Cape Town

In Buenos Aires hostel, I just double checked that it's bus #8 that goes to the airport. The guy scared me that it will take me 4 hours to get there, and for sure I'll miss my plane! Like I haven't taken that bus before 2 ways, and every time it took 1:40. Why is it that tourists know more than locals??
The plane that I took was the biggest plane I've ever been to. It had 2 floors as well, operated by Malaysian airlines. My seat was on row 43 and I sat at the wing! The stewardesses wore traditional Malaysian costumes which was very cute. The food and service were excellent, and the entertainment program on the TV was 44 pages long! The flight was short, only 7 hours, that's shorter than any recent bus ride that I took :)
In the airport the security gave me a hard time because I didn't have a ticket back. Why do I need a ticket back I asked? I will cross the border by the bus. They have to know that I'll leave the country. I asked why would I stay? I live in Canada! After some unsuccessful negotiations, they made me buy a ticket. I just bought the cheapest ticket they had to Mozambique, which geographically makes sense, but still, I'd rather take a bus, and who knows, maybe I wouldn't want to go to Mozambique, or go there later or sooner. So will see. Now I learned, I'll fake an e-ticket before boarding any other plane. They told me that South Africa is very lenient, or at least to me, normally they would board the person back on the plane :S
The landscape is desert like, made me feel like in Israel or Greece. I was very brave to take a public bus to the center, and then a taxi to the hostel which was half a price to what the hostel shuttle was. But after arriving at the hostel my braveness diminished, and I felt in danger. How can I travel around if I'm scared to get out of the hostel? For the first 2 days I hung around with some guys from the hostel, and 3rd and 4th I decided to conquer my fears and get out on my own. Still, I tried to look for a bus that goes somewhere, and there are no buses. Terminals are at unknown locations, and I still wouldn't want to take a taxi on my own at 5:30am, so I decided to take a very touristic baz bas ticket which is $500 from Cape town until Johannesburg, stopping along the way with pick up and drop off at the hostels.
Quick stats about South Africa: unemployment 21%, 11 official languages, average life expectancy 49, 1000 deaths/day from AIDS; world’s largest diamond: 3106.75 carats uncut mined in 1905.
Cape town looks like a big resort, with some architecture that reminds me of Bermuda. There are tons of expensive houses especially on the beach that are around USD $5,000,000. A lot of expensive cars, mostly BMWs and Mercedes. It's located beside a table mountain which is very pretty, and during the evenings, I don't know what happens, but there are no clouds anywhere except the top of the mountain (called a table skirt), and it flows over it like smoke. The weather is completely unpredictable, 1 minute it could be boiling hot, and then the wind would blow, and I would shiver from cold. Cape town is considered to be one of the most beautiful cities in the world. I think I'm a bit spoiled from all the travelling, but then I got thinking about it, how many sunny places are there where there is almost no traffic, the waterfront is huge, there are white sandy beaches with chick bars and restaurants, it's pretty spread out, and there is a mountain? Not that many! But if I were to choose, I think I'll choose Rio, at least it's full with Brazilians :))
Went to walk with a guy from the hostel along the waterfront and the beach. It was a very nice walk, very very long, we walked for 5 hours until we gave up and took a taxi. The beach was completely white (both sand and people), and the water is freezing! It actually hurt my feet when I stood there for half a minute. It turns out that the water in the summer is cold because the ice in the Antarctica melts and is brought to South Africa.
People in South Africa don't know anything, just like in South America. Went to a book store, and asked if they have a lonely planet guides. He said that they don't, then I found out a whole section of them, and it's not like the bookshop was big. Then the lady in the hostel said that it's not worth going out to town on Saturday because everything is closed. I went anyway, and guess what? Everything was open!
I went to a formal slave house, a building where there were a 1000 slaves living, along with the history. It was a very sad place and a very sad history. A lot of slaves died from various diseases while being transported. Often the mothers and their children were separated, and their names were changed. Sometimes people sold themselves to be slaves if there was a shortage of food, or couldn't pay fine or debts. Currently obviously there are no more slaves, but it doesn't feel like that to me. All the dirty jobs the black people take, I know that it's optionary, but really, can they actually get over that ceiling? In the airport, all the passport control people were black, their supervisor was white. All the drivers are black, all the helpers. In the terminal and on the radio a very nice and perfect voice talks, clearly a white person, but it's not really their country, they invaded it.
Next day it was Sunday which means everything is closed, so I took the hop-on, hop-off bus and went around the table mountain with a stop in botanical gardens. They are supposed to be very famous and along the best in the world ... maybe. I think I'm just not into botanical gardens, although the ones in Rio were amazing, but this one was huge. It also had an exposition of wildness within people, so there were all these statues portraying people with some kind of animalistic features in them. It was so moving, like you could feel the power exploding from it. Also, I've never seen sculptures like that before, it's as though some kids put clay together (tyap-lyap) but it was so accurate beneath all these smudges. Very very powerful. Then we rode around the beautiful setting of the cliffs and beaches and I finished my day with one of the best pizzas I've ever had in my life. Food in restaurants is kind of cheap, so buying and preparing in the hostel is about half a price, but can't compare the quality. Most of the dishes are about $7-10 (with drink and tip), and are really high restaurant quality.
I feel like in some sort of fake fairytale. There are a huge number of very expensive houses often surrounded either by a tall and thick walls of concrete, or with barbed wire with "armed response" signs on them.
There are a lot of people walking bare feet, especially children. It's very cute to watch. In restaurants or supermarkets adults take their shoes off too.
Since it was a Dutch colony (along other countries too). There are a lot of names of places in Dutch like Strandfontein, Vanrhynsdorp, Nienwoudtville, Franschhoek, Waenhuiskrans .... which I can neither pronounce nor remember :S :))

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