DAY 6:
Today Ali and I split up to do our own thing since she wanted to spend the day taking REALLY touristy pictures and figured I wouldn’t want to. She was mostly right, besides I wanted a day to myself. After middling breakfast, I washed my sharky smelling swim suit and headed off to Camps Bay. (Another even MORE gorgeous beach!) I spent the day lying in the sun and wandering over rocks and generally enjoying myself. It was just windy enough that I never got too hot even lying directly in the sun. Evntually I had enough of the sun and combie’d back to Cape Town. There were still two hours until I had to meet Ali for dinner, so I walked along the waterfront (not the OFFICIAL waterfront) and wandered quite a ways to a lighthouse! Very pretty and very old, mum would be proud. We had dinner at a pizza place that had GREAT pictures in the ads and the menu, but not in reality. Which was okay, and I spent the rest of the evening at the hostel bar chatting with the other guests. Met a very nice kid (he was 19…) from the states who I swapped travel stories with, and the bartender who was interesting, and a rather drunk Scotsman. It was very fun. :D
DAY 7:
We checked out of our hostel and headed off on a HIGHLY sketchy looking train to Simon’s Town where the PENGUINS ARE! The scenery on the way was beautiful! Simon’s town was very quaint and quiet and felt like any gorgeous little town by the sea. We checked into our hostel and then wandered around looking at the shops (looked a lot like the French Quarter in New Orleans). Eventually we wandered around the different beaches and oo’d and aww’d over the random penguins we found hanging out there! We eventually went over to the boulder beach viewing platforms where there were LOTS of penguins hanging out. I didn’t have my beast camera with me and Ali didn’t want to stay too long, so we fled from the abundance of asian and French tourists and headed back to the hostel. We stopped on the way for FANTASTIC pita bread pizza and then rented movies which we watched at the hostel bar (the only place with a TV). Bed sounded quite good at that point, so we hit the sack! (The unfortunate thing was that I woke up with about 20 new bug bites. D: )
DAY 8:
I got up VOLUNTARILY at 7am to go take pictures of penguins for 2 hours. Seriously. They were that awesome. And I didn’t even get coffee first. They were just SO funny and they sounded like DONKEYS! Then I went over to the part of Boulder Beach where you can actually swim. With. Penguins. SO COOL! They were swimming RIGHT next to me and the water was warm and blue and it felt like paradise. (well… if paradise includes a few screaming kids, a crowd of old people, and ducks that want nothing more than to rob me of food…) I wandered around and laid on beaches and found little markets and such until dinner with Ali. We ended up going to this little pub (turns out the place with the MENU was upstairs) and we ate sketchy, but good, pub food and drank for the rest of the evening. There was a lovely older Scottish man named Pat who we hung out with until we eventually called it a night and went home.
DAY 9:
I woke up not feeling my greatest and so Ali went on ahead of me to Cape Town while I slept for a couple more hours in the hostel. Eventually, I got up and made my way back to our original hostel via the train. I was planning to just wander around and maybe go up the cable car to the top of table mountain, but I was told it was a bit late for that. SO I ended up at South Africa Gay Pride instead! Woah! It was pretty much like other gay pride festivals I have been to (of which there was… one) and there were a lot of pretty men and sparkles and drinking all around. I mainly went around taking pictures and wishing there was a little more shows or events and a little less drinking, but it was fun all the same. Since Ali and I didn’t have any plans to meet, specifically, I ended up getting tortellini pasta for dinner and cooking it at the hostel. I also had a DOCTOR PEPPER! Not something so common here in Africa! We had to get up for our taxi to the airport at 5am, so we pretty much just went to bed early and tried to think happy thoughts about the next day’s travel.
DAY 10:
We made it to the airport in plenty of time and there were no problems. Our flight was pretty enjoyable and when we landed in Joburg, we were tired but in pretty high spirits. Our only REAL snag was that when we got to the bus rank I couldn’t remember where the combie rank was! I knew it was basically in the same place, but I had never actually BEEN in the HUGE bus rank terminal before. I ended up leaving Ali with our bags and wandering around asking for directions until I found it. The combie rank truly is FOUL, full of garbage and exhaust fumes and bad tempers. But we eventually found the right combie (just as cushionless as the one coming up) and waited for the combie to fill. (long distance combies leave when they are full, not at a specific time). The ride back was uneventful, but left me with a cramp in my lower back that persisted for days. D: We got back to Gabs at about 7pm, and I never felt more glad to see the Gabs bus station. A taxi driver was right at the door to our combie and we were driven back to the dorms no problem. Overall, it was an AWESOME trip. :D
Moral of this story is! I love sharks and penguins (and they love me), tanning is actually possible, my life is a food tour, craft markets are my downfall, and coffee makes the world go round.
THE END!
Monday, April 16, 2012
My (belated) CAPE TOWN adventure!!!!
MY CAPE TOWN ADVENTURE OF LOVE AND EXCITEMENT!!!!
DAY 1:
The trip from Gabs to Joburg was uncomfortable and late (which is typical), but I was SO excited for this trip. We drove 6 hours in a combie that had absolutely no seat padding, but that really could have been worse. We arrived at a rather deserted combie station in downtown Joburg (it WAS near midnight) and hit our first snag: we… didn’t have the address to our hostel. I mean, I HAD the confirmation, it just didn’t include the address like I thought it did. Luckily, some very nice locals took pity on us and helped us call the place and make sure our cabbie didn’t overcharge us as they are want to do. We got to the hostel, a bit tired, but none the worse for wear. We went to bed AS SOON as we were checked in. (SO tired) As luck would have it, we were the only ones in the 16 person dorm. PERFECT.
DAY 2:
Day started out at the bright and early hour of 11AM…. Yeah. I am SUCH a morning person, you can tell. We got up and needed coffee and breakfast, so we set off to find what we could. Our original plan was just to walk to the street and then pick a direction and hope we get lucky. GOOD THING that didn’t happen because there were no good cafes within… well… walking distance. (Also the hills in Joburg are even more severe than in San Francisco.) Lucky for us, a local named Jean-Pierre rolled by in his car to ask if we were staying at Diamond Diggers (he knows the owner). He spoke French and was impressed that I knew a bit of French and ended up offering to drive us to a “nearby” café. Since we had no clue where one was, we accepted. (I also figured he wasn’t too much of a creeper since he had his 8 year old son with him.) It turns out that he designs and contracts houses. Before we went to the café, he stopped to check on a house that was… HUMONGOUS and very modern. It had 2 stories, a pool, a gorgeous view, and nearly every wall was actually a bank of windows. Not really my type of house (WAY to big) but is WAS beautiful. We were both very impressed by the tour he gave us. Eventually Jean-Pierre did take us to the café (which was actually in a shopping mall) and wished us luck. The food was pretty good and the cappuccino was even BETTER! I was, however, greatful to catch a taxi back to our hostel (re: HUGE HILLS) When we returned to the hostel, we headed off to the airport!
This is where we ran into our… second snag. For some reason when Ali booked our flight online, it only booked us one seat… and the flight was completely full… and they had no more flights to Cape Town that day. ACK! Well, we were both pretty calm as we ran around trying to find some airline with flights to Cape Town same day. Well, I say ran around, but really we just asked at South African Airways who directed us to British Airways who had a flight scheduled for two hours after our original flight for R800ish. (roughly 100USD) GOOD DEAL. So we booked that ticket and Ali RAN to catch her own flight. I dawdled and made small talk with the airline people and then went through security and wandered around the shops. I sat and had a vanilla latte and then grabbed a SUBWAY sandwich and generally had a peaceful flight including a meal and rather nice seating (this is BA). Ali’s flight… apparently was horribly bumpy and she was stuck between loud asian ladies… so I feel like I got the good end of the deal. But Cape Town was gorgeous even from the airport! The sun was setting behind the mountains for chrissakes!
After we checked into our hostel (very nice), we decided to find somewhere for dinner. AND WE FOUND A MEXICAN RESTAURANT WHAT! I have not seen another Mexican restaurant in all my time in Africa. I had chicken mole and horchata and it was awesome :D And then… because the night could not end and this day could not get longer than it already was… we decided to go have a night on the town! At a… very sparkly gay bar down the road. We had shots, danced with very fun gay guys (I was pretty much insta “fag hag”), and even got creeped on by the only straight guys in the place. The bartender thought we were REALLY hardcore for having the shots, but I wasn’t even drunk. GOOD night.
DAY 3:
Slept in the next day (little woozy despite not even being DRUNK the night before), and just wanted COFFEE wherever I could get it. We did our “wander around until we find a café” technique and it actually worked! Except the place we went was actually pretty awful. Burnt coffee and bad food all round. But hey, caffeine. So after that we went to the waterfront. The waterfront was GORGEOUS but full of the wealthy and touristy. Seriously, the mall there had THREE STORIES and a bunch of really long, really organized hallways full of really expensive clothes. D: However! There was also some very nice craft markets in warehouses that were DANGEROUS. I bought a notebook and some tea and HAD to stop before I bought something at every stall D: We went on a VERY kitchy and punny harbor cruise, but there really wasn’t much other than the shopping. So we decided to go see a movie since I like seeing movies and Ali is a HUGE movie buff. We saw This Means War which was highly entertaining, but not an epic must see. We went back to the hostel and to a random Thai place which actually had pretty good Pad Thai. The moral of the story is: the waterfront was GORGEOUS and shopping for that long makes your feet and wallet hurt just a bit.
DAY 4:We had an earlier start today with actually GOOD coffee in a Spar café of all places. After that we headed over to Green Market. It was a pretty long walk, but it was SO worth it. It was like being in one of the craft markets so typical here, but in the middle of Boston. And VERY clean and cheap stuff. I found a lot of nice souvenirs and… ya know, stuff for me. We wandered around there for a few hours, which I enjoyed, and then hoped a combie to Clifton Bay. We spent the afternoon RELAXING on the beach. It was SO beautiful. I even managed to get a TAN even though the Atlantic was JUST as cold here as on the East Coast.
But the real excitement was for tomorrow: SHARK DAY!
DAY 5: (Better known as shark day)
Day started at 4:45am (not good) but lead to a LOVELY place called Gansbaai which contained both a beautiful view and middling coffee, so it’s all good. We set sail quickly enough after breakfast and we were SO excited. Ali and I were in the first group in the water (the wetsuit was a HASSLE to get on). The cage was attached to the side of the boat and the crew attracted the sharks to the boat with a fish head on a string. (I could not get “fish heads fish heads rolly polly fish heads fish heads fish heads, eat them up! Yum!” out of my head) THE SHARKS WERE SO BIG AND SO COOL! The only problem was that half the boat was getting violently ill over the side of the boat due to sea sickness. Let’s just say that the motion-of-the-ocean did not agree with us. I waited it out and went down into the cage a second time. SO AWESOME! LOVED IT! When we eventually got back to our hostel, we completed our fishy day with SUSHI. Seriously, there are SO many sushi restaurants in Cape Town. Like DOZENS. I love sushi. GREAT DAY.
DAY 1:
The trip from Gabs to Joburg was uncomfortable and late (which is typical), but I was SO excited for this trip. We drove 6 hours in a combie that had absolutely no seat padding, but that really could have been worse. We arrived at a rather deserted combie station in downtown Joburg (it WAS near midnight) and hit our first snag: we… didn’t have the address to our hostel. I mean, I HAD the confirmation, it just didn’t include the address like I thought it did. Luckily, some very nice locals took pity on us and helped us call the place and make sure our cabbie didn’t overcharge us as they are want to do. We got to the hostel, a bit tired, but none the worse for wear. We went to bed AS SOON as we were checked in. (SO tired) As luck would have it, we were the only ones in the 16 person dorm. PERFECT.
DAY 2:
Day started out at the bright and early hour of 11AM…. Yeah. I am SUCH a morning person, you can tell. We got up and needed coffee and breakfast, so we set off to find what we could. Our original plan was just to walk to the street and then pick a direction and hope we get lucky. GOOD THING that didn’t happen because there were no good cafes within… well… walking distance. (Also the hills in Joburg are even more severe than in San Francisco.) Lucky for us, a local named Jean-Pierre rolled by in his car to ask if we were staying at Diamond Diggers (he knows the owner). He spoke French and was impressed that I knew a bit of French and ended up offering to drive us to a “nearby” café. Since we had no clue where one was, we accepted. (I also figured he wasn’t too much of a creeper since he had his 8 year old son with him.) It turns out that he designs and contracts houses. Before we went to the café, he stopped to check on a house that was… HUMONGOUS and very modern. It had 2 stories, a pool, a gorgeous view, and nearly every wall was actually a bank of windows. Not really my type of house (WAY to big) but is WAS beautiful. We were both very impressed by the tour he gave us. Eventually Jean-Pierre did take us to the café (which was actually in a shopping mall) and wished us luck. The food was pretty good and the cappuccino was even BETTER! I was, however, greatful to catch a taxi back to our hostel (re: HUGE HILLS) When we returned to the hostel, we headed off to the airport!
This is where we ran into our… second snag. For some reason when Ali booked our flight online, it only booked us one seat… and the flight was completely full… and they had no more flights to Cape Town that day. ACK! Well, we were both pretty calm as we ran around trying to find some airline with flights to Cape Town same day. Well, I say ran around, but really we just asked at South African Airways who directed us to British Airways who had a flight scheduled for two hours after our original flight for R800ish. (roughly 100USD) GOOD DEAL. So we booked that ticket and Ali RAN to catch her own flight. I dawdled and made small talk with the airline people and then went through security and wandered around the shops. I sat and had a vanilla latte and then grabbed a SUBWAY sandwich and generally had a peaceful flight including a meal and rather nice seating (this is BA). Ali’s flight… apparently was horribly bumpy and she was stuck between loud asian ladies… so I feel like I got the good end of the deal. But Cape Town was gorgeous even from the airport! The sun was setting behind the mountains for chrissakes!
After we checked into our hostel (very nice), we decided to find somewhere for dinner. AND WE FOUND A MEXICAN RESTAURANT WHAT! I have not seen another Mexican restaurant in all my time in Africa. I had chicken mole and horchata and it was awesome :D And then… because the night could not end and this day could not get longer than it already was… we decided to go have a night on the town! At a… very sparkly gay bar down the road. We had shots, danced with very fun gay guys (I was pretty much insta “fag hag”), and even got creeped on by the only straight guys in the place. The bartender thought we were REALLY hardcore for having the shots, but I wasn’t even drunk. GOOD night.
DAY 3:
Slept in the next day (little woozy despite not even being DRUNK the night before), and just wanted COFFEE wherever I could get it. We did our “wander around until we find a café” technique and it actually worked! Except the place we went was actually pretty awful. Burnt coffee and bad food all round. But hey, caffeine. So after that we went to the waterfront. The waterfront was GORGEOUS but full of the wealthy and touristy. Seriously, the mall there had THREE STORIES and a bunch of really long, really organized hallways full of really expensive clothes. D: However! There was also some very nice craft markets in warehouses that were DANGEROUS. I bought a notebook and some tea and HAD to stop before I bought something at every stall D: We went on a VERY kitchy and punny harbor cruise, but there really wasn’t much other than the shopping. So we decided to go see a movie since I like seeing movies and Ali is a HUGE movie buff. We saw This Means War which was highly entertaining, but not an epic must see. We went back to the hostel and to a random Thai place which actually had pretty good Pad Thai. The moral of the story is: the waterfront was GORGEOUS and shopping for that long makes your feet and wallet hurt just a bit.
DAY 4:We had an earlier start today with actually GOOD coffee in a Spar café of all places. After that we headed over to Green Market. It was a pretty long walk, but it was SO worth it. It was like being in one of the craft markets so typical here, but in the middle of Boston. And VERY clean and cheap stuff. I found a lot of nice souvenirs and… ya know, stuff for me. We wandered around there for a few hours, which I enjoyed, and then hoped a combie to Clifton Bay. We spent the afternoon RELAXING on the beach. It was SO beautiful. I even managed to get a TAN even though the Atlantic was JUST as cold here as on the East Coast.
But the real excitement was for tomorrow: SHARK DAY!
DAY 5: (Better known as shark day)
Day started at 4:45am (not good) but lead to a LOVELY place called Gansbaai which contained both a beautiful view and middling coffee, so it’s all good. We set sail quickly enough after breakfast and we were SO excited. Ali and I were in the first group in the water (the wetsuit was a HASSLE to get on). The cage was attached to the side of the boat and the crew attracted the sharks to the boat with a fish head on a string. (I could not get “fish heads fish heads rolly polly fish heads fish heads fish heads, eat them up! Yum!” out of my head) THE SHARKS WERE SO BIG AND SO COOL! The only problem was that half the boat was getting violently ill over the side of the boat due to sea sickness. Let’s just say that the motion-of-the-ocean did not agree with us. I waited it out and went down into the cage a second time. SO AWESOME! LOVED IT! When we eventually got back to our hostel, we completed our fishy day with SUSHI. Seriously, there are SO many sushi restaurants in Cape Town. Like DOZENS. I love sushi. GREAT DAY.
Sunday, January 22, 2012
Lion Gate Park Has No Lions... But It DOES Have a Roller Coaster
So I went to Lion Gate Park/Resort yesterday with about 25 people from the choir and it was SUPER fun! It’s this water park/theme park sort of thing about 15 minutes outside of Gaborone. I was expecting something teeny and, well, less than it was. But my god! It was a bit like being at home except for all the thatched roofs. There was an honest to god WAVE POOL, two slides, and a two-level kiddy pool. There were 8 rides (though four of them were kids only and a fifth was out of order). There was even a ROLLER COASTER. So basically, I had tons of fun playing in the pool and once I got over the “OMG, this is a theme park ride in AFRICA a la Flying Swings and Tilt-A-Whirl! What if it BREAKS!?” I had a lot of fun there too. SOME HIGHLIGHTS! While swimming in the pool, the guys had the funny idea to start doing fake “baptisms” like you see on travel programs where the priest is dunking peoples’ heads in the ocean water and yelling. So… they proceeded to grab all the girls in the group and “baptize” them, much to everyone’s amusement. I was not spared, lol! Another thing is that… almost NONE of them had ever been on a roller coaster before. And we ALL went on the Ghinza Roller Coaster for 14 Pula each… It was hilarious! They were all so nervous but excited and you would not BELIEVE the screaming. All the guys were acting macho and saying they’d have their hands in the air the whole time… I’m pretty sure I’m the only one that did that. It was a good sized coaster, it even had a loop, but it wasn’t THAT big. Some of the girls were a bit traumatized and most of the guys admitted to being scared out of their wits after some obligatory manly posturing. But they all had fun and didn’t regret trying it, so I suppose it’s okay. The last highlight was near the end when things LOOKED like they were winding down, but then we started singing. In a huge group. In the pool. With dance moves. In Setswana. And of course I was the only foreigner. But it was so much fun! People outside of the pool kept trying to take pictures and little kids kept trying to join in even though they didn’t really know what was going on. It was a pretty fun day!
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