One Week Already?!

Sorry it’s been a few days since I’ve been able to post!  We’ve been very busy and tired!  Here’s what we’ve been up to!

On Thursday, we started the day at Taal Monument, which is a symbol of the Afrikaans language.  There is beautiful scenery everywhere you go here!  We took a lot of pictures at the monument and were even allowed to climb ON it.  It was very tall and steep, like a ramp, and some of the daredevils of the group made it pretty high – not me!  Next, we headed off to a cute little French-influenced town (Franchoek) where we shopped around and ate lunch at Café Traumerei.  We had our first bartering experience with some artists who were selling carved stone and wood pieces in the parking lot.  Then we did a little wine-tasting at ZorgVliet in Stellenbosch.  We got to taste five different wines (two white, three red).  I am no wine expert, but we had fun!  I could become a wine fanatic :)  We had dinner at a place called Cattle Baron and it took FOREVER for us to get our food – literally almost an hour and a half!  Apparently, that is customary here.  Going out to restaurants is a social event and the food is secondary.  Corvell says dinner is usually a three-hour affair!

Friday started with a trip to Green Market Square, which is a big artesian market where tons of stands are set up with artists selling their crafts.  We weren’t there long, but we got some more practice with bartering... I am no good at it.  Corvell says to start at half of their asking price and negotiate from there.  But trying to convert to U.S. dollars on top of that is just too much!  And then they make you feel really bad when you don’t buy something!  Then we started our tour around the peninsula (continued on Sunday).  We saw many beautiful views of Cape Town from Signal Hill and Chapman’s Peak and other stops along the way.  We saw the World Cup Stadium (it is HUGE!) and the U.S. Embassy, right next to the maximum security prison LOL!  It was such a gorgeous day!  The weather has been unusually warm for winter and we’ve all been complaining that we didn’t bring enough tshirts!  I sure hope it stays like this, though! 

We ate lunch at a place called Fish on the Rocks in Hout Bay.  I had Hake & Chips.  Finally, my first seafood meal in Cape Town!  It was sooo delicious!  Tasted much like fish & chips in the U.S.  Also had an Apple-tiser to drink – it’s like a carbonated apple juice.  Pretty good!  They also have grape-tisers and pear-tisers.  We also stopped at the oldest winery in Cape Town for another quick wine tasting.  For dinner, we went to mall #4 (they really don’t have anywhere to eat except at malls) and Corvell bought us several Gatsbys to share.  A Gatsby is a very LARGE chip roll.  Here they call French Fries “chips.”  I swear there are “chips” with EVERY meal!  Anyway, these Gatsbys were enormous subs filled with chips (French fries), meat, lettuce, mayo, and a lot of other stuff.  We had chicken on ours.  Really the biggest sub you can imagine!  We split each among three, people, but I barely put a dent in my portion.  It was tasty, but WAY too much to eat and very messy and definitely NOT healthy.  They made fun of me because half the meat fell out the back of my sub!  When we got back to Deo Gratia, we packed up and switched rooms for the next four nights!  So now I am staying in the main house, out of the “land of exile,” as we came to call our little suite out back.  I’m in one big room with five beds and a kitchen area.  It’s a little crowded, but I love these girls!  It’s nice to be in the main house and not have to walk outside to come in for breakfast!  Also, the wifi has been up and working for the last few days, so I can get internet from my room (sometimes)!

Saturday was a day I had been excited and nervous for since the start of our trip.  It was our hike down Table Mountain!  Corvell told us it would be like walking down stairs, but he lies to us sometimes.  I had heard from past travelers that it was quite a strenuous excursion.  It was our warmest day yet (about 70 degrees), so I wore my Capri sweats – I mean “knickerbockers,” as they call capris here.  I put a zip-up on for the hike down, but most just had on tshirts!  We took the cable car to the top of the mountain (about 1000 meters high), which was absolutely gorgeous!  It seemed like you could see the whole world from up there!  We hung out on the top for a while and had some lunch before beginning our hike down to the bottom... no cable car for us!  It started off ok, but I knew I would be hurting soon enough.  There was no staircase, my friend.  Just rocks in a semi-stair-shaped fashion.  There was definitely a path to follow, but it was not made for short-legged people like myself.  I also have the worst balance in the world and took it very slowly – I blame my weird feet.  It was seriously the most difficult thing I have done in my life.  We were winding back and forth through that mountain, with some steep corners and slippery rocks.  It was a beautiful view, but I felt like I was going to fall to my death a few times!  My legs were like jello about halfway down.  There were some crazy athletes jogging down the rocks and even a little boy (maybe 7 years old) passed me along the way.  Quite a blow to my confidence.  The path was about 2000 meters (about 1 ¼ miles) of winding, rocky mountain.  The fastest people in our group made it down in two hours.  I hung with them at the beginning, but slowed up after a while.  So then I was alone until the group behind me caught up and I finished with them.  My poor little legs couldn’t reach most of the “steps,” so I had to sit and scoot or hold onto my good ol’ friends for dear life.  All in all, it took over four hours to reach the bottom!  Whew, I can’t believe I made it!  I am literally more sore than I have ever been in my entire life – we all are!  We woke up today (Sunday) and the pain just progressed throughout the day!  Quads, glutes, even my shoulders and triceps from scooting myself down the steep rocks!  So. Much. Pain.

Today we finished our trip around the peninsula that Cape Town is on.  Our destination was the Cape of Good Hope, which is the southern-most point of the peninsula (but not of South Africa as a whole... we will visit that point later).  On our way there, we saw a bunch of baboons along the side of the road.  Only in South Africa!  We stayed in the vans, though, because they are apparently quite dangerous!  There were even little baby baboons, which were adorable!  The Cape of Good Hope (Cape Point) gave yet another beautiful view of the ocean and Cape Town.  You could see where the Indian and Atlantic Oceans meet!  To get to the top, you could either climb up the fairly tall hill or take the “Funicular” – a little tram.  A few of us opted for the tram since we literally would not have made it up and down that hill after our Table Mountain excursion!  At the top, there was still a long set of stairs up to a lighthouse where you could see the actual tip of the peninsula.  Ouch, was it ever painful going up (and mostly coming back down) those stairs!  We looked like a bunch of old women with arthritis or something!  After Cape Point, we went to Boulders Beach, where there is a colony of penguins!  Penguins in South Africa!  They were so cute!  They just hang out by the beach, but you can’t go touch them or anything – you just walk along a bridge and take pictures.  They make weird calling noises... and they don’t dance like Happy Feet.  We had dinner at a church, made for us by Corvell’s mom and some other ladies at the church.  It was so nice to have a home-cooked meal!  Lamb, chicken pot pie, veggies, potatoes... yummo!  We will be eating there for the next two nights and I think we are all looking forward to it!  We met some natives and had the pleasure of hearing a wonderful men’s gospel group called “His Men.”  We also had a little introduction to education in South Africa from a friend of Corvell’s.  We are going to be at the University of Cape Town for the next three days, so I am excited to learn more about post-apartheid education and what we can expect when we start teaching in another week or so!

Well, I’d say that’s about all for now!  But that means I have to try to move from this position and it might take me 10 minutes to get up.  Better do some yoga stretches before bed to loosen up these muscles!  I do have a cell phone here, although it can get costly to call from the U.S.  The number is 011-27-814835959.  Or, now that we have wireless, I may be able to skype.  My skype name is megan.salada89.  I’d love to talk, but keep in mind we’re six hours ahead!

Peace, love, and penguins :)

Megan