Kevin's Semester at Sea: Hiking and Wildlife

Bad weather in between Ghana and South Africa forced us to slow down our speed which then caused our arrival into Cape Town to be delayed. Originally, our captain said that we were planning on getting into port in the afternoon as opposed to the scheduled 8am. Turned out that we actually ended up missing the entire first day of South Africa which was a true bummer. It's also didn't help that our next port, Mauritius was

cancelled due to the same reasons... Nevertheless, for me, South Africa was full of wildlife and hiking. While many of my friends were off skydiving, shark cage diving, bungee jumping, ostrich riding, lion eating, penguin paddling, safari-ing, etc, I chose to take a slightly different approach into my time in Cape Town. Overall it was an incredible experience and I know that there will still be so much for me to do when I come back.

First off, I have to mention our inter-port lecturer. Between each stretch between ports, Semester at Sea flies someone from our next port to the port we are currently in. For example, Michael Williams, the manager and director of the Cape Town Opera house was flown from Cape Town to meet us in Ghana as we departed from the city of Takoradi. He spent the entire week traveling with us to South Africa. He gave presentations in classes as well as to the entire shipboard community during the evening seminar sessions. He spent a great deal of time focusing on the Apartheid/segregation in the country as well as the economy of South Africa. The unemployment rate is 28%! The best part in my opinion of Michael's stay was the musical production he put together. On day one of our time on ship sailing from Ghana, Michael held an audition for anyone that wanted to be in a musical. The musical had a variety of songs taken from famous South African productions and we were given background information before each episode. The 30 or so students that volunteered memorized about thirty minutes worth of dancing and singing. It was fantastic! My friends Carolyn, Amy, and Nicki all joined and it was exciting to watch them.

On our first day in country, I was on a field program called the 'Cheetah Outreach Project and wine tasting'. Sounds like a good combination to me! While we were on our drive to see cheetahs, it amazed me how quickly we went from the urban and developed parts of Cape Town to the townships and slums of Cape Town within a matter of only a few minutes. When we arrived at the Cheetah Outreach Project, we learned that all of the cheetahs and other cats they had were all rescue animals. Many had been hit by cars and couldn't survive on their own from there on so they were brought in. Unfortunately we only had one hour here but as you can see below, we were able to get up and close to a cheetah, named Evory. Don't worry mom, I'm fine. From there we made our way to the Morgenster Estate winery surrounded beautiful countryside and mountains! Upon arrival we sat down in a quiet room surrounded by bottles of wine and oil. Morgenster Estate is known for making some of the finest oils in the world. Each place at the table had 5 small glasses with 4 different oils and a balsamic vinegar in one. There was also bread and an assortment of other snacks on the tables and I figured maybe we would dip the snacks into these small glasses... I really wasn't sure. The glasses were so small and I knew it would be tough to dip a piece of bread deep enough to get the oil. The winery tour guide asked us to pick up the oil we had in our top right corner and to cover this small glass with both hands to warm the oil up. While we were doing this, she gave a brief description of the oil and then said 'okay, now go ahead and try this one.'

I didn't think I would be able to notice any true differences between the 4 olive oils but it turned out that after drinking each glass, they were all substantially different from one another. Yes, we actually drank the oils straight from the small glasses. I didn’t see that one coming! Of course, afterwards we tried 4 different kinds of wine as well which were all very nice. I wish I could have taken a bottle or two home but because of the strict no alcohol policy our ship holds, I wasn't able to. Towards the evening, we piled a group of about 10 SAS students into a few taxis to visit the world-wide church, Hillsong. We made the 6:30pm service and 15 or so other SASers went to one of the other four services held throughout the day. It was absolutely one of the highlights of my time in South Africa! The guy who gave the talk was very well spoken, and the room was full of energy and excitement. We felt at home to say the least. Afterwards, we went to a large mall nearby where we ate dinner and did a bit of shopping. Great first day...

I ran into my roommate after getting back into the ship in the afternoon and decided to walk around the water front with him and some other friends. It didn't take long before I decided that I wanted to go off on my own and part ways from them and the touristy mall scene. Unfortunately for me, I spent no more than 30 seconds by myself in all of South Africa. At least I know my mom was happy... As soon as I left my roommate and walked out of the mall, I ran into more SAS friends who told me that I should travel with them and not by myself. I ended up giving in and spent the night wondering around the city, eating a fantastic dinner near the ship, relaxing and taking in all of Cape Town's beauty. By the way, I haven’t mentioned much about Cape Town yet, but it is an absolutely gorgeous city surrounded by mountains on one side and the ocean on the other. Table Mountain is the most iconic mountain in the area providing the city a great backdrop and I will get to that when I talk more about the 4th day.

Day 2 we went to Seal island and the penguin colony at Boulders Beach on a field program. Again, driving through the mountains of South Africa and seeing the ocean at the same time was such a unique experience. The penguins were by far my favorite. They have made Boulders Beach their home and are not forced or drawn in by anyone looking to make some money off of tourists. This is simply the place they are choosing to live and they have the option to leave any time they would like. We were given box lunches at Boulders Beach paid for through our field program. It was a bit windy as we sat down next to the penguins to enjoy our lunch. As we began finishing what we had in these boxes, empty wrappers and plastic began to fly all over. I had to chase down a few pieces of trash that flew out of other student's lunch boxes. I ended up losing my entire box after trying to help another student chase down his one piece of plastic. I did end up getting it all back though which was great.

The next day we went on a safari only two hours away from Cape Town, at the Aquila Game Reserve. There we saw 3 of the Big 5 which include elephant, rhino, lion, leopard and water buffalo. I missed seeing the latter two. Regardless, it was an incredible experience to drive around in search for these animals. And of course, someone on our safari did the one thing that you aren't supposed to do on a safari; she dropped her phone out of the jeep... The tour guide looked at her and said 'I don't want to go get that, do you want to go get that?' However, he was only joking and he did end up getting it for her. He did mention though to our group to make sure this doesn't happen again when we get to the lions... Our tour guide most certainly had a good sense of humor. When he introduced himself in the beginning, he said his name with two clicks in it which is common in the Afrikaans language. Talk about tough pronunciation... He said 'if you need me, just call my name, Alle-click-click-sarra.' He told us we might need to practice... 'Or you can just call me Bobby.' Yep, that's better... We had a great 2 hour safari on a beautiful day. Unlike Ghana, South Africa wasn't too hot but it also wasn't cold. For the duration of our stay we saw no more than about 80 degrees and a low of 60. At one point during our safari when it was 'safe', our tour guide stopped the jeep, as we all proceeded to get out of the jeep where he began pouring wine for us. This was just moments after seeing three giraffes walking by. I don’t think it will be too often that I get to say that I was drinking wine and watching giraffes on a game reserve in South Africa! I know, I am absolutely spoiled. I am having fun though! To top the day off, because it was Tuesday, we went to a Mexican restaurant to celebrate Nicki's birthday.

On day 4, five friends and myself decided to hike Table Mountain. We planned on waking up early and meeting at the reception desk on the ship at 4:30 am to hike before the sunrise, however not every one made it out this early... We ended up leaving at 5:00 am. We arrived at the base of the mountain shortly after 5:30 am and we were standing on the top looking down only 3 hours later, just missing sunrise. Along the way, we talked to many locals doing their daily morning exercises by hiking the mountain. The views were stunning and worth the 3 hours of sweat. We were all a bit tired after hiking the 3,000+ ft beast so we decided to take the cable car down. It was just a bit faster... It only took 5 minutes to get to the base and we were now headed back to the ship so some of my friends could catch their afternoon field programs. As for me, I found some different friends back on the ship and we went once again to the waterfront to do some looking around. During our walk, we noticed a strange cloud formed just east of Table Mountain. I tried to tell my friend that I thought it was a wildfire but she thought it was only a cloud. After about 20 more minutes, it blew up and by the end of the day you could actually smell the smoke at our ship which was a good 5 miles away. Good think we hiked early in the morning. I had friends who hiked during the fire and they said it was tough to breath through it.

I had absolutely nothing planned on the last day. I figured most likely I would be walking around town by myself for the day. I went to breakfast on the ship and ate with my friend Rudy. I know, I know... I believe this the first guy that I've mentioned on the ship other than my roommates. In reality though, on the ship I tend to hang out with the same group of about 7 girls. And I am okay with that! Anyway, I asked Rudy what his plans were for the day and he replied 'I don't know.' To that, I said 'can I join you?' We did end up spending the day together until we had to be back on the ship to go through immigration. Rudy and I ended up walking almost 10 miles throughout our 5 or so hours. We walked through down town towards Bo Kaap street which is lined with extremely vibrant houses. We decided that we were close to Signal Hill and we wanted to hike up. We did our best to find a trail leading towards the top, even walked almost entirely around the hill but never had much luck. We ended up finding one small trail that began going up but not before long did it start going back down again with no promising signs it would actually lead us to the top. We finally ended up deciding that we would just create our own trail straight up the hill through the bushes and the weeds. I guess you could say we were determined to get to the top. Like Table Mountain, the views were amazing and worth every drop of sweat. I can't wait to come back to South Africa for more adventure! Here are five fotos from South Africa.