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

Wine Tours and Table Mountain

Friday night was fun. We went to a rugby club called the Springbok (which is South Africa's rugby mascot) and it was a good time, finally a club with people our age! We also tried absinthe, which is entertaining to drink. You pour a wine glass about a third full with it, and hold a spoon filled with sugar over the glass with a little bit of the liquid in it, then light the spoon on fire. When the sugar carmelizes, you stir it in, blow the flame out and drink the glass.

This is a picture of the first (and best) winery we went to in Stellenbosch.

The wine tour on saturday took us around Stellenbosch, to 4 different wineries. The first one was the most beautiful, and most stereotypical plantation. De Leuwen Jagt was the former name of it, which means the Lion Hunt in Afrikaans. We sat at tables on a lawn that overlooked the entire vinyard, and had mountains in the background. It was gorgeous. The next two wineries we went to were more modern, and very chic, but also beautiful. I don't like wine very much. So, all day I bought one bottle of dessert wine because it tastes like candy. It was a fun trip, and we got to check out the Cape Dutch architecture and enjoy all sorts of wine. We stopped in Stellenbosch for lunch, near the university and had some delicious food.

When we got home, a bunch of us took a taxi to Camp's Bay beach and watched the sun go down- the perfect ending to our day. We then went out for sushi, and since I hate the way seaweed tastes I got raw fish on rice which was much better. I had pad thai with it which I also enjoyed. I'm getting better about new foods.

This is a picture of the sunset on Camps Bay beach.

Sunday was Table Mountain day. We went to bed early so we could get up at 7 to get on the mountain and be done with it before noon. Table mountain is the wierdest mountain I've ever seen. We went to the botanical gardens then climbed up Skeleton Gorge to one of the highest points. We met a group of South African climbers who warned us not to take the cliff side route since it was difficult and made it seem like you could fall off the mountain. Having heard that from our friends who had climbed the week before, we opted for the resivour route.

This was a poor life choice. The boys who had the map kind of ditched us, and I ended up climbing with Kelly, Steph and Marcella. We walked past lakes with sandy beaches and red water, on the top of a mountain!!! It was extremely weird. After we passed them, we saw people laying out tanning, on top of table mountain in their bathing suits by the water. We kept hiking, and reached another summit, thinking it was the last one. It was not, and we headed downhill looking for the cable car lift to take us down. We climbed several summits this way. And by climbed I mean climbed cliff faces via the laddars that were bolted into them, or climbed along the cliff using chains bolted into it. We didn't know that we'd accidentally taken the advanced challenge trail. Poor choice. Basically we ran out of water, got scared, and luckily we decided to keep going, and as soon as we made it over the last ridge, we saw the cable car and restaurant off in the distance. Matt was waiting for us with chilled bottles of water, and we ate lunch and took pictures. We took the cable car down, which was also scary, considering that it had no glass windows on half of it. Oh dear.


This is a picture of the lake on top of Table Mountain. Wierd. You can see the city below in the distance.


After that rough morning, we went to Camps Bay, ate Kauai and spent the day at the beach. Glorious. Although the water was freezing.

Today was some what productive, we went to the Park and talked with the co researchers about our final project, and worked with them on gathering life stories of people. I went with three of them and we talked to people in about five houses and took pictures, and asked them information about themselves. The insides of the shacks are sometimes nice, you'd think it was a tiny regular home from the inside.

This is a picture from the look out station on Table Mountain, overlooking Camps Bay and the Atlantic.

Cape Town (the first few days)

When we got to Cape Town, we didn't go out the first night, but bought two bottles of wine for three dollars each from the grociery store along with a few other necessary things. It was decent wine too, we drank it while waching Resident Evil which was terrible. The next day (Saturday) we went grociery shopping after a meeting with our advisors and formed a group grociery system. The food is all different though, and because the sugar used is unrefined, everything tastes different, the candy and soda are a lot sweeter, so I can barely drink/eat them.

That night, we went out to dinner at the Africa Cafe, which serves traditional African food, tapas style. We ordered fruity alchoholic drinks and had lots of interesting food. Rice with berries, chicken in sauce, tapioca yoghert bread and other such foods. Most of them were really good, especially the desserts. Which, are obviously my favorite anyway. There were really sweet decorations in the restaurant too; the chandeliers made out of recycled things and the wall mural made out of can tops was cool too. There is a lot of recycled things here made into other things, which is a great theme, and ends up with cool decorations.

After dinner, we went home to St. John's and then out to Long Street, which getting there was a project in it self. First we went to the Buena Vista Social Cafe, but then left because it was too small and/or sketchy/smoky, and called several cabs. We tried a few different clubs, but mostly stayed at the Dubliner, because it was classy on top, a piano bar and outside balcony with reasonably priced drinks (~20 rand). And downstairs, you could dance, and it was only slightly sketchy. We stayed out until about one or so, and took a cab home (which costs about 3 american dollars, ridiculously cheap for a 15 min cab ride).

The next morning, we went to the district Six museum, which commemorates a district in Cape Town that was demolished during the Apartheid because it allowed different races to live there in harmony and was a bad example. The man giving us a tour of the museum lived there during that time and told us the story and showed pictures of when the house his family had had for four generations was bulldozed. And now, they are giving the land back to the owners, but much of it was used for a university, and the rest is lying unused and a mess.

We napped, and then took a drive around Cape Point with Debra's aunt and cousin, up signal hill and around to the different beaches. We saw the Indian Ocean, which is supposed to be warmer, and the surfing beach, and breifly drove through a vinyard. The views are amazing. We also saw whales while driving along the edge of the mountains.

Today was our first day working in the settlements. We met the deputy mayor of Cape Town at a reception and then traveled to Monwabisi Park. We toured the Indlovu Center, the Creche (daycare) and other places. It was really inspiring to see the sense of community there and the redevelopment ideas coming from within the community. THings like the fact that if you steal things or cause crime in the community, the street committee will demolish your shack are interesting. But I think that our project will be effective, and we are meeting the co researchers tomorrow. I learned the African handshake as well, which is slightly different from a regular one, and we are setting up Xhosa lessons for the coming weeks so we can communicate more effectively in the settlements. Overall, I'm excited, but exhausted. I really hope that our project can make a real difference though.