Cape Town

Cape Town is an extremely beautiful city and South Africa, in general is definitely not what I would have ever expected. You definitely don't feel like you are in Africa when you are here. From only what we saw (and I know we aren't seeing a lot) it is definitely not third world. Cape Town is a very modern city and it has everything we could want or need here. We went into the mall and they have all the beauty products that I use (Redken, MAC, Kerastase) and I couldn't believe it. We are actually going to load up on a couple of goods before we leave haha. You can drink the tap water in Cape Town (and I think most of South Africa actually), you feel very safe in the areas we were, but still need to exercise common sense and take Taxi's when it gets dark. Since leaving Canada, I had been craving vegetables like crazy - I have had veggies since arriving in Africa, but never fresh, raw veggies. So when we got to Cape Town, I was so excited to finally get to eat a salad, actually, I have had a lot of salads because I know it will be a while until I can have them again. (Long story short - I don't eat any raw vegetables where the tap water is undrinkable due to getting very sick in the past). I have also been eating a bit of chicken - I'm breaking all my travel rules here, living on the edge! haha. But back to Cape Town, we stayed at a hotel within walking distance to the V&A Waterfront and spent most of our time there, exploring the area. Lots of places to eat and shop. On our last day in Cape Town, we went to Robben Island to see the prison where Nelson Mandela spent his jail term. It was pretty incredible to go there and hear the stories and see the prison and his cell. Our guide for the prison tour, spent 7 years in that prison in the 80's because they thought he was a terrorist and charged him with it (which is incredibly sad). I don't know if i would be able to go back to the place that I had to spend 7 years at for something that I didn't do (and the conditions obviously weren't very good, especially for a black man at that time). But as we learnt, the unemployment rate in SA is at 43% and it doesn't leave a lot of people an option and they have to do jobs that they would much rather not. Our guide said he has forgiven what has happened to him, but I'm sure its still hard to see every day. We are both really glad to have had the chance to see that and learn even more about South Africa's history. But on a lighter note, I wish Calgary was more like Cape Town because we went into the grocery store to get a couple items and I bought a great bottle of wine for $5!! It was amazing - we had a french picnic in our hotel room every afternoon a couple of hours before dinner. I could really get used to all this great wine and for so cheap. So yes, Cape Town has definitely been amazing.

Love Melissa and Arnold