World Tour 08-09: January 2-3, 2009

The "Poo On You" Edition:

We woke on January 2 and decided to take the Blue Line again and visit the World of Birds and Houts Bay – only this time with sunscreen on my knees. After walking, again, to the Waterfront, we boarded the bus and were on our way.

Our first stop of the day was the World of Birds. This is somewhat misleading as they have every animal you can imagine there. They had walk-through aviaries so that you could get up-close to the birds (but be careful, they bite!) and so that you can get poo on your shoe – hey that rhymes! We also saw tiny monkeys (that Chris tried to get to hop on his shoulder with a stick – not the best idea), penguins, alpacas, guinea pigs and tons else. I didn’t take many photos of this place as Chris pulled his Annie Lebowitz all over the park (“hey, my camera can take up to 1000 photos!”). I’ll have those as soon as he burns them to CD for me. One thing I did take a photo of was this wonderful sign that I, personally, think should be posted at restaurants, theme parks, zoos, malls, or anywhere else that I frequent.


After our visit to the World of Birds, we made our way over to Houts Bay. Houts Bay is a cute little town on an inlet of the Atlantic full of fish markets, antique and souvenir shops, restaurants and meal carts, and sightseeing boats that offer to take you to Seal Island and a shipwreck. After a quick burger from one of the vendors on the beach, we made our way over to a charter boat going to the island and to the shipwreck. The wind was in my hair (yes, both of them on my head) and the scenery was beautiful.

We eventually made it to Seal Island, which isn’t really an island at all, but more of a couple of rocks off the coast where a bunch of seals sit in the sun. And I mean a bunch of seals! And it smelled really, really bad. Poo everywhere!


After sitting just off Seal Island so the hundreds of European tourists could take 5 million photos of seals, we traveled another 15 min or so to the shipwreck of the American. Evidently in a storm in 1994, this boat ran aground and could not be saved. It eventually came to shore in the remote area between Cape Town and Houts Bay and due to the cost associated with salvaging it, it was abandoned for tourists to gawk at. A photo is below and prepare yourself for the “Metaphor for the Bush Years” jokes!


After the boat ride, we boarded the bus and headed back to the Waterfront and the guest house to get ready for dinner out with Chris at a Wok-style restaurant down the street.

The next day, we were told that we had to go downtown to see the festival. The name of the festival would be seen as fairly racially-insensitive (read: offensive) in the States, so I’ll just call it the festival. From the description we were given, it seemed to be a mixture of a Mardi Gras parade in New Orleans and the Mummers Parade in Philadelphia. We made our way downtown around 11:00 AM. Upon arriving, we made our way to the parade route right as a group was marching by to an odd arrangement of Malaguena (although Chris doesn’t think that was – but I’m sure of it). We promptly took our place on the sidewalk and waited… and waited… and waited for the next group to walk by. Unbeknownst to us, there was some sort of disagreement between the organizers and the members of a local mosque. About 12:45 we decided to leave and head to the top of Table Mountain.

Table Mountain is the signature “skyline” of Cape Town. It is a large flat mountain that is the backdrop of the city and they have constructed a cable/gondola contraption that took you to the top. I was a bit leery to go to the top, as I could see clouds encompassing the peak, but Chris talked me into it and I’m glad we did.


We took the gondola to the top and saw the clouds passing beneath us as we looked down on the city from about 3200 feet. It was a beautiful view and the clouds rolling over the top of the mountain was just icing on the cake. Once we gathered our composure, we went for a short hike around the top of the peak and take some photos.


After we descended the mountain we went back to the guest house to get ready for dinner at what turned out to be a horrible Italian restaurant near our hotel. It was horribly cliched with writing all over the walls from tourists claiming it was the best Italian resturant in the world. I should have seen the writing on the wall (although most of it was from 1971 and it had evidently gone downhill from there).

World Tour 08-09: Dec 30, '08 - Jan 1, '09

The "Boy Are My Knees Sunburned" Edition

When last I left you, I was in the Johannesburg Airport on a 3 hour layover to Cape Town. When we had made the transfer from Emirates to South African Airways, we had asked the gate agents about getting on an earlier flight. She responded in a put off way, “I’m sorry, all of the flights are full.” For the record there were 3 additional flights between the time of check-in and the time we were to depart. Somehow, I think she lied. We arrived at our gate about 45 minutes before we were to take off to be met with only 2-3 people. Once it became time to board, there were approximately 10 people (including us) on the flight. This would have seemed appropriate if we were not on a plane with a capacity of over 130. We skipped going back to Row 31 and plopped ourselves in the Exit Rows for our 1 hour and 45 min flight to Cape Town. The thing that stands out about the flight was the fact that on a 1 hour and 45 min flight, they served us a full meal (chicken curry). When was the last time that you had a domestic flight (in economy) less than 5 hours and they gave you anything more than a bag of Chex mix?

We arrived in Cape Town and was met by a very nice driver from the guest house. As we made our way to the trendy Greenpointe neighborhood, the driver pointed out and explained a lot of what we were seeing: The townships of shacks along the highway that the government is trying to replace before the 2010 World Cup, the largest hospital in South Africa, the new Greenpointe Stadium where many matches will be held in the 2010 World Cup… I wish I had paid more attention because he seemed very excited and the talk seemed interesting. However, I had been on a plane or in the airport for nearly 14 hours and it was 1AM in Dubai (where we had flown in from) and I was just looking forward to a nice long rest.

When in Cape Town, we stayed at a lovely place called David’s Guest House. Ok, it doesn’t sound too exciting from its name, but it was 2 really cute row-houses just up the hill from Main Road in Cape Town. It was easily walkable to many of the touristy areas of Cape Town, and cabs were available to everywhere else. We started New Year’s Eve having breakfast with some of our fellow guests and our hosts, Hannes and David. During breakfast, it was suggested that we take the City Sightseeing Blue Line bus that would allow us to go around Table Mountain and get a better idea of what we could do in the city. So we walked down to the V&A Waterfront and boarded the bus.


The bus trip was beautiful. It is an off/on bus, meaning you can get off anywhere you like and then you can hop on another one when you want and that they come every 45 minutes or so. The Blue Line took us to downtown Cape Town, then around to Kirstenbosh Botanical Gardens, then to a place called the World of Birds. It then went around to the coast at Houts Bay, back along the coast to Camps Bay and then to the Waterfront again. Chris decided to depart at the Botanical Gardens and I continued on, taking in the scenery all the way back to the Waterfront. Lesson to be learned: the African sun is very unforgiving and while I put sunscreen on my neck, arms, face, ears, and everywhere else above my waist with exposed flesh, I missed the very top of my knees – which were burned badly from the ride in the open top bus.


After departing the bus, I spent some time walking around the Waterfront and did some souvenir shopping, watched an 80’s cover band perform in the amphitheatre and returned to the guest house to prepare for the New Year’s Eve celebrations.

Hannes and David threw a small party in the main area of the Guest House for the guests and neighbors. It was a very nice party where you could meet your fellow travelers and folks from the neighborhood. I spoke at great length with an elderly couple that lived down the street. “I was a loose woman when I lived in Western Africa, before I met my husband, of course,” the woman said. And it seemed that everyone we came into contact with asked our opinion of Obama. One thing that really shocked me was the lack of the Americans. The only American that I met in Cape Town was a gentleman who was raised in Atlanta, but was working in Western Africa.

About 10:30PM, Chris and I decided to go to the Waterfront for the festivities and decided to share a cab and get a couple of drinks with 2 girls from Ireland who were working in the UAE. They had come to South Africa for the holidays and from the moment they left Dubai, their trip had been a nightmare – missed connections, cancelled tours, spending an unplanned night in Nairobi and Johannesburg en route to Cape Town. As they told us their stories, I became more and more horrified. To top it all off, Kathleen, Chris’s “date” for the evening had purchased a new camera for the trip and it was stolen out of her purse as we sat at the bar. As we sat talking at an outside table at an Irish Pub at the waterfront, the fireworks went off as Midnight brought in 2009. We all looked at each other and I kissed Adelle and Chris kissed Kathleen. I don’t think that would be foreshadowing any major life changes in 2009, however. *grin*


Zach and his “date” Adelle from Ireland/UAE

After talking at the bar until 1:30AM, I decided to walk back to the Guest House and let Chris and the girls have another drink. After a quick shower in what I will call our bathroom in the Guest House, I went to bed.

The bathroom itself had most everything you could want: a giant bathtub, toilet, sink, mirror. The only things missing were a door, a shower curtain and a shower head. Now, I’ve been to Europe and I know many of the bathrooms there are a bit “different” from those in the States, but come on – a door? Every time one of us wanted to shower, we had to send the other one out to have breakfast or check our email.

New Years Day was rather uneventful, from my perspective. I decided to lounge around the guest house, nap, read my book (A Thousand Splendid Suns – I highly recommend it) and generally be a couch potato – I am on vacation for goodness sakes. Chris, however, couldn’t let the day get by him and he raced off to do some touristy stuff. The only thing productive that I did this day was go to a late dinner with Chris at a tapas place and then made my way to the bars for a bit.

And that brings us to January 2.