10.7.09
I was supposed to go shark diving with Becky today, but the weather was really bad so it got cancelled. That was kind of disappointing, but we still had a great day. We got up and had breakfast and met up with Katie to see about going to Cape Point. We had made plans to just grab the train to Simons Town and then a cab to Cape Point. But we stopped at the hospitality desk and the woman there ended up booking us a tour. It was only a half-day, which worked out really well because then we had the morning free to shop.
We walked down to the circle in the waterfront to catch a cab to go to Green Square Market. Our driver told us that he was going to drop us off a couple blocks away from the market. We were a little confused, but said ok. He dropped us off at this building with a little hole in the wall store. He told us that this is where the wholesalers where – they sold to the people in the market. He led us into the building and introduced us to one of the sellers. Apparently, they were friends. The place was amazing! We our taxi driver big time. He saved us so much money. The woman our taxi driver introduced us to was super nice and gave us great deals. We really didn’t realize how good the deals were until we actually went into the market. When we were in the market, we found this little shop that was the London Pastry shop or something. Katie and split a chicken and mushroom pastry and Becky and Rosario split a hamburger one. They were both delicious. I wish they had those in the States.
After we all ended up spending way too much money at the market, we grabbed a cab and headed back to the ship to drop off our new purchases. On the way in, we met a couple from Australia, who were curious about the ship. When I told them I was from Tennessee, they told me that they had one of the little land plots at the Jack Daniels distillery. They have been to Lynchburg many times. Again, small world.
After dropping our stuff, we were picked up at the port by our tour guide Jerry. In addition to the 5 (Me, Becky, Katie, Rosario and Sam randomly joined us that morning) of us, there were 2 couples from Spain and 1 couple from Montreal. Jerry kind of reminds me of Rafiki. He always talked in riddles and then he had this little giggle. He was hilarious. We started the tour by getting the history of Cape Town as we drove through it. We also stopped at some really pretty sights to take pictures. The Spanish couples really didn’t seem to care about what was going on. Granted, they really didn’t speak that good of English, but Rosario stepped in to translate.
Our first main stop was in Simons Town at Boulder Beach to see penguins! Yep, there are penguins in South Africa. They are too cute! We got really lucky because the weather sucked and when we got out at the beach, it was little cold, but the rain had stopped. And we even got to see a rainbow! We took so many pictures with the penguins, but eventually we had to leave.
Our next stop was at the Cape of Good Hope. The Cape is the most southeastern point of Africa. It was pretty cool. We took this little tram/lift thing up to the top of this mountain and then walked up to a lighthouse. The view from up there was remarkable. It was a little breezy so in all of pictures our hair looks awesome. We met a family from Detroit so it was fun chatting with him.
After leaving the lighthouse, we went down to Cape Point, which is the actual point. Jerry told us that the lighthouse was hard to see so there were a lot of shipwrecks. Therefore, since we are traveling by ship, we need to pay tribute to the God of the Sea by throwing a silver coin into the water and wishing for luck and a safe journey. After taking pictures with the Cape of Good Hope Sign, we climbed out to the rock and threw in our coins. It was gorgeous there. I didn’t want to leave, but we had to. Cape Point is located within a nature preserve and we saw baboons, ostriches, bontebok, and antelope. I was hoping for zebra since we didn’t see any on the safari, but I struck out again. The baboons there are crazy. They have signs everywhere saying don’t feed them because aggressive. We saw one just chilling on the hood of a car because the stupid people inside gave it a candy bar. We had to make sure the doors were locked because they also know how to open car doors as well.
On the way back to the ship, Jerry pulled over on the side of the road because he saw whales in one of the bays. The Spanish people were hilarious because they all just sat in the car and said that it was too cold. Once back inside the van, we asked Jerry if he could help us make reservations at Mama Africa, which is a restaurant off of Long Street. He tried, but there was a convention in town so they were completely booked up.
We got back to the ship and said goodbye to Jerry. We had plans to go to Mama Africa and then go salsa dancing, but by the time we got back we were exhausted. We decided to scrap our plans and stay in the waterfront. I took about a 3 second shower and Mackenzie, Katie and I literally ran to the grocery store so we could stock up before it closed and because we weren’t going to have time tomorrow because of Operation Hunger.
We went to the grocery store and grabbed cookies and canned apple juice. Yeah I am stuck on a ship and I buy cookies and apple juice.
After getting back to the ship and dropping off our groceries, we were faced with the dilemma of where to eat. We walked around the waterfront and everywhere we went seemed to be overrun with SASers or way too expensive. We eventually settled on Quay 4, which Kristin and Jeremy said they were going to. Turns out that they were still there watching the Phillies game with John. We sat down with them, but then I spotted Leigh-Anne, who was using the free internet. She called me over because she had found John’s (the tour guide, not SAS student watching the Phillies game) bird watching site in Kruger.
I ordered a steak sandwich and it was delicious. We sat around and chatted and just had a good time. The place had live music, but when they took a break they played normal music. Well wouldn’t you know they played Single Ladies. We tried to get Mackenzie up to dance, but she just said she couldn’t start in the middle of the song. Jeremy, taking things into his own hands, goes and asks the guy to restart the song so Mackenzie and can do the dance. And he does! The whole restaurant stops to watch Mackenzie and she did the dance perfectly. At the end everyone clapped and yelled. It totally made my night.
Later when the band started playing again, they started playing Achy Breaky Heart, so of course we had to throw in some Electric Slide. After our stunning performance, we decided to call it a night. We did make a pit stop at the pirate ship to see Pedro again. Mackenzie got involved in a swordfight where the girl was legit swinging the sword at her. It was all she could do to block it. We were all a little scared for our lives, but we all made it out alive.
Back on the ship, Mackenzie and I watched a movie and fell asleep. Rosario and Jennifer had gone out salsa dancing. I hear this banging on the door at 2am. I open the door to find Jennifer out of breath saying that she needs the green sheet (the green sheet is a green sheet of paper that SAS gives us that has all the emergency contact numbers, addresses of the ship and the US embassy and other logistical information) and Rosario’s cell phone because Rosario is in the hospital. If I was a little bit more coherent I probably should have asked what was wrong with Rosario, but I was just like WTF? Well it turns out that Rosario cut herself on some glass and had to get stitches. After that bit of excitement, I was able to get back to sleep.