Saturday 23 March 2013

Cape Town: The End Times

Good morning, good day and good evening world,

So we're sad to say that we are writing this, our last post about South Africa, from our boring, cold Ottawa home. We do have to say that now that we are home, the motivation to write this final post is quickly dwindling. So let's treat this like a bandaid and pull it off as fast as possible, that way remembering we are no longer in Africa will hurt less, right?
Nelson Mandela serving hard time on Robben Island.
A lot of our last three days in Cape Town were spent shopping and gathering souvenirs for our friends back home, but Mike and Maja are not used to just standing around buying stuff so we still managed to cram a lot of activities amongst the shopping as well.
As you can tell, probably the most appropriate weather for a visit to a prison.
Monday was a really gloomy and rainy day, it almost felt perfect for our visit to Robben Island. This former prison is found just off the coast of the Cape and is famous for housing many of the anti-aparthied political prisoners of the day, including Nelson Mandela, who was imprisoned there for over 17 years of his life. This three and half our tour was very enlightening but was difficult to call a "pleasant experience." We had to take a thirty minute boat ride on some extremely choppy seas to reach the island and once there, we hopped on a bus which gave a tour of the island itself, which is still home to a small community who runs this world heritage site. Many of the former prisoners and former security guards who ran the prison live and work together to ensure the memory of this place lives on. In fact, one of our stops was at a cafe for refreshments (Tuck Shop) which was run by Nelson Mandela's former guard and the place was full of pictures of the two of them together post-apartheid (they became close friends during his incarceration there).  We were also shown the limestone mines where the political prisoners were forced to work all day. It was during this forced labour where the country's future political leaders discussed South Africa's post-apartheid future.
The lime quarry, the cave is where prisoners would meet to discuss politics. (NOTE: the maintenance staff pictured are not forced labourers)
We also made our way through the prison itself where we were lucky enough to have an actual former political prisoner guide us through our tour and explain what he went through during his time there. One of the most interesting things he mentioned to us was the slightly different treatment received by the black South Africans and their "coloured" counterparts ("coloured" is the official South African term for those who are "non-white" but are lighter in skin tone than regular black Africans). Prison officials would give slightly better clothes and food to the "coloured" prisoners in order to create a division between them and the black prisoners, hoping to squash any growing feeling of solidarity. We were also shown Nelson Mandela's prison cell, which must have been no larger than two and a half metres wide and two metres in length.
Madiba's (Mandela) cell
One last thing about Robben Island, there were penguins on it as well ;)
We used the rest of the day to explore the Cape Town waterfront which had excellent shops and atmosphere (luckily the weather had cleared up by the time we returned to the mainland). After catching up with one of Maja's former classmates over lunch, we headed out to the Two Oceans' Aquarium to take in the local sea life. There were plenty of strange creepy crawlies there and Mike practically had to drag Maja into the building as she had no interest in seeing what kind of company she has when she goes for a dip in the South African sea. Not much to really report here, it's your typical aquarium, but it did have our third penguin sighting of the trip, so there's that.
Giant African Spider crabs. Probably the biggest, most disgusting crabs we've ever seen. If you can't tell, Maja was forced into this picture...
Hope you like PINK!
We started our next day with an impromptu walking tour of Cape Town, starting with the District Six museum. District Six was a famous neighbourhood in pre-aparthied Cape Town, where people of different religions, backgrounds, cultures and races lived and prospered together. It was a symbol of the melting pot that was Cape Town before the Nationalist Government came to power. Once apartheid came into affect, District Six was deemed an eyesore which prevented Cape Town's city planning to prosper. It became one of the largest incidents of forced migration known to man. All the homes were bulldozed and the land, which was never officially developed by the city government, was left to rot. Once apartheid was abolished, the land was once again developed but patches of land remained empty, full of dirt and weeds as a somber reminder of what had taken place there. The District Six museum offered insight into how this affected the people at the time as well as how they lived before the land was razed. We were also lucky enough to visit on the same day a class full of school children. We know, we know, how can we consider ourselves "lucky" in a museum packed full of noisy kids? Well, because of these children, the museum curator, a man well into his eighties, sat them down and offered them a first hand account of his experiences living in District Six, the forced migration and the apartheid government. We tried our best to sneak by and listen in. While we were in District Six, we also took the time to visit Cape Town's famous Charly's Bakery. Apparently there is a TV chronicling this bakery and it's amazing confectionary and, after trying some of it's amazing cupcakes, we can safely say that it is worthy of its fame! 
Probably the best cupcakes Mike has ever tasted
Changing of the guard
We also visited the Castle of Good Hope, which is one of the oldest buildings in all of Cape Town. This acted as a fort which housed the city's governor during the contentious time when South Africa was constantly switching hands between the United Kingdom and Holland. We arrived just in time to see the changing of the guard at the fort so time was one our side. The tour of the castle was interesting enough but we found the military museum outlining the Boer War, which was a huge gap in our historical knowledge, to be the definite highlight. We ended our day eating some excellent Mexican food with Sanjin and Amy, followed by a play about six traditional African stories put on by some of Sanjin's colleagues.
Mike being inappropriate outside the Castle of Good Hope
Our last day in Cape Town, which conveniently coincided with Mike's 31st birthday (urgh!), was spent with quite possibly the epitome of the Cape's tourist attractions, Table Mountain! After waiting over an hour in line, we took a tram ride up to the top of the mountain, which we are told is now one of the 7 new natural wonders of the world. While the wait was long, the view at the top of the mountain was totally worth it. You could see the entirety of Cape Town on one side of the mountain, and the entirety of the Cape peninsula on the other. The view was breathtakingly spectacular!
View of Cape Town from the top of Table Mountain

View of Camps Bay from the top of Table Mountain
Once we left table mountain, we decided that it might be time to finally enjoy some relaxation on this trip, so we headed down to Camp's Bay with Sanjin and spent some quality time just lounging on the beach. It was a nice time to unwind before a crippling flight back home. Our final adventure in South Africa was at dinner, as Sanjin and Amy took us to Moyo, a restaurant that offers a traditional African experience. We were treated to a buffet with countless different African dishes, ranging from oxtail soup, potjie (which we had already experienced at Amy's parents house), springbok sausage, Moroccan tajines  and countless others. The atmosphere is what really sold the place though, as it was all housed outdoors, with traditional African entertainment (drum circles) and face painting. We even convinced the one hold out, Sanjin, to get his face painted so that we could all match. We decided to keep our face paint on throughout our entire plane trip in order to show it off to Mike's parents at the airport. The first words out of their mouths? "What the hell is that stuff on your faces?!?" 
Us with our gracious hosts, showing off our newly painted faces
And so we've come to the end of our magical trip to South Africa. We won't bore you with the frustrating details of our annoying trip through three airports on our way back home to Ottawa, but needless to say, it was not a pleasant experience!

We had an absolutely fabulous time and we truly hoped you enjoyed following along with us. We'd like to thank Amy, the Jephta family, and the Keevy family for being amazing hosts. In particular we have to extend our gratitude to Sanjin, without whom we wouldn't have had nearly this amazing of a time.  Having people to show us around, house us and feed us added a personal touch to this trip that made it special and we cannot thank you enough! 

Let us know if this blog is something you guys liked and whether we should continue with Baby's Got Backpack for future trips!

Until next time!
NAMASTE!!
M&M
Bye Bye! Thanks for reading!

Wednesday 20 March 2013

Cape Town : Too many days to count (10 & 11)

Good morning, good day, and good evening world!
Well we've come to realize that we are starting to get a bit behind on our posts with this blog as we now have quite a backlog of days. The problem now of course is that we have now packed the last couple of days chock full of activities so we'll try our best to write about as much as possible below.
Beautiful wine country! Just looking at this view can make you thirsty!
Mike dipping his nose to smell the wine's bouquet.
He was surprised his big nose didn't land in wine itself
Our Saturday was a wine filled afternoon as we made our way to Stellenbosch, the wine capital of South Africa, and when in Rome, drink like the Romans! We started at the Spier Winery where we drank 5 varieties of white and red blends of different types of wine and, upon completing a "brief" survey, were treated to a complimentary bottle of wine. We went to two other vineyards on our tour, Boschendal and Solmes Delta, and drank even more samples of their delicious concoctions. I swar, weve nevr drak so mush wine in owr livves! Ti tasted greet! We dont know how we'll chose wish of the tipes to bring back since we can only bring back 2 botles. In fact, i think we maay haf to go bak and do it again before we go!! *hic*
Maja pre-wine. She's pretty excited!
Round 2! FIGHT!

Once we sobered up a bit, we drove another small town outside of Cape Town called Franschhoek for lunch and souvenir shopping. It's quite the quaint little town with several enticing specialty shops along it's main street. In fact, Mike has really fallen in love with the smaller towns in South Africa and he prefers them much more than the hussle and bussel of Cape Town. This would be one of our biggest recommendations when visiting South Africa, make time for the smaller towns. We suggest perhaps using the large cities as a base or hub, but then follow our example, rent a car and make your way out of the city.
What are you doing just standing around people! There's a giant Mantis on the loose! RUN!!!!!!!!
Mike was very smelly after his shawarma
Upon our return to the city, we learned that the Cape Town Carnivale was underway that evening. This is a relatively new event in Cape Town but it is similar, in idea, but not so much in size, to the Rio De Janero Carnivale. It was full of local residents dressed in elaborate and flamboyant costumes, live marching bands, huges floats and dancing girls. We weren't planning on staying too long into the evening but the magic of the atmosphere and the rhythms of the musical beats lured us there for most of the night. The most impressive sight by far were a group of African drummers who balanced enormous drums on their heads and would pound both the front of the drum and the sides in order to produce a rhythmic musical beat. How they never managed to knock one of these drums off their noggin is beyond my comprehension. It was a spectacular time! We ended the night with Mike's travel tradition. Everywhere he goes he has to try a shawarma! The reason this is so important to him is because he has found that every single country seems to have their own version of his favourite Middle-Eastern dish! Not only are they delicious but they are always unique too and South African shawarma didn't disappoint.

These guys were just plain awesome, there's no doubt about it.

Day 11 begun with some typical tourist trappings as we went souvenir shopping. We won't bother you with the details but we will say that now Mike is in possession of some pretty awesome South African rugby and cricket gear! We were lucky enough to be invited for lunch at Sanjin's girlfriend Amy's house where we sat down and broke bread with her parents, her brother (who is quite the proficient Jazz bass player) and his girlfriend. Amy's family laid out a truly amazing spread for us, with pasta salad, hake salad (just don't ask Mike how it tasted, he doesn't eat fish), beet root salad, pootjie (which is like a lamb chop stew with full veggies, like potatoes, corn on the cob, and peppers and beans), and boerewors (which is a traditional South African sausage).  All of the food was delicious and the company, equally pleasant. We were well stuffed and ready for our next adventure, off to Simon's Town, home to Boulder's Beach, or as we like to call it "Penguin Beach."

Hilariously awkward creatures
The roads leading to the beach were full of Yield signs with little penguin silhouettes on them, warning drivers to be on the lookout for the little munchkins. I think the city of Ottawa would have far more success with their yield signs if they decided to put penguins on them as well (or maybe it would just cause more accidents as drivers would be searching for penguins around them, who knows... ok it's a bad idea). At the beach, we were absolutely surrounded by penguins! Maja said the beach had changed significantly since she first visited, as they were able to go onto the beach and walk through the penguins, while now tourists are separated by an elevated boardwalk. While this isn't as fun, it's probably for the best as the penguins are an endangered species. Mike had an absolute blast and he embarrassed himself by pointing and laughing out loud as he watched the penguins waddle on the beach, not realizing he was surrounded by strangers. He just couldn't help it, penguins are HILARIOUS when when they walk. As this was a little after mating season, there were also numerous baby chicks throughout the beach which were equally adorable!
"It's too damn HOT for a penguin to be just be walking around! I gotta send him back to the South Pole!"

A beautiful secluded beach at Cape Point


We ended our day with a drive to Cape Point, where the Indian and Atlantic oceans meet. You may be familiar with a South African wine called Two Oceans? Well that's where it gets its name, the two oceans join in South Africa. It was a far drive and long trek up a steep mountain side (which Maja did in 4-inch heels) to see Cape Point, but it was worth it for the breathtaking view. On our way back to Cape Town, we took a spectacular road that hugs the near-vertical face of the Chapman's Peak mountain from Noordhoek to Hout Bay known as Chapman's Peak. We stopped at one of the lookouts to take some amazing sunset photos. Finally, all that walking and excitement had our stomachs gurgling so we ordered a huge meal from Nando's Chicken, a staple of South Africa (which you can also find back home in Ottawa)! Delicious spicy peri-peri sauce enflamed our taste buds as chicken, corn on the cob and rice filled our bellies!
Chapman's Peak. Views don't get much better than this...

We write this on our last day in Cape Town (on Mike's birthday!) so their may not be another update for a while, but we promise one more post to tell you about the final days of our trips (including a voyage to Robben Island where Nelson Mandela was held for 17 years, a trip to the Two Oceans aquarium, the District 6 museum and the Cape Town Castel).
Namaste,
M&M

Monday 18 March 2013

Road Trip: In Pictures

Good morning, good day, good evening world!
Since we were lacking any sort of consistent internet during our road trip, we thought it best to share a separate post of just pictures with you guys. Enjoy!

This soon-to-be-famous ostrich is a midget. Keep an eye out for her new show on TLC, "Little Ostrich, Big World"

Ostrich eggs are so strong they can withstand Mike's weight (I know, it's not really THAT impressive)

Maja practicing her ballet on Monkeyland's suspension bridge

Doggie's protecting the Barkai farm, Toby & Marmite!

South Africa's looping sensation, Jeremy Loops. Sorry Jeremy, you're loops aren't that sensational.

Zebra mama leading her baby to water at the Aquila safari park

Another Mama and baby pair. The mama rhino is on the left and the baby is on the left, but I'm sure I didn't need to tell you that. It's pretty obvious ;)

These are sprinkbok, aren't they just absolutely delicious adorable?

This poor giraffe is the sole one left on the Safari lands. It's kind of sad actually

This elephant nearly ran us off the road. Who do they think they are?!?!?

"Ahoooom! Timamamoowayyyyyyyyyyyyyy!" (Hint: Lion King Theme)

Typical African traffic jam.

This cheeky peacock snuck up on all the safari guests, giving them quite a fright. We even caught him peeking though the blinds and looking into our room! A Pea-ping Tom? ;)

Just a giant little putty-tat. Although it's purr sounded about as loud as the fan over our stove.

Crocodiles. I kind of hate them....

You really can't help but be impressed by a male lion.

"'C'mon, you know you just want to take me home with you!"

Leopard's are almost impossible to find out in the wild. They are definitely impressive as well.

The entrance to the Swartberg Pass. You are completely surrounded by the mountains....

...And, as you can see, you eventually reach the top of those very same mountains.

This is the other side of the mountain. It's much more green on this side.

The inside of the main chamber of the Cango Caves. This is the chamber that is over 20 metres tall.

These are some crusty old stalagmites and stalactites that have consummated their love and officially become pillars. 

Hope you guys liked these!
Namaste,
M&M


Sunday 17 March 2013

Cape Town - Day 8 & 9: The Return to the Cape

Good morning, good day, and good evening world,
Maja is literally this excited ALL THE TIME!

One of the best things about having Facebook and this blog while traveling (besides sharing our adventures with you wonderful people of course)  is that your friends from across the world can suggest places you should check out. Upon the suggestion from one of Mike's high school friends, Mike Diduch, we took a little detour to check out Nature's Valley. We really didn't know what to expect, but after a few kilometres of cottage country, we discovered a beautiful beach nestled just past a forest. This beautiful and secluded beach looked quite dangerous though as it was filled with massive sharp rocks throughout the surf. This view was definitely worth the detour.
Don't worry, T-shirt. I am ;)

Our last stop on the Garden Route before heading back to Cape Town was Mossel Bay. Our main purpose was to get some relaxation and as much sun as we could so we spent most of our time walking on the beach and soaking up the rays. The beach was quite deserted due to the fact that it was a week day and the summer months are dwindling. We didn't really explore the town too much as we used this as an opportunity to recharge our batteries before a 4 hour drive back to Cape Town.
We're posting this for no real reason other than Mike thought this was the coolest looking sheep he'd ever seen

We were quite glad that we arrived back in Cape Town in one piece as the drive was pretty dangerous. Not only are the drivers here inattentive, but they pass into oncoming traffic at blind turns and overtake cars even if they see another car coming from the opposite direction (as they assume the car will move to the shoulder of the road to let them by). Most of the highway is two lanes but slower cars sometimes move onto the shoulder to let you pass.
Bye Bye Road Trip! Mossel Bay.
We ended off the day with Maja's favourite South African fast food pizza, Debonairs, helping her to relieve her high school days in Pretoria. According to Maja, the pizza tasted just as good as it did in 2003 and the special Debonairs (mayo-like) sauce on the pizza met her expectations (Mike is still a bit unsure where he stands as of this writing).

So that's it for now, only a short one this time!
Namaste,
M&M