Cape Town - Days 2 through 5

Cape Town - Day 2 - The Winelands

On our second day in port, I headed out to Stellenbosch with eight other SASers. Stellenbosch is one of the main towns within the South African vineyards, and it’s very popular with younger travelers because there is a University there, thus lots of young people and amenities catering to that age range. We really had no exact plans other than that we had a van picking us up at 8 a.m. and we were staying at the Stumble Inn. So, at 8 a.m., we got in the van and headed out to the South African wine lands. We arrived at the Stumble Inn around nine o’clock. They call it a backpackers Inn, but it was basically a hostel. It was a fun and eclectic place with an open air common room complete with shabby furniture, burning fire, pool table, and bar. The rooms were just large, plain rooms with lots of bunk beds. It was pretty much what you would imagine if you imagined a hostel in a trendy university town in South Africa.

We arrived at the Stumble Inn around 9:30 a.m. with not much of a plan other than the intension to bike the vineyards. Unfortunately, when we got there, they told us that biking from vineyard to vineyard just wasn’t realistic because they were too far apart. Fortunately, they were able to add another van onto their hostel sponsored vineyard tour that left at 10:30 that morning. Even better, we found that there was a group of eleven SASers who had stayed there the night before and were going on the same vineyard tour that day. I know four or five of them, so I was pretty excited that we’d all be doing the tour together.

Before the tour, a couple of us went to a little restaurant around the corner called the Blue Orange for a bite to eat. We all had different toasted sandwiches. I had a ham, cheese, tomato, and pickle toasted sandwich on the most wonderful homemade multi-grain bread that I’ve ever had. It was unbelievably wonderful!!!

After our quick meal, we headed back to the hostel just in time to leave on our tour. All of the SAS kids and a really cool, young Scottish guy got onto the biggest vehicle (a 19 passenger bus). The tour was from 10:30 til 5 p.m. It took us to four different vineyards in three different regions, along with a lovely lunch stop. The winelands are absolutely gorgeous and the wine was wonderful. For those of you who have seen my vineyard themed living room, you know that I was in heaven.

We had a vineyard tour and introduction to wine making and tasting at our first vineyard. After that, we pretty much just went straight into the tasting rooms at each vineyard. Each of the first three vineyards gave us a menu with the descriptions of each of the wines that you could try and you could usually pick around six of them to sample. The first three tasting rooms were set up so that you just went to the bar and asked for what you wanted. At the last vineyard, the tasting took place in a dark barn and you sat down and had six wines placed in front of you with a description menu of the wines and you just did the tasting yourself. It was all wonderful, beautiful, and fun. Hopefully, I can get some pictures posted for you soon. I felt completely confident as I sat outside the third vineyard and took in the surrounding hillside and vineyards through crystal clear air, that it was the most beautiful place that I’d ever been.

That night, I had a very nice dinner with some of the SASers at a place called Attitude. More SASers arrived at the hostel that night and a bunch of us headed out on the town. It was a really fun place to go out since it’s a college town. We all went to the first bar together but then ended up splitting up into smaller groups. I ended up in a group of three and we stopped at three different bars/clubs. We met tons of nice South African kids and generally had a great time. A highlight of the evening was when I was given a flaming blue shot of some type. You hold it in your mouth and then it gets lit on fire. Needless to say that most of it ended up in my hair.

As we were walking back to the hostel, we were looking for late night food. Apparently, in South Africa, the only place to get food late at night is at the gas station. So, that’s what we did. Yes, you’d all be thoroughly grossed out. I had two hotdogs at a gas station in Stellenbosch at 3 a.m. And, I loved them!!!

Anyways, in the morning, we reluctantly said our goodbyes to the winelands and the friends we had made at the Stumble Inn and headed back to Cape Town.


Cape Town – Day 3 - Climbing Table Mountain (possibly the most physically intense thing I’ve ever done)

When I returned from the winelands, I was trying to figure out what to do with my life when I had a call from a friend inviting me to go to Table Mountain. Since it was on my list of things to do, I changed into more appropriate hiking clothes and took off to join them. We decided to hike up the mountain. We must have taken the advanced “kick your ass” route because we spent almost the whole hike climbing nearly straight up over huge boulders. It took three people in our group around two and a half hours to climb up and me and another SASer around three hours. It was definitely the most challenging thing that I’ve done on this trip so far and quite possibly the most physically challenging thing that I’ve done in my life. It was absolutely gorgeous though, and I don’t regret doing it. But, it sure kicked my ass! I don’t know how so many people do it! I mean, it is really intense and rather dangerous. At one point we were walking on such a thin, wet portion of rock right on the edge of a cliff. I have a huge vertigo problem and nearly hyperventilated at that point. But, I made it.

When me and the other slow poke got to the top of the mountain, we ran into a group of SAS kids. We told them that we hiked up and one of them promptly looked us over and said, “you don’t look like you’ve been hiking.” At that point, I looked at the two of us from someone elses perspective. I was wearing capris, a cute top, and a headband and the guy I was with had on an Armani sweater and trendy jeans. Then they asked where we were from and we told them Chicago and New York and they totally understood. Haha. That’s pretty funny. The city kids go for a hike. No wonder we had such a hard time!

We were at the top of the mountain just a little before sunset. So, we watched the beginning of the sunset from the top of Table Mountain and the end of it from the cable car on the way down. It was breath takingly gorgeous.

We took a cab back to the port area and went to get some dinner. We were completely disgusting from our hike, but we were too famished to go back to the ship and get ready first. So, the five of us who went on the hike, went out for a really nice dinner filled with lots of steak, lots of wine, and lots of good conversation. It was a terrific time! After dinner, we headed over to the Irish Pub by the waterfront and had some drinks and socialized with all the other SASers who were there.


Cape Town – Day 4 – Green Street Market and the Opera

On the fourth day in Cape Town, I was supposed to go to Boulder Beach and Cape Point with one of my friends. However, it is so darn hard to meet up with people while in port and we never ended up connecting. So, I got myself up and went out to the port area with some people. We walked around, had lunch, and did a little shopping. Then we went off to Green Street Market which was the authentic market area. It was really cool. There was a lot of authentic crafts to purchase, but they definitely weren’t cheap and the whole thing was a little overwhelming. I feel bad that I didn’t have time to get more things for myself and others, but this afternoon was almost only chance I had to shop and it’s so hard to buy so much in such a short amount of time. I did the best I could. I got myself a nice little painting that I’m really happy with, so I guess that’s all that matters.

After the market, I headed back to the ship to get ready to go on the SAS trip to the opera. I was so excited for this trip!!! I have always wanted to go to the opera. I got a little dressed up in a skirt, top, and heals I had brought along. Around one hundred SAS kids went on the trip and everyone dressed very nicely. The opera house was beautiful, but modern. I prefer classic theaters. When we arrived at the theater, we had a little introduction about the theater and South African opera. Then they put out appetizers and wine for us. It was all very nice and elegant. After our reception, we went to a talk about the particular opera we were about to watch, Carmen. It was really interesting to get a background about it’s creation, history, and themes before seeing it.

Then it was time for the main event. I had a great seat in the center of the sixth row. The opera was wonderful. It was performed in French, but there were English subtitles above. The performers were excellent. The opera itself was extremely moving. I would love to read the original book. It lasted three hours and there were two intermissions in which the audience could purchase drinks and super good chocolate cakes. It has completely inspired me to check out the Chicago Opera House when I get home. I don’t care if I have to go alone. That was definitely not my last time at the opera.

We returned back to the ship around midnight. I was just going to go to bed, but someone asked me if I wanted to look for some food. I hadn’t had dinner, so I agreed. Of course nothing was open for food, so we ended up at the Irish Pub again. It was fun, but pretty uneventful. The only cool thing was that Captain Jeremy (the Captain of our ship) was in the bar. I went up and had a good, long conversation and a drink with him. I also got a picture. That was pretty exciting to me. I gave him a little bit of a hard time about the waves coming into port in Cape Town.

After that, it was off to bed. Way too late as usual . . .


Day 5 – Cape Town – Robben Island and Meandering

After three hours of sleep, I woke up to go to Robben Island. We took the little boat right from the pier where the ship was docked over to Robben Island. Robben Island is the high security prison where the political prisoners were held during apartheid, including South Africa’s president Nelson Mandela. No one ever escaped from the prison let alone the island. The guide who showed us the prison was a former inmate. We saw the cells, facilities, and learned about all the physiological torment that the prisoners had to endure. It was incredibly fascinating. We also took a tour of the Island itself. We saw the query where some of the prisoners were forced to work. The island itself had a lot of history. It used to be a leper colony. We saw lots of old buildings and an old leper cemetery. I’m so glad that I got to see it.

After we returned to the pier, I had an excellent pizza lunch with the same girl who I had been looking for dinner with the evening before after the opera. Hence, we had both been starving since around six o’clock the night before and finally got to eat at around one that afternoon. We dreamed about this pizza lunch we were going to have the whole Robben Island trip. It felt so good to finally eat. After that, I did a little meandering around the mall and port area. I tried to grocery shop and use the internet, but that all just turned into a bigger waste of time than anything since I was so exhausted. I went back to the ship and laid down for about two hours, but never fell asleep.

Finally, I got up and got ready to go to dinner. We went to this place that had traditional African food and music. I was so sick of big, steak dinners at this point that I just ordered the house salad. It was actually excellent. I did, however, try someone elses crocodile. It tasted kind of fishy. I wasn’t a big fan. But, I was pretty impressed with my adventurous eating. We were going to go out afterward, but since we’d had so much wine at dinner and we had to be up early for our safari in the morning, we just headed back to the ship around twelve or one.

Ok, this is all that I have time to write now. Safari stories to come soon . . .


**** Thank you so much mom and Matt for the packages. I was so very excited to get them and will definitely use the contents. Thanks also to my grandma and Danielle for the sweet cards.

**** I promise to try to get some photos up in Mauricious. It's just not realistic to try to upload pics on the ship. I tried to do it in Cape Town, but I had a problem with my thumb drive.