Cape Town!

Bruce!

There are so many amazing things to talk about that I dont even know where to begin!  This weekend was a four day weekend off school, so on Wednesday night at about 7 myself and 7 other friend took off for Cape Town!  We rented an awesome Volkswagen Micro bus that we named Bruce!  Overall, the bus idea was great, because not only did it have plenty of room, but it was such a fun time driving it around!  Since it was already dark when we left, and several people in the group wanted to bungy jump off the worlds highest bungy jump, located in Tsitsikamma Falls, we drove just two and half hours and spent the night at a nice little backpacker there.  The hostel was nice, but right away the owner warned us about Baboons in the early morning, and that they WOULD try to get inside the hostel, and that we needed to keep all the windows and doors locked.  Thus far, I have not had a great experience with monkeys here in South Africa, so, to be honest, Baboons scare me.  They are NOT little animals!  All night, I felt uneasy, like for some reason, something wasnt right.  Sure enough, at about 6:45 in the morning I was laying away, uneasy, when I heard something moving outside the window and suddenly all the glass shattered!  I screamed, woke up Elizabeth, who shared a room with me, and we got the heck out!  A Baboon had tried to crack open our window and get inside and in the process not only scared every one in the hostel half to death but also broke the entire window.  I dont think I will ever forget this experience, but I have to say, I am not surprised in the least.  After "the Baboon incident" we all were too wide awake and shocked to get back to sleep, so we stayed up, and watched and listened to the Baboons.  They were on the roof, the deck, attempting to get back in the broken window and all over outside.  We also decided that "blame it on the Babs" was an appropriate saying for the weekend.
After about half the group bungy jumped, we were finally headed to Cape Town!  The highway that runs from Port Elizabeth to Cape Town is referred to as "The Garden Route" and its just winding, beautiful scenery all the way there, so even though it was a long car ride, I was completely occupied the entire time.  I even drove for a few hours, and I have to say, Im pretty proud.  Its strange driving on the opposite side of the car, on the opposite side of the road, with crazy driving conditions AND driving a stick shift.  Pretty cool experience though.
As we were first entering the outskirts of Cape Town, the scenery was beautiful but I was mostly distracted by  the miles and miles of townships.  From the time we began to enter Cape Town, until we actually reached the downtown part of the city, all we were passing were makeshift colored tin shacks with homemade electricity poles sticking up out of the shacks everywhere.  This went on for miles and I was honestly beginning to wonder if it was ever going to end.  As excited as I was to be in Cape Town, this was a sad way to begin.
We staying in a pretty big hostel on what is known to be the "party" street of Cape Town, Long Street.  This is a bustling , busy, bar filled, touristy street that stretches on for quite a long ways.  Everything was extremely loud on the street and inside our hostel as well, since there was a live jazz band playing downstairs until nearly 4am each night.  We were all so tired from traveling though, that it didnt even matter how loud it was, we were out right away!
The very first full day we were in Cape Town, about half of us woke up at the crack on dawn, literally, to climb Table Mountain.  Just as we started to climb, the sun was rising, so it was the perfect temperature, and the scenery was of course, beautiful.  The climb was pretty intense!  There were a lot of winding, vertical rock staircases that were defiantly a challenge.  The climb was defiantly a work out!  It took the four of us about an hour and a half to make the climb, and when we got to the top, the view was absolutely breathtaking.

 We spent about 45 minutes at the top, just taking in the view, meeting other international travelers, look around, taking pictures and eating a much needed breakfast.  We then decided, due to a time crunch, that we would take the cable car down the mountain.  At first, the cable car kind of freaked me out, because we were so high, there was no glass barrier, and the floor rotated to get a 360 view!  It was a cool way to see the mountain though, and it was much faster!

The view from the bottom of the mtn in the cable car

The cable car from the outside

The view from the top in the cable car

As soon as we got down the mountain and to the bus, we were in a rush to get back to the backpacker, grab the rest of our group and head to Robbin Island.  We were doing perfect for timing, but...only in Africa does the van not start at the top of Table Mountain and not only do the Police stop to help, but we had to PUSH the van to get it going.  I cant even imagine what people thought as the police and four American tourists were pushing their Volkswagen micro bus from the 1970's down the mountain.  Unfortunately, as hard as we tried, we missed the ferry to Robbin Island and were unable to tour.  Upsetting, yes, but life goes on.  Instead, we did a little shopping and exploring the city.  We roamed the streets and kind of got off the beaten path to find some pretty cool houses and people!

Parliament Building!

Overall, Cape Town was pretty cool to visit.  I will be back for sure to go see Robbin Island and do other things we didnt have time for.  Its one of the most unique big cities I have ever been to, but at the same time, it so big, crowded and loud that it was nice to be back in Port Elizabeth.  I enjoyed my time, especially at Table Mountain, and overall, it was a fun, interesting experience!