LPTS Travel Seminar to South Africa

We arrived late in the night. I was totally exhausted from the 30 hour journey. Our tour guide and driver were there waiting for our arrival. We gathered our things and loaded them into our transportation for the next 2 plus weeks. I really would have loved to have fallen to sleep on our drive to residential accomodations, but I'm in South Africa. Who can sleep????

As we road on the dark streets to get to our accomodations, our tour guide was doing his best to inform us on what we still make out in the darkness. The darkness could not block out the shadows of the shanty towns built by those who have moved to Cape Town hoping for a better life. The darkness also could not shut out the outline of the mountains. Awesome!

For those who may have been concerned that I would be burning up with all my blue jeans and long sleeve shirts, wrong!!! Wednesday was windy and cool. We needed jackets.

Cape Town is my kind of town. The architecture makes you think of Mediterean / French Quarter. The town itself is nestled between numerous mountains. Among the many things we saw today one of the most beautiful sights was from the top of Table Mountain. We took a cable car up. You could look down from the mountain and see the city cradled within. Only openning up to the ocean. Right on the water front they are building the new soccer stadium to prepare for the 2010 World Cup. You can also see Robbins Island where Nelson Mandela and other political prisoners were once held. Prior to this journey to the top of Table Mountain, we got to go past the spot where DeKlerk had declared the release of Nelson Mandela and the beginning to the end of apartheid.

We went by the Slave Lodge Museum. I knew about South Africa's apartheid issues, but I never knew about their slavery heritage/history. I found out that their slave history involved the enslavement of a diverse group of people: African, Chinese, Malaysian, Indonesian and others. I could not help but wonder how this may have played a part in relates with colored people in South Africa and how that may contrast with the African-American experience. I might not be expressing myself clearly, but this was the thought I had.

Later