May 6
This was our “re-entry” day in Cape Town. After saying goodbye to Claire early in the morning, we headed to a vineyard in wine country to discuss how it was going to be to return to the U.S. and our “normal” lives there. We spent all morning talking about things we learned during the semester that changed our lives, and then talked about things that might be an issue for us upon our return home. Some of these were simple, like wondering about how it would be to come home and go shopping in a Target or Fred Meyer, because there aren’t megastores that have every department in Namibia. Other things that came up were how to share our experiences with people who do not want to hear anything besides a 10 second recap, how to accurately describe our academic program to people who thought we were traveling to Africa for a service trip, and how to deal with missing people and places from our program. It was an emotional day for a lot of us, but I am so thankful that CGE planned a day for us to discuss these issues.
the table was all set for our winetasting
After our last picnic lunch (a traveling tradition for our program), we got a tour of the vineyard and the wine making facilities before having a wine tasting. That tour was the first time I really grasped that it was fall in South Africa. Even though I knew that the seasons were different from home, and it was obvious that it was getting colder, but it never really hit me that May was fall. However, looking at the vineyard and seeing the fall colors, it was just a bizarre experience. The plants were red, orange, and brown, in contrast to the still lively grass and hillsides. I feel like I am quite the wine expert now! I know all about the differences between white, red, and blush wine, and why red wine has to mature, and how to correctly nose and taste wine. I still don’t really like wine, but if I need to appear knowledgeable about wine tasting, I can at least convincingly fake it now! The grounds at the vineyard were beautiful, and it was fun to have another day to hang out with all my CGE friends.
South African wine country
May 7
Last Day in Cape Town
On our last day in Cape Town, we had a free day to hang out or do whatever in the city. Some people wanted to go shark cage diving, but the ocean conditions weren’t right. I went with Patrick, Arianna, and Audrey to Hout Bay, where we took a boat trip to Duiker Island, where a colony of fur seals lives. It was a little bit of an adventure to get to Hout Bay, which is a ways outside of Cape Town. We ended up taking a taxi, and it was about a 35 minute ride. We didn’t really have a good idea of how long it was going to take, so we were all nervously watching the meter get higher and higher. Thankfully, there were four of us to split the fare.
Hout Bay is a cute little seaside town, surrounded by mountains, and the ride to Hout Bay went past some of Cape Town’s most beautiful beaches. The Hout Bay harbor was idyllic, and full of sailboats. Getting our tickets for the boat was pretty simple because I had called ahead to get our names on the list. While we were waiting for the boat to leave we saw our first seals swimming in the harbor, along with the ones sleeping on the pier. The boat was pretty big, and filled with Asian tourists. We sat inside because we didn’t want to get soaked from the spray.
It only took about 15 minutes to get out to Duiker Island, and the views were just spectacular. When we reached the island, we slowed down and circled it for a while, looking at the thousands of seals who lived there. Duiker Island is basically a hunk of rock stuck out in the sea, but it was just gorgeous with seaweed swirling around and waves crashing against the rocks, not to mention all the seals. We were also lucky because it was a perfectly clear and sunny day.
After the boat trip we spent a little while walking around Hout Bay, especially on the beach. It was a nice little beach, with mountains rising up out of the harbor, and some protected sand dunes on the edge of the beach. Arianna and I scared some seagulls away on our sprint down to water, which was extremely cold! We ended up riding a route kombi back to Long Street, which was a fun adventure. We took a short, cheap taxi to the place where we could catch our kombi. The kombi was full of locals, and went all the way to Cape Town for only 10 rand (as opposed to our 45 rand per person first taxi ride). It reminded me of riding the maxi taxis in Trinidad, where they squish as many people as they possibly can in and just drop people off whenever they want off. The four of us were squished together in the back seat, and a nice guy helped explain to us how this kombi worked, and helped us get off the kombi at the right place, just a block or two away from our guest house on Bree Street.
Later that afternoon I headed to the Two Oceans Aquarium with Katelyn and Hannah. I love aquariums, and would much rather go to an aquarium than go to a zoo, so we decided it would be fun to go see the Cape Town aquarium, which has marine life from both the Atlantic and Indian Oceans. We walked downtown to the V&A Waterfront, which was a nice little walk. Along the way we discovered that there are canals in Cape Town! Along with the canals, we crossed some fun bridges and had an amazing view of Table Mountain and saw more seals sleeping on a pier. The aquarium was also a lot of fun. Hannah, Katelyn, and I played around and did all the cheesy little kid things, and we also got to see the penguins and carnivorous fish be fed!
Katelyn and Hannah posed for this picture - I don't know if they were actually this fascinated
After dinner that night, a bunch of us went to Mr. Pickwicks (a bar/restaurant) for milkshakes and karaoke! Our group took over more than half the room, and we had a lot of fun going crazy and celebrating the end of our semester in southern Africa. For all you who are wondering, I did sing some karaoke (twice, even!). My strategy is to pick a fun song that other people will want to sing along to, so that their energy can overshadow how horrible my singing is. All in all, it was a fun last day in Cape Town!
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