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Cape Town sights
One week into our trip to South Africa, it seems clear that we have picked a poor time to visit. Winter time here means weather very like weather at home, and we have hardly seen the sky in the week. There is often a large amount of fog which prevents any real sight seeing. Anyway, we’re trying to make the most of it.
Most of the time we have spent looking at various shops and indoor attractions here. We have seen most of the shopping centres and other local sights. We visited the Cape Town aquarium, which was very enjoyable. They had a number of very large sharks in their large tank which were very impressive.
These guys were working on scaffolding on the side of a building; passing up poles and equipment from one to the next. Quite amusing to watch!
We met up with an old friend of ours, Neville, who lives in South Africa. He took us to the Stellenbosch area of Cape Town to try out some local wines. It was really good to see him again; hopefully we’ll catch up again before we head home. We’re staying at the hostel with a group of Americans who are here on internships etc. and on Saturday I joined them on one of their trips, white water rafting. The river was not very big, but it was really good fun because we were rafting in smaller boats which hold two people. Therefore, we were going down the river while neither person really knew what to do. My partner for the day was Courtney and we managed to tip the boat on the biggest rapid in the river much to the amusement of the other guys. It was a really good day and I got to see some of the beautiful South African countryside in blue skies. Mark informed me when I got back that it had rained all day in Cape Town; we’re beginning to think that it’s only in Cape Town that it rains.
Today we visited the brand new Hillsong church that has just started up here in Cape Town. It was Mark’s first experience of a large Pentecostal church service, I’ve been used to Beza’s services and this place was really very similar. The whole thing is a performance; the band even had smoke machines and flashing lights. The pastor sounded like he’d have been better as a stand up comedian, I kept expecting him to break out into “So a guy walks into a bar…” halfway through his sermon. He spent more of his time telling jokes about anything ranging from cheese to happy meals.
After Church, the sun had come out so we decided to take the opportunity while we could to head up Table Mountain, it being only the second time we’d even seen it since we arrived. We paid the cable car fee and arrived at the top to see all the cloud back down in Cape Town. It was quite nice to see all the cloud, but there weren’t exactly awe inspiring views. Anyway, we saw more than we would have earlier in the week.
Hopefully we’ll get some better weather this week. We’re still planning a trip away from Cape Town; I want to do a bungee jump!
See you all in a week’s time!
Niall
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