Jodie and I were going to go out for a walk so we went into the reception room to talk to the receptionist for suggestions of where to go. While we were waiting to talk to the receptionist, Patrick -another GVI driver- came into the reception room with the three other GVI volunteers from Gordon's Bay, South Africa. The three girls were staying in the same room so they dropped off their stuff and we all went for a walk along Long Street together.
We found a coffee shop on Long Street where we all sat down and had something to drink and got to know each other. Claire is from England, Katrina is from Ireland and Rosanna is from Sweden. After we left the cafe we walked down Long Street before it stopped being touristy and started looking like a bad idea. The street really looked like Bourbon Street in New Orleans based on the architecture of two story buildings with balconies lining the street. The five of us walked back to Ashanti and hung out there before it was from for our reservation at Mama Africa.
Mama Africa is a traditional South African restaurant, complete with dancing and traditional meals. Katrina and I shared crocodile as an appetizer. Katrina and Jodie both ordered springbok for their main course and Rosanna ordered a type of wild game called kudu. Clare and I both had fish and it was some of the best fish of my life. A band came out to play traditional music but they were soon playing and singing everything from opera to modern pop music. I never thought I'd go to South Africa and hear someone singing Justin Bieber. When we were finished with dinner we went to a bar called Space Bar and later one called Dubliners.
Saturday morning we all got up and went for breakfast around 8:30am in the restaurant at the hostel. The view of Table Mountain was incredible! We walked from the hostel through Company Gardens to get to Green Market Square. We each got a couple of things at the market and then we made our way over to the District 6 Museum. In the museum we learned about the apartheid, particularly in district 6 where the museum is located. From the museum we got on a Hop-on-Hop-off bus and went around Cape Town.
All of us got off the bus when it reached Table Mountain. Jodie and I were going to climb it with Iris but Iris was too sick to join us when we left on Friday afternoon. We decided we'd climb the mountain anyway but the other three GVI girls wanted to take the cable car up to the top instead. We parted ways at the base of the mountain. Jodie and I met a Canadian couple from Calgary who were hiking the same trail up, Platteklip Gorge. I recognized the fellow Canadians because of our matching attire from Mountain Equipment Co-Op. Somewhere along the route, Jodie and I took a different turn and ended up walking across the mountain a lot farther than we were walking up. After about an hour and a half we ran into an Australian couple who told us we'd only made it about 1/8th of the way to the top. We climbed up a little farther and then sat for a while to enjoy the view of Cape Town. We both agreed it wasn't worth it to retrace our steps for so long to continue to the top so after two hours on the mountain we started our descent. It was a shame we didn't make it all the way to the top but the views were still spectacular. At the bottom of the mountain we waited for the other girls and then all got back on the bus together.
The bus took us all around Cape Town and we got to see a side we otherwise wouldn't have gotten to see by foot. Part of this tour took us to Camp's Bay and Clifton Bay Beaches. Prince Harry is said to enjoy the cafe that over looks Camp's Bay. We also got to see Robben Island where Nelson Mandela was imprisoned. We had tried to get tickets for the tour of Robben Island on Friday for sometime during the weekend but all the tickets were booked up until Tuesday. It was nice to see Robben Island on the bus tour since we couldn't go otherwise. The tour made a pit-stop at the Two Oceans Aquarium since not far from Cape Town is where the Atlantic and Indian Oceans meet. The tour ended back near Green Market Square so we got off and walked back to Ashanti almost the same way we had headed, through Company Gardens, that morning.
Iris was at the hostel when we got back. All of us got ready to go out for dinner and then we went to Long Street to find a place for us to eat. We settled on a restaurant Holly likes in Kalk Bay called Cape to Cuba. We sat outside on the balcony, overlooking Long Street. Afterwards we went back to Dubliners to meet up with other volunteers from Gordon's Bay who'd come in to Cape Town for the night.
Sunday was my favourite day in South Africa so far and likely will include some of my best memories of this country. We were picked up from Ashanti by the tour bus company called Baz Bus. The bus made a couple stops at other hostels to pick up people for the trip. We drove along the coastline of the Atlantic Ocean until we made our first stop of the day at the ferry docks to go to Seal Island. There were tons of seals on the rocks, which really wasn't a true island, per se. I was surprised by how quiet the seals were because the ones at Fisherman's Wharf in San Francisco were always so noisy. When we were done at Seal Island we drove around the cove. The view of the little town was amazing and we got to stop for breakfast overlooking Seal Island and this small town. When everyone was finished we moved on and drove to Boulder's Beach in Simon's Town. South African penguins were everywhere at the beach.
After the beach we drove to Cape of Good Hope/ Cape Point, which is part of the national parks system. We were dropped off just off to the side of the main road and all got fitted for mountain bikes and helmets. We had a 4km bike ride along the Cape peninsula. The scenery was absolutely amazing and the bike ride was so fun. The end of the bike ride led us to to the park's visitors centre where we all stopped to have a picnic lunch.
When lunch was finished we got back on the bus and drove to Cape of Good Hope, the most south western paint of the African Continent. We climbed the Point and the views of the ocean and park were really nice. When we were done at the rocks we drove over to Cape Point Lighthouse. There were a bunch of baboons at the base of the lighthouse and we saw wild ostriches on the drive over. The views from the lighthouse were just as pretty as the views all day. After the lighthouse we drove back to Cape Town and were back to the hostel by 5:30pm. Remi picked up Jodie, Iris and I from Ashanti at 6:00pm and we were back in Fish Hoek by 7:00pm. I had such a good time in Cape Town and I didn't want it to end.
The weather is Cape Town was so beautiful and hot. Climbing Table Mountain on Saturday was made even hotter by the fact that there wasn't a single cloud in the sky. All day Sunday it was between 26-30C which felt so nice and what I had imagined weather in Africa would feel like.
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