[Kwg-list] Not such a Warm Welcome to Cape Town

[Julie Hard]

Hello Friends and Family,

We wrapped up our tour of Namibia last week and have nothing but songs of
praise for its beauty and potential for the traveller.
Our trip kayaking with seals was so amazing that we went back for another
round.  The pups were extremely playful and would grab our paddles or
rudders as we tried to pass through the mayham of a colony playing or
fishing in the water.  Occasionally, a cheeky seal would splash us
completely soaking us and then would surface to laugh like Bert from Sesame
Street.

In our last ditch effort to experience the dunes of the Namib desert, we
wandered 600kms off the beaten path to a ghost town that once was a diamond
mining town but has since dried up of diamonds and has been left for the
desert sand.   Not only did we get to see the old buildings consumed by sand
but while wandering through one of the dilapitated buildings we stumbled
upon and startled a very large, very hairy, endangered Brown Hyena.  The
largest hyena I've ever seen!  Having viewed a fair number of wild animals
since our trip began, I did what any self-respecting expert beast watcher
would do,... I ran.  Thankfully, Mike was too caught off-guard to do
anything and stood completely still while he tried to get the settings on
his camera right.  I don't think we will be asked to host any animal planet
specials given our response to the wild.  Since the animal is apparently so
rare, we were repeatedly told of our good fortune in seeing a Brown Hyena
and were approached by the "Brown Hyena Project" to record our sighting and
provide details.  We have now been placed on their newsletter mailing list
as friends to the project!

I don't know how we did it, but we managed to find our way to Cape Town and
landed ourselves right in the middle of the worst uprising in 10 years. When
Mike and I got off the bus at the main terminal, we were greeted by groups
of people telling us that Cape Town was not safe and were advised to quickly
make our way to a taxi.  Thinking that it was a ploy by the taxi drivers to
drum up some business, we took our time looking at our map, applying
sunscreen and ultimately making ourselves look like complete tourists.  It
wasn't until we saw groups of people running from out of bushes and heard
screaming did we suspect that things were amiss. Being quite naive I assumed
that perhaps these people were health conscious.  I finally woke up and
threw my butt into a taxi when a helicopter came swooping down the main
street and a few more less-than-athletic men ran past.  It was not another
ordinary day in Cape Town!

Craziness aside, Mike and I have been touring the town and the Harbor for
the past week.  We visited Robben Island and were guided by a man who spent
eleven months in the famous prison isolation block. It was an experience
that was empowering and deeply moving.

We will push off from Cape Town tomorrow to head along the Garden Route as
we spend our last week in South Africa before beginning the round about
journey home again.

Kind Regards,

Julie and Mike
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