Currency: Rand (7.5 Rand=$1 USD)

Cities Visited: Kalk Bay, Stellenbosch, Cape Town

There are 11 official languages in South Africa and we met many people who spoke at least two of them.  Afrikaans is the language of the Dutch settlers who came to the country (I didn’t know this until our visit).

Many South Africans will tell you that Cape Town is not like the rest of South Africa.  We hope to return to see this for ourselves.

You will need an electric plug adaptor here.

Internet is awful and supposedly is run by a monopolizing company.  You will pay big time to use wireless and/or regular internet. 

Rent a car here; public transportation is expensive, dangerous, unreliable, or doesn’t exist.  With that said, don’t expect to get a car during the holidays.

When parking a car, tip (small change to) the guy who offers to watch it.

Although the apartheid ended more than 15 years ago, it is still on the hearts and minds of many South Africans and it affects them in one way or another.  Take time to appreciate this. 

If you want to go to Robben Island during high season, reserve tickets online ahead of time.  Also, be prepared for tours to be cancelled to the island due to bad weather.

It is not unusual to see barefoot children walking around the city with their families.  In fact, a South African told us that schools encourage students to come barefoot in the summer because they end up losing their shoes otherwise.

Everyone talks about seeing “The Big 5” when going on safaris.  The Big 5 animals originated from game hunters and are difficult to spot on foot.  They are the lion, leopard, elephant, buffalo, and rhino.  If you don’t have a chance to see the big 5, swim with the penguins at Boulder’s Beach at least.   

“Kitsch”-a term used by our South African host, but hard to explain.  It has something to do with gaudy-ish, funny artsy stuff that you might use to decorate your house, but it’s not to be taken seriously. 

Foods and beverages that are a big deal in South Africa: Rooibos tea (who knew?), wine (we all knew), biltong (what?), chutney (like you’d get at an Indian restaurant).

Things we liked:

Deenaree´s list…

• Food: Seafood
• Experience: Ringing in 2010 on the patio of our hotel by the sea with Leonardo and his large group of family and friends
• Something to remember:  The word “emerald” comes to mind when you think of the oceans here – come back when it’s a bit warmer to enjoy swimming in them. 

Ben´s list…

• Food: Biltong (dried meat like beef jerkey, but WAY better)
• Experience: Looking out over the oceans from the Cape of Good Hope
• Something to remember: Loved the atmosphere and scenery in the famous wine region and want to come back to see more of the mom-and-pop organizations

The day we saw the film, we were party to a deception.  Our Couchsurfing host was surprising a friend for her birthday and we were running distraction duty during the late afternoon as he made preparations.  After visiting a museum, we found ourselves at Victoria Wharf mall on the famous Cape Town waterfront.  Wandering around, we looked up movie times at the theater and felt the hours pass as we stumbled past store after store, not really looking for anything in particular except the passage of time.  Eventually, we decided to meet one of our detainee’s friends for a drink at a bar along the waterfront.  We randomly chose Ferryman’s, partly because it was the first place we ran into and partly because they have a really cool outdoor beer garden.  Our time there with our captive and her friend was enjoyable to say the least, with good weather and conversation in abundance.  After the meeting, and once completing our duty of deception, we headed back to Victoria Wharf mall to watch our movie.

Before choosing a movie for the night, we had been hoping to see Avatar in 3D because we had already heard so much about it and were curious at the very least.  Sadly, only the 2D version was offered and we decided to pick another.  As a Guy Ritchie fan, borderline fanatic, I was dying to see Sherlock Holmes, but Deenaree was a bit less enthused.  Finally, we came to Invictus.  Neither of us were that excited about the movie; some of Eastwood’s past work left us confused and we have never liked him as much as the Oscars seem to.  In the end, we decided it would be utter stupidity to miss seeing the film when it was so relevant to our current location.

The film itself was by far our favorite of the Eastwood movies we have seen.  Matt Damon was exceptional as the captain of the lowly Springbok rugby team rising to World Cup champions.  We were particularly impressed with his uncanny portrayal of the South African accent.  With Morgan Freeman as Mandela it was hard to forget he is Morgan Freeman, but he was quite good nonetheless.  The story was told in a way that seemed to portray many of the problems that we had seen and discussed with friends during our time in Cape Town.  The distrust between black and white security personnel on Mandela’s staff seemed very realistic and even the stadium shots were brilliant as the old country flags were slowly replaced by the new South African flags as the team united the country during its run to the championship.

Perhaps the most impressive part of Eastwood’s work was the on-location filming that became magical for us as the team wandered around parts of Cape Town that we had seen only hours or days earlier.  The highlight was a short scene in the middle of the movie, when the team was out for a day of celebration in Cape Town after another improbable win.  The shot lasted for no more than a few seconds, and many in the audience seemed unfazed, but we were immediately startled.  The shot showed the location of the party and it was none other than the Ferryman’s bar we had left just an hour earlier and which sat right outside the theater!  The rest of the scene showed the inside of a bar that could have been any old bar in any part of the world, but we took a number of seconds to recover amongst hushed whispers to each other.

As the movie ended with South Africa the victors over the mighty All-Blacks, we made our way back outside and toward the parking lot a few blocks away.  Naturally, our path took us right past Ferryman’s and we had one more chance to relive what we had just seen.  There is nothing like seeing a movie where the relevance of the topic can be seen all around you, both in insignificant setting shots and the global themes of the movie.

The Cape of Good Hope is located on a peninsula directly to the south of Cape Town.  While it is very close to the city, it is not easily accessible by any kind of public transportation and we rented a car for half our time there just to make sure we could get to it.  The drive down took about an hour from where we were staying in the suburbs east of the city.  What seemed destined to be a spectacular drive on the way there had its moments, but was not particularly impressive.  The land seemed barren and not particularly mountainous once we got on top of the plateau.  However, our arrival at the main gate of the national park amidst signs warning of baboon crossings quickly brought the excitement back to our car.

From the front gate, the drive continues across the plateau for another 20 minutes.  All the while, I was on the lookout for baboons while Deenaree diligently drove us closer to our target.  Finally, we arrived at the very modern visitor’s center and parked our car near the back of the parking lot, the cape already very busy at 10AM.

There are actually two distinct places to visit on the Cape Peninsula.  We decided on the shorter hike first, up to the popular Cape Point lighthouse, which is high up on a bluff overlooking the cape.  Even though the hike was quite steep, we decided to skip the little tram that is offered to take you up.  The views from the lighthouse were fantastic, but we noticed that there was a trail far below us that went further out onto the end of the peninsula and we HAD to make it out as far as we could.  So, we walked down and found the trail out to the end.  As we arrived, the views were amazing.  Looking back toward the visitor’s center and Cape Town, we could see the Atlantic Ocean on left and the Indian Ocean on the right, with our peninsula in between.  The views off the end were equally awesome.

As we moved back toward the car, we decided on a break for ice cream before heading on for the longer hike to the Cape of Good Hope.  The Cape of Good Hope is a spectacular hike down the hill from the national park visitor’s center.  The trail hugs the coast and about halfway to the point, opens up to a spectacular sandy cove with awesome waves crashing to the beach well below the trail.  It was tempting to make the long walk down to the beach, but we decided to wait until the way back to consider the effort.  As we moved on, the trail leads its way back uphill to the point of the cape.  Finally, we were there, took some photos and sat for a rest.  It is spectacular to watch the two mighty oceans collide at a single point.  Shipwrecks and pools of shallow water were apparent from our vantage point high above the seas.  It was wondrous to think that the next landmass was Antarctica and of all the ships that used to sail past this point in the days before canals, reaching the halfway point of their trip from Europe to India or Africa.  Next stop: Antarctica, Ahoy!

On the way back to the car, at the end of the long day of hiking, we decided to hike down to the beach and enjoy the fruits of our labor.  The beach was as beautiful from the bottom as the top and the waves were absolutely enormous.  The water was freezing and not for swimming, but we enjoyed the walk on the sand with the cliffs surrounding nonetheless.  The walk back up was long but we were still too thrilled by the day’s sights to pay it much mind.

As our day ended and we exited the park we were in for one last surprise.  We had entered the park vowing we would not leave until we saw a baboon.  As the wonders of the day unfolded, we soon forgot about our relatives on the peninsula.  However, as we drove towards the exit of the park, a traffic jam formed in front of us.  Sure enough, a family of baboons was walking in the road.  A few perched themselves on a sign and the cars slowly drove by, taking photos before moving on.  As we drove away, with our baboon sighting just behind us, it was hard not to think it was the perfect end to the perfect day.