We were told by nana that the port of Cape Town is one of her top five most beautiful ports in the whole world, so we knew we’d have to get up early to watch as the MV Explorer pulled into the harbor. And we were in for a divine sight, as the sunrise rising over Table Mountain on our way into the Victoria and Alfred waterfront was absolutely spectacular.   AFRICA! We were in AFRICA!! The landscape and the brightly colored sunrising sky said it all. We were at the tip of the world, and you could feel the excitement that lay ahead in this gorgeous city.  As the sun rose, Cape Town’s most prominent landmark, Table Mountain, was in clear view, with the ‘city bowl’ of Cape Town lying beneath it. We laid eyes on the beautiful harbor, complete with traditional south African colonial architecture, beautiful buildings, and tons of sailboats and some yachts.  The sun was out and it was sure to be a very nice and sunny day.  The weather in Cape Town is pretty temperate, with mostly great sunny days and with some foggy days (although the fog stays up at table mountain for the most part—they call it the TableCloth and it comes on very often so if you get the chance to go up to table mountain on a clear day you have to jump at it!). The change in temperature was a welcome change, as it was beautiful outside, without the humidity which we had become so accustomed to in our hot recent ports.  It was probably around 75 degrees the whole time we were in Cape Town, and we felt so lucky to have such great weather. But back to the harbor! As we pulled in, all I could think was wow, did we really just pull into Africa? The Victoria and Alfred Waterfront, a beautiful recently remodeled waterfront district which we were lucky to be docked right in, is just gorgeous. It is full of colonial buildings, tons of shopping, and lots of amazing restaurants and pubs.  The liveliness at the waterfront at all hours of the day and night is awesome, so stepping off the ship and into that district every day was so much fun. 

For our first day in Cape Town, we had a FDP (faculty directed practica—basically a semester at sea trip with your teachers) to the winelands of south Africa to learn about wine management and production as well as the up-and-coming global market which South African wines are trying to take on.  We were really excited about this FDP because Trevor’s real estate teacher, Dr. Kolbe, and my strategic business management teacher, Dr. Guenther, were co-leading this trip so we both got to sign up. Dr. Kolbe is a really cool veteran guy who is really funny, Dr. Guenther is from germany and brought his family of four along with him to the winetasting as well (his super nice wife, his 11 year old german boy and 15 year old girl, we made a lot of jokes with Dr. Guenther about the drinking age in germany haha).  Anyways, we had about 3 hours before our FDP left from the pier, which meant we had three hours to explore around the V&A waterfront... we shopped around, taking in the amazing ambience of this little slice of the city and we ended up sitting harbour-side at a fresh Fish & Chips joint, taking in the sun and the harbour while munching on fresh caught cape fish and some yummy fries. This was also Trev’s first chance to get some good South African beer, so he got his first of many Castle beers- which is their best and most popular beer- and only sells for about $1.50—even at nice restaurants! After that, it was about time to get going for the FDP so we headed to the pier, met up with some of our friends who were also going and headed out to the winelands on the bus… it was about an hour ride but it was nice to drive through the nice suburbs of the city and the coastal highways winding our way into the famous winelands. Our first winery stop was Backsberg, where we were sat down in a beautiful cellar room with tons of huge wine barrels lining the walls, at our long table each seat had 6 glasses of wine, each filled with a couple sips of a different kind of wine. From left to right, the wines went from a very light south African white wine, to a sauvignon blanc, to a rose, to a light bodied red wine, to their famous pinotage red wine, to a brandy.  The guy told us all about their company, and all the different wines and how to taste each unique one.. it was very fun and I think our friend Ben said it best when he said “now this is how I like to start out an FDP”!

We went from Backsberg to our next vineyard, the beautiful Nelson Winery, where we got to learn all about the different south African grapes out in the vineyard, and then we got to taste all the lovely wines those grapes made in the tasting room!

When we arrived back in Cape Town that evening Trevor and I decided it would be best to stick around the waterfront for the night, and then venture into the city center tomorrow. We walked around the V&A, listening to the street music in the waterfront square, people watching all the awesome south Africans, and just enjoying the amazing ambiance there. Eventually, we found a really nice waterfront restaurant where we grabbed an outside table right at the end so we could people watch (and seal watch) all we wanted! Our waitress could sense our first-day-in-cape-town excitement and immediately chatted us up all about South Africa.. she was so nice and helped us order South African delicassies—Trevor got Springbok Carpaccio (springbok is their national animal—its like a deer—its also their national rugby team’s mascot as they are the Springboks!) and he also ordered an Ostrich Filet! I ordered KingKlip fish (fresh caught on the cape!) and we both had glasses of Pinotage wine—as this was our favorite-and South Africa’s most famous- red wine.  It was funny because we weren’t even going to order wine with dinner, but the waitress was so insistant with the ‘of course you’ll be having wine, here is our million page wine list with all the famous south African wines’ look on her, so we ordered some—the funny thing is though that wine in South Africa is soooo cheap—even at super nice restaurants like the one we were at, the glasses of wine were only about $3.50! I think it’s because the South Africans drink so much so they expect you to get like 12 glasses!!! Anyways all of the food was absolutely delicious and we immediately fell in love with Cape Town food.. especially the dessert which was homemade passionfruit sorbet and chocolate foundant! After our delicious long dinner, our waitress brings us complimentary “springbok shooters” in inauguration of our first day in South Africa.. they were so good- tasted like mint chocolate chip—1/2 peppermint schnapps and ½ some irish cream-like alcohol… she was so nice she wanted to make sure our first night in cape town was an awesome one!

And that it was—after our dinner we looked at our watches to realize it was like 11 o’ clock at night.. in disbelief we stared at all the people still sipping on their wine and munching on their ostrich filets and all the hustle and bustle still going on around the square.. that’s life in Cape Town.. you don’t eat dinner till about 10 o’clock at night and you lenghthen it, with wine and friendly south African company, for as long as you’d like, only retiring from the restaurant to the pubs to watch some rugby.. which we did!

It was a great first day in Cape Town.. absolutely incredible, and I could barely sleep that night I was so excited for the four days ahead…

The second day in Cape town we had wide open and were excited to do some independent sightseeing in the beautiful city. Christina had figured out about a special hop-on hop-off bus that were just starting in anticipation of the world cup this summer, and we got some discounted tickets online. First we had a wonderful breakfast in this small joint in the mall, which was named Melissa’s Food Shop. We had perused it the day before, because it had a grocery portion of the store, where they made organic yogurts, homemade granola/muesli, honey, and dried fruit. It was such a cute little establishment and we sat and ordered eggs benedict, traditional breakfast, their homemade preservatives, side of banana bread, and an espresso and latte to boot. The food was sooooo good, the South African’s know how to make some eggs benedict for sure (not as good as Laurie’s though), and we left so satisfied with our local breakfast. We arrived at the bus stop and jumped on the top of our double-decker bus. The bus took us all around Cape Town which has so much historical meaning in every building and sector, such as District 6 which was split up during apartheid because it was too bohemian of a community where people of different races congregated. There were forts, and Dutch settlements, as well as beautiful government buildings for the ANC, and we dropped by Archbishop Desmond Tutu’s church. We headed up the city bowl of Cape Town and reached the bottom of Table Mountain. We were lucky because it was a clear day and there was no tablecloth (fog that covers the top of table mountain for a large portion of the year), in fact it was really hot. The line for the gondola to the top was way too long so we took the hiking trail which was awesome because that’s what I  secretly wanted to do anyway ;) We hiked about 2 hours up and only got about halfway but the view was spectacular and the hike was really fun. We stole some of the red rocks from Table Mountain and said goodbye to head back down to the bus. The bus took us over the ridge that connects Table Mountain and Lion’s Head and we immediately saw the scenic beautiful drive we were about to experience. We were heading to Camp’s Bay which is the Miami beach of Cape Town and the real estate reflects that stereotype. Houses were gorgeous, and the drive winding down in between the houses led us to the shoreline with one main street. We of course jumped off the bus and strolled down the high-end restaurant and shopping street. Each restaurant had outdoor umbrella spots much like a main street of Italia, most of them were sponsored by Peroni ironically, so we took a break for some tapas of olives and hummus, and a couple glorious cocktails. We meandered into the shops and I bought a rugby ball and we just enjoyed the sun. We met some really cool people just walking around, some guys asked us to join their table. Also we met one of the street vendors named Chipi, who was from the country of Malawi, and he was excited to see us and was very “one love” rasta-like. Heading back down the coastline, we drove by Clifton beach, which is the secluded beach adjacent to the hip-hopping Camps Bay. The bus took us along the coastal route of beautiful South Africa and through beach neighborhoods of the rich and famous, then passing by the World Cup stadium next to the sea. We finally got off at the city center, where there was good street vendors selling African necklaces and trinkets. We rushed around getting the best deals in African Markets and talking to people along the way. It was time for the Jazz festival to start off with their big bang in the Green Market square. It was a huge free concert in a big square where hundreds of people from Cape Town, all of Africa, Europe, Australia/New Zealanders. The restaurants were packed and the bars had huge beer taps out tailgating style and everyone was packed and excited. I tasted the local Castle beer, and Christina got the Sahara cider, which was delicious. We listened to the opening act of Jazz and it was loud and really good. We stumbled upon a group of friends randomly, and were excited to see some friends around (most people were on a safari at this time.) They were heading to Mama Africa’s –a famous restaurant I had heard about and was wanting to try- so of course we merged groups and headed to the street bordering the jazz festival to hit up the restaurant. We were with Graham-guy from Gonzaga, Renee-University of San Diego from Manteca/Tracy, Victoria-Cal student from Hong Kong, Brittany-UCSD (weird cuz that is my sisters name and school haha, and Sally- Purdue University with her boyfriend who works in Cincinnati for Proctor and Gamble. Dad I think you met Sally’s boyfriend when you were waiting in China for us. Mama Africa’s was really cool, it was a really nice restaurant with a big band playing traditional African music. We got two bottles of South African Wine for, and got a platter of springbok, crocodile, impala, and I got a dish of warthog, while Christina got a springbok steak. Others got the botojie which is like a mince meat pie but South African style. There was a big group next to our table of South African guys and it was a bachelor’s party that was really crazy, so that kept us entertained. The to-be groom came over and talked to us a bit, and we talked about rugby and I was sad that there were no games going on in South Africa at the time, because the teams were in New Zealand for a tournament. After some bananas flambé, South African style we grabbed a taxi busting local reggae and returned to the ship.


This was our tour day, so we got picked up at the wharf with our guide Carlo, and some other people from the U.S. Our tour was set to explore the southern most tip of the continent of Africa and so we set off. We took the van along the coast of False Bay, and looked out where in the middle of the bay, Seal Island stands. Seal Island is infamous in South Africa for a small land mass where all the seals live while the great white sharks patrol the waters ready to eat them. This is where you see videos of great white sharks jumping fully out of the water and munching the seals mid-air, there are also some really great chase scenes. On the scenic high coastal route, there were baboons on the side of the road, which was crazy! We were told not to get out of the car, because they are notoriously mean, they will bite, attack, and will jump on top of your car or open up your door. But they were cool-looking from a distance. We continued onto a small town called Simonstown, which was really cool like some small coastal town in California. Except better, because down on the rocks of the beach, there is a huge colony of tropical penguins. They were so cute and fun to watch, and you can get really close to them, and they waddle away just living out there life. They are safe, because they hang out on the tide pools eating the millions of mussels and clams that the coast holds. They swim and play all day, and sharks and seals don’t like to eat them, so their population is booming. We really enjoyed playing around with penguins, (some of my favorite animals). Next, we took the bus up to the top of the lip of the coast before it flattens out down to the point. We got out and grabbed a bike from the rack and started our ride with our group down the road. It was a wonderful ride, it was warm but the seabreeze made it perfect, and the flat plains were so pretty with beaches on each side of us. We biked about 6 miles, including one really big hill up to the lighthouse, everyone gave up except Christina and I on this hard stretch. After our intense ride, we were pretty exhausted so we hiked up halfway the lighthouse and on a precipice overlooking the huge point of Africa we ate our picnic lunch. The scenery was amazing, we were up about 1,000 feet above the water, with the lighthouse out on the point, and the cape of good hope beach to our right, just relaxing at the bottom of the world. We headed up to the lighthouse to take a look at it, and enjoyed more of the scenic beauty and the history of it. After that, we went down to the cape of good hope where we experience our first splash of Atlantic Ocean. On the way back, we dropped by the University of Capetown, which was cool to see their main college street and community. Driving through we went by the famous Stellenbosch winelands and beautiful community of Constantia, which felt a lot like Piedmont. Since the wineries were closed on Good Friday, our guide took us back to Camps Bay and we had a quick drink before we returned to the ship. It was funny, because our guide was talking about how things were closed on Good Friday, but in general things will close randomly, because no one likes to work in Capetown. Any day of the week, you’ll see locals down on the beach just relaxing and drinking, what a great lifestyle! That night we got dressed up and headed onto our home of the Waterfront and we went to a jazz bar that I wanted to visit called “Green Dolphin.” It is really famous, and they house a lot of great acts there at all times of the year. There was a live band just jamming to some old jazz greats, so Christina and I got a bottle of wine and an appetizer of some of the best calamari I’ve ever had. After our app and great tunes, we headed over to our dinner place on the waterfront. The funny thing is that we sat down to dinner at 10:30 and people were all still there, and we ordered up a bunch of oysters which was crazy because they were about 50 cents each from a really nice restaurant. At about 11:30 we felt bad, so I asked if it was okay to order dessert, and the waiter looked taken aback and said of course, and when I looked around some people were just getting their main courses. So with a molten chocolate cake, we devoured it and called it a night, a wonderful, wonderful night.

Trev and I woke up early to get a headstart on an amazing day. We put on our running clothes and headed out for a jog around the waterfront… It was soooo quiet (people stay up late socializing and dining until the wee hours of the morning and don’t exactly get up and at em in CT!) but it was awesome to be exploring around what seemed like our own city.  We were told it wasn’t recommended to walk from the V&A waterfront to the city center (its not the safest at night I guess and its pretty far) but we felt plenty safe and we kept going all the way into the city. It was awesome as we truly got a feet-on-the-ground feel for the city of Cape Town.. we went by the brand new International Convention Center, where we somehow snuck in and got to see the huge set up that they had going on for the International Jazz Festival that weekend. It was like walking into the king’s version of Grad Night at miramonte. It was amazing, and each business had its own bar/VIP section where they would sit on their comfy couches and enjoy the jazz. Very cool to walk through, but we jetted back onto the street before we got caught!  We kept going, weaving the ins and outs of Cape Town’s beautiful city center, eventually stumbling upon a local flea market as well as this beautiful garden where we sat down on a bench and enjoyed the early morning sunshine. It was a beautiful, peaceful morning and I couldn’t believe how much I loved this city.. just walking around with no place to go was such a good way to get oriented with the beautiful central city.. exploring is, after all, what we do best. We then walked out of the park and saw the Mount Nelson Hotel, which we had been told about on our City Sightseeing Tour—it’s a very famous, very traditional, very beautiful hotel.. it’s known as the very best hotel in Cape Town, and probably in all of South Africa.. so of course we walked into it.. It was absolutely heavenly, each room is its own villa, with a garden and beautiful landscape.. and it doesn’t seem like most of the nicest hotels I’ve been in, its rather down-to-earth, making its guest feel at home, remember Trevor and I at this point are sweaty in our running clothes- yet we were treated like royalty as we walked through. It was definitely one of my very favorite hotels I have ever seen. As we were walking out, we saw the beautiful terrace, where there was a restaurant.. of course I asked them if they would be having an Easter Brunch for Easter Sunday (which was tomorrow), they said yes and immediately scheduled us in for a 12:30 jazz brunch.  I was happy as I knew I wanted to go to a nice brunch for Easter Sunday, and brunch at the Mt. Nelson was sure to be memorable.  We continued out onto another sector of town, Koofs Street, which seemed to be the Dutch influenced section of town.. this street reminded me a lot of san Francisco, and it was very cute.. it led us straight onto Long Street- which is their famous bar street and nightlife, which is kind of berkeley-esque. We eventually meandered our way back to the waterfront, changed into our beach clothes and got ready for the next part of the day!

Wow. I had read that Cape Town had some of the best beaches in the world. In fact, we had watched on the travel channel as Clifton beach in Cape Town was crowned one of the world’s top ten sexiest beaches… but we didn’t even know what we were in for! We decided to go to Clifton, a section of four beaches that are connected and form a nice little enclave of fine white sand, beautiful blue water, and gorgeous jetting rocks. The beaches are famous for their four reputations (although they really are just one big beach, separated only slightly)… Clifton number 1 is for families and is the most popular with tourists, Clifton number 2 is for the hip youth locals, third is for “scantily clad bronzed models”, and the fourth is a quieter beach, much less crowded than the other three. We headed to the biggest one, number 1… we were so lucky because there were very few people at the beach! We meandered past all these adorable multi-million-dollar bungalows down italy-like steps down to the beach, where the sand was sooooooo soft and the view was soooo beautiful.. Table Mountain and all the adorable bungalows were behind us, the gorgeous ocean in front of us, and beautiful beaches to the side of us.  We fell asleep on the beach for a while, and then just played around in the tidepools and in the water (but only a little bit--- the currents that give the water to Cape Town beaches are those that come up from the Antarctic so it is quite chilly!!!!!) We spent maybe four hours at Clifton beach.. it was windy but sunny so it was a perfect temperature and we just couldn’t get enough of this little slice of heaven.. It was also really fun to people watch all the South African families as they went about their daily lives.. FYI southa frican families are alllll soooo cute! They all seemed to look alike at Clifton beach, with their toe headed children, fashionable blonde moms, and rugby dads, and it was so fun to watch them interact and hear their adorable South African accents (its between an English accent and an austrailian accent—awesome!) Eventually, after about four hours of divine sunshine on that beach, we walked from Clifton on the coast to Camp’s Bay (only about a 20 minute walk away) where we had been twice before and we love it… We got seats at an outdoor bar/restaurant where I got a huge burger and a delicious “rose blush bramble”—a girly south African cocktail.. Trevor got nachos and another castle brew… It was delicious and from there we walked along the beach and went into a bunch of cute shops, and then headed to the beach where we played with the rugby ball Trev had bought as the sun started to set.. At first the sunset was like any other, and then all of the sudden as the sun got lower and lower the sky turned all these CRAZY colors. It was the most amazing sunset I have ever seen.. we ran out onto these rocks and stared at the horizon in disbelief.. it was by far the most spectacular sight I couldn’t believe it (see the pictures and imagine it times 10000000 in person!) It was amazing, absolutely amazing.

After the sun went down, we caught a taxi back to the waterfront, where we headed to a local pub.. It was an awesome place, as it was crowded with all of the local south africans watching big screens of rugby and soccer.. we got a table right by the rugby! We were watching so intently that at one point, when Trevor was in the restroom, this South African guy came up to me  and said “You like rugby, huh?!” because I was glued to the TV, trying to figure it out… I laughed and told him I’m from the US- we know football not rugby! Then he laughed and introduced himself and his friend, saying he hopes we have a great time in South Africa and told us watch a lot of rugby! After the pub, we headed over to a lovely restaurant for some late night dinner (complete with their house South African wine of course) and reflected on our awesome day in Cape Town.

Day 5: We started Easter day off right with another jog around the waterfront, but this time we headed the other direction--down the coast past this summer’s Fifa World Cup Soccer Stadium, and by all the tidepools on the Indian ocean-east side of Cape Town.  It was beautiful and so peaceful, as we really didn’t have a plan for what we would do for the day (except for our Easter Brunch!) and were just enjoying the serene beauty of the coast that morning.  We eventually made our way back to the ship, got changed into our Easter clothes (mom and dad- Trevor wore the tie you got him for xmas and it looked great!) and we headed into the city… We arrived a little early for our reservation so we sat in the gardens for a while before going over to the brunch.  We got a picture perfect table out on the terrace with a great view of the jazz band playing.. they served us champagne and ushered us inside to the HUGE deluxe buffet they had going on.. there were all these fresh caught oysters on ice, mussels, cape salmon that you could have grilled for you right there, roast beef, lamb, and chicken that they were carving up, fresh fruit and yogurt, a whole bread and cheese section along with about 500 other amazing things and a bunch of delicious desserts.  For only thirty dollars per person, I’d say this Easter Brunch was a great deal!!! We listened to the jazz for a good while, having a long, relaxed south African meal that the locals would be proud of. We saw a different side of people watching, as we got to see all of the wealthy families enjoying their upscale Easter Brunch… There were definitely no black families in the Mount Nelson, which brings up about the racial segregation in South Africa, both historically and currently. We did not see any white people blatantly be mean to the blacks, but rather we could just feel that the city is very, very separated. The blacks live in their “townships”, and the whites go to their chic places like the mount nelson and Camp’s Bay… It’s quite sad as every black person that we met was soooo incredibly nice, such as the one guitar player when we were sitting in Camp’s Bay.. he was pretty much ignored by all of the white crowd, only given attention by a few foreigners who liked his music (like us). We really didn’t experience the worst of it, as some students informed us later that they had been on a daytrip with a white South African family who used the word ‘nigger’ in a completely blunt and demeaning way like it was no big deal at all and talked down about black people constantly. It seems like there is definitely a separation and still racism that doesn’t necessarily come across immediately—we felt very welcomed and liked by all of the black people and the white people—but then again, we are white. 

After brunch, we walked back to the waterfront, where we did some last minute shopping and bopping around our gorgeous home for the last week.. and then we got back on the ship.

It’s a funny feeling getting back on the ship, whether its just for the night after a late night in port or returning after a full week in port. It feels like home, seeing the ship gives you that relaxing feeling that you get when you pull into your driveway after an eight hour drive.. It’s really crazy, because obviously we don’t want to leave any of these ports and we would be extremely upset (I was so upset to be leaving cape town!) but at the same time we have this amazing life at sea that we look forward to. I mean, let’s be real-- we have a week of sun tanning, watching movies, playing games with friends, dodgeball tournaments, talent shows, painting, blogging and a little bit of learning to look forward to. It’s a great life.

**disclaimer- don’t get the wrong idea, we do go to all of our classes, they are really difficult, and really good, as we both learn a ton. I can safely say I’ve learned more from the professors on this ship, both in class and out, these last four months than I have in the last four years of my life.. It’s not such a damper to go to class in the morning when you know you’ll be laying out in the sunshine by 11am!

So ya, we got back onto the ship and met up with all of our friends for dinner, where we shared all of our amazing stories and reflected on the amazing city of Cape Town.

If I make one promise to myself on this whole trip, it is that I will go back to South Africa… I swear Trevor and I were seriously considering when in our lives we could live in Cape Town and where we should buy real estate. This country is on its upswing from its tormented recent political history, and with the World Cup this summer, its booming economy, and its amazing livelihood, it’s a place to watch.. and a place to live! It really reminds me of California, but it’s in Africa! Crazy! The other thing is that all south Africans have such pride for South Africa… their beautiful flag flies high at almost every home, on many of their clothes, and in every restaurant and shop. They have this wonderful nationalism that makes you want to be a South African along with them--its just fabulous.