We picked the car and Allison.. The car, a Volkswagen Chico Golf - white.  Kind of like a cabriolet, without the sun-roof.  For three people and their stuff it was just enough room.  Throw in left hand stick shift and left hand side of the road driving to boot, and it was definitely going to be interesting.  I had driven on the left hand side of the road before in Australia, so it was going to be fine, just took some getting used to.  

 Since we heard really good things about Cape Town, we decided to spend five nights including New Years Eve in the city.  The city did not disapoint.  It was a really beautiful place. Table Mountain and Lion's Head tower above the city right next to the Atlantic Ocean.  Cape town has a beautiful harbour front area, which we toured a couple times.   Drove down to the Cape of Good Hope and Cape Point for the day.  Checked out a penguin colony. Simply awesome scenery. Even rivals Vancouver... I know it's hard to imagine.  

One of our days we took a tour of a nearby township.  Townships were established in most cities of South Africa when apartheid took hold in 1948.  Essentially they were re-settlement programs.  African people that lived in areas near city centres were forced to move outside of town.  This was done to allow for white development of the area.  These moves put huge strain on Africans as most of them worked in the city and now had to pay for there way in town.  In the case of the township we visited outside of Cape Town, the area that they were moved from was not even re-developped (they simply didnt want to live there) and therefore the entire action was completely needless.  It was tough to go to a place that was home to so much hardship.  Places that were built to house 8 people were at times housing 60.  The situation is much better today, but you can still see the scars oppression.  A shanty town, which consisted of lots of small shacks made of corugated metal, is still present adjacent to the township.  You find ourself wondering wether or not you should be a tourist in a place like this.  I came to the conclusion that to always turn your head away from things that are hard to look at is not the way to go.  When visiting a nation, you should always make an attempt to see the good and the bad.  It is reality.  Though we did not feel it right to take many picuters.

After the morning township tour we hopped on a ferry for the infamous Robben Island.  Robben Island was a prison, not far from Cape Town, where Nelson Mandela was held for 17 of his 27 years in prison.  We first took a tour of the island and then were escorted on a tour of the prison by a former political prisoner.  Our guide had been involved in the underground operations of the ANC (now the leading political party of South Afirca) while they were banned in the mid 1980s.  To hear him speak about their struggle against oppression in the cell where he spent most of five years in prison was quite an experience.  He was very pasionate and it made the tour.  I spoke to him briefly afterwards and was struck by how positive he was.  It was infectious. 

I will not go into huge detail about shark cage diving.  We had one visit from a great white shark during three hours of waiting.  Got into the cage in hopes that another would come round, and saw nothing but did feel pretty sick.  I would recommend the experience during busier shark times, Dec-Jan was not the time.  

New Years in Cape Town was fun and a little low key.  Watched some fireworks from the harbour front.  Kind of missed the countdown in the bar.  When does a bar not do the countdown themselves?  Walked back downtown to our hostel and watched some more of the fesitivities and called it a night.   It was great to bring in the new year in South Africa, just missing some family and friends of course.  

We started the New Year with a hike up Table Mountain.  We thought maybe we would be the only ones, but there were tons of people up there.  The views of the city and the Cape were great, nice way to ring in 2008.  After the hike we were off on our self drive along the coast of South Africa, shweet!