South Africa: Part One
Where to begin? South Africa is a very beautiful and unique place. Our journey was based out of Cape Town but took us all around the Western Cape and the Cape Peninsula. I'll do my best to describe the sights and experiences from the trip, hopefully making it feel like you went along with us. Bear with me, as this will probably take a few posts.
Days 1 & 2: Airports
Seriously, two days in airports trying to get there. All of our flights were, luckily, right on time going to SA, more than I can say about the return trip! It took us a little longer than it normally would have to get there because we moved to Seattle after we bought tickets from Dallas, so our trip went like this:
Seattle - Dallas - London - Cape Town
Doesn't sound that bad, does it? Wrong. We left our house at 2:00 am on Thursday morning and arrived in Cape Town at 7:00 am on Saturday. Here are the hours each leg took (minus layovers): Seattle to Dallas: 4.5 hours, Dallas to London: 11 hours, London to Cape Town: 13 1/2 hours. Plus a time change of about ten hours, so needless to say, we were exhausted when we finally got there.
*I highly recommend MidNite all-natural sleeping pills, a set of headphones, and wine. I slept like a baby most of the way! Oh, also, don't move across the country when planning an overseas trip you have already bought tickets for, that's always helpful.
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| Killing time during a 6 hour layover in Dallas. |
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| In London - happy after taking a shower with baby-wipes, brushing my teeth, and changing into fresh clothes. |
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| Our giant, double-decker plane from London to Cape Town. We didn't see the upper floor, as we did not pay for first-class tickets! |
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| Ahhh...finally arrived in Cape Town. |
Old Biscuit Mill
Since we arrived at 7:00 am, we couldn't check in yet to our room, but luckily we could clean up and store our bags. After much-needed showers, we headed over to the Old Biscuit Mill. The OBM is a lovely market that runs only on Saturdays so we were in luck. There were a variety of shops from home decor to clothing, but the real star of the show was the delicious open-air food market. Imagine about 100 gourmet food vendors, serving delicious, fresh foods such as paella, oysters, sandwiches, flat bread pizzas, smoothies...you name it, they had it. I wasn't that hungry (since they fed us about every two hours on International flights), but still managed to eat two servings of frozen yogurt. Some of you may recall my slight obsession with Yumilicious from a previous post --- let's just say it was getting unhealthy on many fronts. Will had a giant sandwich with lots of fresh veggies and meats.
Did I mention that it was summer there? Yes, we went from coats and cold weather to sundresses and 85 degrees. Lovely.
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| View of Table Mountain from our hostel. We stayed at The Backpack hostel but had a private room and bath. |
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| We ate and rested on hay bales they had scattered around outside under tents. It was a very 'see and be seen' type of place. Too bad we looked like we hadn't seen sleep in a few days. Oh well. |
The next stop was the V&A Waterfront. It was a lovely part of town, with loads of restaurants, a high-end mall, boutique shops, and nice areas just to stroll and relax around the water. We took a ride on a mini London Eye and got some cool views of the water.
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| Stadium built for the World Cup. |
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| Mini London Eye |
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| Sorry for the 'view from behind,' but this acrobat was amazing. He was doing tricks while balanced on stacked tin cans. Incredible! |
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| It was strange to see Christmas trees up when it was about 85 degrees outside. |
The ferry to Robben Island leaves from the Waterfront, so around 3:00, we headed over to get in line. It's about a 30 minute ride out to the island; neither of us had trouble napping during the trip there :)
I am, unfortunately, not too educated on Apartheid but am very interested in learning more now that I have visited South Africa. It was interesting to speak to locals and get their views on politics and all the change that happened after Apartheid ended. Robben Island is the prison where Nelson Mandela and many other political prisoners were held, in addition to other criminals. It was turned into a historical site and tours are led by ex-inmates of the prison and grounds. Mr. Mandela was held in a private cell on Robben Island for 17 years. He was then moved to another prison in South Africa where he finished his sentence in a private house on the prison grounds. We visited the prison where he was freed -- will show you in a later section. I urge you to do research on Apartheid and Nelson Mandela, it's fascinating. His book is called The Long Walk To Freedom, which I plan on reading. I also plan on reading F W De Klerk's (ex-President of South Africa who worked with Mandela to end Apartheid) autobiography, The Last Trek - A New Beginning.
There are people who live and work on the island today; they have a school and a church and basic necessities.
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| Group cell. Originally they slept on mats on the floor (roughly 30 inmates per room). Once they were given bunks, they increased the occupancy to about 50 inmates per group cell. Horrific. They had group showers as well. |
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| The patch of green in the back corner was Nelson Mandela's garden. He buried pages of his manuscript in his garden and would give the pages to prisoners being freed so his word could get out. |
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| Nelson Mandela's quarters - 17 years. |
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| Stunning view of Table Mountain from the island. |
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| African penguin colony on Robben Island. |
Wow! This is beautiful! I want to go!
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