Local Time: 11:36pm, 7 March
Time at Home: 3:36pm
Current Location: Cape Town, South Africa
Hello friends,
If there is a more perfect place to plop a city than at the southern tip of Africa, with the Indian Ocean on one side and the Pacific on the other, just at the foot of Table Mountain, I can't imagine where it would be. If there is a city more beautiful than Cape Town, I haven't seen it. I'd be willing to bet that you haven't, either.
Oh, and by the way, this entry is likely to be impossibly long. It's been nothing but go, go, go since we got to Africa on Friday, with the exception of tonight, because having just gotten back from a safari, I'm far too tired to go out, and far too anxious to get some pictures up. If my plan worked, I got to an Internet café tomorrow (Thursday), and got to post this puppy. Although I imagine will only cover everything up to the safari, and not the safari itself. That's 300 more pictures to sort through, and I think that's just going to have to wait.
Friday morning. Friday morning everyone was crowded on the front of the 7th deck, because by then everyone had heard that sunrise over Table Mountain is incredible. Luckily I got a spot near the front for some good pictures, but at the cost of getting up there at 6:00am.
And I finally got my picture with Archbishop Desmond Tutu!! It really wouldn't be hard to ask him for a picture on the ship, but I would feel too terrible doing it, because people act strangely around him anyway, like he's a celebrity (which I guess he basically is). But when we were coming into port he was very excited too, because he lives here, and his wife is joining us here, so it didn't seem too rude to ask to take a picture with him. Actually it was pretty much the first time I interacted with him at all, except for one "fist bump" he gave me as I walked past one day. He's very fond of high fives and fist bumps.
From left to right: Jess, James, Desmond, Mark, Myself.
Desmond Tutu is a truly awesome man, but I'll talk about him another time.
The first day was spent acclimating ourselves to the city. We feasted on some delicious ostrich burgers, and later went downtown, where everyone but me did some shopping, and then I was robbed.
A word on being robbed. I've never been robbed before. It happened like this: Everyone was getting smoothies across the street from the market, and I wanted to go back and check on the price of some things, so I did just that. On my way back, though, these two men came up to me and informed me that if I didn't "give them the fucking money" I'd make the acquaintance of some sort of knife. Whether or not they had a knife I'll never know, but it didn't seem worth the effort to find out, so I emptied my wallet for them. All in all it was probably something like $30 US, which isn't a terrible loss, considering I had both my expensive camera and my camcorder in my bag with me, and I was just happy that they didn't know about those. The oddest part of this affair, though, was that the people I was with watched it happen from the across the street. This was at 3pm, next to market, on the side of the street. People everywhere. At first I shrugged the guys off, thinking they were trying to sell me something. When I realized they were robbing me I was kind of like, "Seriously? I'm being robbed right here?" Oh well, though. I was a little shaken up at the time, but you take the good with the bad. And you don't carry much money with you.
That night we went to a jazz club on the waterfront, near the ship. The port area here, by the way, is like one giant shopping venue. It's nice, in the sense that it's safe (unlike Salvador's), but it's annoying in the sense that we might as well be in Florida.
The second day we wanted to hike Table Mountain, only it was raining so the mountain was closed. Then we tried to get a trip to the winelands, but it was too late in the morning so we set something up the next day (that was a perk of the waterfront area; there's a tourist office right here). What we ended up doing was a township tour, the one thing SAS told us never to do without going through one of their trips.
I don't know how to describe the experience. We're all familiar with the concept of shanty towns (the "townships" of South Africa), but walking through one is a very enlightening experience. And it was here again where I was jettisoned out of my comfort zone. We were driving through this area where the houses are practically on top of each other, and are constructed out of sheet metal and scrap wood. When our guide got out of the van and told us to follow him we all kind of looked at each other blankly. And when our guide disappeared into the building below, I just looked at Jess, one of my friend's I was with, and said, "Is he serious?"
We had no idea what was going on. We were told the place was a bar, but all I could see was one woman pouring soapy water into a pail, presumably for laundry. But then she put the bucket in the middle of the floor, and our guide told us that we were in a bar, and that here we don't drink out of cups. Here we drink out of a pail. One pail. And then I realized that the soapy water was actually home-brewed beer. So the four of us from the ship, as well as 3 Canadians who were also on the tour, passed around the dirty pail and each took a swig of this woman's beer. It was actually pretty tasty. Very flat, but flavorful.
We also toured two other apartments. One of which would not have met any American standard of living, and the other which was very nice by comparison, but still would hardly pass in a ghetto. I took only one picture of a man inside. I felt too terrible, standing there with my digital camera, to take snapshots of somebody's home.
The last of the 3 townships we visited featured a visit to Vicky's Bed & Breakfast, who is well known by past SAS students, as SAS plans trips to that township and to visit her every semester. She's kind of a model for many township inhabitants, having turned her own home into a successful business. She was very, very friendly, and told us about how we weren't there to see how poor the people were, but to see how they survive, and how happy they can still be. Here' s a picture of Vicky with who I think were two of her children, Jess, and I.
[Friends, I'm sorry, but it was at this point of uploading photos that I ran out of time at the Internet cafe, and if I wait much longer I'll be late for the ship. I'll finish uploading photos either before Mauritius, or in Mauritius. Sorry. You know how it is with this trip.]
And here I must admit that I'm uncomfortable with the switch of tours of I made from Saturday to Sunday. Saturday I was touring desolate streets, and Sunday I was roaming the country side wine tasting. I still feel very guilty about that, but let's get on with the recap.
Rick, James, Jen, and I went on our own, through a local tourist agency, on a tour that was to include 5 wineries between 2 different winelands, from the hours of 9am to about 5pm. A full day wine extravaganza. We only managed to make 4 wineries, because it was Sunday and they closed a little early, but I think I can say that even after all of my adventures here, that was my favorite day in South Africa.
It was the first winery where we were taught how to properly taste wine, including swirling, sniffing, and tasting. The tips were quite helpful.
I don't think I need to tell specific details of wine tasting, I think most of you know what it's like, and those of you who don't can probably imagine. For me, though, it was an excellent experience, because back home I can't do wine tasting for another year and some months. I have decided, though, that my 21st birthday present to myself will most certainly be a trip to the California winelands. Anyone interested in joining me?
By the end of the day, after 21 glasses just like the ones pictured above, we were all feeling pretty happy, and very sleepy. That night didn't entail much activity, just long conversations about how angry we were that we couldn't bring alcohol on the ship (bottles were quite cheap ($10-$15 for the really good stuff, but unreasonably expensive to ship home), naps, and sleep, because we had to get up to leave for our safari at 4am the next day. Here's a picture of our wine tasting entourage:
From left to right: Me, Rick, a girl from Belgium whose name escapes me, Jen, James, our awesome guide Deon, and Sofia (from Sweden).
I'm afraid I'm going to have to cut this update off here. It's 12:30am now, and I'm far too tired to go through safari pictures, and what is a safari update without pictures? Anyway, we're leaving at 7:15am to go to Robben Island (where Neslon Mandela was imprisoned for 18 of his 20-some years), and then hopefully to climb Table Mountain, though I think every organized trip so far has been cancelled due to inclement weather. I don't do many organized trips anymore, though. Everything I've done in South Africa we've planned on our own.
Anyhow, fare thee well, and many thanks to all of you who sent me mail.
I took this picture from our ship after we docked, actually, so this is what I've seen every day I was in the city.
Time at Home: 3:36pm
Current Location: Cape Town, South Africa
Hello friends,
If there is a more perfect place to plop a city than at the southern tip of Africa, with the Indian Ocean on one side and the Pacific on the other, just at the foot of Table Mountain, I can't imagine where it would be. If there is a city more beautiful than Cape Town, I haven't seen it. I'd be willing to bet that you haven't, either.
Oh, and by the way, this entry is likely to be impossibly long. It's been nothing but go, go, go since we got to Africa on Friday, with the exception of tonight, because having just gotten back from a safari, I'm far too tired to go out, and far too anxious to get some pictures up. If my plan worked, I got to an Internet café tomorrow (Thursday), and got to post this puppy. Although I imagine will only cover everything up to the safari, and not the safari itself. That's 300 more pictures to sort through, and I think that's just going to have to wait.
Friday morning. Friday morning everyone was crowded on the front of the 7th deck, because by then everyone had heard that sunrise over Table Mountain is incredible. Luckily I got a spot near the front for some good pictures, but at the cost of getting up there at 6:00am.
And I finally got my picture with Archbishop Desmond Tutu!! It really wouldn't be hard to ask him for a picture on the ship, but I would feel too terrible doing it, because people act strangely around him anyway, like he's a celebrity (which I guess he basically is). But when we were coming into port he was very excited too, because he lives here, and his wife is joining us here, so it didn't seem too rude to ask to take a picture with him. Actually it was pretty much the first time I interacted with him at all, except for one "fist bump" he gave me as I walked past one day. He's very fond of high fives and fist bumps.
From left to right: Jess, James, Desmond, Mark, Myself.
Desmond Tutu is a truly awesome man, but I'll talk about him another time.
The first day was spent acclimating ourselves to the city. We feasted on some delicious ostrich burgers, and later went downtown, where everyone but me did some shopping, and then I was robbed.
A word on being robbed. I've never been robbed before. It happened like this: Everyone was getting smoothies across the street from the market, and I wanted to go back and check on the price of some things, so I did just that. On my way back, though, these two men came up to me and informed me that if I didn't "give them the fucking money" I'd make the acquaintance of some sort of knife. Whether or not they had a knife I'll never know, but it didn't seem worth the effort to find out, so I emptied my wallet for them. All in all it was probably something like $30 US, which isn't a terrible loss, considering I had both my expensive camera and my camcorder in my bag with me, and I was just happy that they didn't know about those. The oddest part of this affair, though, was that the people I was with watched it happen from the across the street. This was at 3pm, next to market, on the side of the street. People everywhere. At first I shrugged the guys off, thinking they were trying to sell me something. When I realized they were robbing me I was kind of like, "Seriously? I'm being robbed right here?" Oh well, though. I was a little shaken up at the time, but you take the good with the bad. And you don't carry much money with you.
That night we went to a jazz club on the waterfront, near the ship. The port area here, by the way, is like one giant shopping venue. It's nice, in the sense that it's safe (unlike Salvador's), but it's annoying in the sense that we might as well be in Florida.
The second day we wanted to hike Table Mountain, only it was raining so the mountain was closed. Then we tried to get a trip to the winelands, but it was too late in the morning so we set something up the next day (that was a perk of the waterfront area; there's a tourist office right here). What we ended up doing was a township tour, the one thing SAS told us never to do without going through one of their trips.
I don't know how to describe the experience. We're all familiar with the concept of shanty towns (the "townships" of South Africa), but walking through one is a very enlightening experience. And it was here again where I was jettisoned out of my comfort zone. We were driving through this area where the houses are practically on top of each other, and are constructed out of sheet metal and scrap wood. When our guide got out of the van and told us to follow him we all kind of looked at each other blankly. And when our guide disappeared into the building below, I just looked at Jess, one of my friend's I was with, and said, "Is he serious?"
We had no idea what was going on. We were told the place was a bar, but all I could see was one woman pouring soapy water into a pail, presumably for laundry. But then she put the bucket in the middle of the floor, and our guide told us that we were in a bar, and that here we don't drink out of cups. Here we drink out of a pail. One pail. And then I realized that the soapy water was actually home-brewed beer. So the four of us from the ship, as well as 3 Canadians who were also on the tour, passed around the dirty pail and each took a swig of this woman's beer. It was actually pretty tasty. Very flat, but flavorful.
We also toured two other apartments. One of which would not have met any American standard of living, and the other which was very nice by comparison, but still would hardly pass in a ghetto. I took only one picture of a man inside. I felt too terrible, standing there with my digital camera, to take snapshots of somebody's home.
The last of the 3 townships we visited featured a visit to Vicky's Bed & Breakfast, who is well known by past SAS students, as SAS plans trips to that township and to visit her every semester. She's kind of a model for many township inhabitants, having turned her own home into a successful business. She was very, very friendly, and told us about how we weren't there to see how poor the people were, but to see how they survive, and how happy they can still be. Here' s a picture of Vicky with who I think were two of her children, Jess, and I.
[Friends, I'm sorry, but it was at this point of uploading photos that I ran out of time at the Internet cafe, and if I wait much longer I'll be late for the ship. I'll finish uploading photos either before Mauritius, or in Mauritius. Sorry. You know how it is with this trip.]
And here I must admit that I'm uncomfortable with the switch of tours of I made from Saturday to Sunday. Saturday I was touring desolate streets, and Sunday I was roaming the country side wine tasting. I still feel very guilty about that, but let's get on with the recap.
Rick, James, Jen, and I went on our own, through a local tourist agency, on a tour that was to include 5 wineries between 2 different winelands, from the hours of 9am to about 5pm. A full day wine extravaganza. We only managed to make 4 wineries, because it was Sunday and they closed a little early, but I think I can say that even after all of my adventures here, that was my favorite day in South Africa.
It was the first winery where we were taught how to properly taste wine, including swirling, sniffing, and tasting. The tips were quite helpful.
I don't think I need to tell specific details of wine tasting, I think most of you know what it's like, and those of you who don't can probably imagine. For me, though, it was an excellent experience, because back home I can't do wine tasting for another year and some months. I have decided, though, that my 21st birthday present to myself will most certainly be a trip to the California winelands. Anyone interested in joining me?
By the end of the day, after 21 glasses just like the ones pictured above, we were all feeling pretty happy, and very sleepy. That night didn't entail much activity, just long conversations about how angry we were that we couldn't bring alcohol on the ship (bottles were quite cheap ($10-$15 for the really good stuff, but unreasonably expensive to ship home), naps, and sleep, because we had to get up to leave for our safari at 4am the next day. Here's a picture of our wine tasting entourage:
From left to right: Me, Rick, a girl from Belgium whose name escapes me, Jen, James, our awesome guide Deon, and Sofia (from Sweden).
I'm afraid I'm going to have to cut this update off here. It's 12:30am now, and I'm far too tired to go through safari pictures, and what is a safari update without pictures? Anyway, we're leaving at 7:15am to go to Robben Island (where Neslon Mandela was imprisoned for 18 of his 20-some years), and then hopefully to climb Table Mountain, though I think every organized trip so far has been cancelled due to inclement weather. I don't do many organized trips anymore, though. Everything I've done in South Africa we've planned on our own.
Anyhow, fare thee well, and many thanks to all of you who sent me mail.
I took this picture from our ship after we docked, actually, so this is what I've seen every day I was in the city.
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8 comments:
Boy Matthew, you need to stop getting robbed! I'm really glad they didn't look into your bag!
I greatly look forward to seeing your safari photo shoots! Have a good time!
Matt it is good hearing from you.For your information-none of the pictures worked on the last blog,all we see is a small little square that can not be opened.Too bad-your descripitions of each picture sounded exiting!!
Too bad to hear about you being robbed!!!! I am glad it sounds like it is not bothering you too much.My suggestion would be to always try and stay in groups when ever possible.
As always,looking forward to your next contact!!
Dad
Matt,
Its been really interesting to hear about your trip. I don't know how much more I can take, I'm getting increasingly jealous with each post I read. I just keep thinking of the cold, dirty snow in Madison, and then look at some of the pictures you've posted.
I'm looking forward to seeing the Africa pictures. If you haven't, I suggest reading the book "A Walk in the Night" by Alex La Guma, its all about the events of one night in Capetown, South Africa. I have it if you would like to read it when you get back. Its only like 90 pages.
Work is the same, for the most part. We've picked up like 7 new staffers, so that will be new. Mike also posted your blog link, as well as your famed podcast.
Stay safe. Enjoy yourself.
Shaun
Pictures! We demand pictures!!!
MOM
Wow, a safari, lucky duck, that must have been awesome.
Emily
Matt Megellan: Soon u'll b in 'Nam' I was there '68-70' stationed at Phu Cat next Phan Rang AB. Also got to Phe Kue,Quin Yon & Cam Ran Bay. Didn't get to Ho Chi Min City (then Saigon) I remember "boo coo" small motorcycles & an equal amount of water buffalo. For the most part,an undeveloped country but at the same time very beautiful. Grandma says stay with your friends! bye for now Jim
I don't know anyone else on here... but I did get the pictures to work. So mom and dad, here's the link.
http://www.flickr.com/photos/22413308@N00
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