Cape Town Experiences (aka: World's Longest Blog Entry)
written 11/18/07
Ooog…I’m feeling the downside of my little blog break: WAY too much to catch up on. I don’t have the discipline to write about everything, so instead I will give you a sampling of what I have done. I try to make sure my travels are well-rounded. Helps fight travel fatigue (ie…not wanting to cross the street to see yet another cathedral in Europe). So here’s a sampling of my recent activities in four different areas: culture, adventure, excursions, and education.
(And no, I don’t travel with set categories—so stop picturing me diligently entering each completed activity neatly into an Excel spreadsheet. I’m uptight, but not that uptight. He he. )
CULTURE SAMPLE---PRAISING WITH THE LOCALS
I really like experiencing different religious practices, so I was thrilled when Ursula, one of the Aviva drivers, invited some of us to church with her one Sunday. She described the service for us, and it sounded perfect! (In the words of one of my fellow volunteers: “Happy Clappy”.)
And I didn’t just attend, I joined in. It was great. There’s a portion where people go up front and dance, and I just couldn’t help myself. I’m sure I looked a fool, but then I also think one of the essential skills of a traveler is the ability to make a rather extravagant fool of oneself.(I remember reading this phrase somewhere, and deciding then and there that that is how I would travel.) I’m not sure what the other volunteers truly thought of my little participatory religious experience (inappropriate? funny? embarrassing?), but a few church-goers came up to me afterward and said they enjoyed dancing with me. :)
(People in the congregation were taking photos. Not sure why. However, it emboldened me to take a few snaps, which are at right).
It was a really long service—over two hours—with lots of singing and praying and talks. My spiritual maturity level isn’t quite big enough for two whole hours on a wooden pew, so I appreciated the experience but also appreciated when it was finally done. After the service, we had a Thanksgiving-caliber feast at Ursula’s.
(L to R: Kristen, Henriet, Patain, Ursula [standing], Wendolyn, and Molly.)
ADVENTURE SAMPLE---SHARK CAGE DIVING
I also went diving with Great White Sharks. Yep, little fleshy me in the water with a 10ft killer shark no more than an arms length away. It was crazy! :)
The dive spot was “Shark Alley”, just off Gaansbai and about 90 minutes drive from Cape Town. Gaansbai is the best place in the world (!) to go diving with sharks, so it was a once in a lifetime experience. (You can also shark cage dive off Australia and North America, but it takes over a day at sea to get to the sharks).
It’s was truly an awe-inspiring experience to be IN the water so close to such a powerful, intelligent predator. I had no idea how enormous sharks are! It was awesome (in the true sense of the word, not the Southern California slang sense)
Shark cave diving sounds impressive but really, it’s not scary. It just sounds frightening. It’s not as safe as sitting at the shore, but heck…that reminds me of the quote: “A ship in port is safe, but that’s not what ships are built for.”
Basically, you’re in a cage (show below at left, before being lowered into the water) so you are totally secure. In the photo on the right, that’s me in the far right of the cage, just before being lowered down.
Once the cage has been lowered, the boat crew throws bait (chum) into the water out in front of the cage, on a line, and the sharks smell the blood and head on over. In just two hours we had seven or eight different sharks swimming around the boat, grabbing at the bait (not all at the same time though—that would have been COOL!)
Here are shots of the fish bait, the boat, and the human bait. (No just kidding…that’s Chelsea and Kristen, two people I went with).
Photographing sharks is like photographing whales, and you already know how I feel about that. So I only took two or three pictures, then put my camera away and just enjoyed the sightings. Here is my best shot (that’s the cage in the bottom right corner):
EXCURSIONS SAMPLE---TRAIN RIDE ALONG THE COAST
One overcast day, I took the train along the coastline to see some of the charming little towns along False Bay.
I went with Rianne, a volunteer from the Netherlands who was staying at the Cape Town house for a few days before leaving for her volunteer assignment out east.
Our first stop was Simonstown—the prettiest town on False Bay, especially with all the Victorian buildings lining the main road. The town has been a naval base since its founding—first British, then South African—so it has a distinctly nautical feel. We ate greasy fish and chips at Salty’s Sea Dog—a local institution—then wandered along the main streets and hiked up to the cobbled lanes of the residential areas.
After Simonstown, we headed for neighboring Kalk Bay, which was basically another Simonstown with an added bohemian vibe. We wandered around the main road and the residential areas here as well, then stopped for two huge portions of decadent chocolate cake in a restored 1904 train car.
Apart from the sporadic bursts of rain, it was a really nice day. But then again, in my book any day that involves a train ride is a good day. :)
EDUCATIONAL SAMPLE---A VISIT TO ROBBEN ISLAND
Last weekend Kaity, Kristen, Molly and I went to Robben Island—South Africa’s Alcatraz, but for political prisoners (people fighting against the apartheid system). Like Alcatraz, it has been turned into a tourism site, although this one’s a World Heritage Site because of its historic importance.
We were guided around the island by two former prisoners, who shared their personal stories and the stories of other prisoners.
It’s all pretty shocking and stupid, all very in keeping with apartheid logic:
-All guards were white, all prisoners were black or ‘colored’ (In South Africa, the terms ‘black’ and ‘colored’ are politically correct. Colored refers to a person of mixed race or non-European and non-black, ie…Indian.)
-Prisoners were kept in cells smaller than the kennels for the prison dogs and treatment was harsh, particularly for the imprisoned leaders of banned political parties (pictured at right). ie…the former leader of the party now in power in South African (the ANC) spent nine years in solitary confinement.
-Even within the prison, blacks received less food and less clothing than colored prisoners.
Of course, it’s Nelson Mandela’s cell that most of us wanted to see. I knew this before I came, but…Nelson Mandela truly is a great man. He experienced so much persecution and pain at the hands of the apartheid regime, but he chose forgiveness over resentment and revenge. Everyone credits South Africa’s smooth transition into democracy to Nelson—to his example of forgiveness, to his emphasis on reconciliation, to his…greatness. It really is remarkable that apartheid just kind of ended. The treatment of blacks and colored was HORRENDOUS for almost a century, but when it ended, it just ended. No massive bloodshed, no horrible tales of revenge. It’s really incomprehensible to me.
Although, all is not perfect. I don’t want to paint too rosy a picture however. Racially-motivated violence—revenge—against white farmers is occurring up in the northern part of the country. Under the slogan “Kill a farmer; Kill a Boer” (Boer is Afrikaans for farmer), hundreds of white farmers have been murdered in South Africa in the last several decades—murdered solely because of the color of their skin and the anger that still exists against white landowners in that area.
North of Johannesburg there’s a hillside monument to those that have been murdered. I saw it on the way back from the monkey sanctuary. I had heard about it so I was on the lookout, but I hadn’t expected to see so many crosses—hundreds upon hundreds of them. (Part of the monument is pictured below. I was on a moving bus so I wasn’t able to capture all the crosses.) I hope this is a remnant of fading animosity, not a window into what’s to come.
Ooog…I’m feeling the downside of my little blog break: WAY too much to catch up on. I don’t have the discipline to write about everything, so instead I will give you a sampling of what I have done. I try to make sure my travels are well-rounded. Helps fight travel fatigue (ie…not wanting to cross the street to see yet another cathedral in Europe). So here’s a sampling of my recent activities in four different areas: culture, adventure, excursions, and education.
(And no, I don’t travel with set categories—so stop picturing me diligently entering each completed activity neatly into an Excel spreadsheet. I’m uptight, but not that uptight. He he. )
CULTURE SAMPLE---PRAISING WITH THE LOCALS
I really like experiencing different religious practices, so I was thrilled when Ursula, one of the Aviva drivers, invited some of us to church with her one Sunday. She described the service for us, and it sounded perfect! (In the words of one of my fellow volunteers: “Happy Clappy”.)
And I didn’t just attend, I joined in. It was great. There’s a portion where people go up front and dance, and I just couldn’t help myself. I’m sure I looked a fool, but then I also think one of the essential skills of a traveler is the ability to make a rather extravagant fool of oneself.(I remember reading this phrase somewhere, and deciding then and there that that is how I would travel.) I’m not sure what the other volunteers truly thought of my little participatory religious experience (inappropriate? funny? embarrassing?), but a few church-goers came up to me afterward and said they enjoyed dancing with me. :)(People in the congregation were taking photos. Not sure why. However, it emboldened me to take a few snaps, which are at right).
It was a really long service—over two hours—with lots of singing and praying and talks. My spiritual maturity level isn’t quite big enough for two whole hours on a wooden pew, so I appreciated the experience but also appreciated when it was finally done. After the service, we had a Thanksgiving-caliber feast at Ursula’s.
(L to R: Kristen, Henriet, Patain, Ursula [standing], Wendolyn, and Molly.)ADVENTURE SAMPLE---SHARK CAGE DIVING
I also went diving with Great White Sharks. Yep, little fleshy me in the water with a 10ft killer shark no more than an arms length away. It was crazy! :)
The dive spot was “Shark Alley”, just off Gaansbai and about 90 minutes drive from Cape Town. Gaansbai is the best place in the world (!) to go diving with sharks, so it was a once in a lifetime experience. (You can also shark cage dive off Australia and North America, but it takes over a day at sea to get to the sharks).
It’s was truly an awe-inspiring experience to be IN the water so close to such a powerful, intelligent predator. I had no idea how enormous sharks are! It was awesome (in the true sense of the word, not the Southern California slang sense)
Shark cave diving sounds impressive but really, it’s not scary. It just sounds frightening. It’s not as safe as sitting at the shore, but heck…that reminds me of the quote: “A ship in port is safe, but that’s not what ships are built for.”
Basically, you’re in a cage (show below at left, before being lowered into the water) so you are totally secure. In the photo on the right, that’s me in the far right of the cage, just before being lowered down.
Once the cage has been lowered, the boat crew throws bait (chum) into the water out in front of the cage, on a line, and the sharks smell the blood and head on over. In just two hours we had seven or eight different sharks swimming around the boat, grabbing at the bait (not all at the same time though—that would have been COOL!) Here are shots of the fish bait, the boat, and the human bait. (No just kidding…that’s Chelsea and Kristen, two people I went with).
Photographing sharks is like photographing whales, and you already know how I feel about that. So I only took two or three pictures, then put my camera away and just enjoyed the sightings. Here is my best shot (that’s the cage in the bottom right corner):
EXCURSIONS SAMPLE---TRAIN RIDE ALONG THE COAST
One overcast day, I took the train along the coastline to see some of the charming little towns along False Bay.
I went with Rianne, a volunteer from the Netherlands who was staying at the Cape Town house for a few days before leaving for her volunteer assignment out east. Our first stop was Simonstown—the prettiest town on False Bay, especially with all the Victorian buildings lining the main road. The town has been a naval base since its founding—first British, then South African—so it has a distinctly nautical feel. We ate greasy fish and chips at Salty’s Sea Dog—a local institution—then wandered along the main streets and hiked up to the cobbled lanes of the residential areas.
After Simonstown, we headed for neighboring Kalk Bay, which was basically another Simonstown with an added bohemian vibe. We wandered around the main road and the residential areas here as well, then stopped for two huge portions of decadent chocolate cake in a restored 1904 train car. 
Apart from the sporadic bursts of rain, it was a really nice day. But then again, in my book any day that involves a train ride is a good day. :)EDUCATIONAL SAMPLE---A VISIT TO ROBBEN ISLAND
Last weekend Kaity, Kristen, Molly and I went to Robben Island—South Africa’s Alcatraz, but for political prisoners (people fighting against the apartheid system). Like Alcatraz, it has been turned into a tourism site, although this one’s a World Heritage Site because of its historic importance.
We were guided around the island by two former prisoners, who shared their personal stories and the stories of other prisoners.
It’s all pretty shocking and stupid, all very in keeping with apartheid logic:-All guards were white, all prisoners were black or ‘colored’ (In South Africa, the terms ‘black’ and ‘colored’ are politically correct. Colored refers to a person of mixed race or non-European and non-black, ie…Indian.)
-Prisoners were kept in cells smaller than the kennels for the prison dogs and treatment was harsh, particularly for the imprisoned leaders of banned political parties (pictured at right). ie…the former leader of the party now in power in South African (the ANC) spent nine years in solitary confinement. -Even within the prison, blacks received less food and less clothing than colored prisoners.
Of course, it’s Nelson Mandela’s cell that most of us wanted to see. I knew this before I came, but…Nelson Mandela truly is a great man. He experienced so much persecution and pain at the hands of the apartheid regime, but he chose forgiveness over resentment and revenge. Everyone credits South Africa’s smooth transition into democracy to Nelson—to his example of forgiveness, to his emphasis on reconciliation, to his…greatness. It really is remarkable that apartheid just kind of ended. The treatment of blacks and colored was HORRENDOUS for almost a century, but when it ended, it just ended. No massive bloodshed, no horrible tales of revenge. It’s really incomprehensible to me. Although, all is not perfect. I don’t want to paint too rosy a picture however. Racially-motivated violence—revenge—against white farmers is occurring up in the northern part of the country. Under the slogan “Kill a farmer; Kill a Boer” (Boer is Afrikaans for farmer), hundreds of white farmers have been murdered in South Africa in the last several decades—murdered solely because of the color of their skin and the anger that still exists against white landowners in that area.
North of Johannesburg there’s a hillside monument to those that have been murdered. I saw it on the way back from the monkey sanctuary. I had heard about it so I was on the lookout, but I hadn’t expected to see so many crosses—hundreds upon hundreds of them. (Part of the monument is pictured below. I was on a moving bus so I wasn’t able to capture all the crosses.) I hope this is a remnant of fading animosity, not a window into what’s to come.
