So far, Cape Town was definitely the best port we’ve docked in – it’s not a far walk at all from stuff to do, and it isn’t a commercial port, but instead right on the Victoria and Alfred Waterfront, one of the best parts of Cape Town. Most of our other ports were obviously commercial ports, so they were not aesthetically pleasing and had a lot of traffic. And I won’t deny the fact that the free Internet access at the mall literally 2 minutes away from the dock was another bonus for Cape Town.
I didn’t get a chance to really explore Cape Town as much as I would have liked to. My friend Megan and I did explore a bit during our journey to the train station (I’m fairly sure we took the longest way to get there), and I got a chance to see Greenmarket Square, which is where you can buy handmade souvenirs and things. I also got a chance to see the gardens, the Castle of Good Hope, the Holocaust Museum, the cathedral where Archbishop Tutu lead the peace march of 1989, and the District Six Museum on an FDP (Faculty-Directed Practicum). We were supposed to go to Robben Island, but the ferry was broken, so we had to make due with other sites of significance to Cape Town.
The Castle of Good Hope was really boring. We were supposed to have a tour, but we got there too early, so we just sort of wandered on our own. I guess the local military still uses the castle, which is sort of neat I guess, but there wasn’t much to see there. There was an old furniture collection, some paintings of Cape Town, and a bunch of weapons and medals from the colonial wars fought on South African soil, but that was about it. Apparently during the Boer Wars the soldiers would leave these really nasty pointy things on the ground to cripple the enemies’ horses. I thought that was really cruel. The best part of the museum was the random Egyptian Goose and an African Sacred Ibis hanging out in the courtyard, which I’m sure no one else really found interesting except for me. There was also another duck species that I can’t for the life of me identify, but that’s what happens when you don’t have a bird book with you.
Anyway, after that we walked to the District 6 Museum, which was really small and had some artifacts from families who had lived in District 6 before it was leveled. I had no idea what District 6 was prior to the visit, and I still am not sure I know completely what it was, but I think it was basically an area where mostly poor black people lived during apartheid, and the government kicked the people out (they compensated the displaced people, but not for the amount of money the land was worth) under the pretense that the living conditions there were unsanitary. Of course, instead of making better houses for the blacks and colored people (apparently, “colored” is what the apartheid regime referred to those with mixed ancestry) who had lived there, the apartheid government leveled the whole place and was going to make the area a place for whites to live, but I guess thanks to protests and things the area was never built up again. The only buildings still there are a few religious structures, which our guide told us probably managed to avoid being torn down in part because they were part of larger branches of religion with international ties and things, so tearing them down would have made people outside the country unhappy with them.
Following the District 6 Museum, we went to the Holocaust Center, which was definitely my favorite part of the day. “Favorite” is probably not quite the right word, but it was definitely something I won’t forget. Although the influence of the Holocaust is not that prominent in South Africa, there is a small Jewish population, many of whom came to South Africa as a result of the Holocaust. I think our guide told us that most of the Jews in Cape Town came from Poland and Latvia/Lithuania, but I could be remembering that wrong. Anyway, the point of the Holocaust Center was to educate people about the Holocaust and its similarities to apartheid. Of course I’d studied the Holocaust in school, but actually hearing the stories from the guide, especially the experiences she had had other visitors relate to her, was something entirely different.
After the Holocaust Center we walked through the gardens in town (which were quite nice, and we were told they were where produce used to be grown for the ships stopping in Cape Town on their way to further destinations) to the cathedral where Archbishop Desmond Tutu lead a protest march in 1989. There was a small exhibit with pictures and facts about this march in the crypt, and we visited that briefly. It’s pretty cool, because the Archbishop is actually on our voyage and talked to us about living under the apartheid system just a few days before we arrived in Cape Town. We were told that the march was completely illegal, but they got around that by having foreign diplomats take part in the march, as other countries most likely wouldn’t have taken kindly to having their diplomats tear gassed.
Oh, speaking of diplomats, before we disembark in almost all of the ports we dock in, we have a diplomatic briefing. Let’ just say our briefing this time was…interesting. One of the diplomats told us we’d all get mugged or shot or something and scared us all into not really wanting to explore Cape Town. He also said some things that I’m pretty sure offended some of the people onboard, and I heard that one of the deans yelled at him, which he deserved.
That reminds me of some other instances of getting in trouble. Some kids have already been expelled from the program. I don’t know why, but rumor has it one of them had heroin. We also had a group of kids at karaoke night that SHOULD have gotten in trouble (I have no idea if they did, but I assume they must have been reprimanded in some way) that sang a really inappropriate song (there are kids onboard…I’ll get to that in a minute) and then acted out one part of the song on their friend which talked about grabbing a woman by her hair and smacking her on the butt. We have a really cute term we use to refer to the many jerks on the ship that do stuff like this: SASholes. Anyway, I got a talking-to for my song choice, too, although I don’t really know why they bothered when those guys sang that song. I sang
Amish Paradise by Weird Al, and they told me it wasn’t really an appropriate song choice because it makes fun of a specific minority group. OK, to be fair, it does do that, and SAS is all about promoting diversity and acceptance, so I’ll buy that, although it does seem a bit silly to me.
Before I get back to South Africa, I’d like to discuss the shipboard community a bit. I mentioned the community a bit in my blog about the
MV Explorer, but I didn’t really talk about the Life-Long Learners or the young whippersnappers on the ship. LLLs are predominantly retirees, although there are some who aren’t retired, and they take classes but don’t have to take tests. The faculty/staff and some of the LLLs have kids, who don’t really have class (although some of the older ones take some classes), but I guess they have times during the day where they do schoolwork and you can volunteer to tutor them if you want. I thought about it, and then realized I would not be a helpful tutor, so I gave up on that idea. Anyway, at first I was annoyed there were kids on what is supposed to be a college campus, but I guess you just get used to them after a while. I’ve also recently decided that I don’t hate kids anymore (I didn’t used to be able to stand them), which may be another reason I don’t mind them too much.
But back to South Africa. One of the days in port I participated in a program called Operation Hunger because one of my other friends was doing it and I didn’t want to be stuck by myself all day. Operation Hunger would have been cool if they knew we were coming. Instead, we got started about 3 hours late and we didn’t really help with anything even though it was supposed to be a service project. If anything, I think we were more of a hindrance than a help in some cases. For example, we went to this health clinic where they give food to TB patients so that they don’t stop taking the medication halfway through, and I guess they postponed handing the food out a bit so that the volunteers could be introduced to us. We also talked briefly to one of the women who worked in the clinic, but she had no idea we were coming, and we probably disrupted her busy schedule for a few minutes of her time.
The one really cool thing we did with Operation Hunger was visit a traditional healer’s home. He talked to us a bit about traditional healing methods versus more modern techniques. He said the main problems he saw to were those regarding marriage disputes, but for actual health cases the basic idea of treatment is to cleanse the body by emptying it out. He also talked about how he sold “mooties” (I have no idea if the spelling is correct on that), which I can only gather translates to talismans. Another interesting thing he mentioned was that we were technically in a sacred space, and so he hoped to add another floor to the building where tourists could go (I guess he gets a decent number of them, although I bet most of them are from SAS) so that tourists could still come, but wouldn’t be stepping where they weren’t supposed to.
Our last stop on Operation Hunger was a Rastafarian community in a township. A township is basically a shantytown, although some townships have government housing and seem to be a lot better off than the unofficial settlements people set up along the road. At this township, we helped to weigh the kids at a sort of school/daycare facility to assess if the community’s children had a trend toward being underweight. Had such a trend been found, the Operation Hunger employee told us that they would look and see if the problems were rooted at home or in the community, and would either help the families if that was where the problem seemed to be or the communities by helping with things like setting up food gardens or with starting small businesses. Only 5 people were actually needed for the job and I didn’t particularly want to play with the kids, so I sort of just stood around doing nothing. I heard that the other groups who did Operation Hunger actually helped serve soup and were needed to help weigh the kids (they weighed a lot more than we did), so I think our group was the only one that had a mediocre experience.
I think one good thing about participating in Operation Hunger, though, was seeing the townships. You’d think South Africa was a completely developed country if you stayed in Cape Town, but there is a huge gap between rich and poor that is evident in the townships. Many of the people live in shacks, and AIDS is a huge problem because many people have multiple partners and don’t use protection. It was definitely a big wake-up call to see signs for cheap or free abortions on nearly every lamppost. Apparently people try to avoid modern medical attention, so they’ll try just about everything they can before going in to seek modern methods of treatment. There isn’t really electricity in the townships, so if I understand right, the people tap into the electricity from the power lines. We were actually told that there had been a huge riot just a few days before we visited in the township where the traditional healer lived. It definitely shows you that Cape Town is not exactly representative of all of South Africa.
The day after Operation Hunger, I went on a mini safari with SAS in a game reserve about 2 hours away from Cape Town. It was sort of like a giant wild animal park like we have in the states, since there were gates and things and the animals had been introduced into the reserve, but for the most part the animals were free-roaming. We saw ostriches, white rhinos, African elephants, wildebeest, water buffalo, a giraffe, springbok, and impala. We also saw some crocodiles, lions, cheetahs, and a leopard, but they were all in smaller enclosures. Anyway, there was this one ostrich that was just chilling by the pool of the lodge where we had breakfast and lunch, and it was sort of awesome to think that I was in Africa by a pool with an ostrich a few yards away. I also saw some cool birds, and although I didn’t have a bird guide, I did have my binoculars, so I was able to identify a few of them when I got back to the ship and was able to use the bird guide in the library.
The next day everyone was busy, and I didn’t think it would be prudent to walk around Cape Town by myself, so I spent most of the day in the mall drinking some really good hot chocolate and mooching off of the free Internet. The next day was much more exciting, because Megan and I went on an adventure to Simon’s Town vie train, where they have an African Penguin colony. Honestly, seeing the wild penguins was the only thing I really wanted to do in Cape Town, and about 2 or 3 times I was supposed to go, but then plans changed or people couldn’t go, so I’m extremely grateful that Megan went with me. Apparently taking the train is not all that safe because it’s the off-season, but we had a security guard in our car, so all was good. She asked for our names and wanted us to write them down, and we thought she was trying to sell us a pass (she had been talking about one you could buy), so we were a bit weirded out at first, but then we realized she just wanted to get the names of travelers she met, so we obliged. But then we were really confused because the pass she was talking about included a bus ride, and we were all told to get off the train at Fish Hoek, which was about 3 stations before Simon’s Town, and the only way to get to Simon’s Town was by bus (it was pretty far to walk). We got on the bus even though we didn’t have the special pass, and I still don’t really know what the point of the special pass is, because they let us on the bus without any fuss. I wonder if maybe the security guard had told us the wrong price for the special pass (it was 5 more rand than what we paid) and we
did have the special pass, because on the train ride back a bunch of people were kicked off the train who didn’t have the right kind of ticket (we had the right one, thankfully).
Anyway, eventually we get to Simon’s Town and walk a bit before we find the penguin colony. We ended up paying more to see the penguins than we did for the train ride (the train was something like $2.50 round-trip), but it was worth it, because they were right up against the railing. A lot of them were molting and looked pretty bedraggled, but there were a few without half their feathers missing, except they were closer to the ocean and therefore not as close to the railing/us.
After that, we followed the free path, which still gave us plenty of opportunities to see penguins, but at the end of the path was a beach that was part of the park, so we were glad we paid the entry fee and hadn’t just taken the free path. Megan didn’t get in the water (it was frigid), but I did. At first there wasn’t anything to see, but then I noticed there was a penguin a bit of a ways out, standing on a rock. So naturally I swam out to it. Of course it dove in the water right before I got there, but I hadn’t exactly been expecting it to stay there. After that, I went back to the beach and Megan and I climbed on some of the boulders for a bit, and then we saw a penguin (the same one, maybe?) swim right up to the shore. I decided to follow it, and we both ended up on a boulder, where I was maybe 3 yards from the penguin. At one point it came really close to me, but eventually it went back in the water. Before it disappeared it came right up to the beach again, and I tried to get a picture of Megan and the penguin, but of course it dove right before I took the picture. Apparently Megan already swam with penguins when she went to Brazil, but Ben and I (another friend) like to make fun of her when she talks about it because apparently most of the penguins in Brazil that she saw were dead (they were from Antarctica and had accidentally come too far north), so we like to point out that the penguins were alive this time. Anyway, swimming with the penguin and seeing the penguin colony was definitely the highlight of Cape Town as a port. They were adorable, and I probably took way too many pictures and videos of them.
After we got back from Simon’s Town, Megan and I went to Greenmarket Square and then the supermarket before getting back on the ship, and then waited around until we left port. And that was South Africa. Oh, actually, I forgot to mention that one night a few friends and I went to Marco’s, an African restaurant with live music. I got the Pan-African Platter, which cost more than I usually like to spend at a meal, but it had weird African meats in it, so I got it anyway. It had two species of antelope, or at least what I think were antelope (springbok and kudu), and ostrich. Ostrich tastes kind of nasty, by the way. And now I’m actually done with this entry.
P.S. – I didn’t proofread or edit this entry anywhere near as much as it probably needed, so sorry for spelling and grammar mistakes! I’ll have an entry on Ghana up before Mauritius, hopefully.
