my personal site and travel log
A while ago, I posted an image of the pathetic state of my world travels. That was in December, 2005. Almost exactly a year before I did exactly what I said I would do. Travel.
[ create your own visited countries map ]
Even with everywhere I’ve been, I’ve still only been to measly 5%!
The 5% nation of …
p.s. Check out the Collective Proza while your at that map site, it’s very entertaining!
I have found a safari! Even with my lack of planning, the perfect safari seems to have fallen in my lap. So cool how that happens. I sent feelers out just for the hell of it, contacting the companies that seemed to have the most interesting and affordable safaris. My story was that I didn’t do any planning, and was here in South Africa for these such and such dates - do you have anything available? Most of the people didn’t answer, but I got a response from ecoafrica.com. They’ve been very helpful. Here’s the link to the safari info:
8 Day Bushman & Okavango delta safari
It’s exactly what I want to do and where I wanted to go! When I got here, I knew I wanted to go to Namibia, and may as well hit Botswana, and if I’m going that far, I figured I may as well see Victoria Falls! I plan on going to the Namibian coast for a few days before the safari, then hooking up with them in Windhoek. The safari doesn’t actually go to Victoria Falls, but it ends in Livingstone, Zambia which is 5 miles from the falls. The safari is all camping too! Should be interesting!
I’ve been busy in front of the computer looking up bus routes and schedules, hostels in Walvis Bay and Windhoek, Namibia and also in Livingstone, Zambia. I’m pretty close to making all my arrangements for my time here in South Africa. So exciting!
Yesterday, everyone took a road trip through the Cape Winelands here in South Africa. We didn’t have a lot of time, so it was pretty much a driving trip with no stops. We headed out the N1 went through Franschhoek, Stellenbosch and Grabouw. I’m not sure of the exact route and all the places we went through, but I know we took the N1 out and the N2 back into Cape Town! It was a great ride. Pictures here!
So, yes, I am in South Africa. Today I’ve been chilling out. They let me sleep until almost 10 am and we sat down to a nice big breakfast. Since then, I’ve been on the computer writing blog posts, adding picture metadata to flickr and researching a bit what I want to do in South Africa. I haven’t and hadn’t planned a single thing before traveling here. I just knew I wanted to come here.
Yesterday was pretty amazing and I was running on excitement and adrenaline all day long as I hadn’t had any real sleep in 3 days! The Cape Town airport is pretty quaint, but very modern and certainly not the smallest airport I’ve encountered on my travels (the smallest was in Seville, Spain). Nazma and her brother Nur picked me up and brought me swiftly back to her house. The plan for the day was Table Mountain and a tour of Robben Island Prison.
I settled in a bit at Nazma’s house, got the lay of the land and met the family. Her sister Nazli and brother Nur - both younger than Nazma, her mom Fowzia and Nazli’s husband Imran (Nazli and Imran are newlyweds). We all sat down to a nice, big breakfast of muesli, yogurt, fried eggs, juice, and other assorted yummies. At this point, I was more hungry than anything and was a bit numb from the plane ride. Shortly after breakfast, Nazma’s cousin Ferial, Ferial’s husband Azad and their 1.5 year old daughter Sumaya, arrived to transport and accompany Nazma, Nazli, Imran and I us to Table Mountain.
Table Mountain is pretty much a part of Cape Town, i.e. you don’t have to drive out of town to get to it. It’s right there. It was about a 25-30 minute drive I think. The mountain was fairly busy, the que for tickets wasn’t that bad though. It was very sunny. I was already feeling the UV burning my skin standing in line for the cableway, and I hadn’t put on any sunscreen. I made it my mission to find sunscreen ASAP and cover myself up. That was no problem at the mountain-top shop and I bought four postcards, too. The cableway was pretty cool. It is an amazingly steep climb - the cable is 1200 meters and the mountain (at it’s highest) is 1085 meters. The cable way looks like it’s at the mountains lowest point, but the mountain is pretty flat (hence the name table, eh?) so I’d guess the height is still around 1000 meters for the cableway. What I’m trying to say is it’s like a 45-degree incline. The ride up was impressive - the cable car has a rotating base, so everyone on it gets a 360-degree view and there’s not a bad place to stand in the car. The top of Table Mountain was well done and very touristy. A restaurant, curio shop, nice bathrooms, lots of paves walks near the cable car station and paths all over the top of the mountain. Beautiful views …
After we were all satisfied with our time at Table Mountain, we headed back down the cable way and waited for our ride, as Azad had dropped us all off. We were a bit early, and got to just chill out and enjoy the breeze. It was quite nice to just sit there and I even got a little snooze in. Azad picked us up and we were headed down the long hill to lunch. Unfortunately, though, their Chrysler mini-van had been and was having engine problems, and the van essentially konked out part-way down the hill. We had to pull over and Azad tried to restart the engine to no avail. Being on a hill, we coasted down to a gas station, where Imran and I had to get out and push the van into the station. Oddly enough, the van runs just fine if there is more than 1/4 tank full of gas. So, Azad got the van to the pump, filled it up and we were off. The car problems ate into our lunch-eating time and we decided to just head back to Nazma’s house. Azad and Ferial dropped us off. Imran, Nazli, Fowzia and I had to make it to the waterfront around 4:30 to catch the Robben Island ferry.
We made it in plenty of time. After locating an ATM machine and withdrawing 200 ZAR, which is about 27.80 USD, we found the ferry. Nazli had already bought tickets, so we just had to get on. It was a quick, somewhat tumultuous ride, we arrived at the harbor on Robben Island. I didn’t really know what to expect, visiting a prison. I don’t think I have ever visited a prison. My perception of them are vile, decrepit places where the scum of the earth are sent to suffer. I knew Nelson Mandela was imprisoned for a long time, but I had no idea where. And, I quickly learned that Robben Island was like no other prison in the world. Not because it was nice. Not at all, but because of the reasons the political prisoners were kept there and the treatment they received during apartheid. One of the first things we were shown and told on the island bus tour was that the prisoners were treated worse than dogs. And given the conditions they had to live it, this was certainly true. Rather than posting more info and pics about the island prison here, take a look at my flickr set where I’ve added descriptions and info to photos. Overall, it was an incredible (seriously, unbelievable) trip and one I am really glad I got to do and see. Interestingly enough, Nazma’s mom, Fowzia, had lived here in SA quite a few years before ever going to the prison. I’m glad she got to go with us!
The four of us had dinner at Nando’s, a sorta quick-food eatery. It’s like fast food, because you order at the cash register, but the food is really good and fresh and they bring it to your table like a sit-down restaurant. Since we all kinda skipped lunch, we were hungry. At this point, I’ve thrown my vegetarianism out the window. That, and they have some really good chicken here in Cape Town! We ate up, headed back to the house. I did my laundry and tried to stay awake. After I had everything hung out to dry and showered and spent too much time in front of the computer for how tired I was, I finally went to sleep. I can’t remember the last time I slept that good. That quality of sleep is rare, and I almost think I need to have more intense experiences like I have had over the last weekend so I can have more sleep like that. It only comes with a combination of sleep deprivation and activity, but it’s almost worth it!