Cape Town to Kasane

My mom’s comment on my last blog post was “uh.”  I assume she meant reading the mathyness felt like listening to adults in Charlie Brown talk, so I’m following it up with one full of photos of time spent with Courtney, Ali and friends.  Last month, I was extremely lucky because two friends traveled all the way across the ocean to visit for a week.  We made two amazing trips – one to Cape Town, South Africa and another to Kasane, Botswana.  

The trip started at a beach house with Drew and Rowan, two new friends I met though Courtney.  They live in Johannesburg and are both musical directors who often travel to Cape Town for work.  Rowan needed to be in Cape Town for a two-month run of Sweeney Todd and is staying at the beach house of a friend.  All I knew from Courtney was that we were staying at a “bungalow” with “bunk beds” and that it was small. I was shocked to arrive to a gorgeous house.  There were no bunk beds.  Courtney arrived the day after Rowan, Drew and I.  We kept asking if we should tell her how nice it was.  We decided instead to send her texts like “Well, at least there are towels.” 

These are some shots from the balcony and inside the house.  There are also some other random scenes from walking around town. 

I learned a little bit about the history of Cape Town.  On Saturday night, we went to see a musical about District 6, an area in the center of town that was established in 1867.  By the turn of the century it was a thriving, exciting, mixed neighborhood.  As the play described it, the harmony of the different working class people living in District 6 was an affront to the apartheid government.  In 1966 it was declared “whites only.”  In the following decade, 70,000 people were forced out of their homes and the people were racially separated.  This even included sending members of the same family to different places.  The play ended with the announcement that everyone had to move and did not get into what followed.  It was more a celebration of the utopia of the time period when District 6 was thriving.  Much of it was in Afrikaans, so Courtney and I didn’t understand all of the references and jokes, but for the most part we could follow along and loved it. 

We also got a chance to visit Robben Island, which is the site of the prison where Nelson Mandela served 18 of his 27 years.  The former prison now serves as a museum.  The guides are all former political prisoners and it was their idea to turn the site into to a museum. 

I did not hike up Table Mountain.  Instead, we took a funicular that magically transported us to the top at lightening speed.  It was fantastic. We got up there moments before sunset, took some photos, bought some wine and cheese at the store on the top and chilled out.  Literally.  I had no idea how much colder Cape Town is than Gaborone.  Sorry, Chicago, Cape Town is the real Windy City.  As a side note, a tour guide in Chicago once told us that “windy” actually refers to political gossip, not weather.  I’m not sure if that is true or not.  Anyway, the wind in Cape Town is no joke.  There are trees along the coast that are growing parallel to, okay maybe more like 45­⁰ angles from, the ground.  We did go on a beautiful hike at the end of the peninsula out to a shipwreck. 

Our friend Toni told us that kids call those little blue specks on the ground “blue bottles.”  They are washed up sea-creatures that make a popping sound when you step on them.  We also went to Courtney’s all-time favorite spot in Cape Town, a beach full of penguins.  I wonder if you can figure out from the photos which one she named “Judgmental Penguin.”  The rest of them had much more affectionate names, but I don’t know which is which from the photos. 

We spent the second half of the week in Kasane, which is in the north-east corner of Botswana. 

There is a place where the four countries of Botswana, Zimbabwe, Zambia and Namibia all meet up in one spot.  We didn’t find this exact place. Kasane was absolutely gorgeous.  We stayed at The Old House and loved it not only for its beauty and convenient location, but because we also booked our activities directly with them.  For a slightly (and I think barely) cheaper price, we could have made arrangements with a separate tour company.  I saw some of those vehicles out on the game drives and they were packed with people.  On the other hand, we felt like part of a family for four days.  Albert, who we saw every day, picked us up at the airport, drove the boat on the Chobe cruise and took us on the all day drive.  We loved it all and his company so much that we booked a short morning drive on our last day there.  We found out on our last day, while hanging out the airport as we were leaving and he was meeting another guest, that when he told us he just started three months ago, he actually started only three weeks ago.  Jaw drop. We also went on a day trip to Mosi-ao-Tunya, also known as Victoria Falls.  Here are some photos, including some zip-lining.  And, no, we are not the fools sitting in the water at the top of the falls.  They were on the Zambian side, we were on the Zimbabwean.