PCV: Paid Caribbean Vacation

When looking at pictures of Nick Thomas’s from last year, I realized that one of the places I wanted to go here was Cape Point. Pictures look amazing and there are penguins too so I figured it was a must see. The problem was most people were still on Safari, so I felt like I had no friends and the others had already been there. I found Victor, Katie, Bri, Blake, Brandon, and Brian to go with me. I really only knew Victor and Brian before going but it was fun none the less. This wasn’t about going with other people; it was more about seeing the sights and working on getting a better understanding of the world.
We took a train, which was a hassle in the first place, to Simonstown. Getting to the train was hard because we had to go on a scavenger hunt all over the city to find the train station but considering a round trip ticket was about $3.50 for riding on a train for 2 hours, we couldn’t turn it down. The cool thing was we got to see the country more as we trucked along the coast of the Indian Ocean. This was the first view of the Indian Ocean and it was almost a different color altogether. Bigger waves than I had ever seen and more little villages on mountain sides than I thought were imaginable.
We pulled up to Simonstown and had no idea where to go. We just knew we were hungry and found a small shop that sold sandwiches and drinks. I got a chicken, cheese, and pineapple sandwich, fries, with a huge water for about $3 total. We found out that pretty much the only place to get to the point was by taxi called Rikis. All 7 of us piled into a van that was smaller than most American cars and we started winding up and down towards the Cape of Good Hope.
On the way there, I saw something that was priceless. Now its not that I see too many monkeys on my average day, but I got to see my first baboon and I saw him in finest style. There we were just hanging out, packed in like sardines into a van when the van driver slams on the brakes and jerks off the road. We thought it was all over, but it was just a baboon chilling out on the side of the road. He was sitting there on the white line and as you might not expect, he was masturbating. It would have been one thing had it just been touching himself but it seemed like he was getting more pleasure in knowing that people were watching him. As soon as someone stopped, he went faster and faster until he got the money shot that he wanted. And just like humans, the end result was the same! Lucky me, I got a picture of him dripping, and then even better, I got a picture of him eating it not long after. It was one of the coolest and funniest things I had ever seen. Victor got a video of the entire thing. It’s amazing. We came to the realization that there is a fine line between hilarious and disgusting… and this was hilarious.
Now before we got to the Cape of Good Hope, there was still more fun to be had. While the taxi driver wasn’t really up for much conversation but he did certainly know where to stop and what to make us look at. But he said he goes there 5 times a day so there aren’t too many things that change probably.
What was that fun you may ask? Well we saw ostriches! I wanted to ride one and tried to chase it but those little bastards are fast. We were about 40 meters from the water seeing huge waves of the Atlantic crashing down on the rocks and then ostriches right in front of us. Tough life. These were cool; but once again, just animals and I had some other stuff to see.
The Cape of Good Hope is the most South-Western point of the African Continent. I have a picture by the sign that says so and its latitude and longitude of the site. It’s beautiful and the waves are pretty big with even bigger rocks for the water to crash down on. Lots of kelp on the shore with bugs galore all over it. The water was freezing so I didn’t even plan on getting in. It was just one of those spots that you had to see to believe its beauty. This was short lived though because our taxi driver only gave us 10 minutes at this spot because we still had to go further into the park to Cape Point. The reason we came here for in the first place.
Cape Point is higher than the Cape of Good Hope but slight more east. While driving up to Cape Point, you can see the Cape of Good Hope and the beaches get whiter and whiter the higher up you go. We pull up to Cape Point and we realize we actually have to get out on hike to the top of the hill. On the hill, there is a huge light house that serves as the tip of the Cape. The view from here was breathtaking. It took about 25 minutes to walk up to the top of the light house and at the top there was a sign that showed how far away the world’s major cities were and the direction they were from where I was in the world. It’s crazy to think I was over 7,000 miles away from New York City.
So there I was, a world away at the point where the Indian Ocean and the Atlantic Ocean comes together. Known as one of the windiest places in the entire world due to all the currents coming together at the same time, I was taken back. The water was so blue all around. It’s a shame that some people didn’t get to see this due to Safari or other useless things they found to do while in South Africa.
We had to rush back to the van not too long after going up but we didn’t feel rushed up there, just rushed as we ran down the trail to the van. We had to catch the train to make it back to Cape Town so I could meet back up with Sean and Dylan for another night of fun.
On the way back, the fun never ended. I fell asleep for a little while but still got to laugh at Victor and Brandon making fools of themselves. The spectacle of the ride back happened to Katie. We stop about ever 30 seconds for another train stop or so it seems, and we stop so much you almost forget people are getting on or off. We get on at the last stop and get off at the first one so it’s not that hard to ride the train. I figure this is a good thing because us stupid Americans would probably screw it up otherwise. But to get back to the point. We were at a stop, when this guy sticks his head in the door as it opened, looks right at Katie and asks her quite politely, “would you like to have sex with me? I would like to have sex with you.” Then the door shut and we were on our way. That was it. Random: yes. Awkward: yes. Hilarious: you damn right.