in the only area of the world where the Atlantic Ocean meats the Indian Ocean. This is also the first place I’ve been in the entire world that is not humid. I climbed a mountain in no humidity for the first time in my entire life. I ate dried ostrich today. I took a wicked fast “gondola” today down 1,033 meters while my ears popped worse than they ever did under 60 feet of water pressure or in an airplane. I spent the day in really wonderful company.

First thing I did when we were able to get off the ship was do a little dance on land. As I’ve mentioned, the trip between Ghana and South Africa was the roughest we’ve seen it so far, and it was really good to be planted with two feet right on Terra Firma. Anyway, Alyse and I went with some other girls around the waterfront. The Cape Town Waterfront is wicked touristy, and you know what? I like it. It is really refreshing to be able to let my guard down just a little bit. It’s also nice to be able to walk right off the ship into an area that has something in it. We were able to do that in Spain, but in both Casablanca and Tema, we had to arrange transportation to anything, and being able to skip that step is pretty great. It’s a good break. I recognize though that things can change really quickly when walking around Cape Town. The distance between the touristy waterfront to a township is small, and we might end up there on a surprise and it’s likely that they do NOT want us there. I understand the risks and the statistics we were told about. Anyway, we just did some walking around and checked a bunch of stuff out. We went to grocery store, which is great because I ran out of granola bars and got some new ones today. I had lunch on the ship and then Kirra and I were going to find a way to Table Mountain (Google it). On the way to the gangway, we ran into Jani and Megan who decided to come with us. Megan is a ‘dependant child’ on the ship. She is 15 and a high school junior; I tutor Megan in AP Calculus when we are at sea. Her mom, Jani, is the physician’s assistant on the ship. We shared a cab to the trail head (sort-of) to Table Mountain, and then we took the cable car up to the top and once we got to the top we did about three hours of hiking around. The views were INCREDIBLE. Really, you should google image it. Jani worked for Outward Bound and so we were a great group, and we had a really great, great time. Jani has basically adoped Kirra and me as her other daughters and we had a much needed family day. After a picnic of tea, lattes, and cheese at the summit, we took the gondala back down and another taxi back to the waterfront. Jani and Megan had a SAS trip tonight, so Kirra and I had dinner on the ship, and then we met up with Kyle and Alyse and a couple other people and we went out to a jazz bar. Yep. A jazz bar. Again, wonderful. We had a glass of wine from the Stellenbach region of South Africa which is very close to here, watched a great set and got to know each other a little bit better. Then we shared a wicked awesome piece of cheesecake (this bar was PRICY and the quality of the food was worth it. It was pretty awesome to be at.) and had another glass of wine all while watching jazz. It was like The Great Gatsby was transported to South Africa. It was a wonderful night. Now, here I am, at 0:34, writing this blog.

Tomorrow morning, I am taking a SAS sponsored trip to Cape Malay, which is the Islamic area of Cape Town to visit a mosque and take a cooking class. A COOKING CLASS. Do you know how much I have been missing cooking? SO MUCH. I am really hoping that this is a good SAS trip. I think it will be, but I don’t want to be disappointed. By tomorrow night, I should be able to make a traditional samosa. I CANNOT WAIT. I love samosas. Watch out, Samosa Mon in the Burlington, VT farmer’s market. I am going to learn your secrets.

Be well everyone!