Cape Town!

To start this has been my favorite port yet. I definitely want to come back at one point in my life. The trip did not start out well though. The winds were so high the first day that we couldn’t get into the port. I guess where we docked was pretty narrow and with the high wind we might have crashed or damaged the boat. So that Thursday stuck on the boat was miserable. Everyone was so ready to get off the boat but we all just had to sit on the boat with nothing to do (of course I could have done work but I didn’t…) I felt really badly for some kids though because they were missing their safaris or one of my friends was supposed to meet his parents in cape town. Good thing I had nothing planned and was just going to explore Cape Town that day. Anyways, I spent a good portion on the day in bed with about 5 girls packed into jenna and my beds and watched movies. We got an update at like 5pm saying that we were hopefully going to get in between 11pm and 1am so we got more excited because then at least we would be able to get off the boat and get a drink somewhere. By 3am we gave up though and went to bed when we still hadn’t made any progress toward docking. When I woke up at 8 we were still on the open ocean. Let me tell you I was not happy at all. Luckily the wind had died down and bit and we were able to get off the boat around 12pm which meant I could still go on my Robben Island trip. We got on buses and went to one of the first townships built for blacks removed from the inner part of the city during the beginnings of apartheid. Lunch was very rushed because we had to get back to the docks to get on the boat that would take us to Robben Island and the traffic was crazy because there was a U2 concert in the soccer stadium which is right near the port area. We made the boat though and got to watch the seals swimming along beside us. The most interest part of the tour was that our guide had been a prisoner there for 7 years so he was able to tell us what it was like to actually have been there. He talked about the hunger strikes that the prisoners would do and how different blocks would communicate with each other. I also learned that the island had not always been a prison. One of its original uses was a leprosy community so that the disease would be isolated.
That night we went out to an amazing Italian restaurant port area. It was so odd because walking around looked like the US. Everything was extremely western and new because of the World Cup from last summer. After dinner we went to Long Street which looked exactly like Bourbon Street in New Orleans (with police on horseback and all). We pretty much just bar hopped and met up with other semester at sea kids throughout the night. When I got back to the ship though I had an unwelcome surprise. The safari that I was going on the next morning that was scheduled to leave at 8:30 was moved to a 6am departure…. Waking up at 5 to pack was not a fun experience. After a bus to the airport, an hour long flight, then another van ride we finally made it to the game reserve. The whole safari was absolutely incredible. There were only 6 of us (all kind of odd people but I made the best of it) which made it easy to do a lot of different activities. The next two and a half days were mostly going out in the massive Land Rover and seeing animals. One of the highlights of the trip was when we went on a short hike to go see hippos and on our way back we had to practically run because elephants were coming along out path and we had to get back to the Land Rover before they got there. We were then able to take pictures with the seven elephants 30 feet away. Another highlight was seeing an entire pride of lion with two full grown males, one female, and four cubs (they were 3 years old though so not little anymore). One of the cubs was so close that I could have put my hand out of the Land Rover and touched it. I have some amazing pictures of everything. Had to go back to delete some back picture on the last day because I had filled up my memory card. I was so happy to have Dad’s really big lens which let me take some awesome pictures. Wish I could upload pics to the blog! Here is a list of all the animals I saw though:
Lion, cheetah, buffalo, elephant, whit rhino, black wildebeest (which the south africans pronounce “vildabeest”), blue wildebeest, white lion (there are less that 500 in the world, it’s a rare genetic mutation that makes the lions white instead of yellowy orange), giraffe (including a couple days old one!), zebra, hippopotamus, warthog, black-backed jackal, blesbuck, kudu, nyala, waterbuck, gemsbuck, springbuck, red hartebeest, bushbuck, impala, eland, grey duiker, mountain reedbuck, chamca baboon, and vervet monkey.
So basically saw the big 5 (minus the leopard) and A LOT more.

We got back to the ship that night just in time to get ready and go out to dinner with a bunch of people. The restaurant was about 40 min drive away to this hotel (I think) that also has a winery. Food was much more African with lost of regular and bush meat. They also painted small designs on our faces. Everyone had something different. Unfortunately I got a design across my forehead that looked like a unibrow… so cute.  That night we went back to Cape Town and bar hopped again with other semester at sea kids.

The next day we woke up early to go skydiving! Still can’t believe I actually did it. I went up in the plane with one other girl and the two guys we were strapped onto. We were in the plane for about 20 min where we got the most amazing views of the coast, Table Mountain, and Cape Town. Before I knew it the guy started strapping me onto him and telling me to put on the goggles. My friend I was with went first and watching her fall out of the plane was so crazy. Surprisingly though I wasn’t as nervous as I thought I would be. I think I just convinced myself that I was doing and there was no turning back. After she jumped I had to put both my legs out of the plane and then we just fell. The first couple second were scary and then I was so happy and blown away at how amazing it all was. It was the biggest rush of my entire life. We free fell for 1 min then he opened the parachute at 5,000 feet. Going down in the parachute was just as cool as the free fall. It was so crazy looking down and only seeing your legs and nothing below you. The view was so beautiful. The guy through pulling down on either side of the parachute made us spin in circles. When we landed I was completely speechless and could barely walk my legs were like jelly. I was breathing like I had just sprinted a mile. The whole thing was so awesome.

The rest of the day we all just went back to the port area and had our last non ship meal. On ship time was 6pm so at 5 we went back to the boat. It was depressing getting back on because I wanted to stay in Cape Town longer and do more things.

We are now on our way to Mauritius but lucky for me I have a presentation, midterm, 10 page paper, and four page paper to get through before!

We all realized today that we only have 2 more months left. Time has absolutely flown by!