Sights of Cape Town, the wharf and the peninsula

Sights of Cape Town: An epic Saturday filled with good company, pretty sights, and most importantly good wine :)

Enjoy!

 

First Stop: Two Oceans Aquarium

As you can see here, this is a giant red bus. It is modeled after the famous London style multi-story buses where you can sit on the open top. I (naturally loving adrenaline rushes) opted to sit at the top part of the bus. This is how the bus system works: there are two types of buses Red and Blue. The Red bus takes you around Cape Town (the city only) and takes you to 17 stops, one of which is the table mountain cable car. The Blue bus takes you around the entire peninsula and to two vineyards. My friends and I opted to take the blue bus because we wanted to do a bit of wine tasting :-).

Next stop: Long Street

Cape Town is known for it's party scene. The city boasts one of the most world renown party scenes. I'm not surprised. With how many bars and lively people this place has to offer, it's no wonder CT has that reputation-especially in the summer. 

Mount Nelson Hotel

One of the few five star hotels in the city. Extremely expensive. John Lennon stayed here once. It's a ten minute walk from my flat :-)

UCT ( University of Cape Town)

I work for UCT. No, I don't work on the main campus, but I do work for a division of this school. It has a stunning campus and is considered to be the best university in sub-Saharan Africa. It looks nearly carved into the mountains from a distance, so I hope to visit sometime to explore.

3rd Stop: Kirstenbosch Botanical Gardens

One of the most scenic places I have been to so far. The gardens are homes to thousands of different flowers, trees, and various other shrubs. Artist's (local and international) display their work in the gardens (predominantly sculptures) to sell. 

Statue of Nelson Mandela

Mandela's Gold

The botanical gardens have a type of flower you won't find anywhere else in the world (pictured above). It's called Mandela's Gold and it looks like a flower of the iris family. It's quite odd and pointy looking, but I took a few pictures anyway. It took twenty years to develop, and because of Mr. Mandela's contribution to humanity, and to the betterment of South Africa, the country awarded him the honor of having the flower named after him, and having a miniature sculpture in his honor in the gardens right next to where the flowers are planted.

It doesn't smell like anything either. 

Groot Constantia Winery

As many of you know (and have seen with your own eyes) I am a wine enthusiast. I love wine, especially good wine. Bad wine makes the best sangria, but that is another story for another day. As I have said earlier, this tour takes you to wine country, which Cape Town is world renown for. Today I visited the oldest winery in Africa called Groot Constantia. It was established by some Dutch dude in 1685. If you want to visit the site here it is: www.grootconstantia.co.za. It explains everything and more about the wines they make here. They specialize in white wines and are home to baboons.

Baboons

I saw two while at the winery. They were waltzing around looking for something to entertain themselves. The tour bus warns of feeding or trying to play with them as they are vicious creatures who are terribly intelligent. They have learned how to break into cars and homes, steal purses at lightning speed, and bit small animals and people. People who are designated "baboon watchers" walk around the winery (as well as other parts of the city) with sticks or bicycle tires cut on one side, and twirl them if baboons get too near. The baboons are the size of small children and extremely hairy. 

The Cellar. Isn't it beautiful? :)

Each barrel costs about a thousand dollars each and have a life span of 12 years. They are made of french oak, although (apparently) Portugal has the best wine oak in the world.

The Barrel on the left can hold enough wine for you to have a bottle everyday for 36 years!

Wine Tasting!

Wine making is serious business and it takes many years of practice and skill to be able to develop the necessary tools to really know how to make good wine. I obviously opted to taste the wine, and I have to say my favorite are the 1st, 2nd, and last glass from the left (white, cabernet sauvignon, and the constantia port). We learned not only how to distinguish between different types of wine, but also "proper" wine etiquette, as in how to hold the glass, how to drink wine properly, how to "smell" the wine, and why the glass is shaped the way it is. My favorite overall was the constantia port because it is a dessert wine and very sweet.

Wine Country!!

Hout Bay, and Mariner's Wharf

This is on the other wide of the peninsula. Nearby is a township, and the world of birds sanctuary, but my friends and I opted to do those another day when we had more time.

Clifton beach heading to Camp's Bay

Camp's Bay

Dubbed the "Venice Beach, California" of South Africa. It has numerous bars, bistros, restaurants, and beachside entertainment for all. It is also quite scenic as you can see here.

Robben island in the distance

The little black square in the middle of the water is the remains of an old dutch ship that crashed in the late 17th century. 

FIFA Stadium

You know what it is. Good year for Spain that's all I gotta say :-)

Marimba

A type of African Music, which consists of tamborines, xylophones, and drums. Such a pleasant sound, and it makes you want to dance. . . 

The best way to end a day. Good drinks with good company :)

I had more than just this, because it was a two for one special. These are strawberry daquiri's btw. My friends and I went to Long street to a bar/lounge called "The Neighborhood". 

I hope you enjoyed these.

Stay tuned as always.

Carolyn

Secondary Schools

Sight of Cape Town, the wharf, and the Neighborhood

OLD UPDATE

As promised, I would update you all about the schools I went and visited. It is all recorded below.

Fezeka and Sibelius

Part of my work in Cape Town involves dealing with adolescents. When I say adolescents I mean older children who are primarily in secondary schools (high schools).Therefore, it is required for me to visit these schools as part of my research and the study I am a part of. The two schools I have mentioned above are in extremely rough township areas around Cape Town. It broke my heart a little to see the states of schools in these areas. Children fight for desks in the classroom. Many of the children are involved in gangs and all, and two weeks ago, one of the high schools I mentioned above had so much gang violence that rapes were occurring on a daily basis. A lot of the staff I spoke to mentioned also that pregnancy was happening at an alarming rate in these schools with someone becoming pregnant “every week”. I will go further into detail regarding these schools when I can get a moment to really articulately express my thoughts on the problems in townships I see here, and why I feel my work here couldn’t possibly be done in the short amount of time I am here.

Friday I worked normally from home. My car was having issues and I had a minor case of eating something bad and my body disagreeing with it :/

The next post is about my city seeing adventure in cape town and the peninsula and covers quite a bit of ground. I will post it shortly.

Best,
Carolyn

Will update tomorrow

Lots to say but quite tired. It was a very long day.

Till then

Carolyn~

But WHY?!?!?!

So high school(s) trip got moved to tomorrow, and I forgot to take pics of the office.

Also I have more worked piled on me as well as another project o_O.

I have nothing more to say today.

Toodles~

Carolyn

New Office, More work, and high schoolers

Today was a long day.

I moved to a new office with just Joy (yay!!) which I will start working in tomorrow. I will post pictures at the office when I get into the office.

Today was my first visit to a local high school where I will be taking some data very soon. It was a private high school and therefore much more secure and controlled than some of the other schools I will be seeing very soon. I will update you all tomorrow on these other schools I will be visiting. I am scheduled to see them tomorrow, and they are the type of schools that are considered disadvantaged in this area of the world.

Long meeting today. It was terribly boring so I started dozing off an daydreaming about the beach. Mainly, my beach daydreams consist of me in a bathing suit on a beach in Mozambique bathing in the sun and drinking a cold and pretty tropical alcoholic drink (such as a pina colada with a little umbrella in it) and just relaxing in the sun. .

Ah perhaps this can become reality in the near future ;-)

My boss also felt I was being quite efficient and effective and has decided to give me more work to keep me busy and productive. Ah! This woman. . :-)

Until then,

Carolyn

Boring

It's Sunday.

As I learned from my fail last weekend with trying to go to Robben Island, Sunday is a rather boring day in Cape Town. It means everything is not only closed, but also it's very quiet. So this is what I have been doing all day:

Nothing but work.

Sorry today is boring, but I hope that yesterday's post was more exciting and interesting. I have a long week ahead of me as always, so I won't be writing about any adventures. I am considering however, driving up to Signal Hill where you can see the entirely of Cape Town :-)

We'll see.

 Until then, have a lovely and productive Sunday.

~A demain,

Carolyn

Robben Island

It has been said that a picture is worth a thousand words. I completely agree. Therefore this post is dedicated to Robben Island photos that I took today while there. I hope you enjoy them. :-)

This is the Clock Tower at the V&A Waterfront (Victoria and Alfred waterfront) which is where many a tourist has gone in order to get some one of a kind South African seafood cuisine. Here if you take a right you reach the Nelson Mandela Gateway which is where you take the ferry to go to Robben Island.

This is the Nelson Mandela Gateway. I'm on the dock about to load onto the extremely ghetto looking ferry. While loading, two guys were taking pictures of people loading for future purchase. When I was loading and they found out I was alone, they not only announced it to EVERYONE in line behind me but also shouted out that I was " Still on the lookout for true love" so all single guys should see me. . . great. . .

Anyhow to continue the chronicle of my island getaway trip. .

This is the front entrance of the prison. We didn't go through the gates, we loaded the buses which took us around the island. There are 190 permanent residents on the island, most of which are staff of the Robben Island Museum which keeps the prison intact and operational for tourists. The island sees about 1800 new people per day. Most inmates would describe these gates as the entry way to hell.

These were the first prisoners into the prison many years ago. As you can see, prisoners were mainly black (Bantus) and were forced to wear khaki colored uniforms to distinguish between prisoners and their status in the prison.

This is a Kramat.

The Kramat was designed for religious purposes, for the islamic prisoners to go worship. However, it was actually designed for psychological warfare purposes by the apartheid in order to get prisoners to be extremely divided because of religion. It wasn't successful, because the prisoners in the prison were (political prisoners), all mainly there for the same purpose: because they tried to bring down the apartheid.

This is the leper cemetery. The lepers that were brought here were brought to be in isolation as were most lepers throughout history. Like most prison areas, Robben island is filled with tombstones everywhere, and the prison was built on top of a large burial area. a Penguin waddled in front of this grave site later in the day when we were heading back to the ferry. There are approximately 1400 people estimated to be buried here.

This is the limestone quarry where the prisoners were forced to work 9 hours a day. The pile of rocks in the middle of the road is from previous prisoners that had gathered together a few years ago and placed there. The rocks are different colors to symbolize the different colors that unite South Africa after it's darkness with the apartheid. Nelson Mandela and President Zuma were both there at the ceremony which took place a few years ago. FYI: President Zuma spent ten years serving time here as well. It seems like in order to qualify to be a South African leader (or government official) you need to have spent time serving at Robben Island Prison.

This is a post office. It has been in operation since World War II.

The only school on the island. It was built much later after the prison closed in order to provide services for the children on the island. There are 18 there who attend this school.

The former house of the british governor who was based at the island years ago. It now is the conference center for Robben Island employees. The wall you see here is made of blue limestone which was also built by the prisoners (as well as the house in the back). The limestone has caused many lung health problems with ex-political prisoners who are still alive. For example, Mandela was hospitalized a few weeks ago for lung issues from his time in the rock quarry.

This is the chapel on the island. It is an anglican church. It used to be the leper's church for them to pray to get better. My tour guide emphasized that you can in fact get married here if you want, even on valentine's day. Marriage, he believes is for life, similarly, to the amount of time prisoners spent on this island. So wrong, but so very very true. So for those of you who are interested in getting married here, booking is 50 ZAR (South African Rand) which is approximately $7.35. So book now!

 The inside of one of the areas where they kept the prisoners to sleep

 A menu for daily meals. Notice the difference in quality depending on what you were categorized as.

 Your prisoner card. Had to be carried with you at all times in  your left chest pocket.

 A typical mat the prisoners slept on. You also received two blankets to use all year upon entering the compound. The mat is something that resembles the old style mattress padding that dogs use.

 The yard. As you can see, my photography skills were able to capture the mood of the prison. It's a solemn place where time meant little to nothing to those who were forced to spend their days here. Solitary confinement was the worst torture of all, where lack of communication led most to become insane.

The kitchens were prisoners worked. Misbehaving led to solitary confinement which has been described as the most brutal form of punishment an inmate could receive. You were placed in a windowless cell with nothing or no one to talk to for days. You received one meal per day.

 Compound D. This is where Nelson Mandela was imprisoned. He wrote quite frequently in the small garden here and those manuscripts he hid in the garden. They would later be gathered and made into his book titled "The long walk to freedom". Mandela was also an avid tennis player who was quite good at it and played frequently with the other inmates.

 The fourth window is Mandela's cell window.

Mr. Mandela's cell. He spent 18 of his 27 years in this cell serving his time. It hasn't been touched since he left it many years ago. The bin to the left is the toilet which inmates had to empty every morning and night before going to sleep. Random fact: Mr. Mandela was prohibited from entering the United States until July 2008 because he is labeled as a terrorist in South Africa. He was later pardoned of course, but before that was only allowed to visit the United Nations in Manhattan.

Currently, Mr. Mandela is spending the rest of his days on the Eastern Cape in his hometown. He's turning 93 next month.

This was the ex-political prisoner who showed us around the prison. He served 8 years here. He was imprisoned for treason for his involvement with the ANC against the apartheid from 1982-1990. While he was being arrested he was tortured by being strapped to a wooden chair and electrocuted. He was put through this many many times until he told the officers what they wanted to know about his colleagues and what they were up to. He was a very kind man, but you could tell from his presence that he had seen and been through much. His eyes were that of someone who had been broken down like a wild animal that had been taken from the wild and put into captivity. He called me "lovely".

Me walking around the prison.

Below are happy photos after all the previously depressing ones.

 Penguins! They are indigenous to the island, as well as Cape Town. This is the first time in my life I have ever seen penguins in their natural habitat. They waddle around the island doing their thing :)

He was a bit of a diva. Posing for my camera by the bus then waddling (quite fast) in front of the cemetery :). Aren't they adorable?

 SPRINGBOK!!!
It's a type of african gazelle which is a principle red meat here. It's also the name of the national rugby team here which I mentioned in a previous post. They are also indigenous to Cape Town.

Cape Town harbor at sunset.

Cape Town from Robben Island. It's been called the mother city because it looks like a woman laying down looking up at the sky. Can you see it?

I hope you all enjoyed the pics. More are on the way since I just invested in my own camera.

Good night,
Carolyn