On Cape Town

I’m currently in Stellenbosh sitting in front of a computer that looks like it’s from the 80′s.  The place I’m staying, while coming highly recommended feels like somewhere my grandma would love.  Luckily I’ll only be here the night and I’m on my way. 

This place is simply amazing.  Coming to Cape Town and getting a car straight away was a little overwhelming.   Coming from podunk Iraq into metropolitan Cape Town was a little bit of a culture shock.  Driving on the other side of the road is still really odd and I catch myself every once in a while wanting to go the wrong way down the road.  Also the roads are way to narrow.  They say its similar to european driving but eff that.  It’s a little stressful at times.  I keep seeing cars and thinking “..no he’s not going to make it..hey wow he actually did.”  Because of this craziness though my car got hit..  Yea my rental has a big scratch on the side and the mirror has a little paint from the other car.  It was parked and I guess someone sideswiped it driving by.  No worries though.  I’m sure it’ll all work out.  Right?  Oh just in case you’re interested, first gear is toward the left still and reverse is the last (or first) gear all the way to the left. .weird. 

So what I’ve done so far.  Actually not a whole lot.  I’ve just been taking it slow and relaxing.  I did go to the famed Table Mountain for a bit.  I’ll try to post pictures when I can.  It’s breathtaking up there.  You ride a cable car up to the top and you can see over Cape Town and down the coast a bit.  Being the adrenaline junkie that I am I just had to jump off the side, and jump I did (well repel actually).  Here it’s called abseiling and it was supremely invigorating.  At first it was a little unsettling because there was really no demo.  The guy just hooked me up to the harness, said don’t ever let go of this rope, and down I went.  The drop was about 112m or about 367 feet and about half way down the cliff I was bouncing off cut in sharply and I just fast roped to the bottom.  Crazy times.  What they didn’t tell me though was getting back to the top involved a 30 minute hike.  Now when I say hike I really mean climb.  Pulling myself over boulders and the like all one step to my right was an impressive fall to the base of the mountain.  Are they effing crazy?  I do admit though it was pretty sweet.  After playing on the mountain and becoming a tomato I went and explored some shops. 

Yesterday I had the opportunity to explore some of the townships (read, ghettos) around Cape Town  2/3 of the population live in these “shanty towns” surrounding the city centre (see I’m adapting already).  It’s incredible the poverty and conditions these people are forced to live in.  I’ll share more on this later when I have some time.  I’m on a shared computer but despite the antique furniture and smell of death in the air I hear there’s WIFI so I may get on later and post pictures.

Cheers,

-m.scott

p.s.  Shout out to my people in Iraq and beautiful VA. PEACE!