Tourists Beware!

I was warned before heading to Capetown that it is known as a dangerous place, and just as I had heard the same about Lima, Saigon and other places I have visited, I assumed it was just a standard warning given to all tourists to scare some sense into them. But when you are facing down an angry bum with a knife up his sleeve or even worse, a gang of hungry baboons, you start to believe the rumors are true. Whilst walking down the street in Capetown (in broad daylight) next to the city stadium, ereceted for the World Cup 2010, a bum began pushing his way into my line of vision, asking for money and holding out his hand. All I saw was a handful of beans, and told him "NO" forcefully. The friend I was with, James, started backing away slowly as the bum moved towards him speaking words I couldn't hear, all the while I am yelling things like "James, you don't need any beans", "dude, lets go!" and "why are you harassing him, James can't even afford to buy food." After a weird stand-off between the two, and the appearance of a local woman, the bum ran off. What I later learned is that the bum had a knife up his sleeve, so I spent the rest of the day telling everyone about my unbenunced brush with death. A few days later 5 of us rented a car to drive out to Cape Point, what explorers originally thought to be the most southernly point in Africa. On exiting the park, we decided to make a pit-stop at the Visitor's Center to buy some chocolate (my idea). As the two boys opened the left side doors and got out, Hari, who was sitting in the front passenger seat let out a blood curtling scream. I looked up to see a massive baboon sitting in the front seat, and Hari frantically trying to unbuckle her seatbelt. I opened my door, jumped out, and looked around to see 20+ angry baboons looking at me. A couple got in the car and started going through our bags, one got on top of the car, one was eating a friend's wallet and some others on her toothpaste, as all of us looked on with horror. It was funny until the baboons started attacking us when we tried to get our stuff back, and even scratched one of the friends I was with (after attempting to pull her pants off, which was admittedly pretty funny.) In the end, a long stick and rocks scared them away, but they did manage to get their revenge - they left a nice present of poop in the backseat. Capetown was definitely an amazing city, but tourists beware - it may be as dangerous as they say!!




Stellenbosch, South Africa, is a beautiful college town, situated at the base of lush green mountains and surrounded by hundreds of vineyards. Two full days meant lots of good food, a wine tour (for the rest of the crew), and a bike ride out of town (for myself and friend Esmee.) The following day we arrived Capetown, for our 4-night stay at the Ashanti Lodge. We immediately headed up to the top of Table mountain (via cablecar) because when the mountain isn't covered with cloud cover (which it often is), locals say you should seize the opportunity. Table mountain is exactly as it sounds, a flat mountain (that resembles at table), perched behind Capetown, overlooking the beautiful bay and beaches that surround the city. The following day we took a 45 minute ferry to Robben Island, where until 1984, stood a working prison housing politcal prisoners, including most notably Nelson Mandela (for 18 of his 27 year sentence.) We were guided through the now vacant prison by a former political prisoner, and accompanied by 60+ white, elderly Americans, many of which came off the Queen Mary 2 which happened to be in Capetown's port. Besides the overcrowding, the prison was moving, and only reinforced the racial divide that used to legally exist in South Africa. Unfortunately, as I mentioned in my last blog, each town (including Capetown) stlll has it's racial divide apparent from the unemployment rate (22%), HIV rate (around 80% of blacks) and the shanty towns that line the cities. That afternoon James and I took our fateful walk around the city dodging knives, and visiting some markets and museums.



On my second day in Capetown I got up at 5am and headed 2.5 hours out of town to do a caged shark dive. It wasn't exactly what I expected, considering you don't actually do any diving, there are 20 other people in the boat who you share cage time with and the water is absolutely freezing, but it was overall an amazing expeirence. Five people cram into the cage as fish head bait is thrown out into the water, and then you wait. When the guy on the boat yells "go under", you put your head under water and see the shark attack the bait just a few feet away. When you are on the boat you can watch from above as the sharks breach and dive for their snack. I arrived back in Capetown at 3pm, and set out to hike up to table mountain at 4:00pm for sunset. The hike up was about 1.5 hours straight uphill, but the distant mountains, partially covered in rolling clouds, in the dipping sunlight was one of the prettiest sights I have ever seen. Our final day in Capetown was spent driving around capetown in our rental car, hitting up cute coastal villages, braving the windy cliff-edged roads and ending up at Cape Point.




We are currently on "The Garden Route", the coastal road that runs along coastal South Africa. I will eventually make my way up to Johannsburg for my flight on Febuary 7th.