Day 9: Magical Muizenberg

On Friday, I seem to hit a bit of a crash. I find myself sitting at my desk, crazy drowsy, counting down the minutes until I get off work. No one in my office really works past 3, so that’s the mark I’m trying to make. I line up some more interviews, and kind of half read a report I need to make a powerpoint for, half play on facebook and read online newspapers. There was some crash in Jo-berg involving a police officer and a guy driving an Audi that’s big news. Apparently cops try to bribe people who drive “supercars” to take them on joy rides. This one ended up killing both of them and there’s all sorts of fishiness afoot, with the cops potentially planting drugs in the car at the scene of the accident. Who knows. Anyway it’s the most interesting thing going on until I get off work. I go straight home and crash; nap for three whole hours.

Friday night, we hang out for awhile and go to a house party. Cailey and I come home early, around 11, because we have to get up bright and early the next morning for a big adventure! I roll out of bed around 7 on Saturday and stumble into the kitchen for a bowl of museli. I’m greeted by our new roommate, Justine, who is on the couch looking and sounding wide-awake. I’m impressed with her enthusiasm as I go back to my bed to eat. Cailey gets up by that point and we struggle as a team to get everything together for our trip. Man I hate mornings! But finally we all go downstairs and meet up with the rest of the group to walk to the train station.

We’re going to Muizenberg! The point of the trip is to take surfing lessons, but I figured I couldn’t learn much about surfing in 2 hours and would rather just hang out on the beach and keep my money (which has been flying out of my wallet rather quickly). At the train station we buy first class, return tickets to Muizenberg. When we walk to the train, I look into one of the cars and say to one of the girls, “Wow, I’m sure glad we got first class passes. That is dingy looking!” She then points out to me that these are the first class cars. Yikes. Pretty basic, graffiti everywhere. A small parade of people come through the cars to beg for money. Some of them blind, and they sing. I think of Slumdog Millionaire… somebody probably blinded them as children to make more money begging and they don’t get to keep any of it anyway. It makes me feel angry and sick at the same time. The parade ends and the doors close and we are on our way, chugging along through the suburbs.

A bit later we arrive and step out of the train. I’m talking about international development issues with a friend as we round a wall at the station and I stop midsentence when I see it – the ocean and the mountains! The train station is right on the water and the beach is right there, and its stunningly gorgeous!! Most of the group heads to the surf shop, but Cailey and another friend of ours who has also opted to not surf head to a café. We get coffee and huge cheesy omelettes and oogle at the scenery. Then we go lay out on the beach, after lathering on huge amounts of SPF 50 sunscreen. I am scared of the sun here after last weekend and terrified of getting burned again. After laying out for awhile I decide to try going for a swim because supposedly the water is warmed down here then it is at the beaches in Cape Town. It is warmer, it takes me a little getting used to, but soon I’m out up to my waist. Some kids swimming near me yell, “Look! A seal!” I think they’re probably crazy, but then I see just in front of me a seal pop up out of the waves! I watch it play around and can’t stop smiling. It swims out of my view for a minute and then pops up even closer to me on my left side. It startles me and I shriek! And then laugh as I watch him swim away. Then it occurs to me that was shark food swimming right next to me, hmm. A shark would probably eat those kids who saw the seal first anyway. Cailey comes out and swims with me. This beach is fantastic! Its so nice to have water warm enough to swim in.

The rest of the day is spent relaxing. At some point I go get some ice cream from a nearby shop. Its so good, tastes more like frozen custard than ice cream. And because I got a kiddie “flake” (aka waffle) cone, the guy stuck a long, skinny chocolate biscuit in the middle of it. Heaven. I walk back to the beach and notice the red shark flag is now up, meaning there was a shark sited within the last 2 hours. There are shark spotters and a flag system to warn swimmers about any shark danger in the area. Supposedly they even have sirens that go off if there’s a shark in the area. I wonder if a shark came to eat my little seal buddy. I hope not, I really liked that guy.

Later we catch the train home and I take another short nap. Then my friend Alison and I go to Kloof Street for dinner. Mary, who came to Cape Town from UT Social Work School last year, typed up a list of places to go for me. I pick Arnold’s on Kloof St. because Mary reports that they have good game. Alison and I order the chef’s game platter to split. So for the first time in my life, I am served a plate of ostrich, kudu, crocodile, and warthog ribs. It is SO much fun trying the meat, and delicious! The ostrich and kudu taste like beef, crocodile somewhat like chicken, and warthog like pork (hm, that makes so much sense now that I think about it…).

After dinner we meet up with friends for drinks and we make our way towards good ol’ Long Street again. I am skeptical of my ability to have a good time there. We head towards this place called Marvel. Its almost completely coloured and black people in there (not many of the bars/restaurants have mixed crowds), but they’re playing American music and the entrance fee includes a drink at the bar, so we head on in. Its really hot in there and kinda smells funny, but a song I like comes on and so Alison and I hit the dance floor. This place ends up being a real blast. One of the guys with us keeps making hilarious requests at the DJ booth and the whole place is dancing. At the end of the night, we head out to the street for hot dogs and to catch a cab. One of our friends almost gets a ticket for urinating in public (ha), he clearly just wants a bribe, that’s annoying. But things get resolved… and soon enough I am happily in bed.

The next day I sleep late then head to Pick n Pay to restock the kitchen. Fruit and Veg is closed on Sundays, how sad. Businesses here keep the weirdest hours. Everything closes at like 6 on weekdays and even earlier on weekends if they even open up on Sunday. We talked about doing some hiking the day before, but I feel pretty set on sitting on the couch all day. But then Liliya calls and before I know it I’m heading up Table Mountain. I just can’t say no to things like that, one should not say never say no to doing cool things in other countries when given the chance. I’ve found myself saying “YOLO” a lot. I know that’s awful, sorry. But its so true. Maybe I should change it to “YOISAO,” – you’re only in South Africa once. Besides, as I learned today, Table Mountain is one of the oldest mountains in the world and a “new 7 world wonders of nature” or something like that. Who knows what that even means, but it really is magnificent. So we climb straight up stairs and switchbacks for about two hours before reaching the top through Platteklip Gorge. Wow, being on top of Table Mountain is truly amazing!  And, you can take the cable car down. It’s a bit expensive for my taste but I’m freezing at this point and it’s the quickest way down so we all pile on and head down. The floor of the cable car rotates so you spin around and see everything while riding down. As we near the bottom I notice a man on one knee, he’s proposing to (who I assume is) his girlfriend! Getting proposed to at Table Mountain, what a dream. Good job, mister!