Friday night after Table Mountain, the entire volunteer house went out for a farewell dinner as Jade, a young lady from England, was finished her 4 week volunteer stint and leaving the next day. We went to a really nice restaurant at Camp's Bay, the beach community, and were able to eat on the patio overlooking the ocean. After dinner a few of the girls, including Erica, decided to take in a bit of the night life of Cape Town. I was a little worried about her until she got home because Cape Town is definitely not the safest place, but it all worked out as she made it home safe and sound.
On Saturday, Erica and I went on a Winelands tour. Our guide Dion, was a colored fellow who proceeded to tell us his life story. His father was white and his mother was colored. When he was born, the midwife registered his birth and because his mother was colored, he was registered as colored. Many years later, when his brother was born, his father registered the brother and because the father was white, the brother was registered as white. That just shows how random the whole classification system was. This random act had pretty severe consequences for Dion because when he tried to get into a university, he was forbidden because he was colored. He worked for several years and then was recruited by the U.S. government to work in New York for the Dept. of Standards (some type of international work). Several white people were in line for the job but were turned away. The U.S. actually wanted someone of color as a representative of South Africa. So in that instance his color worked out for him. He ended up living in Buffalo, New York for about 15 years and went to university while he was there, getting a degree in hospitality. He went to university at the same time as one of his sons. He came back to South Africa after the end of apartheid.
The Winelands tour was pretty good. We went to 3 different types of wineries. The first was a small, family owned winery. They gave us a tour of the vineyards and the wine cellars where they stored the wine We then had a wine tasting with about 6 different types of wines and some cheese and crackers. Next, we went to a huge factory type winery and just had a tasting. One of my favorite things there was not wine at all but a liquor called "Wild Africa". We then stopped in a little town where everyone was of Afrikaan descent (Dutch ancestors but developed own language and identity). The signs were not in English and everyone around us spoke Afrikaanis. We had lunch there before heading out to the third and final winery. This was a wine tasting only but it was outside in a very lovely setting. There was also a very cool little exhibit on the grounds of the winery which talked about the history of South Africa.
We did nothing on Saturday evening because we had to get up bright and early on Sunday to go whale watching! On the way there, we encountered about 30 baboons running along the side of the road. Our tour guide stopped so we could get a better look and take some photos. It was very cool. Some of the baboons were carrying their little ones either on their backs or under their tummies. Further on we made another stop to look at a penguin colony. They were of course South African penquins and were very tiny and cute. We saw hundreds of them and got pretty close to some. Our guide warned us not to get too close though because apparently they bite.
When we got to Hermanus, the whale watching site, we had a choice of viewing the whales from the shore or going on a whale watching boat. Erica and I chose the boat and it was a wild ride! The waves were at least 15 feet high in spots and several people got really sick. At first, the commentator was saying things like "whale at 2 o'clock" and "there's another one at 9 o'clock" and we would look and see nothing. (I was thinking "So this is how it is going to be.") But later on we started actually seeing the whales. They were humungous! They are Southern Right Whales and apparently a baby whale when it is first born is as big as an elephant. We had numerous sightings but unfortunately no photos to prove it. Erica even had one come along side where she was sitting. It was so close she could have touched it. We were hoping one of them would start breaching but it did not happen. They just kept coming up for air and flipping their tales as they went under. All in all it was a great day and a great weekend.
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