URT: Cape Town

15-19 November

Cape Town. Our final destination. Beautiful, beautiful Cape Town.
Day One:

Despite having paid for a night's accommodation at Tsitsikamma, Marita and I took an overnight bus to Cape Town and got there early in the morning. I could not for the life on me sleep on that bus [I have issues falling asleep if I am not laying down], so I got to Cape Town pretty exhausted. We arrived before anything was open, spent some hours sitting in the station, then walked ourselves down Long Street to Long Street Backpackers until they opened so we could make a reservation. Long Street was definitely the place to be, as it is the toursity central of Cape Town, meaning that things are open late, there is tons of food, and the street is completely lit up all night making it the safest street in town. Awesome. That day we took a nap as soon as we got a bed, walked around and looked at the [over-priced] craft markets. I would get into bartering arguments that seemed to go like this: "How much is this?"
"30 rand."
"30 rand?! No."
 "Okay miss, you give me the price."
"5 rand."
"5 rand?! Oh no. How about 25 rand. I give it to you for 25 rand."
"But I can get this from Durban for 5 rand."
"Where are you from?"
"I live in Durban [this isn't quite a lie, Pietermaritzburg is less than an hour from Durban]."
"Oh. But Cape Town prices! Come on! These are Cape Town prices! Support us too!"
"Umm... no thank you."
"Cape Town price! I give you the best Cape Town price!"
And that would be the downfall of Cape Town being so touristy-- everything is much more expensive. I guess it is nice to live in a city too boring for huge amounts of tourism.

Day Two:

Anyway, the next day we took the challenge of hiking up Table Mountain, arguably the most well-known mountain range in South Africa. Table Mountain basically encloses Cape Town and can be seen from anywhere you stand. We met some other hiking buddies at the hostel to go with that morning: Emily from Canada, David from England, and Zuzana from Slovakia. Being the only man in the group, our brave David decided to be the navigator up the mountain. We had 4 options:

1. Take the 5-minute cable car ride up to the top of the mountain.
2. Take the 2-hour stair path up to the top of the mountain.
3. Take the 4-hour path around the mountain to the top.
4. Go exploring and hope you make it to the top of the mountain.

Can you guess which one David chose? if you guessed anything between 1-3, that would have been too easy. Option number 4 is the winner! We started off on option number 3, being the fit and young people we are, and then David found a sign to a new path that didn't go around the mountain, but straight up. Straight up. We ended up rock climbing up a tiny waterfall, at times clinging to stray branches in order to keep from falling off a cliff. We lost the "path" a couple times, but we made it to the top! At the end David said, [insert British accent] "Bloody hell. That was so bloody dangerous! I'm sorry guys. That was so f*cking stupid of me." Funny thing-- I thought it was fun, and didn't even think it was that dangerous. I did the First-Year Outdoor Program [FOP] the week before starting my freshman year at Harvard, and this in comparison was not only a piece of cake, but lots of fun! I am learning how outdoorsy I really am at heart. I love the challenge of a good hike and the awesome feeling of making it to the top. But, I will admit after 4.5 hours of finding our way to the top, my legs felt as if I had been on the stair master the entire time. The residual effect was a sore bum for the next few days.

Day Three:

The next day was rent-a-car and go explore day! South Africa is known to have some of the best wine in the world, and  Marita really wanted to do a wine tour through the famous South African winelands [I didn't really care one way or another], but the wine tour was a bit too pricey for our liking [in hindsight, it was incredibly cheap compared to any wine tour you would go on in the US or Australia, but it was South Africa expensive, and that is what we are working off of]. So we rented a car and went to one winery called Spier, which was really cool. We ate lunch there at an awesome restaurant, looked through their craft shop, went to the wine tasting center, and after that went to look at the cheetahs... yes, they have a cheetah reserve on their vineyard. How cool is that? The place was beautiful [and I love cheetahs], so it was definitely worth the trip. We went on a beautiful drive after that around a granite mountain range that was just gorgeous from all sides. Turned up the radio and enjoyed a drive where the scenery was beautiful and rarely another car on the road-- the true road trip! And I wasn't even that bad at navigating... I would have helped with the driving time, but I (1) don't know how to drive a manual car, and (2) have never driven on the left side of the road... so that day was probably not the best day to learn as we drove on the edge of mountains. By the time we got down to Hermanus [our trip started about 2 hours late because of rental car confusion] it was too late and the whales were not to be found. Bummer. But on the way home there was a beautiful sunset peeking out through some trees, and every time we caught a glimpse of it it was quite a treat.

Day Four:

Then it came to the last full day in Cape Town. Our Table Mountain climbing buddies joined us for a ride around the cape. We went to Simons Town and saw the South African penguins [I think Emily said they are called "jackass penguins?"], which was unexpected considering that I usually associate penguins with ice and not with sunburns.

We drove along the coast, past tons of signs that said "Beware of the baboons." "Baboons are dangerous!" "Do not feed the baboons!" And yes, there actually were baboons along the side of the road... yay, Africa!

We went to Cape Point [where they say the Atlantic and Indian Oceans meet] and almost got blown away. No, really, I am completely serious. At 70km/hr. winds, I struggled to get the door open and on more than one occasion I dragged while digging my heels into the ground trying to open the door from the outside... a random man had to help me at one point to get the door open. People were clinging on to the rails trying to keep from getting blown down the stairs. It was hectic! On our way to the Cape of Good Hope we stopped at a beautiful beachy area and attempted to "rescue" a perfectly healthy seal [the waves were really strong and as he was being flopped in the water I thought he was dying. Apparently he was just playing around. Rescue mission = fail].

We then went to the Cape of Good Hope, the most southwestern point in Africa. While we were there, we saw a group of about 20 people standing along the underside of a cliff. "What is going on there?" We didn't know. Then David shouted, "It's a wedding!" Indeed it was, a small group from Korea had joined the happy couple as they exchanged their wedding vows at the [very windy] Cape of Good Hope. They saw us and started waving us over... what? We walked over there and as the group of five of us got closer, we could see that they wanted us to come towards them. We ran over there just in time to be in their wedding photo and get to toast with champagne... that is the ultimate wedding crashing--being in the  Korean wedding picture at the Cape of Good Hope in South Africa. How ridiculous is that?! And it was so windy that they had to hold her dress down with a giant rock for the pictures.

We left the Cape and all of its wind, water, and weddings to do what is considered one of the "most scenic drives in the world." And it was, indeed, pretty beautiful. One of those places where you want to stop every 4 minutes to get out and take a picture. Beautiful sights seem to be one of the common themes in this road trip, so please excuse my superfluous amount of scenery pictures as you look through my web albums.
Just.
So.
Beautiful!

We ate at a restaurant on the bay that was famous for its amazing fish and chips. When we finished our meal we found our rental car hidden under a thick layer of salt and as we tried to get to it we were attacked by the stinging grains of sand flying at us at rapid speeds. It was painful, and I found sand in my hair for the next few days.

Good time in Cape Town. Great roadtrip. Lots of fun! I definitely love the backpacking culture and the friendliness of everyone you meet-- I hope I get to do something like this again. I had so much fun [and I am glad I finally finished blogging about it!]