I'm jumping around like crazy and I apologize; there's just way too much to keep up with!
Day four I had nothing planned, and so had breakfast on the ship and headed down to deck five with no real plan of action other than maybe walking towards the Waterfront to see what sort of adventures might present themselves (at this point the majority of people I knew were off on safari). Before I even got off the ship I ran into a friend and another person who were heading to Roben Island. I decided to join them as that was one of the places I wanted to see anyways and so we left the ship and headed to the Waterfront.
Roben Island is a little tiny island just off of Cape Town that you can easily get to in 30 minutes by ferry. There is a ferry that runs every few hours for just a few dollars and you get the whole tour along with your ticket (in fact it is pretty much impossible to explore on your own). As for the purpose of the island, it was used as a prison during the apartheid years for political prisoners such as Mandela. It was also used as a leper colony. Although it was fascinating to see, and I saw the very prison cell that Mandela lived in for many years of his life, I can't say it's something you absolutely must see, especially if you have as limited time as we had. You take the 30 minute ferry along with several hundred other people, get off and are divided up onto buses that hold 75? 100? and are bussed around the island, occasionally stopping at a particular building while a tour guide explains its importance. At the end you get to see the actual prison compound, and walk around in these gigantic groups of tourists. It's all very, very touristy. One really neat thing about it though is that the tours are led by actual former political prisoners.
After we reached the mainland we walked around and found a place to stop for lunch. My friends were going to go climb Table Mountain, which I was much too sore from the previous day to attempt again, and so I bid them good luck and walked a couple buildings over to the tourist office to see what excitement might be had in an afternoon. The lady there informed me I could go paragliding at 5:00, which I booked and then went to explore the markets around the Waterfront while I waited. Around 4:30 I hired a cab to take me up to Lion's Head. 5:00 came and left and no one ever showed up. I attributed it to African time and waited a good half hour, but still, no one. I finally found someone's phone to borrow and called the number that the lady at the tourist office had given me. The pilot was terribly apologetic and said that I was supposed to have called half an hour before hand (the tourist agency lady never relayed that piece of information). He told me to call early on the next morning I was free and see if the weather conditions would permit for flying. So I waited around for a cab to show up and headed back to the ship.
That night we all just stayed at a local bar on the Waterfront where SAS kids seemed to gather every night called Mitchell's. It was all good fun. I had a couple ciders and headed back to the ship early. I have probably already mentioned this many a time but I am not much into the party scene. There is a fair group of people on this ship who's main goal is to get belligerently wasted in every port (and I make every effort to avoid these people). What a waste. I am all for trying the local drinks; it's all part of the cultural experience. But why would anyone want to experience these incredible places completely hungover, and even worse, not even remember half of it? I just don't get it.
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