'This day has been so full of lol'

Sunday was a really nice day. We walked around town and took a few photos, then went to the iziko museum and planetarium (which of course embraced the South African hominid fossils). After that we had lunch, and the dev guy who was serving us asked if there was 'something wrong' when we asked to pay separately. Err..no, apart from the R25 tip he added on to our bill. Then there was a bit on the receipt asking if we wanted to tip more! Clearly not. He gave us loads of mints and made a really big deal out of it but we saw right through him!

Side note: I noticed when we were walking through town that nobody on the streets would make eye contact with me, even when I was actively trying to get some sort of a reaction from them - which reminded me of our experience on Friday night: we were at the bar in the club called Joburg, and there were 2 people working behind the bar - one black girl and one white girl - we were waiting at the bar for ages and the black girl was free to serve us but didn't - we had to wait for the white girl to be finished serving other people. However, when a black guy came to the bar, the black girl served him straight away. It was actually so blatant and we all noticed it independently. It seems there is still something of a divide here.

Anyway, after lunch on Long Street, we went to the Ashanti Lodge to check if that was where we were meant to be meeting the tour group (there are 2 Ashanti Lodges in Cape Town), but we went to the right place, and our truck was already there waiting! It looks amazing...massive...and as though it has been through all sorts of stuff. But it looks stable too.

So then we came back to our hostel and had a cup of tea and chatted and had dinner (after almost exploding the microwave by putting butter in foil in it ('it'll be fine for a few seconds!')). Dinner was horrible powder soup which ended up as a gross vomit-resembling lumpy mess. We then chatted again for a couple of hours outside until we got too cold and had to come in. Cape Town is cold at night.
Also living out of a backpack is LONG already. We have to keep getting them out and then stuffing them back under our beds, and then if we forget to get something out or put something away (which is invariably the case), we have to lift up our beds and drag them out again.
We had some fun comparing medical kits though; between us we have thought of pretty much everything. Although, this did involve more bag reshuffling and dragging and stuffing and lifting, which was long and annoyed our room mates who were trying to sleep.

Yesterday we walked to the waterfront to buy sleeping bags and other things. The first shop we went in quoted us R1500 for a sleeping bag (about 150 pounds (there isn't a pound sign on these keyboards?!)), but we managed to get some for about 17 pounds in the end - success!
We walked back and had lunch, and after that we went to Table Mountain and got the cableway to the top. It was scary as the floor rotated and made you feel quite unsteady. It was also travelling at about 10 metres per second - ahh!

When we reached the top we got our and admired the amazing views. Then we had some ice cream and wine at the cafe and got a little bit drunk (oops) - clearly something to do with the altitude!
It was loads of fun and I got some great photos - and we saw a weird creature called a Dassie - whose closest relative is the African Elephant (it looks like a beaver or something).

The plan was then to walk down the mountain and see the sunset as we descended, but when we asked the best route down, the guys freaked out and said we couldn't walk down because it would be dark soon - err dev! So we said we had no money to pay for the cable car down (because we WANTED to walk), so some other guys got involved and started asking how much money we needed and getting their money out! Then one of them suggested using the ATM, so we had to run around to the ATM and pretend to get money out!
Anyway, from the cable car, we walked back to the hostel, quite a distance, and still managed to catch the sunset from a hill overlooking the sea. All good.

Today we went to the launderette to wash and dry all of our clothes ready for the tour tomorrow - while we were there we encountered this weird old woman who made me talk her through the entire washing process. I basically had to do her washing for her. Then she came back when her washing was done and started talking to me some more about how she put her phone in the washing machine a couple of weeks ago and she couldn't unlock it but whenever anyone else tried it worked. When she was showing me though, she kept unlocking it and locking it again so clearly she was insane. She asked me to try and obviously it worked for me as it was working for her, and she was amazed. Apparently the technical genius in me is coming out again.

Madeleine and I went in to town after that to try and buy something nice to wear, but everything was about 50 quid which was clearly dev for us on our travellers budgets. So we came away with cookies and sweets from Spar. Great.
This evening we reorganised our bags and chatted with some girls in our dorm. A couple of them have been working in Zimbabwe, and the other girl has been travelling for a year and 7 months! Apparently Mugabe gives speeches on how he hates English people, and at one point said: 'The only Blair I know is the toilet' (comparing Tony Blair to a kind of toilet they use in Zimbabwe - lol).

Our tour starts tomorrow and I already have about 500 pictures. Sadly I can't upload them as the computers at the hostel still have floppy disk slots.

Must go - running out of internet time and still have lots to do. Will check back soon.

Love to everyone.
xxx