PCV: Paid Caribbean Vacation

Being that I didn’t get to sleep until very late the night before, I didn’t really get up until lunch time the next day. I had lunch with Roberto and we realized that no one was really left on the ship. Everyone was gone on safari. I didn’t want to pay all that money to go off and see a bunch of animals. I’m sure that the animals were cool and all but I didn’t see the reason to pay so much money to see animals for so many days. I would prefer people 100 times over before animals.
Roberto and I finally got moving a little after 1 and we decided to walk back to Long St. and find some trouble. We walked around and just chatted it up for awhile on how he was missing Puerto Rico and how he went to the township the day before. The townships were something I knew I had to do but didn’t want to pay Semester at Sea to go. I am pretty adamant about not paying for a trip through Semester at Sea because I’m all about not putting money onto my student account. Erin… the last account balance was $4 after a month on the ship. Most people’s were in the hundreds of dollars. I don’t know how they do it but I suppose that their parents are paying for it and they don’t have to worry about small fees like a few hundred dollars of account balances.
Roberto and I stumbled across the Cape Town Museum and we decided to check it out for a small fee of R10 (about $1.40). While most of the museum was about animals and the history of dinosaurs and water animals and such, there was one display of the history of South Africa in pictures. This was cool because it showed pictures of many of the world leaders that had come to South Africa and things that had happened in the past. South Africa has history but the fascinating thing is it is so new. The Apartheid Regime of segregation only ended in 1994. We have been a free country for so long but for over half of the people in South Africa (all coloured and black people), they just got to vote for the first time in 94. Just another one of those things we take for granted.
The cool thing was we got to see pictures of what they call the Truth and Reconciliation Commission (TRC). This was a big thing that got people together to tell all about the wrongdoings of the Apartheid. Instead of pretending to forget about it all, the South Africans decided to put it all out there in the open and get the truth on the table. It was nice to learn about this in pictures because we had learned a little about it in classes, but it never really does do it justice more than when you are actually there and you can learn from it in person from people that actually experienced it. Archbishop Desmond Tutu talked to us the day before about the Apartheid and what life was like before and after. He was the Chair for the TRC, so it was interesting to see all that he had to sit through and listen despite being such a happy go lucky kind of guy. You would never think that someone of his character would have experienced so much hardship and been happy to tell about it.
Roberto was to go to Robben Island that day so we had to go back but we made sure to walk through the community gardens on the way back. The rose gardens were in full bloom and the roses were of every color. It was something I said I wanted to come back to and take more pictures but I never seemed to get around to it. I had no idea how busy the next few days would become.
I went back to the ship for dinner after dropping off Roberto to go to Robben Island and I bought a ticket for myself and Hanaan to go the next morning. I wasn’t sure what I was going to be doing that night because I was extremely tired and didn’t want to go out and get crazy all over again.
I met up with Sara and some others from the first day and we decided to go see a movie. We saw the Last King of Scotland. This was a movie that was extremely good and I highly recommend it for anyone who hasn’t seen it. It was far from what I expected but I had never seen a preview for it so I just went with it. It’s another one of those stories that Americans never hear about because when it happened we were too busy worrying about something else that could benefit us in the long term. The lonely country of Uganda was not something we could profit from, so as expected, we didn’t do anything to help the 500,000 people that were killed.
After the movie, I was all for going back to the ship but was talked into going into a local bar called Mitchell’s. I had heard from 2 different locals (a taxi driver and a waiter at a different restaurant) to go there and try the cider. Now I have had cider in the States and thought it was more disgusting than beer but the cider at this place was amazing. It was brewed right there in the store. It reminded me of a place like CB & Potts where it was just a good time to hang out and have a few drinks before going home. It was far from a place that you go to get trashed. I enjoyed the conversation with people I really didn’t know all too well and went back to the ship for an early bedtime. I had Robben Island the next day and I had to be ready to see what was in store for me.