K-LEE AT SEA: March 2007

Hello from Mauritius! Of course, being delayed as I am, I’m not writing about Mauritius, but instead about South Africa! South Africa was, in a word, amazing! Cape Town is a gorgeous city and the people are so friendly, diverse, and ahh—just amazing! We got to Cape Town on Friday, March 2nd at 0700. I woke up super early to watch us pull into the harbor- and I’m so glad I did! The view of Cape Town before dawn is magnificent. The sun was rising over Table Mountain (pictures at the end) and it was the most gorgeous thing I’ve ever seen. The pier where we were docked at was right at the bustling Cape Town waterfront—full of shops, restaurants and tourist information booths. Right away I knew that one week wouldn’t be long enough to do everything that I wanted to do. We got off the ship ASAP and explored a little bit, I had a delicious apple cinnamon crepe for lunch—extra ice cream (always healthy of course!) Lydia and I rushed back to the ship for our trip that started at 1:30 (or 1330 for all of us nauti-savvy folk).

Our trip was to Khayelitsha Township, which is one of the Townships where all of the Black and Coloured people (in SA, the term Black is used to describe actual tribal ancestors, and coloured is used for people of “mixed blood” or where tribal ancestors may have married an Afrikaan, or Dutch descendant… confusing, I know) were sent to live during apartheid. The word Khayelitsha actually means “new town.” It’s amazing because we always think of slavery and civil rights as part of the United States’ history and it feels like so long ago (to some, maybe not to others). Apartheid in SA only ended in 1992 and so the divide in quality of living is still so abrupt. Literally on one side of the road are pristine golf courses and the other is a Township, lined with tiny shacks that hold entire families, with barely any room between them. These “shanty houses” are made up of anything that you can think of- mostly plywood and corrugated metal, and they’re literally only about 5 feet by 5 feet. Our first stop on the township tour was at the Khayelitsha Craft Market, where people of the township have an opportunity to sell their crafts. Their was a marimba band playing in the market and little kids running around everywhere as we plastered their hands and faces with stickers.

Our next stop was a school area and the kids literally swarmed us, wanting stickers and their pictures taken. These kids were absolute HAMS with the cameras—they didn’t care who you were they just wanted to strike a pose. And after, of course, they demanded to see the picture (thank god for digital!) It was crazy because Lydia had alligator stickers (for Allegheny obviously) and the little kids kept putting them on their shirts and saying Lacoste. I was so taken aback by this—these kids didn’t even have shoes on and about 80% are infected with HIV/AIDS… and they know what Lacoste is? I didn’t even know what Lacoste was until high school! It was just amazing and, I don’t really know what the word is, a little bit troubling I guess…

After the stop at the school playground we went to the Kopanong Bed and Breakfast which is run by the inspiring Thope Lekau. This woman was determined to not have her township left behind by Cape Town’s stake in the tourist industry. So she decided to have a bed and breakfast and make it available to the tour companies. So when people come to Cape Town and decide to humble themselves a little by riding a big shiny bus around the townships they will actually be able to step off the bus and maybe learn a little bit about the vibrant communities that exist inside the corrugated metal walls of poverty. Thope Lekau earned a degree from the University of Pittsburgh actually and now runs workshops for women in her community who want to open their own B&Bs. She claims that after she earned her degree and opened her B&B that she “had a whole cake but could only eat one slice, I wanted to share the rest with my community.” She was incredibly inspiring and told us many stories while we ate delicious coconut cakes in her breakfast room.

Our first night we had dinner at a Caribbean restaurant of all places, but it was delicious and about a million times better than the ship food. Long Street is where all of the restaurants, bars, and clubs are in Cape Town and that is where we went to dinner and to a couple bars after (nothing too crazy parents, don’t worry, I had to be up super early for the safari!)

On Saturday I left at 7:30 am (ouch) for my 3 day tented safari to Kwazulu Natal Game Park. We flew from Cape Town to Durban and then took a 3 hour drive to the game park. We met our guide (a hilarious little man named Stefan or Qwebus- pronounced kweb-us… Qwebus is his tribal name) and took a 3 hour game drive from the entrance of the park to our site. It was a little bit of a bummer because we were still in the passenger vans and not the open air trucks, but we saw elephant, giraffe, zebra, and rhino! We saw the elephant (the only one on our whole safari) literally 5 minutes after the park entrance! Our camp was so cute; it was definitely rugged and outdoorsy- just what I was hoping! The tents were huge and slept 8 people on four bunk beds… the mattresses, pillows and blankets were nothing to write home about but it was so exciting just to be there. The cook, Mama Cook, made us the most amazing lasagna I’ve ever tasted (or was I just starving after 6 hours of driving?) and Qwebus gave us some rules to follow. The first one was to never go out at night without a buddy and a “torch” (aka a flashlight—for a brief moment I thought, in terror, we would all be wielding open flames in the brush, just asking for disaster) because there wasn’t a fence surrounding our camps and all sorts of terrifying animals (hyena, lion, elephant) have been known to traipse through the camp. We sat around the bonfire for a bit before passing out in bed early, knowing that a 5am wakeup call was in store for us.

The next day we had an early morning game drive in the open air jeeps and saw rhino, zebra, cape buffalo, monkeys, warthogs… pretty much anything you could think of (except lion and leopard). After the game drive Mama Cook made us some French toast and then a man from the game reserve gave us a little lecture about the African Wild Dog. That afternoon Qwebus took us all on a little nature walk of sorts to Kwazulu Natal’s own “Pride Rock” where he told us about all of the animals in the reserve. He was so knowledgeable about every animal we asked him about. His mannerisms also happened to be hilarious. That night, a new guide, Duncan, stepped onto the scene. (Duncan also happened to be GORGEOUS by the way… haha). He took us on our night drive where we saw much of the same. It was definitely a crazy feeling knowing that we had probably driven by lions, but they were probably camouflaged by lying in the grass… only 15 feet from our jeep! That night we had more delicious food and then sat around the bonfire eating marshmallows and having Qwebus tell us about crazy stories from other safaris.

Monday we left bright and early and took our time leaving the park, hoping to spot some of the big cats—we never did get to see lion or leopard. Overall, I’m so glad that I got to do a safari, it was so much fun and I really felt like I got to see a different part of South Africa than touristy Cape Town. Also, our tented safari was so much more rugged and like an actual safari than the wimps that stayed in the prissy lodges (haha…)Monday night I went out to dinner to the Ocean Basket which had delicious fish- I had sole, the “famous” South African kingklip, and prawns. Everything was so good! I think that the ship food is so bad that everything in port just tastes amazing comparatively. We spent Tuesday around Cape Town, doing the touristy shopping things, souvenir hunting, and sampling some of the fine foods. That night we had dinner at a jazz club and listened to some of Cape Town’s finest jazz at the Green Dolphin Jazz Club.Wednesday morning I decided to subject myself to a brutal hike. The original plan was to hike Table Mountain. Unfortunately, the winds were too high so we wouldn’t be able to take the Gondolas back down, so we had to resort to hiking Devil’s Peak, which is the left peak of Table Mountain. The name speaks for itself. It was actually a really beautiful hike that spit us out at Cape Town’s botanical gardens, where we were able to walk around for awhile before heading back to the ship.

After the Devil’s Peak adventure, Lydia and I went to Robben Island, which is where Nelson Mandela was for 18 of his 27 years in prison. The tour took us around the various sites, including the lime quarries where the prisoners worked. After apartheid ended, there was a reunion banquet in 1995 at Robben Island and Nelson Mandela and the other prisoners made a pile of rocks from the quarry. This pile of stones symbolizes the triumph over the brutalities of the prison, and since all of the rocks were of different colors and sizes, the term “Rainbow Nation” was coined. There are about 1200 stones piled there. Some interesting bits of info about Robben Island are that the minimum security prison was used for the criminals while the maximum security prison was for the political prisoners. Also, there were cages for the dogs that were on Robben Island and the cages were 3x3 meters while the prisoner cells were 2x2 meters. The black prisoners weren’t allowed to have socks, shoes or jackets even in winter and were often subject to solitary confinement. The prisoners couldn’t talk to each other, there was a voice radar detection system or something and a light would go on by your cell if you were talking and then you would be subject to whatever punishment they felt you deserved. The most amazing thing about Robben Island is that the ex-prisoners work as guides and that they feel that they have reconciled with the guards who victimized them and they now all work together on the island.

Wednesday night, Lydia and I met up with a young girl named Siphokazi. Lydia met her on another township tour that she had gone on while I was on my safari. We took her and her friend (who’s name I can’t pronounce or even spell because it has a click in it- they speak khosi which is a click language). We took them out to dinner on the waterfront and then took a cab back to Siphokazi’s house where she lives with her grandmother and little sister. She doesn’t live in a little shanty house like most of the people in the townships (she lives in Khayelitsha) but in a new government-built house that is a little bigger and built out of cinder blocks. The cab ride was a little bit scary because the driver pulled over on the high way and took the taxi sign off the roof of the car so that we wouldn’t be targets… At her house though, I never felt unsafe once. Mostly we just watched TV and talked about school, music, family, etc. It was so nice to be in an actual house and not sleeping on water. The next morning Siphokazi’s grandmother made us breakfast. There were some women scrubbing the road a couple houses down and we asked what they were doing. Well, apparently that night someone had been stabbed there and the women were washing the blood off of the street. It was crazy because I felt so safe in her house and didn’t hear a single thing through the whole night. I guess we were just lucky to be in her home and not out on the street. That day we went to this big gorgeous mall that the girls took us to. They wanted to shop around and then we all got lunch. We took these crazy bus/cab things (basically big passenger vans) around—it was so cheap to travel that way! Back in the township, we went to her after school program, which is where Lydia had met her in the first place. It is a program run by “Africa Jams” and they mostly just have the kids play games and do skits for 3 hours a day, 5 afternoons a week. It was really nice to interact and play with a bunch of kids, they were all very friendly. It’s amazing because each kid speaks three languages, basically fluently! They all spoke English, Afrikaans, and Khosi. After the after school program we took some more crazy cabs back to Cape Town and then had to say goodbye to our new friends and Cape Town.

While I was a little sad that I didn’t get to do any of the “extreme sports” that I wanted to (bungee jumping, sky diving, shark diving), I’m so glad that I got to go on a safari and spend a night in the township. The night in the township is something that I will probably never get to do again and I’m so glad that I had such a unique experience in Cape Town!

Now I’m in Port Louis, Mauritius. We got here about 4 hours later than expected because of rough seas and bad weather (apparently Mauritius had some tornadoes hit the right before we arrived) but nevertheless, we’re here! Unfortunately my trip for yesterday was cancelled. Instead, we took the water taxi to the waterfront and walked around the marketplace. There is a huge Indian influence here; Mauritius is actually known as the “gateway to India” by people from Africa. I went to dinner in china town and had some very authentic Chinese food… sweet and sour prawns, chicken, spring rolls… everything was very good. Today I had a trip to Terre de Paix which is a school for kids who have been separated from their parents because of neglect. Most of them don’t actually live at the school, but live at other boarding houses and come to the school every day. Mostly the school is used to re-socialize the kids—they do a lot of activities like home economics, music, a bunch of different art classes, and then they have social studies classes. It was really fun to interact with the kids and hear about this great program for kids that have been abused or neglected.Tomorrow I have my catamaran and snorkeling adventure! Tomorrow night at 2300 we leave Mauritius and begin the 7 day trek across the Indian Ocean to India!
Lots of love, Klee