7 Days in Cape Town, South Africa

Cape Town, South Africa is one of the most beautiful cities in the world – no lie. The city is surrounded by the Table Mountain Range, the water is a crystal clear aqua color, the weather is beyond perfect, its clean, young, exciting, and just fantastic! It’s a city that I had never really given much thought about, but after being here for 7 days – I will tell everyone that they must visit Cape Town. We got here on Friday morning and left last night – Tom and I didn’t sign up for any of the Safari trips, so we had the whole week to try and experience as much of the area as possible.

It’s the summer time in Cape Town and that meant that the weather was between 65 and 85 degrees – no humidity, no bugs, no clouds really – just perfect beautiful sun! I had pictured South Africa as being ungodly hot, but apparently it really doesn’t get that hot – and it even snows here…changing perspectives all the time! South Africa is well known for its wine, jazz, food, coffee, perspectives on life, and wild life – and we experienced it all!

It’s hard to imagine and not hard to see the impacts of Apartheid in the city. There is an obvious contrast between the rich and the poor – and of course, race plays a huge part of this contrast. As I mentioned, the city is beautiful – filled with shops, café’s, restaurants, wineries, bars, etc. but then just about ½ mile to 1 mile out of the city, you see the “Townships,” which are basically shacks where the poor live. The shacks line for miles and miles with approximately 2.5 million people living in them. They are made from tin cans, garbage, pieces of wood or tin – anything that the people could get their hands on really and most of them are 1 room only with a few families living in them. The Townships are small towns living in abject poverty – but they have schools, bars, barber shops, stores, etc. The people living in the townships either got stuck there during the Apartheid or they moved there after the Apartheid to start a new life in the city. These homes are an obvious result of the effects of this system and yet, the country has only been operating as a democracy for 14 years – and the changes are amazing to see. We went to Robben Island (which is where Nelson Mandela and many other political prisoners were held because of their demand for an abolishment of apartheid) and we met with 2 former political prisoners of the time period and learned so much. The last political prisoner released from the island was in 1991 – and apartheid has only been abolished since 1985 – its hard to imagine that a system so inhumane lasted for so long – and that people were literally thrown into prison because they refused to be an object of the dominant’s oppression…amazing.

The people of South Africa were so inspiring in their beliefs in humanity. One would think that after living under the system of apartheid, you would come out angry at the world – or just angry at your oppressors – but these people did the exact opposite. They have such faith in the goodness of people and as the former prisoner told us, “South Africa is an example to the world of what can happen when we expect the best in people and work together.” Everyone that we met was so genuinely happy and ready to live life – something that I will always carry with me – for despite some of the worst forms of oppression and for many, continued poverty – the South Africans are thrilled to be free and alive. After leaving this place, I feel such hope for the future of the world – because if we could just take a little piece of the South African’s notion of life & humanity – we will be fine.

In addition to the people, the city life is wonderful as well! The city looks like the funky parts of NYC, but so clean and open – there were all these independent shops everywhere (no chain stores – and happily, we didn’t see 1 McDonald’s the entire way!). The American $ stands up pretty well with the African Rand too, about 7 Rand for $1 – so we got some great stuff for fairly cheap. The first day I bought a bag of nectarines from a farm stand and thought that I had just bitten into heaven! They were the perfect texture and taste – later I also got peaches and pears to die for. Their salads were so fresh too and the feta cheese was great – I ate A LOT in South Africa! Some of my favorite foods that I ate included, many cups of cappuccino, glasses of the best red wine ever (I don’t know much about wine, but I know that this stuff was amazing), cheeses of all kinds – we did a cheese tour and had goat and cow cheeses of so many varieties – I was in my glory!, Portobello mushrooms grow like mad here and so I had a lot of them, avocados, and cheesecake with blueberries (just amazing – the best cheesecake I have ever had!).

Ok, so in addition to eating more food than should be physically possible, we did took some great trips as well. We spent a lot of time walking along Long Street, which is the young section of the city – filled with bars, clothing shops, and cafes – our first night, we went to this “Irish Pub” (why I do not know – why would you go to an Irish Pub in South Africa!), anyways – this pub was not Irish in anyway – and they had a horrific cover band called “Adrenalin” where they sang the worst American songs known to man! Matt – you need to come to South Africa, they would be blown away by your music and voice! J Other than this bad music experience, we did get to see some jazz groups at the restaurants at night and they were really good – although, not the typical jazz like at home – more of a Norah Jones type jazz. We hiked Table Mountain, which I highly recommend; however, be prepared to lose all feeling in your legs and butt. The hike was like a giant stairclimber and it took us 3 hours to get to the top – at points, Tom was just saying – “You go ahead – just leave me – I can’t do it!” We stupidly only brought 1 thing of water and 2 energy bars, not smart – you definitely need more. I am pretty fit and this thing kicked my butt, a couple of times I had to literally will my legs to move…but when we got to the top we could see all across the water and mountain – it was great! (P.S. we took the tram ride down!). We spent some time at a beautiful white sandy beach tucked away between some rocks – the sun was glorious – and the water felt like an iceburg had just melted in front of us. We could only go in up to our knees before you were so cold that it felt like hypothermia! We hired a taxi for a day with some other people on the ship and traveled to the Cape Point. On the way, we saw wild ostrich (their eggs are equivalent to 56 chicken eggs!), antelope, weird fuzzy large rodents – like the ROUS from the Princess Bride, baboons, and we got to hang out with a colony of penguins!!! We paid 25 Rand ($4) to go to this little beach where the penguins live and just hang out among them. It was sooo fun – and we must have taken 1,000 pictures of them – they are too cute! We also went on a wine tour and tasted some great reds and sparkling wine too. However, we did discover the sad, sad news that apparently, each bottle shipped to the US gets an extra $30 taxed to it – cause the US is a pain in the ass about shipping wine into the states. There was a website that one of our tour guides gave us that only charges $100 for a case to be shipped – but you have to go and pick it up at the airport and bring it through customs…just ridiculous. We did get a few bottles that we were able to bring onboard, but not a ton – which is disappointing. Don’t worry El Squat, we will figure out a way to get you some reds! I also ate some meat (Kudu and Ostrich) – we had gone to an amazing restaurant with some friends to get dinner and after 4 bottles of wine (between 4 people) – trying meat didn’t seem like a bad idea! So, I tried a few bites of Kudu and Ostrich – it brought tears to my eyes it was so good – but I paid a price later, when my belly swelled like crazy. I didn’t get sick though, so I was very proud of myself! It was really really good – the best steak type meat ever! Lastly, we had to bring a donation to a community agency, which works with street kids and as we were leaving Arlene (the woman at the foundation) told us to be careful as we travel – because of our accents! I was too excited to be told that I have an accent J

South Africa was beautiful and beyond words. Hopefully, this helps to give a decent description of my experiences in Cape Town – but really, I am not kidding when I say, everyone should visit this place – I know that I will return here – seven days will never be enough time!