Most hostels offer a free breakfast, but honestly they are never very good. Corn Flakes, white toast with peanut butter and jam, and maybe an apple or orange. Atlantic Point also gives crépes which is a pleasant but underwhelming addition. However, breakfast at 7:30 AM is a great place to meet adventurous people.
Sunday's weather was still crummy, so I decided to ask around and find some company to join me for another rainy day of exploring Cape Town. I met a guy Rick from The Netherlands who had a good itinerary but no car, so I invited him to come with and we took off.
First stop was church - Rick had heard of a big African church and wanted to check it out, so I said what the Hell let's go. Other than the fact the church is in Cape Town there wasn't much African about it. It was, however, huge. Hillsong is in a rich part of town, next to a mega-gym, a shopping complex and an amusement park. It had three levels of balconies, a coffee shop and a rock band, not to mention celebrity speakers from around the world. Quite the place. Not my style, but I'm glad I went for the experience.
After Hillsong the sun started to peek out, and Rick told me about a place called Table View with excellent views of the mountain. We went to a beach on Dolphin Bay instead, which was much closer, less crowded and on the ocean. Very nice views:
For lunch we ran into Steer's, the Capetonian McDonald's but with real meat. Good, but still fast food. So cheap!
The sun was fully out by now so we made plans to hike Lion's Head at sunset, a smaller mountain with 360° views of the city, beaches, and mountains. First we went to Kirstenbosch Gardens, a huge area with lots of trees and plants native to Cape Town, including the Protean plants not found anywhere else on Earth.
An hour out from sunset we got to Lion's Head and hiked up very fast.
The views from the top were awesome:
After sunset we waited an hour or so for it to get very dark, then hiked back down with a flashlight. The views of the city all lit up were equally great, but much harder to capture on camera.
At one point I turned around and saw the path leading up to the mountain, and from the top of the hill the Milky Way rose up and mirrored the path back behind us in the sky. Alpha and Beta Centauri were on the left, the Southern Cross was on the right, and further up you could see Scorpio with his tail pointing to the black hole in the center of the galaxy (thanks, timely Planetarium show!). Beautiful.
Back at the hostel we were supposed to meet up with some girls to go down to the Waterfront for dinner, but we were verrry late. Rick and I went down anyway, had some burgers, and looked at the harbor and docks. It was boring and empty, so we went back, ran into the girls who had just got back, and stayed up talking for a couple more hours before finally crashing to sleep.
Two of the girls we talked with, Erin and Trista, are elementary school teachers who work while traveling. Erin lived in Korea for a year and Trista lives in Tokyo, so I was very interested in listening to their experiences. Teaching has definitely been in my radar, but how, what and where are questions I'll need to answer. In the meantime it's nice to have another option available. Who knows?
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