This week has been our first 7 days of Cape Town, and we’ve
seen though some great (and also not so great) times.
If I’m perfectly honest we’ve all been living for the night, we have established our local watering holes and some people have created names for themselves.
If I’m perfectly honest we’ve all been living for the night, we have established our local watering holes and some people have created names for themselves.
Our favourite places on the not-so-long-street that is known
as Longstreet are; Bob’s, a club run by an English man, it is a firm favourite because they give out free
shots for karaoke singing and pole dancing. The Dubliner, unfortunately is quite expensive, but it is an Irish bar
with live music so the atmosphere is really great! Stones; a club/pool and snooker house, (for all you Darlington residents, I believe it is probably like Riley's). Last but
not least comes The Food Inn; who undoubtedly fed the 30+ Project Trust
volunteers for the 10 days on cheap Indian food, and never failed to provide chicken
tikka sandwiches stuffed with chips after many a great night out.
A more classy area to Cape Town is The Waterfront; there’s a large shopping mall, outdoor amphitheatre, canal boats on the river and fancy restaurants... Among all of this is a Scottish Ale House that goes by the name of Mitchell's, and over our stay in Cape Town I can safely say that we all became rather fond of the place. I’ll miss the times we spent there listening to the lads shouting obscene football chants at the South Africans after watching a game; “I bet they’ve never even BEEN to England, and they support MANCHESTER UNITED?! They’re just glory hunters, that’s all they are!”
A more classy area to Cape Town is The Waterfront; there’s a large shopping mall, outdoor amphitheatre, canal boats on the river and fancy restaurants... Among all of this is a Scottish Ale House that goes by the name of Mitchell's, and over our stay in Cape Town I can safely say that we all became rather fond of the place. I’ll miss the times we spent there listening to the lads shouting obscene football chants at the South Africans after watching a game; “I bet they’ve never even BEEN to England, and they support MANCHESTER UNITED?! They’re just glory hunters, that’s all they are!”
Longstreet is great for teenagers on holiday as there’s everything you need right on your doorstep; however it has to be one of the most dangerous places I’ve come across since I’ve been in Africa. It is a hotspot for petty crime, pick pocketing, muggings and people with fraudulent tendencies. You have to have your wits about you every second of every day which can get tiring after a while, but if you do look out for yourself and your things you can have a brilliant time! Luckily I managed to have a fantastic stay on Longstreet and didn’t become the target of crime but other volunteers weren’t so fortunate; we experienced stolen bags, money swiped from people’s hands on the street, stolen phones, tricks at the ATM’s, laptops stolen from backpackers and muggings. But despite all that everyone carried on in true British style, picked themselves up, borrowed money and went out to hit it on the night and forget about their problems!
Christmas Day was spent in a cave on table mountain; our backpackers
organised the trip and we all paid E200 (£14) for the privilege of joining them
on Christmas day with food, drinks and 70 odd bottles of champagne.
Unfortunately to get to where the party was at we had to complete a short hike from
where the truck dropped us off (at the bottom of a shale slope) up to the cave. This doesn’t sound so bad until you
add in all the variables which made it hell. Firstly it was midday and
scorching hot, we all had to pitch in with carrying the food and drinks up
to the cave (I was stuck with a large pudding in a metal bowl, which heated up
in the sun and caused the pudding to melt into some sort of slop which did not
want to stay in the bowl), and to top it off we were all hung over due to our
Christmas Eve partying the night before.
It was all worth it; the views from that cave were spectacular, we had food drinks and music and all looked very festive in our free Santa hats from Bob’s the previous night. Unfortunately it didn’t feel like Christmas Day, but it was a really lovely Tuesday! Plus, how many other people can say they’ve spent Christmas Day on one of the (newly appointed) seven natural wonders of the world?
It was all worth it; the views from that cave were spectacular, we had food drinks and music and all looked very festive in our free Santa hats from Bob’s the previous night. Unfortunately it didn’t feel like Christmas Day, but it was a really lovely Tuesday! Plus, how many other people can say they’ve spent Christmas Day on one of the (newly appointed) seven natural wonders of the world?
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| Me, Sam and Sam (the Botswana boys) and Ashley |
This week I decided to experience some African culture; a few of us went to the District 6 museum to broaden our
knowledge on the whole subject – unfortunately the museum wasn’t really in a
logical order, so I’m not an expert on it but we did learn some interesting
things. The same day we went to see the Hobbit at the cinema, which was AWESOME
and made much more sense than the District 6 museum.
This week also saw my brother turn 17, which is crazy; I
can’t believe he’s so old! We had a little Skype session on the morning of the
28th and then Ashley, Sam, Georgia and I went for a Mexican meal at
‘The Mexican’ (which was great and really filling, damn I love Mexican food)
and all the volunteers headed out for a flat party! Two of the Cape Town
volunteers had us all round for the night, apparently it was a good party –
unfortunately for me I can’t remember, however a few embarrassing photos have
given me the jist of how my night went. Said photos have also given me the
nickname ‘Chunder Dragon’, and I will now always be remembered as the girl who
drank too much vodka, chundred everywhere and star-fished in the freezing cold
out on the balcony. What a legacy I have left behind me.
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| Before I made a fool of myself, having a nice time with everyone... why Kate why?! |
The next morning I was positive of how my night had gone, I had the second worst hangover of my life (those of you who were at my 18th house party will know that was the first worst hangover of my life, so you can gauge just how bad I was here), and I was still at the flat. Not at my backpackers. There were 4 of us who had stayed behind, and it took us all well into the afternoon before we could move far enough to get a taxi back to Longstreet. I was hungover and shoeless (don’t ask why) and there were 7 of us in a 5 person taxi... this isn’t even counting the driver. I spend the rest of the day in bed. It was a rubbish day.
The day after I’m still feeling pretty rough, but it’s
getting to the point now where we’ve been in Cape Town for a week and not
really done any sightseeing, so we’re all feeling a bit guilty for wasting our
time... We make a desperate decision and head to Cape Point and the Cape of
Good Hope with some German volunteers that we had been bumping into on our
travels all along the coast. We see some African penguins, climb to a
lighthouse to overlook the massive expansion of ocean (at some point you can
see the joining of the two oceans (Indian and Atlantic), and have a scramble on
some rocks at the Cape of Good Hope. They really are beautiful places and I
felt a bit happier for actually seeing more of Cape Town than Longstreet.
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| Cape Point |
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| Cape Point - somewhere out there is the Indian and Atlantic oceans joining together. How cool is that?! |
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| View back to the mainland |
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| Myself, Lauren, Yolanda and Ashley (Two out of the four girls from the Outward Bound project in Sedgefield, South Africa) |
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| Nice little view from our scrambling adventures up the rock face :) |
These holidays are going too fast, I can’t believe they’re
nearly over!
Until next time, Merry Christmas (for this week) and a Happy
New Year <3
Kate xx
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