Penguins and Peninsulas

I had to wake up really early on Sunday for a tour of the Cape of Good Hope Peninsula. The entire group walked up to middle campus where we met all the other international students and we got on big red tour busses. The busses took us into the city center and past all the major tourist destinations of Cape Town. There was a huge Dutch windmill, the old City Hall, Green Point Stadium (World Cup host cite), the Waterfront area, and the nearby beaches.

As we exited the central city, we took a twisty and narrow road along the shore and past all the expensive beach houses of Cape Town. Some of the homes we passed where massive and the most expensive in the country… maybe the continent. One interesting fact is that none of the actual beaches are private, so anyone may still visit these beaches even though they are surrounded by really nice homes. Soon after we arrived at an African Penguin reserve beach, which was private… for the penguins only. They were much smaller than penguins from Antarctica; most likely they just don’t need all the fat to stay warm since these penguins just stood in the sun, on the beach! On a side note: they also smelled really bad!

Back on the busses, we drove to the community of Oceanview near Simon’s Town. This was one of the towns where Coloured people were relocated to during Apartheid. As a result, this township was very poor and had no diversity outside of the Coloured group. We went to a local community centre where the town put together a lunch and show for our group. We had a traditional meat and rice dish; it was mysterious but good. Then, the local youth displayed their musical, vocal, and dance talents including the best break-dancing I have ever seen and a little boy who looked like Michael Jackson…. Who could dance just as well as MJ!!! It was probably one of the craziest things I have ever seen!!!

Finally, we made our way to the Cape of Good Hope (The South-western most point of Africa) and hiked to the lighthouse at the tip where we got an AMAZING view of the coastline and the ocean.

Back in Cape Town we did a group dinner along the Waterfront where we had sushi and wine at a REALLY nice restaurant… and the meal cost less than $20!!! South Africa is truly amazing and inexpensive! Afterwards, we walked along the World Cup fan walk to Long Street. This is the main tourist street in town and resembled New Orleans’ French Quarter. Some of us went to The Dubliner, an Irish pub, where there was karaoke and dancing. It’s amazing how much we were able to do in one day!!!