Day 3 - Wednesday the 9th of February - Driving, Driving, Driving - Total Kilometres: 450
Bayan and I decided to begin this day in Mossel Bay with exercise once again, however this time it was an act of spiritual exercise rather than that of our bodies. We set our alarms to bring us out of sleep just before sunrise so that we could have dawn prayers on the beach and as my alarm sounded I wondered to myself why we couldn't just pray on the beach at 9am instead of at 5:45am. Still I lazily pulled myself out of bed, dragged myself to the bathroom to brush my teeth and wash my face and finally awoken with prayer book in hand I was ready for some spiritual nourishment while watching the sun rise across the ocean.
As you may remember Bayan and I were spending the night in a train which had been transformed into a hostel and so we went to the head of the carriage to open the door when alas! The door was locked. They had told us that the doors would be locked from 10pm but we assumed that they would be unlocked by now. No worry, I decided I would just open one of the carriage windows and call out to the security guard to open the door as we were advised to do in such a situation. So as silently as possible without wanting to wake the other guests I pulled the window down and stuck my head out and... he was no where in sight. Never fear, Bayan and I would succeed in finding a way around this. We went back to our room and put forward the option that we could see both the beach and the sky from our room so it would still be the same if we just prayed from our beds. A valid option, another great option would have been for me to just go back to sleep as I was on about 4 hours sleep a night and I was the sole driver so sleep was sounding like a stupendous option for me but our resolve to pray was too great and Bayan was set on dawn prayers ON the beach not looking at the beach and so I jumped out of our window.
Jumping out of a window seems like nothing major and in most cases it isn't but in our case we were jumping out of the window of a train which was some 3metres off the ground and there isn't much to hold on to. So I jumped out of the window as silently as possible and I laughed as silently as possible while watching Bayan try to achieve the same feat. As she dangled her legs out and started sliding down it suddenly dawned on me that our cabin door was locked from the inside meaning we wouldn't be able to get back in so Bayan had to pull herself back inside to unlock our door and then try to get out again. Success! We were free and we went and found a spot on the sand to pray.
Bayan trying to get out of the window
Dawn Prayers
Waiting for the sun to rise in Mossel Bay
When we were finished with our spiritual breakfast we went for a walk along the beach and then back to our room to try and sleep some more. As we were wanting to get to Cape Town by this afternoon and we still needed a place to stay when we got there we decided not to dawdle any more and by 10.30am we were on our way out of Mossel Bay and on the road again. This strip of road from Mossel Bay to Cape Town is the most boring, there are almost no nice stops along the way and it is just a big stretch of highway so not all that much happened. At the same time tonnes of stuff happened. It's really strange how in all that nothingness so much was going on. When I look back on this day we barely took any photos, we hardly stopped anywhere, we spent almost the whole day on the road.. drove 450kms and I have almost no stories to tell from this day and yet to me lots of stuff happened. Funny how nothing can be so eventful.
So we drove to Cape Town, the drive was made all the more tedious by the road works going on. This highway (the N2) has only 2 lanes and so when there are road works one lane is closed and cars have to sit and wait while oncoming traffic uses the remaining open lane. This offered me a few opportunities to get out of the car and stretch but it also extended our time on the road by about an hour. As we were driving we would look out for towns or attractions that might interest us to either visit on this day or stop at on the way home. When we reached Swellendam I was desperate for an opportunity to get out of the car so we turned in to see what we could find. We followed a sign to a berry picking farm but when we got there we realised that berry picking season is over so instead we just tried all the jam (blackberry was my favourite) and bought some blueberry ice cream and then asked the girl working there what else Swellendam had to offer. "The Fairy Garden" she says. "The what?" I reply, "the fairy garden" she repeats. Confused, a little weirded out, in my own head trying to decide whether she means the boat type ferry or the mythical creature type fairy and deciding to myself she must mean the boat type because she appears to be in her 20's and couldn't possibly believe or expect us to believe that there are fairies and if there are that I would be interested in seeing them so I ask her again.."you mean like fairies like this?" I say this while flapping my arms like wings. "Yes, fairies" she responds with a bewildering confidence, not even a grin or a slight hint of a smile has come across her face to suggest to us that this woman is pulling our leg. "And what exactly do you do in this garden?".. "you walk around and see fairies everywhere".
So we go, to the fairy garden which turns out to be exactly what she described.. a garden with fairies in it. Hundreds of figurines and statues of fairies. What this girl failed to mention to us was that there were also wizards and dragons and Harry Potter himself in this garden. As it was free we went inside and took the garden walk. This garden is the initiative of a lady who has created a garden in her home and transformed her whole house for the sake of allowing people to come in a be inspired by the positive and uplifting spirit of the garden. Fairies, in her eyes, are little guardians who are always there to guide and protect us and help us see the best in everything. It is a very beautiful idea and I'm sure I would have had a much more profound appreciation for this garden if I was 7 but for the most part I was not impressed with a grown woman advising us to come here.
So we left the fairy garden and Swellendam for that matter with the understanding that there is so little to do in this town that people would send you to a fairy garden when you ask for advice on what Swellendam has to offer.
Me with a dwarf in the fairy garden
and this guy was there too
Bayan and Harry Potter even though Bayan claims this statue was a girl
Next was the last long stretch of highway before finally arriving in CAPE TOWN!!!! It was 6pm when we touched down and after googling 'cape town backpackers' we checked in at Cape Town Backpackers which turned out to be a great backpackers and only R80 a night thanks to their February special.
After getting settled we tried to snooze for a bit and then got ready to go out for dinner. I have been trying to convince Bayan to try Asian food as they have great options for vegetarians and they use tofu which amazingly for a vegetarian of 4months she has never tried, and so we went to eat at a place called 'Simply Asian'. Bayan proved her natural skills at using chopsticks and enjoyed the tofu in her food. Then we walked to Long St (the main strip in Cape Town) and found a place to have desert. This place also offered karaoke so of course we had a turn. Bayan wasn't familiar with many of the songs on their list and Beyonce being her favourite artist of all time she picked DeJuvu. I asked her about the part where it says Beyonce featuring Jay Z and she just said that he only comes in a little at the end. So we're singing away when suddenly there's an entire section of the song with Jay Z rapping, so I did what rappers to best, I just repeated "What what what, whatta whata what" again and again until his part was over accompanying my rap solo with gangster rapper hand movements.
Later when we went downstairs on our way out one of the bar attenders asked if it was us who sang the Beyonce song and then told us we sounded great.. kudos to Bayan and I and our amazing Karaoke skills.
We took our time walking back to our place and on the way a hobo who makes his own flowers out of beads asked if we would buy one so I bought one for Bayan. Then when another begger asked us for money I told him how he should try and actually work for it like the flower making guy.
As most nights go it ended with sleep and so went our arrival in Cape Town.
Arrival in Cape Town!!
Bayan using chopsticks for the first time
nom nom nom nom
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