HAPPY EASTER!!! I’m a little sad I’m not home. But I have very little sense of days and stuff like that, so it barely even occurred to me that it was Easter.
My FDP for Abel got cancelled. I was kind of happy about that. I had already done the shark diving and wanted to spend one day in Cape Town. I felt badly for him because he wasn’t able to go shark diving or anything. He had another FDP the first day to go to the first day in Cape Town to an aquaculture facility then was out on a safari for three days, like most of us. Everyone’s shark diving on the last day got cancelled. I felt really badly for them. It was so awesome. I was glad that Bea, Victor, and Becca were able to get theirs in two days earlier. It was getting rough when they were out there. Everything after that was cancelled.
I met up with Victor and Bea in Tymitz Square at 0830. We walked down the water front and got a cab to take us to Table Mountain. It was really windy out. When we got out at the base of the mountain Victor’s bag was blown up in the air. It was making me a little nervous for this hike. We got food and water at a little shop. While Bea and I were standing in line for food, a man who worked there asked us if we were planning on hiking. That was pretty obvious, I was in my hiking boots (thank you Mom!) with my backpack. We said yes. He looked really concerned and said, “Please, don’t climb up there today. It’s really not safe in these winds. The cable car to get back down isn’t running because of the winds and nothing is open up top. There’s no one on the mountain right now.”
This made us a little worried so we went and told Victor about that. We ran into Ally and Micha, and another girl who had been planning on hiking it, too. They decided they’d hike up a little ways. We decided against it. Everyone we had talked to who had climbed it in the past week said that it was a challenge on a good day and to be prepared. But everyone had taken the cable car down, it’s generally not advised to hike back down. They close it when there’s a lot of wind, it’s a pretty common occurrence.
Plus, the tablecloth was covering the mountain. The tablecloth is the cloud that randomly covers the top part of the mountain. There can be no clouds in the sky, like today, but there’s still a cloud over the top. So we couldn’t be able to check out the view anyways. It’s like at Mt. Fuji. The clouds just cover the top part of the mountain. I love that I can compare Table Mountain to Mt. Fuji. That’s so crazy since I’ve been to both.
Victor told me the story behind the tablecloth. Apparently, the legend is that the devil and the pirate are challenging each other to a smoking contest. The two of them are sitting up at the top of the mountain and smoking weed. This has been an ongoing competition for thousands of years. Haha, such a great story.
So we talked to the tourist agency there to see if we could get a cab to take us to a vineyard so we could do a wine tasting. But it was going to cost us about $100 to take a cab there, then about $50 for the tour and then however much on wine. We’d have to sign up for a 1300 tour, we didn’t have enough time to get out there and do it and come back before on-ship time. Oh well.
Our next brilliant plan was to go to the aquarium to dive in the tank. It was right by the waterfront. So we hopped in a cab with two of the teachers on the ship. They had been planning on taking the cable car up for the morning, but since it was closed they were just going to head back to the water front. It made the cab ride a lot less expensive since they were willing to pay for more of it. They knew Bea and Victor.
We said goodbye and headed in. It was just about to open at 0930, hard to believe we were there before it opened. Things like that never happen to me. We talked to the customer services people, but they had just booked the final slots for the day. GAHHHHH. We had been so excited for each of our plans: Table Mountain, wine tasting, the aquarium. None of it worked out.
We checked out the craft market right along the waterfront next to the aquarium. It had just opened. We found a little set up that took your picture and computer animated it so you were somewhere different or with a celebrity or Spiderman or with wild animals. We wanted to do something so we took a picture of the three of us riding a dolphin getting attacked by a great white shark. So worth the $9 we paid for it. It’s even laminated so I can use it as a placemat.
After spending a little while at the craft market we took a taxi to Long Street. Most of the shops were closed for Easter. The Green Market right off of Long Street was open. I got a sweet beaded great white shark. I love all the beaded artwork that they have around South Africa. It’s absolutely beautiful. I can hang it from my ceiling when I get back.
We could only spend so much time there. We walked down Long Street in search of an open shop or a restaurant. Bea and I had really wanted to do some shopping for some new dresses. We’d seen a bunch we liked the night before when we were out and had peaked in the stores. We ended up stopping at Picwick’s. It was one of the only restaurants open, or at least open at 1030 on Easter Sunday.
We went upstairs, the only hiking my boots really got that day. The three of us sat out on the balcony. In the early morning it was sunny and we were pretty warm sitting out there. But as the morning progressed we ended up being chilly in our hiking attire. We decided we’d just stay there for the day and keep ordering food and drink some wine.
Our first round of drinks was milkshakes. Victor and I had the most delicious chocolate and peppermint liqueur milkshakes. They were sooo good and we downed them in minutes. We ordered so much food. I got onion rings for an appetizer. Bea got some camembert fried cheese plate and Victor got banobacon. Banobacon is fried bacon and bananas then dipped in maple syrup. I tried it, it was wicked good. But definitely a heart attack waiting to happen. Then our lunch came out a little while later. I got a 5 Sisters York burger. It was a fat burger with cheddar cheese, fried onions, garlic, and bacon. So good. Then we ordered some red wine and split a bottle between me and Victor. We ended up spending about 4 hours there just hanging out eating and drinking. It was a lot of fun, so relaxing.
After we decided that we’d been there for long enough we paid our check and got a taxi back to the waterfront to do some final shopping and looking around before getting on the ship. We walked through the little gift stores along the water and got some postcards and basic little South Africa gifts. There were so many people along here going in and out of the shops. It was a good day to be outside. It was windy, but generally it was pretty nice out. There were all sorts of street performers gathering crowds. It wasn’t even all SAS people out there. It was a combination of tourists and locals out for Easter.
We spent a few hours shopping around the mall, getting the rest of our World Cup attire and presents for everyone back home. Cape Town has had some of the coolest stuff for gifts. The mall was huge. I was wishing I was dressed in more appropriate attire to do some shopping and try on nice clothes. Unfortunately I was only in spandex pants and a tshirt and hiking boots. I looked slightly ridiculous for being in a mall with my North Face backpack.
I got more stuff and we wandered about. Then we ended up going and getting ice cream at Haagen Das or however you spell it. Ice cream there ended up costing like $10. So ridiculous. But quite delicious. By this point it was about 1530 and we were thinking about getting back on the ship. We stopped in at the hotel right in front of the ship along the water to see if they had stamps for Bea. They didn’t, but gave us the name of a few places in the mall that would probably have some. Victor went back to the ship to sleep and the two of us went questing for stamps.
We stopped at one store first and I got a rhino keychain, trying to get rid of my coins and little change that I had left. Stuff that wouldn’t be worth holding on to exchange when I get back to the US.
Then we went on to two different bookstores, a grocery store, a closed post office, and a few gift shops and none of them had stamps. Each place had sent us somewhere different. We had basically given up. We decided to walk back through the hotel to see if we could write a postcard and pay them to send it later, since it was Easter Sunday and nowhere seemed to be open for stamps or they wouldn’t sell them to us today. Strange. We stopped at the last store in the mall, the first one we’d been to on the way in. We asked if they had stamps. They did! Miracles beyond miracles. We bought them and headed back to the ship. It was so much less stressful than getting on in Mauritius. We were back with enough time. We leisurely strolled on at 1730. On-ship time was 1800.
I gathered up all my receipts from stuff I’d bought in South Africa to bring to an agent on the ship to fill out refund cards for the VAT. I wrote out a postcard and got everything done before 1800. I went up and took a few pictures of Table Mountain and Cape Town before we left.
I found Becca and said hello to everyone I could find then went off to clean up my room. It was so windy, I figured it would be rough when we got out to sea at night and everything would be flying around. So I did a pretty good job cleaning up and putting stuff away.
A few hours later they announced throughout the ship that we wouldn’t be leaving for awhile because the port was shut down and we weren’t allowed to leave. The weather and wind was too bad. The weather itself seemed fine, it was clear out, but the wind and waves in the harbor were bad. Apparently right outside of Cape Town the ocean can be really rough and the area is known as the mini Bermuda Triangle and a lot of ships sink there. Wonderful.
Everyone filtered through our room at some point of the night. As it got later Becca, Victor, his roommate, and I watched I Hope They Serve Beer in Hell. I was able to buy it on iTunes when I had internet at the River Lodge. I had been dying to see it, since I love Tucker Max. But it didn’t turn out to be that good. It was a combination of a few of his stories, but it had a love story in it. Eh, not what I wanted.
I was exhausted by the time it was over and was so glad to get back to my room and get into bed to sleep. 0800 class the next day was not going to be fun to get up to. I wonder if I’ll even be able to wake up for it.
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