Cape Town Day Out

Cape Town is an incredibly beautiful city. Table Mountain looms over everything, a soft fuzz of clouds caught on it's higher points. The ocean winks at you from the edges, and tall ship masts jut above the horizon. Colorful houses and incredible graffiti splashes the view.

While Subash was watching cricket at the stadium, I spent the last two days exploring.

Being short on money and long on time, I turned to the thrifter's greatest friend, the bus! Cape Town has a great MyCiti bus system. It takes a while and involved multiple transfers, but it felt safe and was ridiculously cheap in comparison to cabs and Uber. 

I got a MyCiti card from the convenience store down the street, and put on 100 rand (~$10.) The convenience store owner asked where I was staying and for how long, and I lied, pointing in a random direction and saying "a few months." 

I took the bus to Hout Bay, which I randomly chose because I read that there were boats going out to "Seal Island" from the harbour there. The trip involved two different buses, an hour and a half, and a group of very excitable children who chanted "beach! beach! beach!" nonstop for the last 15 minutes.

I didn't end up going to Seal Island, but I DID see seals in the harbour!! They are cape fur seals.

There were also some kids swimming in the harbour, and I bought a cold coffee from a little stand and watched them. They took turns jumping off one of the boats anchored nearby and skipped stones.

When I took the bus home it drove along the edge of rocky peninsulas, amazing blue water with huge boulders in it alongside. There were a number of sandy beaches, so I wrote down some of the bus stop names and determined to return more prepared for a beach day.

So it was that I set out again yesterday, repeating the bus trip, now in a bathing suit. I got off at a stop called Whale Rock, which had an area of water partially closed in with a low concrete wall.  I am not a strong swimmer, and I am afraid of great white sharks, or at least of being chomped by one, so I thought this world be a good place to start. (There ARE great white sharks here. You know that insane video of a shark leaping out of the water to catch a seal? That is around the aforementioned Seal Island). 

I walked around exploring the little tidal pools among the boulders. There were thousands and thousands of shells, sea anemones, snails, and sea weed.

There were three children playing nearby, and in that wonderful easy way kids have, came over to see what I was looking at. I showed them the anemone and they wanted me to "catch" it for them. I explained it was attached to the ground (I think??) and showed them how it shrunk up when you touched it. We looked around for a while, trying to catch a little minnow and picking up cool shells. It was so fun, and they kept asking me questions. Why is the seaweed on the rocks dried up like that? What is in this shell? Is it alive? It was fun to find things that I had thought were cool and pass them over to be investigated. 

Exploring cool places by yourself can be lonely--you see these neat exciting things and have no one to share it with. So I enjoyed teaming up with those kids for a little while, although who knows what their parents thought of this strange person staring into the water carrying a backpack full of junk. 

After a little while one of them turned and said, "we are going to go now. bye!" And they turned and clambered off, styrofoam cup with sea treasures in hand.

I briefly went into the nearby pool of water to "swim." I plopped my stuff down right next to a random family in the hopes that would keep anyone from stealing it while I was away. The water was very cold, and due to being trapped by the wall kind of filthy. I saw what I swear was blood floating by and after that couldn't really get into it, hah!! 

So after dipping up to my shoulders just to say I had, I headed back to the main sidewalk. I had a delicious melon sorbet at an icecream shop, and sat and watched the world for a bit.

I looked at a few souvenirs stalls that had popped up along the road. You see the same type of thing over and over--these amazing beaded wire animals, statues made from coke cans and tin cans, and carvings made from ebony. I love them! For some reason I haven't bought any yet, but I always stop to look and to covet. My child self would have flipped out over the beaded ones.

The bus was only running every hour on Sunday, so when I saw one going by I just got on.

I decided to go to the "Waterfront," where there was supposed to be a market. One bus, a short walk, and another bus, and there I was!

The market was amazing, full of very clever and unique crafts. Unfortunately, it was also fairly expensive, at least for our trip. 

One of my favorites was this guy who made animal sculptures out of the thousands of foam flip flop sandals that wash up on the beaches here. He glues them together and then carved them into shapes, resulting in these multicolored animals.

There were pillows, jewelry, screen print t-shirts, beautiful bowls, and more sculptures.

I really want one of those big beaded animal heads! 

I thought about going to the aquarium nearby but it was getting late so I figured I should head back before dark. 

Along the one road I saw all these people hanging out on the sidewalk. They had been there in the morning too. It was like they were waiting for a parade. I don't know why they were there. Another market maybe ?

It will remain a mystery.

I also finally got some photos of the graffiti and murals around, which is pretty amazing. The first one is my favorite.

And so, with a little more sunburn, and some shells in my pocket, I made it home again.

I had a great time exploring around. It is a good confidence booster to be forced to navigate a new place alone, and figure it out. You HAVE to figure it out, after all, and so you do. By the end of the second day I even gave someone else advice on the bus system, hah!

It isn't always easy for me--it may come across that way from the outside but rest assured there is a whole barrage of thoughts, fears, insecurities, loneliness and second-guessing that goes along with it. 

But I did it!! I found my way and made my own happiness. I strode through the bus doors and waved my shiny new bus pass, all my own, and explored the city.

It feels good.