South Africa: The world in one country

February, 2009

Cape Town…pretty much the best place on Earth…

When the itinerary changed and I found out that instead of Italy Turkey and Egypt we would be going to the southern portion of Africa, I wasn’t initially happy at all. But the closer we came to arriving in Namibia and South Africa the more excited I became. My excitement was damaged at the pre-port meetings when they mentioned how dangerous this port was especially at night and the sorts of crimes and things that have happened to people in the past. It made me really nervous about coming here. But now I’ve only been here two days and already I am completely in love with South Africa. I thought I loved Namibia and I did, but the deans were right when they said if you love Namibia then you will love South Africa even more and it’s so true. This is probably one of the best places I’ve been to so far on this trip and ever. I would love to take a family vacation here, because there is so much to do and I know we would have a great time. Not to mention it’s real cheap for Americans even right now.


Thursday February 18th
Robben Island/A night on the town

After the pre-port meetings were over people couldn’t wait to get off the ship. We had pulled into the best port yet with so much to see and do! I went upstairs to exchange my money. It was the first time they offered this service on the ship, I’m not sure if they do it anywhere else. I didn’t want to take my chances on an ATM right away after everything that I learned about them at the pre-port meeting from the officers. I know so much more about ATM’s now and scams than I ever thought I would know in the first place. I got ready and went down to the dock to meet up for my day-trip that I had signed up for. I ran into Courtney who was upset because her shark-diving trip was cancelled because of winds even though it was beautiful outside, but it was a bit windy. We had decided that we would meet up for dinner that night, after the day-trips were back. I hung out with my friend Nora, Courtney’s roommate and some new friends of hers that I met. Turns out one of them goes to Iowa State. It’s a very small world! We all were on the SAS trip to visit Robben Island. We walked from the ship to the “Nelson Mandela Gateway to Freedom” to board the ferry for a half-hour ride. So strange! But some people from SAS got sea sick on the half hour ferry ride!! They can sail on a ship as rocky as ours but not handle a ferry. It was strange, and too bad for them. I couldn’t feel it move at all really. We got to Robben Island and began our tour around.

The tour was so interesting because an ex-prisoner. He led us around to the different areas talking about it and telling us his personal story as well led it. The prison took a year to be built, starting in 1963 and ending in 1964. Long before that, the island was used to keep people who were sick so that they would not infect the rest of the community. Individuals with leprosy were the big population but also people who were physically and mentally handicapped and criminals. After this, It was mainly a political prison meaning that it held activists against the government at the time and such people who fought for equal rights and change. Many of the prisoners who were held there had formed such great friendships for many reasons but they all shared the same thing in common, what they were fighting for. Many famous leaders came out of that prison, including Nelson Mandela, which makes the prison so famous today. After the prison was closed and made into a museum, many ex-prisoners came back to work because of the people they met while they were there and the friendships they made, they also didn’t want history to repeat itself in a bad way so they wanted to give their stories back to the community and inspire others about them fighting for freedom and equality. For a time during WWII, the island also served as a base for the army so we we’re able to see everything left over from that which was neat too.


Once the tour got back I met up with Courtney, Nora and with some other girls I made friends with during the day and we all decided to get dressed up and go out to eat. Our first meal in Africa! We went to the Quay Four which is a really nice restaurant that had local food and cheap drinks. It was a great dinner and we all got along great and had a lot of fun. It was really cheap. I had got a couple drinks, an entrée and a dessert for 12 or so American dollars. It was awesome! I’ve missed real food. After we had finished our dinner we decided to go out on the town for the night. “Long Street” is the big street in Cape Town where all the bars and clubs are located so we got a taxi to take us there. We went to a few bars and clubs, which were all very different, some more chill the others more party-like and we had fun dancing. We first decided to go to the Dubliner, I liked, which was an Irish bar obviously. I was really nice inside and we went up to this upstairs balcony that looked over the whole bar but was sort of private at the same time. We had a great time and made friends with people in the bars who were local and it was nice to interact with other people and talk to them. That’s one of the best things on this trip is interacting with the local people and talking to them about different things and learning similarities and differences. It was a great night. I really liked the girls I hung out with and got to know them a lot better and we had a fun night together going to different bars and clubs and just hanging out and talking to people around. I had such a great night. I can’t even write everything that happened because we talked about so much and just had a great time hanging out and dancing and having some classy drinks.



Thursday February 19th
Cape of Good Hope and Cape Point/Dinner Out

Thursday was our second day in port. Originally I didn’t have anything planned but I decided to get up early and try and get myself onto another trip. If there is a trip scheduled that you didn’t sign up for originally and you want to go, they encourage you to show up at the meeting time and if its not full then you can get a ticket or if someone doesn’t show up you can get one also, someone can also donate a ticket. I got lucky. The trip wasn’t full so when I went down the field trip director wrote me up a ticket. I was so happy because I really wanted to go. I’m not sure why I didn’t sign up for this trip in the first place. Turns out that one of the people ended up donating their ticket and the field director decided to give that to me as if the other person donated the ticket to me. It was great because this way I didn’t have to pay for it now, it was a free trip and what a great trip it was! It was an SAS trip traveling through the winelands and visiting Cape Point and the Cape of Good Hope. I had some friends on the trip so I hung out with them during the trip but mainly my friend Lauren, who goes by “Elle” or “L”. She is in the play with me and it turns out we had a lot in common and got along really well. We stopped first at a market and were able to bargain for things. I found and “evil eye” bracelet and bargained the price down even though I really didn’t need to but I wanted to practice. I’ve always wanted an evil eye bracelet and this one was really pretty so I was happy about getting it. I got it from 45 Rand to 30 Rand, which is only 3 dollars so it was a great deal. After that we drove around the coastline to The Cape of Good Hope where I took lots of pictures. It was beautiful! Elle and I hiked up to where the lighthouse was and I was so out of breath ha. I don’t do a lot of aerobic exercise except in the summers at the gym and even then its more stationary but running or hiking kills me haha and I had to hike Table Mountain in two days, I figured I’d better suck it up. We got to the top and had a great view of everything around the point. The point is where the two oceans, the Indian and Atlantic meet. Two places at once! There we’re signs everywhere warning up about Baboons and not to mess with them and if you get attacked to just drop your things and run. Apparently they are very very mean and dangerous and Baboons have mugged many people. I think its really funny, I was hoping to see one on the mountain but we didn’t. We were disappointed.

After we were finished at the Cape of Good Hope we drove to lunch at this very fancy seafood restaurant called “The Black Marlin”. I sat with my friends and also a professor and his wife. I think he teaches Physics and other sciences. He is from Italy and his wife is from Scotland. It turns out they met elsewhere in Europe while he was on business and she was on vacation in the same area that he was during the same two weeks. I don’t know all the details but they met and have been together forever since. I said it sounds like its just like the movie “An Affair to Remember” and she said actually “yes, it kinda is…I can tell you it really does happen like that” They seemed so happy together. It gave me hope ☺

After lunch we traveled to Cape point on the other side of the bay. On our way there we were delighted to see baboons on the side of the road and crossing. We had to stop for a few minutes and then drive really slow because they were overtaking the road. We all took so many pictures of the baboons haha, we were very excited! We even saw some Baboon taboo as well which was something else haha. At Cape Point we parked and walked through the village to the beach. Over there they have an enclosed area off from the public town where tons of penguins dwell so we were able to walk down the dock into the Penguin area and take lots of pictures by the ocean with them. They were so cute but they smelled a lot haha. Elle and I decided to leave the penguins a little early so we could walk back to town right outside and visit the local markets. We had passed by there on the way down to the penguins and they had a lot of cool stuff but it was a lot and I wanted to wait and see what was in Cape Town because I was sure it was all the same stuff for the most part which it seems to be.

It was a long day but a great one. That trip was so good that this blog doesn’t do it justice. The beauty of the scenery and the peacefulness and happiness of everything was wonderful. Elle asked me if I wanted to get dinner when we get back and so when we got back to the ship we decided to meet up again for dinner. We ended up just walking around the harbor area for awhile before dinner, visiting all of the little shops and the mall. She was showing me around to different stores and we had a really fun time. Dinner was amazing!! We found this nice Italian restaurant and we ate outside. It was so nice out and not too chilly because they had fancy space heaters spread throughout the area. A saxophonist was playing nearby so it was really cool. The food was AMAZING! I had the best spaghetti ever. We both had to consciously slow ourselves down because we were devouring it. After dinner we just hung around the harbor and visited the little shops, enjoying the weather, the people and local music.


Friday February 20th

Friday I had nothing planned to do. Everyone on the ship was gone on day trips or on the safaris in which they were gone the whole time. I got ready and went up to lunch and met up with a girl I had met on my trip to the Cape of Good Hope and we decided to walk around together and go shopping. I was just gonna go on my own cause sometimes I like to shop on my own so I don’t feel like I’m holding others up, especially those I don’t know that well, but it was nice to have someone there to talk to. We walked around to the different little stores around the harbor and then to the mall to get some extra things we needed. They say Cape Town is the last place you can really buy things that you’ve run out of or need to replace.

The mall in Cape Town is ridiculous. It’s one of the biggest malls I’ve been to and the majority of the stores they have are ones that I’ve never seen before but only heard of on MTV or E channel. They had Louis Viton, Versace, Prada etc. I don’t even know how to spell them. But it was all designer clothes and accessory stores. Completely unneeded. I was intrigued to see so many wealthy white people all dressed up as if they we’re going to a ball or fancy horse derby or something like in pretty woman when they where all the big hats. I didn’t even bother walking in those stores and hardly looked in. All of that stuff in there is really just “stuff” and completely trivial to life. Yet, these rich white people are all dressed up and carry multiple bags of this stuff through the mall. I felt out of place a little bit. The girl I was with wanted to visit some of these stores so I guess I did go in a couple. Everything looked perfect. There we’re people there at the door to greet you and the jewelry stores even had gates around them and gatekeepers to let you in. I felt like I was being judged when I walked in places because I was just in jeans and things and not dressed up, like I wasn’t good enough to get in. But I was American so they expected we had money. We didn’t buy anything and it seemed at one place one lady got a little upset about that, as if it was a waste to walk into a store and just look at stuff, like we had to buy something. I don’t work like that. Especially on things I don’t need, like a Polo tie or a Prada purse.


The Aquarium

After window shopping we decided to walk back to the ship because she wanted to use the free internet in town and I didn’t have a desire to get online and talk to people. I kinda wanted to go off on my own shopping and exploring. I dropped off my bags and walked around to the shops and found a lot of neat things and another market that was really cool. It was a nice day to just reflect on where I was and what I was doing. I was happy, it was such a beautiful day and everything around me was happy. I decided to walk to the aquarium and I bought a ticket and walked around by myself. I hadn’t been to a zoo or an aquarium in such a long time and I really want to go to some when I get back. The fish we’re beautiful and there was something about this visit to an aquarium that was different than any other. Maybe because I was all alone in a place in which I was unfamiliar with and knew nothing of, the newness of everything made me more pensive. But I think it was everything I was and did in America, compared and contrasting with everything I am and have done here. It made me look at things differently. Like how small I am compared to everything, and how I thought I knew that before but knowing I didn’t. How precious life was and how there was soo much of it, all around me in the world and you don’t even know. How the circle of life is all connected to each other. Each organism has a purpose. It amazes me how people and scientist discovered these organisms and how they found out everything about them and can now share that with the world. I was just really thankful for everything. I had a great time at the aquarium. I saw lots of fish and organisms, penguins, sharks, stingrays and other things. I saw a crab that was huge and could clearly cut my arm off, it just amazed me, what these animals can do. And being able to see them up close was fascinating; I could stare for hours just wondering.

They had a special frog exhibit going on there as well which I visited. There was a display case in which they had pictures of about six different frogs. They we’re cut out in a way that made them look so real. But I looked at the description of the frogs and it said that these frogs “were now extinct, and would never be seen in the world ever again”. That statement caught me offgaurd and actually made me really sad. Sad to know that these animals would never exist again and no one would see them. It made me wonder how they became extinct; did it have something to do with us humans and what? And what other animals are we killing off to extinction in the world? Also, what I could do to help. It’s as if we’ve stolen something from the world, we’ve killed off a species. Perhaps it wasn’t humans, but in a lot of cases when it comes to animals endangered and on the brink of extinction, human affiliation has a lot to do with it. As I’ve grown up I’ve realized that I care a lot about animals and wildlife and preserving it. We really need to pay attention to this stuff, animal rights and preservation. I really liked the aquarium. Who thought that someone could get so much out of it. Its like everyday we are so concerned with our own lives and daily duties we don’t really stop and look at life. Even when we do take the time, we don’t really see it. It’s kinda like in an art museum as a kid or even at the aquarium I saw kids there with parents and the kids were running around excited about the fish. They we’re so energized they we’re on to the next thing before they finished the first and the parents just followed not even looking at the fish or animals or pictures and really seeing the real fascinating part of it, life. For us it’s just the same routine day after day just walking through. I think there is some truth in saying that “life has killed part of life”. That the lives we lead today, so busy, working, overloaded, trivial, stressed, concerned with ourselves etc….has really killed the reality of what life really is and what it means to actually Be alive.



Township Music

After the aquarium I walked back to the ship to meet up with an SAS tour called “Township Music”. It was a smaller group but a great one and the trip was great too! What a good end to the day. We drove around the townships that we’re created from the Apartheid era. The government to separate people by race instituted the apartheid. It was mainly to separate the blacks and whites. There was and is still a huge issue with racial discrimination. The blacks we’re moved from there homes and forced to live in these townships of poverty, they we’re told where they had to live and what they could and couldn’t do. It was sort of thought that taking the blacks out was cleaning things up and making them better in the country. It’s a very sad thing to see. But while driving through the townships and seeing such poverish conditions similar to those in Morocco, they we’re a lot different. Even though these people are forced to live in such poor conditions they are so happy. When they saw us people would come running to the street so excited to see us, waving and smiling. It was somewhat strange to see, I thought that they wouldn’t like me because of where I was born but in fact they we’re fascinated with us.

We got to the community center in which we participated in a African music workshop. We learned about African music and how it is made. It was really cool because they don’t learn and see music the way I have been taught in school in books and reading it. It’s all done by ear and feeling. Yes, there are basic rules like rhythm and staying in the same chord. But it was really neat to see how they made the music a part of themselves and exuded that to us. We we’re then able to be taught on the instruments also and we’re able to play too. After that lesson we all went to another room in which we partook in a traditional African drum circle ceremony. We each had a drum and the teacher led us in an African drum chant. It was so cool! The guys and girls we’re then separated because the guys we’re to beat the drums and girls we’re to dance. It was a really fun time learning African music, playing it and learning African chants and dances. I had a really good time and learned a lot.

For dinner they took up further back into the township to a friends local restaurant, or there version of one. It was so cool because we were completely 100 percent immersed in their world for the night. We ate their homemade food, stomach of some animal... (probs something I won’t ever have again) and stayed at their place and talked to everyone. They were all fascinated with our trip and what we were doing and how we were learning and they were blown away by it and kept telling us how lucky we are, and they were so honest and genuine you could tell they really meant it, and it made me realized even more how appreciative I was for everything. After dinner everyone congregated outside and more locals came by for drinks. The African musicians ate with us and after dinner played music for everyone and everyone and we we’re able to join in as well and danced. SAS-ers showed them how we do it and they showed us their way and it was really neat to see and experience in the sharing and the mixing of cultures. People from opposite ends and completely different world lives can overcome boundaries and come together and share a common bond. It was awesome! It was the weekend so everyone was socializing, relaxing and was so happy. The locals were all so nice to us and very friendly. It was weird to see sometimes. To know that they were black and we were white and of other races. That people of our color in South Africa had forced them to live in these conditions and shunned them from society. Yet, they we’re still friendly to us and so happy to be where they were. You could really tell that these people loved life to the fullest and lived it, despite the conditions. It showed me such a contrast of the two cultures in the same country. How materialistically these people really had nothing but they had all the life in the world. And those back in port, rich whites concerned with their malls and jewelry and designer clothes. I don’t want to sound racist because I’m not. But it was interesting to see such difference here and segregation. It was like stepping back in time if that was at all possible.


Saturday February 21st
Table Mountain Adventure: Life changing experience

On Saturday I climbed Table Mountain!!!! I know I sound really lame to people back at home who have no idea but that whole day and the mountain, I consider it to be one of the biggest accomplishments of my life! Probably the hardest thing I have ever done physically. This was no ordinary hike but really really hard. Climbing up a stairmaster basically only one made out of huge boulders. Me being so short I literally was climbing this mountain. It was so hard, and tiring and everything hurt about me on the way up. I almost turned back because I thought it might be too hard but I decided to keep going because I wanted to do it, I didn’t want to turn back, I wanted to finish my goal, to reach the top, to climb to the top of the mountain, to not regret it and to be so proud of myself when I reached the top and could say “yeah I did that!”.

It was an independent trip, a Facebook organized group. We met outside the ship at 7am and we’re transported by the company we booked the trip through, to the base of the mountain. Once we were there we were off hiking. It was such a strenuous hike that is incredibly challenging at times. You must be in good health and physical condition to do it. Besides the tiredness and pain the hike was one of the best things I’ve done yet. It was such a good experience for me personally and a challenge not only physically but mentally as well. And that wasn’t even the hard part yet. It took us about 3 hours to get to the top of the mountain but I finally did it and I was so happy and excited and proud I couldn’t stop taking pictures! Everything was so beautiful on the way up and the view was breathtaking from every step! What an accomplishment! I hiked up to the top of a mountain!!!

I was so proud that I made it to the top! Everyone was exhausted and some people fell asleep for a nap in the restaurant that we waited at. They also had a gift shop and I got a t-shirt. We we’re all excited and couldn’t wait for what we were about to do next. The big reason we we’re here and the most challenging thing for me yet! Before I left of this trip a friend of mine asked me “what is the craziest thing you’ve done?” And honestly I had no idea what to say, because generally I’m not really a crazy person. I hadn’t really done anything insane yet. UNTIL NOW!!!

The craziest thing I’ve ever done so far and probably one of the best things I have done for myself and have to do again is abseiling down a mountain! I wasn’t even sure what it was before and figured that it sounded cool so I signed up for it. I was so scared! So many things we’re going through my head at the time I didn’t even know what to think or how to react, I was in a daze. Literally, I could not believe what I was doing! After thinking I was going to die from hiking up this HUGE mountain, I thought I was crazy for ever thinking that that was hard. This was the hard part!!!! It took every bit of myself to keep my cool and to trust this guy who was holding on to the other end of my lifeline literally. Only being attached to a rope and being told to just simply lean backwards over the edge of a cliff off the tallest abseil mountain in the world, I really thought I was nuts!!! I can’t even describe the feeling I had abseiling down this mountain. It was unbelievable!! At any moment I could die. I looked down a few times and that really scared me how high up I was just attached to a rope. I had to mentally keep my cool and really tried to enjoy my surroundings. It was amazing! Just me, the rope and nature all around me. All I could hear was the wind and the falling rocks from my footsteps along the side of the mountain. What a killer picture that would have been!! The guys at the top said that there would be a surprise halfway down and I was thinking more of like a camera to take our picture. NOPE! All of a sudden the wall just stops and you have to lean upside down and repell off the mountain into a cave area where your feet aren’t on the wall of the mountain anymore but you are just dangling of the rope, way above the ground and there’s nothing you can do! As I was just dangling from a rope off the cliff of a mountain, I was really able to take everything in. How amazing this thing was that I was doing! How lucky I was! How happy I was! How appreciative I was! I was in the best place in the world, in the middle of everything beautiful from nature! I was dangling off the side of a mountain hundreds of feet from the ground! WHO DOES THAT!?!?! Seriously, It was INCREDIBLE!!! I was scared to death but so happy at the same time. What an exhilaration!!! I abseiled the tallest abseil mountain in the world!!!!!!!! I can’t believe I did something like that!! And I now realize that I need to do it again! It’s the most incredible feeling in the world, doing that, being a part of it and saying that you accomplished it! It’s just amazing!! That’s what this trip is for though. Getting our of your comfort zone, doing crazy things, soaking up life and everything! I just still can’t believe I did it and I’m so excited that I did! If you ever get a chance to do it, DO IT!!! Even if you are scared of it!! Nothing can compare to that at all!!!! Wow…

That night I met up with Elle again and some other girls and we got dressed up for our last night in Cape Town and headed out to dinner and the bars/clubs. We went to the same Italian restaurant that we loved and had great food and good conversation. I’m glad I’ve made such good friends on this trip, they are hard to find sometimes, especially here at times. But these guys are amazing.
After dinner we all got a cab to go to Long Street, the big party street in Cape Town. Some of the girls wanted to go out and dance and we wanted to have a good time on our last night here in Cape Town. We went back to the bars that I had went to a few nights earlier and had a great time! There we’re other SAS-ers out as well go figure and it was a really fun night!


Sunday February 22nd

The next day I was expecting to be sore from hiking the mountain because it was so challenging for me but I wasn’t sore at all. Sunday was our last day in Cape Town and basically I wanted to soak up as much of it as I could before I got back onto the ship. I got up early and spent the morning on my own. I walked to the amphitheater and sat outside using the free wireless Internet. Catching up on things and changing photos. The main reason was I wanted to update my IPOD, it still won’t work though it still says I don’t have access privileges to my own IPOD. I give up on that. Maybe I’ll just have to replace it, or find someone who knows what they are doing.

I walked back to the ship for lunch and met this guy Mike. I’ve met him before in Spain. He said “aloha” to me one night and I said “don’t you mean “hola?” And he said yeah. Hah, I nicknamed him Hawaii ever since, but I use his real name now. I ran into him the night before at the bar and he was rehydrating himself at lunch and came to sit by me and asked if he could hang out with me while I wondered around and shopped so we spent the whole day together talking, getting to know each other and walking around. We stopped for lunch at one point because he hadn’t eaten yet and then we later stopped for a few drinks. We ran into Brandy and Chera and Holly at the bar/restaurant and they we’re eating. Brandy and Chera wanted Sushi so they went upstairs to the restaurant but Holly wanted regular food so she stayed with us. We ate outside again at Quay Four. I just had a drink and some of Mike’s fries. It was good to catch up with Holly again because I hadn’t seen her in awhile or really had the chance to talk. After they ate we walked around some more. Holly had been on a safari the whole time and was trying to do all her shopping that day. I had been everywhere so I showed her where all the good stores were and we walked around in them. Mike had left us at one point, letting us get our “girl time” in he said. It was a great day and I had a great time hanging out with Mike and Holly again. After shopping, we stopped for ice cream before heading back to the ship to catch up with our other friends. I had such a good time in Cape Town, it was simply amazing and I’ll never forget it, and definitely for sure going to try and go back.


So in response to my title I chose for this blog. When talking about South Africa and hearing about it from the locals, they all called their country “the world in one country” and it really is true. The whole world can be seen in this country depending on how you look at it, its amazing. They have the ocean, mountains, and abundant amount of wildlife and every kind of food. Not only that but the people are all different as well coming from every side of life. The closer you are in the cities its more commercial, more fancy and the wealth of the country lives there. The further out you go things get a little less fancy and more real. There’s poverty and people living in not great conditions and its dirty. There are also tribes that still inhabit South Africa and carry out the old traditional style of life that many don’t practice anymore. It’s amazing to see the variety here in just one country. It’s all just beautiful to see and experience and be a part of everything Africa. I love it!