Cape Town thus far = AMAZING!

Hello from South Africa!!
Today was my second day here in Cape Town, so far it’s been amazing! We got here yesterday, Friday, in the morning after spending two days at sea from Namibia. The waters got really rough the closer we got to SA so by the time we got here everyone was ready to walk around on solid ground again! Some friends and I decided the first thing we wanted to do in Cape Town was climb the famous Table Mountain! So as soon as we were allowed to get off the ship we took off to find a taxi to take us to the bottom of the mountain so we could find a trail and make our way up the 3,500 ft. mountain! As soon as we got there I realized how much I miss mountains! We got to drive through Cape Town to get to the mountain and the city is beautiful and green with trees and mountains above. Being away from mountains for over a month already is crazy for me! I’ve never been away from them for that long. So even though the summit of Table Mountain is lower in elevation than Boulder (not to mention the mountains above Boulder) it was really exciting to get out and do something active outdoors.

Our taxi driver was really nice and welcomed us to South Africa and upon learning that we were from the United States he asked “so, how is Mr. Bush?” we said oh who knows...then he asked if we liked Obama and we said yes. Yet another country on my list of countries supporting Obama, haha! South Africa has some interesting politics going on right now too actually, about their president resigning recently. I don’t know much about the details though so maybe if I find out more I can write another blog about it later. It’s hard to get news on the ship with such limited internet! I did hear from my mom, however, that Paul Newman just died...so sad! :-(

Anyways, after an interesting taxi ride making conversation with our driver and seeing a little bit of Cape Town, we got to the foot of Table Mountain and started walking up the road looking for a trail head. We found one called Platteklip Gorge, so we took that trail and it turned out to be a gorgeous hike! Probably one of the best hikes I’ve ever done, actually. It was definitely tough but not impossible. My legs are super sore today though! It took us about an hour and a half to hike up and the view from the top was AMAZING! One of the cool things about the hike up was that there were little waterfalls all along the trail and it was very green, with lots of flowers too. So we had a PB&J lunch and walked around the top of the mountain for a while, then hiked back down which took maybe 45 minutes. The top was SO cold! It was hard to remember I was still in Africa, it felt like it could start snowing at any time, it was that cold. But as we headed down it got lots warmer again.

So most of yesterday was the Table Mountain adventure (I have pictures of the hike on Flickr if you want to see!!). The first half of today was spent doing a little walking around near the ship, shopping, and stopping to watch street performers and live music that was all around! Then this evening I did my first SAS-organized trip in SA, it was a “Jazz safari”, not a safari at all but VERY fun! We took a van to the homes of two local, well-known jazz musicians, the first was Robbie Jansen, and the second was Hilton Schilder. Robbie is an older guy who plays the sax, and has been in a few bands and still plays in Cape Town and has played all over the world. His family made us an amazing South African dinner with wine (South Africa has great wine!) we had fish, curry, rice, chicken... so good! A couple of students from the ship that were in the group also played instruments or singing so Robbie got them playing and singing along with him, doing a little improv. It was really cool. His house was small, but beautiful and his family was so nice. Then we went to Hilton Schilder’s house and we had coffee and cookies and listened to him play several instruments, one was a “mouth bow”, I can’t remember the actual name of it but it was very cool, and he also played some piano, drums, and guitar. All around, a really cool night that made me get really into jazz and wish I played one of the instruments I got to listen to tonight!

And now it’s getting late and I’m pretty tired. I’m not sure what I’m doing tomorrow. We’ll see!

Keep those emails coming, and check on my photos!

*peace*