City Tour and Adventure

Today we woke up and then headed into Cape Town itself from our suburb of Observatory. We took the minibus taxis there. If any of you have been in an African country before you would probably understand what they are like. For those of you that don’t I’ll give a little explanation. Basically, they are these old Volkswagen vans that have been converted into buses to carry people around. They seem to be everywhere and whenever we walk anywhere there are tons of them screaming for you to take a ride. Each one is manned by two people: the driver and another individual whose job it is to collect money and recruit passengers. This second person is always hanging out the window or open door of the van yelling the destination and asking people if they need a ride. Some of them go above and beyond the call of duty and actually get out of their vans and run up to you to try to convince you that their minibus is the best. Once you actually board the bus, you pass your money up to the front and sit back for the ride. Inevitably they become overfull. Today when we were riding, every seat was filled after some of our group had gotten in, but the driver said 3 more people and sure enough we picked up 3 more people along the way. Though it was cramped, it’s relatively cheap and a fun adventure!

We got into the city and just wandered around a little bit to get oriented with major streets and public transportation. I was surprised by how much it reminded me of San Francisco. We walked through a city mall to the Company Gardens in the center of Cape Town. From there wandered over to Long Street to grab some lunch. I ended up eating at Nando’s which is a restaurant that serves chicken with hot sauce in pitas, wraps and on burgers. It was a fun place to eat because I’d actually eaten there a bunch of times when I was in Botswana during several trips I took in high school. It was still just as good this time around.

After lunch we got the chance to just wander around the city a little bit and explore the local shops and restaurants. It seems like a really fun place and it’s very close to where we’re staying. We got a chance to walk by a street market and I saw many of the familiar souvenirs I’d seen in Botswana and Zimbabwe.

After we were finished wandering around, we returned to Observatory by train. It was really interesting to see which groups of people ride the train. We waited in line for tickets for around 15 minutes and during that time we saw 2 white South Africans. It was incredible to see this immense divide in a way that I haven’t really seen here much. As we took our seats on the train, there were many different street vendors who walked on and off of our train car selling anything from cold drinks and snacks to CD cases and ID card holders. One particularly heart-wrenching man and woman came on the train to beg for money. A relatively young woman was guiding a man with cataracts through the train car as he played a keyboard roped around his neck. It was really hard to watch as they passed through the car begging for money.

Tonight we have a Braai (barbeque) with Talisman, an a cappella group from Stanford, which is traveling through the area. I won’t have time to write any more for tonight, so I’ll write about the Braai tomorrow!

Tim