The day after the conference I was up early again for a tour of the Cape Peninsula. We saw so much in one day, I could have easily spent a day at each of the places we visited. After stopping by a bunch of hostels to pick up people for the tour, we drove by the beautiful Clifton beaches just outside of Cape Town and through the mountains to our first stop at Hout Bay where we took a boat out to see the fur seals. The ride was very bumpy and I felt I was about to fall out on more than one occasion. It was a gorgeous view looking back of a small town on a bay enclosed in mountains. We left the bay and followed the rugged coastline to the rocky island filled with adorable seals. There were also small seals swimming right next to and under our boat. Back in Hout Bay, there was a "fat seal" trained by a man who sat with and fed the seal all day allowing toursits to take pictures with it. There is a picture of me above with the seal which looked like it was constantly smiling :).
After visiting the seals we drove through a cluster of wineries, home to the famous Constantia winery. We stopped at a beautiful lookout over a wide beach, which looks like it would be filled with swimmers in the summer. The only problem is there are 76 great white sharks in the area alone and attacks are not as rare as you might like. After having some tea and muffins we continued to Boulders Beach. On the way we drove by Simon's Town, a famous little beach town, which looked like a beautiful place to live. At Boulders Beach we saw African penguins which were adorable. They live on the beach and in the nearby rocks and greenery. African penguins are becoming increasingly rare even though the beach tries to protect the eggs by building safe enclosures. The penguins were probably only a foot high, black and white with pick rings around their eyes. There were also two other varieties which were much more rare one of which was dark blue and bigger than the black and white penguins.
It was a pretty chilly and overcast day, which I think made the scenery even more dramatic and beautiful. When we arrived at the National Park we were greeted by mischievious baboons and had to be sure to keep our windows closed. We unloaded our bikes for a short 3 mile ride through the park just when it started raining. It was a chilly ride, but the scenery was gorgeous. There were mountains in the distance and grassy plateaus closer by with interesting, moon-like rock outcrops. We looked for zebras and ostriches, but didn't see any during the ride.
We ended our ride at the visitor center where we tried to warm up and ate sandwiches for lunch. Back on the bus we made our way to the Cape Point where we walked up to the lighthouse. The scenery here was even more spectacular than before with dramatic cliffs and the gorgeous, green peninsula reaching out into the water. From the lighthouse we could see Cape Point and the Cape of Good Hope as well as a sign marking how many thousands of miles we were from NYC among other cities. However, the lighthouse was not built in an ideal location so high up on the hill and there was a historic boat crash as the ship was round the peninsula because it couldn't see the light of the lighthouse. A second lighthouse was later built at sea level. I sent a postcard home (the only address I knew by heart) postmarked at Cape Point.
Since it was raining at this point we decided not to make the slippery trek down to the Cape of Good Hope and drove down instead. It was beautiful down here as well with huge whitewater waves crashing against the seacliffs. We took our pictures next to the well-known sign marking the furthest south-western tip of Africa and climbed out on the slippery rocks filled with tiny crabs before heading back to the car to warm up. On the drive back we stopped at a cute craft shop and enjoyed the scenery of small beach towns nestled inbetween mountains. We also saw two ostriches and a few antelope on the way back!
The hot shower felt soo good back at Sarah, Brittni and Liese's place. For dinner Brittni made delicious lasagne to celebrate Janine's birthday. (Janine owns the house the girls are staying in and is a jewelry designer). For dessert we had pound cake with strawberries--so good--especially with balsamic vinegar.
The next day I slept in after a tiring week of waking up early and going to bed late. I took the train into town to visit museums and explore City Bowl (the city center). I started out at the Castle of Good Hope, which is right in the middle of the city and is actually a fort built in anticipation of a war. I arrived just in time to see the changing of the guard. We saw the torture room where prisoners were tortured in attempts of gaining a confession. They were first tied in a corner and whipped after which they would be hung by their feet from the ceiling if they didn't confess then after a certain amount of time the rope would be cut and they would fall to the concrete ground. If they confessed, they would be killed and if they did not after all three torture methods and were still alive would often still be killed or sent to Robben Island to perform hard labor.
Across from the castle was a plaza that was formerly a public execution ground. I continued up the street to the District Six Museum located in District Six, of course, the area of the city that was destroyed during apartheid by forced removals of tens of thousands of habitants. In recent years, the government has invested significantly to restore the inner-city neighborhood which maintains scars of apartheid.
Next I walked to the Slave Lodge a museum where slaves from the Dutch East Indian Company were held. It is one of the oldest buildings in Cape Town dating from the 1600s. There was an interesting map showing where all the slaves came from and visualize the mesh of cultures that are now in Cape Town. So many of Cape Town's unique cultures and ethnicities derived from the slave trade and the mixing of races once in Cape Town. There was also a large exhibit on Steve Biko, a leader of the Black Consciousness Movement who was killed in prison. It was sad to read the quotes of white leaders refusing to express emotion at his death or admit that it was a result of mistreatment and lack of medical attention.
After the slave lodge I walked a bit through the Company Gardens, which are a mini-version of Central Park--they even have a zoo like Central Park! Then I walked about a half an hour down to the waterfront to buy a few souvenirs and enjoy the African music and happy atmosphere. I caught a cab back to Rondebosch and packed for our roadtrip the next day!
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