Hermanus, Shacklands, Sushi

Sorry for not posting anything yesterday, I know I've gotten behind but we've been running around a lot and sometimes its just nice to come back to the hotel and crash.  I'll see if I can bring things back up to speed by putting up a few posts today.

Anyway, on Tuesday we met up with Raymond, our driver and tour guide for this leg of the trip.

He took us down to Hermanus, a town along the west coast of the southern tip of the country.  The main attraction here is the whales and there's actually a whale festival that will commence at the end of September and last into the beginning of October.  While we didn't come during the festival, we did get to see a few whales as we walked along the shore and on the drive back up the coast.

Whale doing a "handstand"

Group shot in Hermanus

We also had a nice lunch right on the beach, with lots of seafood and some amazing oysters.  I feel like I've done a disservice by not mentioning the oysters yet.  We got the oysters for the first time at the Greek restaurant the first night and have had at least a dozen everyday since then.  The oysters back in New England are usually pretty good and make a great appetizer, but Jack and I have agreed multiple times that we could easily get a couple dozen each and just make a meal out of those!  They're sweet, briny, and by far the best oysters that I've EVER had.  They taste like the ocean without being so overpowering that you can't have more than a few.  If there's one thing I've had on this trip that will make me come back, it has to be the oysters! (I'll put up pictures of them in a future post because as usual they're gone before I think to get out the camera)

On the ride back up the coast we had an interesting encounter.  As we were driving along, the car came around a corner and this guy was walking along the barrier toward us.

The head honcho

Following him were about a dozen other baboons ranging from babies (who were wrestling in the middle of the busy, windy, coastal road) to ones just smaller than him.  Apparently they're very quick at getting in and out of cars to steal food from people, as Raymond warned us (and I'm pretty sure this was directed at me) to not open the windows.

On the ride down to Hermanus, Raymond had pointed out some shacklands, which are similar to shantytowns that used to exist (and in some cases still do) in the States.  Essentially, when the laws in ZA changed to allow free movement, people started building this little shacks (probably no more than 16 sq ft) on top of one another to form townships.  On the way back to Cape Town, Raymond took us into one of the older townships called Khayelitsha (ki-a-lee-sha) and it was a truly amazing and moving sight.  With a population of more than 2 million people, this informal city has an amazingly well formed infrastructure for people in such poor conditions.  The government supplies basic amenities such as electricity and water to the people for free, but we also saw satellite dishes attached to the sides of the houses and BMWs parked out on the streets.  The people are able to buy the land that they live on for very little (about R2500, which is less than $400) and run businesses along the road that provide services ranging from car washes and hair salons to cell phone shops and car repairs.  Most of these shops were sponsored by large companies such as Coca-Cola or the local cell service providers.

One of the more common businesses that we saw were the meat shops.  Basically, a group of people buy huge bulk quantities of meat (it look like it was mostly goat) and bring it to these various meat shops where nothing goes to waste.  Everything gets grilled and is then sold to the other residents for very little.  Essentially, nobody was going hungry, and while the standard of living is very low by our standards there seemed to be a general contentment throughout the township.  Education is increasing, people are finding ways to make money, and the government is actually stepping in to help in useful ways.

Children in Khayelitsha smiling for the camera

When we got back to Cape Town that evening.  We decided to pick up a few more meat pies and a couple bottles of wine to tide us over until dinner.  And I finally got a picture of some of the pies!

Spinach and feta pies (my personal favorite)

The chicken and the steak and kidney pies

After this light snack (or at least that's what we keep tell ourselves) we went out for some sushi at Willoughby's (http://www.willoughbyandco.co.za/) and it was pretty fantastic.  Jack and Dad started off with the oyster shooter, which was made with sake instead of the traditional vodka.  They tried to get every last drop out of the bottom of the glasses, so I'm assuming that they enjoyed it.  After enjoying some of the traditional sushi rolls, along with some very delicate gyoza, we got their two most popular special rolls, the creamy rock shrimp maki and the rainbow reloaded.  While both were great, I found that the rainbow roll needed some sort of crunch factor in it just to mix up the texture.  The maki was the hands-down favorite of the night, with a nice crunchy tempura batter shrimp sitting on top of some wonderful maki.  This roll provided a nice little punch at the end.

All-in-all, Tuesday was a pretty packed day.  I'll write up the post about yesterday a little later, so stay tuned!

Peace