Cape town is the first thing you see in any guide book. For good reason.

Wow. There is so much to say about Cape Town that I really don’t know where to start.
1) Cape Town is so much more beautiful than Jo’burg. Part of this is the fact that Cape Town has existed for 400 years where Jo'burg is barely more than 100 years old. It has all this beautiful Victorian architecture. Plus it has the Ocean and the GIANT mountain. It could possible win the prettiest city award.
2) Because it is a prettier city there are more tourists and there is a much greater tourist infrastructure for better or worse. It made me realize that I am lucky to experience Jo'burg the way I am, because otherwise it is actually quite difficult to get a feel for it.
3) Went to Robbin Island which is HUGE. The island itself, not the prison. Did you know that people live there? Yeah, they have a school, even. BIZARE. The prison itself was creepy as all prisons are and our guide was a former prisoner. Really powerfully weird to touch the bars of a cell and know that Nelsen Mandela touched those bars. Even more so than being in his house.
4) Climbed Table Mountain which was intense. I hope the pictures capture how huge that thing is. I also did it in Converses. Which amused me.
5) Saw the Cape Town penguins which are actually the Simons Town penguins. Like the geek I am, I got insanely excited.
6) Saw the southern most point of Africa where the Atlantic and the Indian oceans meet. Honestly underwhelmed. But then I saw Baboons in the parking lot and that was exciting.
7) Saw San rock painting. Which was cool. And then our guide said “this is estimated to be anywhere from 2000-8000 years old,” and my jaw just dropped. Sometimes I forget just how long human history is. And how little we know about it. I mean most history classes start about 500 years ago. Or maybe they go back to Rome and the Greeks. But humans have been around for SO LONG. And we have been making art for SO LONG.
8) We toured three of the townships which was really weird. When we went into Soweto in Jo’burg we were driven in cars by South Africans and it felt casual and not like a big deal, but here we were all crammed into a tour bus. It was a small tour bus, but still. Even though we saw more of three townships of Langa, Guguletu and Khayelitsha than we saw of Soweto, it felt very weird and disconnected. But much like Soweto I was struck how there are middleclass areas along side the shacks. All we ever hear about is DIRE POVERTY which is mostly true. But its also more complex than that.
9) At one point we all got food poisoning. Which was awful until it became hilarious. We were all on the bus trading pepto bismal and other medicines and we suddenly stopped being miserable and just started laughing.
10) Saw a really traumatizing horror movie in which something called Pinky-Pinky was killing girls in an all girls school in Pietermaritzburg. Really did not know what we were getting into. But we also learned that Pinky-Pinky is the South African version of the Boogy Man so I guess we got something out of it.
11) Bought a purse. The woman said 120 Rand. I was like “can you do 100 Rand?” And she just started laughing at me and said “of course.” I realize I could have gotten her down to 80 at least if I had just tried a little harder. Bother.
12) Disclaimer: PLEASE DON’T FREAK OUT. Cape Town is said to be a much safer city that Jo'burg. But in Jo'burg the only crime the Americans have experienced is the pick pocketing of a cell phone. In Cape Town three people got mugged each in individual incidents. Don’t worry no one was hurt and the only thing that was lost were some cellphones and some cash. The interesting thing was all three were boys. But all three were walking alone, which I guess they feel confident doing because they are boys. You will be happy to know that the girls always walk around in pairs.