Coming Home

What an amazing trip, definitely an experience of a lifetime.  It is now time to come home.  In total it will take us 34 hours to travel.... yikes!  See everyone at home in a couple days.

Cape Point

The last day of the trip was a free day on our own.  We decided to go with a group of a few other students on a tour around the Cape Point Peninsula.  Such a beautiful area!  I think we took more pictures this day than any of the other days on the trip.  So there is lots of pictures with this post.  On the first stop we took a boat to a seal island.

We did get a little wet on the boat trip and also, for a few minutes, became the focus of some Pakistani Paparazzi.

Next stop was at a lighthouse which offered us breathtaking coastal views.
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We also stopped at the Cape of Good Hope- the southwestern most point of Africa.

Last stop was at a penguin center. They were oh so cute!

 

Spier Winery

On Saturday we visited the Spier Wine estate. There was a wedding just finishing up when we got there. On one end of the estate they have cheetahs. Until last week they had baby cheetahs to pet but they grew up and were no longer there. They also have a restaurants that serves food from the spire garden and farm - everything on the menu is produced on site. We had a five wine tasting. Three wines were a series of blends, 2, 3 and 5 grape blends, and the other two were part of the 21 gables selection. Spire has more gables on the grounds than any other winery in the area. Dona bought three bottles and Dawn bought some champagne. Hopefully our suitcases aren't over weight! With the wine we had a food tasting. It included olives, meats, cheeses, a pickled spread, squash and chocolate. Delicious!


My recommendation for next year, make a reservation. They almost turned us away because they had so many group reservations and didn't think they could accommodate our group size.

Robben Island

Robben Island is the location that Nelson Mandela was held for most of his time in prison.  We arrived to the island by ferry.  Our guide was a former political prisoner on the island.  He had been part of a group whose mission was to break down the ruling elitist government.  He had set off a bomb at a government building that injured 57 military personnel.  Our guide spoke about the conditions at the prison.  

Initially, all the prisoners were forced to sleep on mats laid on the cement floor of one room in the prison with no room to move.  When one person became uncomfortable sleeping on one side he would nudge his neighbor to roll over to his other side and in a chain movement each prisoner would roll over to his other side. They were not given blankets or anything to provide warmth.  In the winter the island gets to be quite cool and humid.  Pneumonia and other sickness was a big issue for the prisoners.  Our guide spoke about how the physician that examined them would have a stethoscope around his neck and would approach each prisoner and ask them to cough.  The prisoners realized that the doctor never put the stethoscope up to his ears.  Nelson Mandela negotiated with the prison administration to eventually give the prisoners bunk beds and a blanket.

Many things were done to the political prisoners here to try to keep their moral low.  Sometimes a prisoner was told their family had been granted a visit and the prisoner would be brought out to wait with the others to see their visitors, but the family would never show up because they had not been granted a visit.  It was a very lengthy application process for families to be granted permission to see those in the prison.  Often the application process was used as a way to track the family members to see if they had political ties.  The father of our guide was gunned down and became paralyzed shortly after a visit with his son in prison.

Political prisoners were first held with violent criminals which was hoped would negatively impact the political prisoners, but the opposite affect happened.  The political prisoners were so well disciplined and set an example for the violent criminals that they violent prisoners looked to assist the political prisoners where they could.  The violent criminals were eventually separated from the political prisoners and moved to a medium security facility.  The political prisoners remained in the high security facilities.

Cape Town

The best meal on the trip so far was probably our first night in Cape Town at a Portuguese place on the water where we both ordered seafood. They gave us blankets to wrap around our shoulders because it was a bit cold.

Cape Town is a cute coastal town. The hotel is right on the waterfront and we have a view of a Ferris wheel from our window. There are street performers and even a big screen amphitheater area where yesterday afternoon they were playing a rugby game on TV. Before we left they had changed the rugby game to an old episode of Friends.

Table Mountain

We left Jo'berg on Friday and arrived in Cape Town in the early afternoon. We went straight from the airport to Table Mountain. The mountain was covered in a cloud and cold! We took a cable car to the top. The cable car floor spun slowly which is nice so everyone gets to see each direction, but it made Dona sick! After walking around just a few minutes our hair was soaking. We did a short hike and saw a bunch of animals that we can't remember the name of, kind of like big cuddly rats.We had a snack in the cafe at the top. Dawn had ostrich sausage...she said it tasted like greasy sausage, not the best meal on the trip.

Orphanage

One of the best experiences of the whole trip was the visit to the orphanage.  Before we arrived at the orphanage we stopped by a grocery store to buy treats for the children.  Upon our arrival at the orphanage, the man in charge asked that we not give the children the candy until he said it was okay and not to give them any money.  He said that they were trying to teach the children certain values, and did not want the children to think that when they saw strangers enter their village that they should beg and expect handouts.  He needed for there to be some sort of exchange between us and the children before we gave them candy.

We were given a tour of the village, a shanty town.  As we walked through the dirt pathways between the shacks, we had to avoid stepping in the flowing streams of water that ran down the pathways.  One family of about 18 allowed us to enter their little 3 room shack; we could hear mice/rats running about between the slabs of wood and tin that acted as walls for the home.

Back at the orphanage, we were given directions to go to see the girls’ dormitory on the left.  When our group started walking to the room on the right, a teenage girl from the orphanage, in a gentle teasing manner, said to us in perfect English, “I see your English is not very good.  The girls’ dormitory is over there to the left.”

The orphanage also acted as youth center for the community with much focus placed on education.  Dona liked their little library.  The children had prepared a little skit with singing and dancing and performed for us.  At the end of the skit they grabbed everyone of in the audience so that we could dance with them.  What a beautiful exchange we had with these children.  The warmth, smiles and openness of these children despite their circumstances without a doubt touched the hearts of everyone in our group.

Dona and I held the cutest baby, he was probably about 14-16 months, and we both wanted to adopt him so badly.  We also spoke with a 20 year old girl.  She told us that she rode the bus to the city everyday to attend school and was studying human resources.  In our conversation with her, and as part of our assignment to speak with a local, we asked her what she thought was the biggest global issue.  She admitted that her view of the world is quite sheltered, but to her the biggest problem is unemployment (in South Africa the unemployment rate is around 25%).

As we were leaving the children all followed us to the bus.  Dona and I had our picture taken with the girl mentioned above and some other little children.  But I guess while getting our picture taken the little boy needed to go to the bathroom badly and turned to the side.  I had to quickly move my foot to avoid getting peed on. :)