Reunion

After at least an hour of trying to find where I work, with the help of a map that covers only a small portion of Cape Town, Debbie and Keilani finally made it into Observatory (the section of Cape Town that I live in). It was then that I joined the stress filled car and we journeyed up to the Top of Table Mountain via cable car. From the top you could almost see the entire city and if you walked the edges of the flat top you could see many gorgeous views of the ocean and neighboring cities. I heard from a tour guide that the top of Table Mountain contains more plant species than almost every country in the world. I have no idea if that statement is entirely correct, but I wouldn’t doubt if it were.

The place we visited next was this amazing restaurant called Mama Africa, where we were served ostrich fillet, kudu steak, crocodile kabobs, potjie, and this type of local fish that is much like swordfish. The food was excellent and the atmosphere was very pleasant. A famous local band called Abakhaya was playing. Their music sounded so native and real, which really completed the whole experience.

A couple of days later I had the pleasure of joining Debbie and Keilani to tour Robben Island. After quite a boat experience going out to the island, we got on a bus and had a charismatic tour guide who provided just the right amount of information in such a way that I actually was able to walk away from the tour remembering dates and names (if only he taught history at my college…). Like most of the guides on the tour, he was once a political prisoner on the island. On the tour we were taught some of the history of the island and prison, and we had the opportunity to look inside Nelson Mandela’s prison cell where he spent 18 years of his life. He actually wrote his book titled “Long Walk to Freedom” while imprisoned on the island, and hid it under a tree for safekeeping.

It was a welcome departure from work to join Debbie and Keilani on some of their tours of Cape Town, and I find it so amusing that we were able to meet up in Africa of all places!