I love Cape Town.

Hey everyone. I know I have been slacking on the blog. The problem is that I want to make everything well written and I’m always so exhausted that I decide to not write instead of writing something that would tell y’all what I’ve been doing but wouldn’t be that pretty.  I’m going to try to ignore that and just get something down because I know everyone is anxious.

Cape Town was AMAZING. Seriously, AMAZING. Sadly, I only had about a day and a half there because of some technicalities which sucked and meant I didn’t really get to do the things I wanted to do and I didn’t get to do anything cultural and I am the queen of slamming people for not doing cultural things in port so I’m a little disappointed in myself as far as that goes but it’s an excuse to go back.

We were supposed to get to Cape Town on the 17th. Around 7:30 am everyone poured out onto the decks to watch us sail into port. Cape Town is the most beautiful port EVER. It is absolutely gorgeous. So imagine everyones surprise when we sail right past it.  Hmmm.  All of a sudden The Voice comes over the announcements and tells us that it’s too windy and we can’t pull up along side without damaging the boat so we will have to circle for awhile until the wind calms down.  I’ll spare you the gory details, but this continued for about 25 hours.  We sailed in circles around the coast of Cape Town hearing announcements about the wind every 2 hours for 25 hours.  On the 18th around 10am we finally docked and not a moment too soon, people were getting ready to revolt.

I had my safari so I didn’t leave the boat when we docked because once we cleared immigration it was too late.  We left for our safari around 3pm, took a two hour flight to Durban and then a three hour drive into the middle of freakin’ nowhere.  We stayed in a bed and breakfast type place, there were 8 little cabin type things in the middle of nowhere along a path lit by Christmas lights. 

The next morning we woke up  at 4:45 to leave at 5 for our SAFARI.  It was very cool. We were in a really big reserve which made it really realistic but kind of hard to find animals.  We also only had 12 hours to safari. We did see elephants, buffalo, zebras, warthogs, giraffes, baboons and a number of birds.

The coolest part of the day was when we pulled up to this river and saw maybe five or six elephants, one of them a baby, drinking water and washing themselves and playing. It was the cutest thing ever. We continued to watch them and all of a sudden more elephants started coming down the hill and doing the same thing… and more… and more… We watched for about a half hour and saw an 80 elephant deep breeding herd approach the river, drink and swim across together.  That made the safari all worth it.

We saw all of the other animals close up (except the baboons) so it was pretty cool although I would like to d o another safari someday. I picked the cheapest one because in my mind all of the safaris are the same but turns out that’s not true.  We spent two days traveling and one day safari’ing and my roommate spent just a few hours traveling and got 2.5 days of safari-ing in Kruger and she saw EVERYTHING. Lions, cheetahs, wild dogs, monkeys, turtles, etc. Her pictures are epic and I’m really happy for her but kind of jealous. Oh well.

Anyway, I got back from the Safari around 6pm on the 20th, came back to the boat, showered and found my friends. We went out to dinner in the Waterfront and it was my first time experiencing Cape Town… I freaked out. It’s GORGEOUS.  Table Mountain, the sky, sea lions swimming, a giant mall, restaurants, musicians outside, jazz bars, sports bars…it was awesome.  We had dinner and then most of my friends were tired from partying for a few days so I went out to an Irish bar with my friend Alice which was pretty cool. All of the music was straight out of 2003 but I haven’t really spent too much time with her so it was fun to hang out and gossip.

The next day I went to Boulders Beach with Hassan, Sam and Jeff. It was INCREDIBLE. It’s a beach about 45 minutes from Cape Town right past where the Indian Ocean begins and there are penguins everywhere. We spent the day looking at penguins, lying in the sand, swimming (the water was FREEZING) and just relaxing.  Hassan is 100% better. He got surgery in his foot to remove the spines and had to get a bunch of stiches (so he couldn’t swim) but he is feeling much better and is totally back to his normal self.  At one point we were laying in the sand and this really eccentric women came up and wanted to take a picture of us when Hassans shorts blew a certain way in the wind and she stood there for about 10 minutes waiting but got her shot, then she told us she is a famous South African photographer. So I’m totally expecting to be on the cover of a sweet South African magazine.

Our last night we went out with all of our friends to a place called Mitchell’s for dinner and drinks and they had fish bowls! Which is basically a giant fish bowl of a blue drink that tastes like sprite. I have wanted one my whole life and I told my friend Liz this. She goes hold on, walks up to the bar and literally before I can order she has flirted her way into a free one for me. It was epic.  Around midnight everyone else went to Long Street to party but Mia and I were tired so we went back to the boat.

The last day was tough because there were sooo may cultural and adventurous things I wanted to do but I had to make a decision: do those things, or do things I need to do? I ended up just getting stuff done that I had to… went on the internet, uploaded pictures, skype, bought some things I needed, went to the post office, just basically ran errands. I’m sad to have missed out but feel much better to have been productive.  Everyone fell head over heels in love with Cape Town and it sounds like it’s going to be the reunion spot, and even if it’s not I would love to go back there because there is so much I want to see/do that I didn’t get a chance to.

All right, since I finally have something on paper I’m going to post this and I’ll write about Ghana and Rio later today.