Surfing and a tour of the Cape of Good Hope

Friday was the big Charrette about housing and water redevelopment. We all presented our ideas and work so far, as well as future work to the sponsors and members of the Street Committee, Monwabisi's informal government.

After the Charette we went out to a fancy Italian dinner on the Water front. It was the last day of the Volvo Boat Race's appearance in Cape Town, so the V and A was packed. Its funny because I can see how people think Americans are obnoxious. This restaurant was fancy, as in they took your napkin and put it on your lap for you... awkward. But, because in American terms dinner costs about 15 dollars, we were wearing jeans and sweatshirts, and were seated in the back. It was delicious though. After that long Friday, we went to Springbok the pub out by Newlands and the Rugby stadium. It was a lot of fun. Friday morning, we left on the train for Muizenberg, a very good surfing beach. Apparantly there are a lot of shark attacks there. The train was very sketchy. Apparantly, public transportation is not commonly used if you can take a taxi, you do. But it would have been about a 20 dollar cab ride each way (because it was like an hour away) and it was only R17 ($1.70) to take the trian round trip. The beach was beautiful, and warm because it is on the Indian Ocean. We rented surfboards and wetsuits for R100 for the whole day!! Which was really nice. I caught a few decent waves, although you have to paddle pretty far out to get past the mush which makes me slightly nervous.

Instead of seaweed being everywhere on the beach, there are large strands of kelp because there are kelp forests just off shore. The strands are about 20 feet long, and 4 inches in diameter and are scattered on the beach. There were also large jellyfish, but no sharks! After a long day of surfing and sunning ourselves we headed back on the train. We stayed in Saturday night because Sunday was planned as a tour of the Cape Point.

The tour of Cape Point picked us up in vans early on Sunday. We started by driving through Green Point (where we are staying, which is also apparantly frequented by American Celebrities), Sea Point, through Camps Bay, past Muizenberg and to a place where we took a boat to seal island. Which is literally a very very large rock COVERED in seals. Its kind of gross. We drove to Boulder Beach afterward to see the penguins! Which was slightly more exciting because you can get a lot closer to them. One of the people on the trip got bitten after trying to pet one. We drove to the Cape of Good Hope after, and biked several miles to the place where our picnic lunch was. There were LOTS of baboons. In the parking lots, in the roads, everywhere, just wild baboons. There were also ostriches on the beach. I never considered that these animals would just be wandering around outside of nature reserves, but they are.

After lunch we drove to the end of the cape, to the most south western point in Africa. That was fun, then we continued down the cape and climbed up the hill to the tip of the cape where the lighthouse is. (The funicular tram was broken) The views were beautiful and we could see the rock the Flying Dutchman ( and many other ships) crashed on. There we re artifacts in the little museum up there too. Despite popular belief the Cape Horn is NOT the southern most point in Africa. But it is where the Indian and Atlantic meet, and you can see a line in the water where it gets darker. After the hike up, we climbed back down and took the bus home. Overall a busy, but very fun weekend. I think that we have seen almost all of the touristy things in Cape Town now.


Pictures as follows: plant on a fence put there by a witch doctor, beach shacks on the beach at Muizenberg, where the oceans meet