Our first day after arriving in Cape Town was just a relaxing day. The next day (Friday) we decided to take a taxi into the city. Now the taxis are not like the ones in NZ. These are basically vans that go around with the guy yelling where they are going to. They pack so many people into them and all for only R6. It was our first taxi experience in SA and it was fun.
At this point I am just going to go on a bit of a tangent and talk more about the country for a second. For us in SA everything is so cheap. To get from the SA Rand to the Australian $ you divide everything by 6 (5.5 for the Kiwi). To take the 30mins taxi into town it cost us R6 each or $1. Another example is food. For us to have a nice meal would be about $10 for the both of us! (This is our excuse for eating too much and putting on weight!) I can imagine it would be pretty good have the pound here because then you divide everything by about 14!!!
The other thing about SA is that because there are so many people, the labour is really cheap and therefore they have people doing the jobs that in NZ we have machines to do. For example car washes are all done by hand and about 5 people would work on one car. Another example is that at the petrol stations they have pump attendants so you just sit in your car. And of course a lot of people have maids because it is quite cheap. This is so different from what we are used to.
Another thing you have to get used to here is the squatter camps everywhere. Huge areas of "houses" made from sheets of corrugated iron. I will put a picture in so you can get some idea.
Squatter camps (although you could pay a lot for that view!)
Anyway back to what I was talking about. We took the taxi into town and made our way to the tourist center to get information on what to do etc. When walking out of the center we see a city sightseeing bus just ahead of us. It is one of those open top, hop-on hop-off buses where you pay a certain amount and can get off wherever you want and get on another one later on. So we decided to jump on that to get a general overlook of the city. It took us through the center of town, up to where the cable cars leave for table mountain and all around the coast back into town. It was a beautiful day and I have to tell you that Cape Town is one of the most beautiful cities I have ever seen!! You have these huge amazing mountains in the background and the water right there. We jumped off along the coast at a place called Camps Bay (also a topless beach) and had lunch there and then headed back into town. Camps Bay reminded us of Mission Bay in Auckland. Another thing to note about Cape Town in how windy it can get. Its mainly when the South-Easter blows and this is known as the Cape Doctor. Its called this because it basically clears the pollutants and smog away from the city. Windy Wellington almost compares to the gale force winds experienced here. The wind comes down off the mountains and Shailen's dad was telling us that when it gets really windy they have ropes across the street to help you cross. People on Motor bikes get blown off their bikes crossing the street!!!
Table Mountain itself is just so beautiful that photos don't do it justice! The clouds come and settle on the mountain and when this happens they refer to the clouds as the "table cloth". There is also the legend of a Dutch sailor, Van Huck, who challenged the Devil to a pipe smoking competition. They say the 'cloud' is due to the smoke produced from this ongoing battle.
The next day was Saturday and Shailen's dad had to work until 1pm so we went with him to his work which is near a big mall (N1 city) and had breakfast there and walked around. We didn't do much for the rest of the day but that night we were introduced to our first Gatsby's. A Gatsby is a huge sub with pretty much everything you can imagine on it. For example a Chicken Gatsby would have chicken, chips and salad. Other ones have egg and all sorts of other things. Now when we say big it would be about from the tip of your fingers to your elbow!! They have them everywhere in Cape Town so we had to try it at least once.
Alisa with only HALF of her Gatsby!
We had a pretty quiet weekend and then spent the next couple of days updating the last posts on our blog.
On the Wednesday we were going to go into town and look at some of the museums. When we got there we realised we left our student cards and so there was no point going as we would get it a lot cheaper with them. We met up with Shailen's Uncle (Ravesh Mama) and walked around the city. We did manage to see some ruins left over from the early Dutch settlers from the 17 Century! It was a canal that brings down water from the mountains to refresh sailors that are docked at the port and also for soldiers and the Mayor in the Castle. It was an awful day raining and really windy so we didn't end up doing much more. That night we went out to The Grand West where there is this big casino, hotel, restaurants, movies, ice-skating rink etc and had dinner there which was nice.
Ruins left of the canal at Golden Acre.
The next day (Thursday) after making sure we had our student cards we headed back into the city. The first place we went to was the Castle of Good Hope which is more of a fort really. It was built by the first Dutch Settlers and changed hands many times between Dutch, British and French. It was started in 1652 and completed in 1663. At the time that it was built it was right on the water but since a lot of land has been reclaimed and it is more inland. They also had the entrance to the Castle on the waterfront but it later moved due to the water coming in during high seas. We arrived just in time for a guided tour and so went along with that. It was quite interesting learning about it all. The place is huge and was 3 museums within it. It would take you all day to go through everything! We were there for the key ceremony which happens at 12 o'clock. They also fire this tiny little cannon which is so cute (& they coincide it with the firing of the noon gun - read on to find out about this)!!! We were able to walk around the top of the castle and look at the view around which was nice.
Cape Town's Town Hall.
The flags showing the era's of The Castle. From left to right: Dutch, British, Batavia, British again, Old South Africa and finally New South Africa.
The Key Ceremony.
Lighting of the little cannon at noon.
Shailen shackled in one of the torturing chambers in The Castle. Prisoners were tortured to confess their crimes and only then can they be punished by death. First was whipping them, then if they didnt confess they were hung by their arms from the ceiling for 24hours and then dropped onto a concrete floor! And if you still survived all this and didn't confess, you were put into an adjoining room in confinement with 20 other prisoners for 3 days with no food or water. And if your will was still strong after this, you were still killed!
This is one of the two Sun-Dials at The Castle. They have a summer one and a winter one.
From the Castle we headed to the South African museum. We were actually really disappointed with it. A lot of the cabinets were empty and maintenance was taking place. They did have an interesting exhibit on dinosaurs and so on but apart from that it was quite average. After the SA Museum we went to Long Street which if you didn't guess by the name is the longest street in Cape Town. Had a relaxing drink and wedges with pesto and mushroon sauce (YUM!!) and headed back home.
That Saturday we were going to go for a drive out to Cape Point. We didn't leave until about 4pm because Aloma (Shailen's Dad's partner) had work. We went along the coast and stopped at a place called Simon's town which is famous for its Boulders penguin colonies. So we stopped off and saw the penguins which are very cute. There was one right near us so we got some good photos. From there we went to Cape Point arriving at the gates at about 5.45 only to find out that you have to pay R55 per person to get in and the gates shut at 6!!!!! This is a National Park of South Africa and they are charging these prices to basically see nature! We decided it wasn't worth it and headed down to Hout Bay where we were told we had to experience their world famous fish and chips. After getting lost a couple of times we made it there. We went to the famous place and the takeaway place was closed but their restaurant upstairs was open so we decided to go there. We went in and sat down opened the menus and nearly had a heart attack at the prices! LOL Our waiter Craig came, dropped off some complimentary bread and introduced himself and told us the specials etc and then after he left we all got up and left!!! I have never been so embarassed! We all ran and hid in the car it was so funny! We then went to another place and got it nice and cheap so we still managed to have fish and chips in Hout Bay.
This is the prison where Nelson Mandela was moved to after his exile on Robben Island.
The glorious Hout Bay at sun-set. It is basically a fishing village.
On Sunday we decided to go up Table Mountain. We decided to walk up it through the Platteklip Gorge. It seemed like a good idea setting off.............. It took us about 2.5 hours in the boiling sun walking straight up the side of the mountain!! Man it was hard work! There were many stops during the way but with extremely sore legs later we made it to the top. We climbed up 1086m and travelled 3.5Km to reach the top! The view is stunning from the top you can see all around in all directions. We went and sat and took our shoes off and recovered. We then went and had some lunch at the cafe there and then just went found a spot with an amazing view and lay down for a while. Everywhere you look at the top of the Mountain there are lizards and at one point one even came and touched my foot! It was so beautiful from the top that you could just sit there for hours and look at everything. We were going to take the Cable car down, but for some reason we decided to walk back down.
Shailen - "Just before hiking down, Alisa needed to go to the toilet and there wasn't a toilet nearby, so she watered some plants on the Table Mountain!!! She is definitely contributing to the Flora of South Africa!!! (mind you, I did too!! but Shhhhh.) "
It only took us 1.5 hours to go back down and it was definitely easier but I still arrived at the bottom with very wobbly legs! We had defeated the mountain!!!!
At the start of our hike. Notice, we are still smiling at this point!
Where we are heading..
..still smiling. We still near the bottom!
Almost there..
We made it!!! (Notice Shailen wearing less clothes as he goes up? LOL)
On our way down we turn to see that the 'table cloth' is starting to come over.
We reach the bottom in time to see the table set for dinner LOL.
Lower Cable Station with Table Mountain in the back.
The next couple of days we just let our legs recover and apart from going to an outlet mall didn't really do much.
On the Wednesday we planned to go to Ratanga Junction which is a theme park. Aloma dropped us off before she went to work at about 9.30. We saw that it didn't open until 10am so sat down to wait, we were then told that it was closed until Friday! So we caught a taxi into town in the hope of hearing the Noon Gun. On one of the hills called Signal Point they fire off a canon everyday except Sunday at 12am. We made it up the hill in time and was told about the cannons. They have fired at this time for 200 years. There are two cannons and they fire them alternatively although both are loaded, one as a backup. 1.5kg of gun powder is put into each cannon and although they are manually loaded it is mechanically set off at 12 from a signal it receives from The Observatory and it is transfered through a Telecom line which sets off the primer. I can tell you that when it goes off it is loud!!!!!!! Shailen took a video of it so we will try and put it on.
The Noon Guns (but really, cannons).
A new stadium being built for the 2010 Soccer World Cup.
From there we went to the V & A waterfront named after QueenVictoria and her son Albert. We wanted to book tickets to Robben Island which is where Nelson Mandela was keep prisoner for 18 years. We arrived at the booking office to find that they are completely booked up until the 9th December which was the day before we leave. Once again this is ridiculous because it is a top tourist attraction, and yet they can't cater for the masses! Especially since there is going to be a tourist boom in 2010 because SA is hosting the Fifa SoccerWorld Cup. So we booked the tickets but are not sure whether we will go or not also we don't know what the weather will be like on that day. It was annoying that they are so booked because people coming for just a week or a few days won't have a chance to go. Anyway after buying the tickets we had a look around the water front. There is so much to do there. Malls, restaurants, craft shops, markets, cruises, helicopter rides etc After looking around we decided to book a sunset cruise on a Catamaran. It wasn't until 7pm so we spent the rest of the time looking around. When 7pm came we jumped on to the boat and took a place on the Trampoline type front with everyone else. We head out to the open sea and it suddenly became quite windy and rough and everyone is getting splashed with waves coming up from underneath and over the sides. We moved and sat in a place where we didn't get wet at all so we were lucky. People slowly started going inside until we were the only ones left out the front. With the sunset cruise we also got free champagne so there we are on our romantic sunset cruise trying to keep our glasses steady and hanging on for life. My hand was shaking so much that I was spilling my drink! I don't know if it was the cold or fear or both! It was good fun and we couldn't stop laughing!! After a while we turned around and headed for calm water and a beautiful sunset. It wasn't quite what we signed up for but we enjoyed ourselves so it turned out OK.
Auckland is only 14227Kms away in that direction!!
The famous Waterfront Clock-Tower.
The Nobel Peace prize winners. Spot the odd one out!. From left to right: Albert Luthuli, Archbishop Desmond Tutu, F.W. de Clerk and Nelson R. Mandela.
A bomb bag in a shopping mall!!!!
Did someone say "Titanic?"
Another lazy day yesterday and then we went out to Shailen's restaurant. The whole time we have been here Shailen has been going on about how he has to go to this steak restaurant called Spur. So last night we finally made it. Shailen got his ribs and I was happy with my vegetarian fajitas. :)
So that brings us to today where obviously we are writing our blog. We only have about another week in Cape Town and then heading back to Joburg for 3 days before we fly to Egypt on the 13th December. So stay turned for more....
Plettenberg Bay.
