Cape Town, South Africa

        It seems to be the general consensus of the ship that Cape Town was the best port.  I don’t agree with this.  I loved my time in Cape Town, but it can’t compare to a port like India or Ho Chi Minh City.  Cape Town was very western and touristy.  It was very expensive as well.  I spent the entire first day touring power plants on a Semester at Sea trip for one of my classes.  I wouldn’t call this a complete waste of time because it was very interesting, but when you only have five days to see an entire country power plants aren’t at the top of the list of things to do. 
        By the time I got back from the field trip it was already night, and I had lost track of the friends I had planed on meeting up with.  Once again I left sticky notes on doors and waited for calls to my room.  Eventually I made it out for the night with a few friends.  Everyone went to Long Street every night we were in Cape Town.  It was a street about ten minutes away from the ship and lined with bars restaurants and clubs.  Walking up and down the street popping into different places I would constantly run into other SASers (Semester at Sea’ers) without fail.  I ended up in a bar called Dubliners because from the street I heard their live band playing Queen and Lynyrd Skynyrd.  I would much rather dance to that than most of the music that is played in the other clubs and bars.  One good thing about Cape Town being very touristy is that there were always interesting people to meet and talk to.  I spent the first night in South Africa talking to and dancing with Steuart from Scotland who was studying abroad to write a term paper.  In the next few nights I met people from France, Germany and Spain.  I also met an entire rugby team from Argentina.  Every night was a late one and every morning was painfully early, but it was worth it. 
        I went up Table Mountain on the second day.  I was hoping to do some rock climbing, but wasn’t able to pull it together in time.  I would have needed to hire a guide for the ropes and the shoe rental.  That would have been an amazing experience, but taking the cable cart up the mountain was nice anyway.  The view from the top was incredible and of course complete with a gift shop and an overpriced restaurant. 
        The next day I went shark diving.  One of the coolest things I’ve ever done.  The sharks would come inches away and stare me right in the eye.  Their eyes are strikingly black, and I could feel them looking right into mine.  Sensing that connection with a shark was incredible.   We spent the entire day on the boat taking turns being in the cage attached to the side.  The cage was long and skinny. Seven people could go diving at the same time.  We wore wet suits and goggles.  When in the cage we had no idea where the sharks were.  We had to rely on the people on the boat to tell us when to duck under to see them.  They would swim at us out of nowhere, following the bait tied to a rope.  Every time I was in the cage I got the best place, meaning I got the corner where the sharks came closest.  This was because the six others in the cage with me were more than a bit nervous.  Every time a shark came by I would hold myself under and put my nose right up to the wire of the cage and wait for my heart to skip a beat.  It was very easy to slip up and let a hand or foot outside the cage, this happened to me a few times.  I still have all my limbs though, I promise.  It was extremely hard to stop myself from sticking my finger just one centimeter outside the cage to touch a shark fin.
        We ended that exhausting day with another late night on Long Street.  It was my 20th birthday at midnight and I was in a club called Ivy League at the time.  People surrounded me singing happy birthday, then came a mess of free drinks and dancing.  I ended my night at Dubliners only after buying the most delicious hot dog I’ve ever tasted from a street vender. I went back and got another one the next night. 
        The day of my birthday was a relaxing one.  We didn’t really do much at all.  I had wanted to go to Stellenboche to taste wine and pet cheetahs, but it was over an hour away.  I had plans to go out to dinner with a group of people so I didn’t have enough time to make it all the way to Stellenboche and back.  During the day we took a bus tour of the city and went to a market.  I bought a skirt from a street vender.  The skirt said made in India on it, and I remember seeing it in India but being too cheap to buy it.  I paid about three times as much for it in South Africa then I would have in India.  The night of my birthday, I went to dinner with a huge group of people then went back to explore Long Street some more. 
        The last day in South Africa we set out to see Hout Bay.  On the way there we drove by a beautiful area with a little town and nice beach so we asked our cabbie to just drop us off there.  After only a few hours it was already time to head back to the ship.