Cape Town, South Africa

Friday-Thursday, March 2-8, 2007

I am actually going to be in Mauritius tomorrow, but I have not had any time to type up any blog entries for South Africa and the time it took to get to South Africa. The main reason for this is because I have been so busy with other things, such as school work. It is ridiculous at the amount of work I have to do one this ship. I do not think I have every done more work for school. But anyways, here is it:

Cape Town, South Africa- surprisingly enough, it is extremely globalized. It reminded a lot of my friends from California of San Francisco. We ended up docking at the waterfront, which was actually an upgrade from where we were originally supposed to dock. At the waterfront was a huge mall, that had basically every store we have in the states, as well as other stores that we do not have in the states. Then there were little restaurants that were directly on the water. It was a cute little touristy town. So the first day I just walked around with my friends, we did some shopping but nothing to extravagant. Then my friends and I went to the District Six Museum and were able to visit a township. Not unfortunately, my tour guide sucked, and did not allow any of us to get off the bus in the township. Due to this we really did not get to experience how the individuals in the townships actually live.

The next day it rained, so two of my friends and I hired a driver to take us to the winelands. The winelands were really pretty, it was really interesting because the roads were in the middle of the vines of grapes. We were lucky enough to get to eat some of the grapes directly from the vine, and they were beyond delicious; extremely sweet. Anyways, we were supposed to go to 3 wineries to have some wine tasting, but the first two we went to were closed. The third winery was really pretty. The main house that we were able to taste in was made of stone and it had very high ceilings. Since we did not get to taste wine at the first two wineries, our taxi driver got us a double tasting at the third one. We tasted 10 different wines, for the most part they were pretty good, but myself and my friends really enjoyed the Shiraz, so we bought a bottle of it to drink on the way home. That night I ended up going out to dinner with a group of 12 people. It was a 5 hour long dinner, with belly dancers and all. It was a lot of fun!

Finally, on Sunday, it was time to leave for my safari! It was amazing! If anyone wants to see the place I stayed, which was basically a honeymoon suite, you can search for Thornybush Game Reserve on the internet, and I stayed in the Thornybush Main Lodge. But anyways, the flight to the game reserve was interesting. First off, flying in another country was extremely easy. We got to the airport, and did not even have to meet with any officials before we got our tickets. Then when boarding the plane we walked outside onto the black top and literally climbed stairs onto the plane. After a two hour plane ride we were in Johanesburg, and then we had to get on a coach bus for a 6 hour bus ride. Once arriving at the game reserve we realized how much fun it was going to be. For the next 3 days, we rode around on 4x4 Land Rovers with no tops looking for safari animals. I was lucky and was able to see everything except for leopards. I have amazing pictures that I will show to anyone who wants to see it when I get back.

Days at Sea—From Salvador, Brazil to Cape Town, South Africa

So I am an idiot, and I am writing about what I did on the way to South Africa while I am in Mauritius. And being that I am writing this 2 weeks after the fact, I am going to miss a lot of detail. But basically, the main thing is that I have no hair! Okay, so to explain now: Neptune Day is the day that you cross the equator. Tradition on this day is to have fish guts poured over you, jump into a pool, kiss two dead fish on the lips, kiss the ring of King Neptune, and finally, shave your head. Our Captain on the ship dressed up as King Neptune. I took part in all of the activities. Now it may shock you all that I shaved my head, but here were my reasons. All of my hair was donated to the charity “Locks of Love” and my hair is going to be made into a wig for a child who had cancer whom can no longer grow their own hair. So yea, I no longer have curls, but I have very short hair. According to a lot of people on the ship, I look better without hair. I really like it! But yea, so that’s the big news about my trip to South Africa. Oh, and by the way, there were 35 other females whom also shaved their heads and donated their hair to this amazing charity! Miss you all!