Capetown, South Africa

We arrived in Cape Town, South Africa on March 31^st to the most beautiful port we have been to yet.  I thought the ports in Port Louis and Hong Kong were amazing but the port in Cape Town was even better.  It is filled with restaurants, bars, malls, street performers, and so much more.  And the best part is that you don’t have to drive or take a ferry to get to anything, you just step off the ship and everything you need is right there.  You could spend days just walking around and enjoying the waterfront.  The views are incredible.  I had heard about the different mountains to hike and see in Cape Town but I didn’t know they would be right in front of us.  Everything seemed so close. 

In addition to the natural beauty and the scenery, I should mention that the people are beautiful—particularly the guys.  I’m surprised the travel books don’t say, “Best looking men in the world” because they were all over.  (Now I realize why our captain warned us about trying to smuggle people onto the ship.)  Of course the women are beautiful as well, but when you’ve been on a ship with the same college boys for 3 months your eyes tend to notice the attractive new guys first.  However, it is hard to put the people into any sort of category since there is such a mixture of race and culture.  There are native South Africans, Afrikaans (Dutch), English people, and people from other parts of South Africa.  I was surprised at how similar it is to the U.S. in that there is so much diversity in lifestyle, fashion, and culture.  We met surfers, young professionals, musicians, and so many other types of people.  And don’t even get me started on the South African accent…. If I could spend more time in any of the ports we’ve visited, it would definitely be Cape Town.