South Africa Day 1 (February 18, 2009)

Ported in Cape Town!!! Finally, a port that actually looked more like a set of boat docks and not an industrial park. One of the first sights from the boat was a massive looking stadium being built off in the distance (South Africa is hosting the World Cup in the summer of 2010). Our main goals for the day were to hike Table Mountain, abseil down the top of it, and then go on a Jazz Safari (talk about it later). Abseiling – I didn’t even know what that meant before today, and once I found out, I almost backed out of it. Basically it is repelling down the side of a cliff or in this case mountain. Apparently, Table Mountain is the highest commercial abseiling venture in the world (112 meters); add that title to my already major fear of heights and you can see as to why I was a little skeptical of going. But there were about 15 other kids doing it so I decided to face the fear and go for it. The abseil tour vans picked us up at the port and drove us to Table Mountain. Once we arrived to the mountain we bought our gondola tickets and rode to the top. It was cloudy and foggy out, especially the higher up we got, but the sights on our way up to the mountain were incredible. Heading full face into a cloud, our gondola finally reached the top. Once we reached the top, you could hardly see down. I guess it a good thing that I couldn’t see the bottom, with my fear of heights and all. We huddled around the abseiling guides and they told us our safety procedures. After the procedures were complete, the rest of the group and I signed our lives away for the second time (ATVing being the first). My friend Jack, he’s from Colorado, very spiritual and philosophical guy. I decided to ask him to be my partner on the way down (we all went down two at a time), due to the fact that I was nervous as hell and if anyone could get me through the fear it would be him. We connected our carabiners to a rope and carefully walked over the first ledge to the second ledge where we would be repelling from. Once we got to the second ledge, the clouds started opening up and both Jack and I looked down to see the rest of Cape Town. I attempted to mentally block all fear out of my mind and it did help to some extent, but I was still very nervous. So once the guides strapped us into the repelling gear, we took four steps back, and then were simply hanging back, feet up against the rock ledges, 16000 meters of mountain underneath our backs -- an absolutely insane sight. I started slowly giving my rope slack, stepped back with each foot very cautiously, and finally made it over the ledge. Making it down the cliff, we lost sight of our guides, the last words we heard them say were “look out for the surprise”, and I thought to myself “Oh great…” Jack and I continued down the mountain, I started to get my bearings for the abseiling technique and it got a little easier as we went on. Then we ran into the surprise. Looking through my legs, heading down the mountain I realized that the mountain seemed to disappear underneath us, there wasn’t any more ledge once we hit a point. We stepped down to a side of the cliff that was not there and suddenly, we were hanging right side up…literally hanging. The only thing holding us from free falling 16000 meters down the mountain was some rope. I embraced the situation and looked out to the rest of Cape Town. We were out of the clouds and you could see the entire city, it was amazing. We lowered ourselves about 30 more meters and the abseil was over. I couldn’t believe how quickly it went. It felt good to face the fear though and sack up and do it. This was only the beginning of the journey however. On our way back up the mountain Jack and I got lost. We had taken a wrong turn and ended up halfway down the mountain. The walk was tough, one of the hardest and most uneven hikes I’ve ever done. Not to mention our bags were not with us, which is always a little nerve racking especially in a foreign country. I was starting to get dehydrated and pessimistic, Jack got my head straight though. So, we tied our shirts around our heads and ran a total of about three miles down the mountain and back to the gondola pick up. We bought a second set of tickets and headed back up the mountain to meet up with our group. Once we got to the top, we met up with our group and headed back down the mountain. It was kind of a hassle but oh well; we were the only ones in our group that can say we scaled Table Mountain in its entirety. We arrived back at the ship for our semester at sea trip. For the Jazz Safari, we first headed to a local Jazz club entitled “Best Ugly”. Apparently, the jazz scene in South Africa is one of the largest in the world. The music was great; it had been so long since I had heard live jazz. It was a very cool experience. Afterwards, we split up into small groups and headed into a township to go to a local musician’s home for dinner. As we approached the township, the entire atmosphere of Cape Town changed. Seeing houses with boarded windows, partially burned floors, was very much a different sight than some of the houses we had seen in the center of the city. Our tour guide, Jacque, told us that the musician’s home we would be going to was a local trumpet player named Reginald “Blackie” Tempi. It was completely random, but I was extremely excited that we would be with a trumpet player, hopefully, he would let me play a few notes. We arrived at the house and got a tour. It was a very nice house compared to some of the others we had seen in the township, but it was still a house in the township. As we entered the house, we saw Blackie and his bass player Pokey playing a jazz standard, which sounded really great. The house was actually not Blackie’s but belonged to a man named Ezra, who played piano I believe, and was a close friend of Blackie’s. Mama Ezra (Ezra’s wife) held down the kitchen along with other family members and friends. The food was great – everything homemade, we ate chicken that was slaughtered that day and had lamb stomach. The stomach had a weird smell and texture but it’s good to say that I tried everything. Mama Ezra served ginger beer (non-alcoholic of course) to drink; it was very good, tasted like lemonade with a little bite of ginger to it. The rest of the night was filled with music and dancing, we learned native songs and dance moves. I also had the opportunity to talk to Blackie about his career and South African Jazz in general. We all bought his CD too, which has a pretty neat story behind it – the entire CD was created in the same house we were in (the recording itself, cover, casing, etc.). It was truly an experience that I will never forget. It is amazing how different groups, from completely different backgrounds can be brought together as one through singing, dancing, and music in general. Blackie told us that many of the songs on his CD are focused around that point: unifying the people of his country.