I added more photos to the album in my last post–check them out!
Archive for September, 2009
Istanbul photos
Two days in Istanbul, and I’m still exhausted. The city is enormous, chaotic, and crazy…I’m tired just thinking about it. No interesting stories to tell–other than one low-blood-sugar-induced incident where I yelled at an overly aggressive restaurant manager who was chasing me down the street, trying to engage me in conversation (and come into his restaurant) even though I was clearly on the phone. For now, a few photos:
http://picasaweb.google.com/eekauppi/Istanbul?feat=directlink
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| Istanbul! |
Istanbul, not Constantinople
Hello from…Istanbul! I bought a last-minute ticket on Friday evening, flew out on Saturday evening, and arrived on Sunday evening. And after almost exactly 24 hours in transit, I am beat. After we landed, I followed the instructions that came up from a “Istanbul airport to city” google search–last-minute flights=no guidebook–and took the metro and tram to Sultanahmet in the old city. That meant an hour sitting surrounded by piles of luggage on crowded trains and struggling through turnstiles with a gigantic backpack, rolling carry-on, and heavy laptop case. Oy. Old Turkish women in headscarves were giving me is-she-crazy looks out of the corner of their eyes as I sweated and struggled.
I’m so tired, I’m barely coherent.
I had a seven-hour layover in Doha, and although I was too tired to go out into the city, the airport is close to town and has a great view over the rooftops. It was surprising to find how much I miss the sights and sounds of the Middle East–it always makes me smile to see men in their white robes, chatting on high-end cell phones. And I’d forgotten how the extreme heat creates a haze that obscures the horizon, giving the impression that you’re in a very hot, very sandy bubble. It was lovely to be back, if only for a while.
And now I’m in Istanbul–love at first sight. Although extreme exhaustion complicated the process of walking over the (very lovely) cobblestones and over-zealous Turkish restaurant owners turned the road into a gauntlet of “hi lady, are you hungry?,” I just can’t get enough. Earlier, I heard the evening call to prayer from the Blue Mosque as I strolled along streets lined with colorful glass lamps. And now, I’m in my top bunk, listening to the sound of a sudden rainstorm on the awnings below; it’s quieted the sounds of the Eid celebrations.
Now, to sleep before I begin the search for a reasonably-priced private room at a hostel with decent internet–because of the time difference, I’ll be working 3:30-midnight, which won’t go over well in a dorm. I’ll leave you with some pictures of my last days in Cape Town, which were wonderful and filled with good people.
http://picasaweb.google.com/eekauppi/CiaoCapeTown?feat=directlink
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| Ciao, Cape Town |
A whale of a time
**I wrote this last weekend in Hermanus and am just now posting.
http://picasaweb.google.com/eekauppi/Hermanus?feat=directlink
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| Hermanus |
The most striking thing about South Africa–other than its crazy amazing coastline–is the people. Without fail, everyone I’ve met here has been remarkably friendly and generous. When people learn I’ve only been here a week, they are quick to welcome me and offer any assistance I could possibly need. They’re always willing to chat–and always with a smile. It’s a huge departure from Buenos Aires, where the people are notoriously cold and detached.
I couldn’t love it more.
A girl that works at my hostel said that the thing all South Africans aspire to is to be chill. Relaxed, unhurried, unstressed. In the face of all this relaxing, I often feel very American. In other words, I expect to get things when they’re promised (from laundry to my boots), I work for eight hours per day, and I love the concept of personal space. I’m not used to being the uptight one! I met a German guy yesterday who said, “South Africans don’t put much importance on work…maybe that’s why their country is not functioning so well.” Funny, that could also be said about Argentina, where work is also not a priority.
The same German guy, Julian, was also full of such gems as, “Dressing like an onion has many advantages.” (We were talking about wearing layers.) And speaking of him brings me back to the friendliness of people in South Africa–tourists and locals alike. Julian and I hung out yesterday in the way that travelers do, instant friends because you’ve landed at the same hostel at the same time. In the evening, we had dinner with two of his friends, both from Germany and in South Africa for different reasons. Heidi has been living here for ten years, and Friederike has been interning for six weeks. Within an hour, Friederike had informed me that I “always have a place to stay” when I visit Germany, and Heidi had given me her phone number, insisting that I call if I need anything when I’m in South Africa, from a ride to visa assistance. And another guy, whose name escapes me, insisted on paying for everyone’s dinner.
I’m in Hermanus for the weekend. It’s a tiny town about two hours from Cape Town, and supposedly has the best whale-watching in the world. From July to November, the Southern Right Whale migrates here, and because the water is so deep close to shore, they come amazingly close to land. It’s fantastic to see them leap out of the water or slap their huge tails, but mostly they kind of float along with the waves and look like giant logs. Have you ever seen the move City of Angels with Nicholas Cage and Meg Ryan? If so, think of the scene where all of the angels are standing on the beach, facing the sun and water. In Hermanus, it looks just like that every time a whale comes close–everyone rushes to the shore and stares at the water. Yesterday, we spent an entirely pleasant afternoon listening to Marimba music and picnicking on the cliffs, all the while watching for whales.
Despite the lovely scenery and the whales, Hermanus is more of a day-trip kind of town, and I’ll be happy to get back to Cape Town tomorrow night. I haven’t decided what’s next–any suggestions for places in South Africa?
Imagine all the people
Today, I was buying my ticket for the train home from town, and a woman heard me ask the agent about the next departure for Observatory. “Can I walk with you?” she asked. “I’m going in the same direction and I don’t know the trains well.” She was a short, olive-skinned woman wearing a printed scarf tied around her head, and we couldn’t have looked more different, strolling along the platform together. Not many white people ride the trains here, and because I stood out, she stood out. But we chatted amiably, asking polite questions about home countries and Cape Town spring weather. She is from South Africa, born and raised in Cape Town, and as a non-black, non-white person, was probably placed in the “colored” areas during apartheid. She lives in a distant suburb and works at a grocery store, and said “my Christmas is coming up soon.” I asked if she was Muslim, and she said yes, that the fasting will soon come to an end. How well I remember the deprivation of Ramadan and the celebration of Eid from Dubai!
When she asked where I was before Cape Town and I answered, she wistfully–but not in the least bit enviously or begrudgingly–said, “I’d love to travel. Someday, I will.” When I asked if she’d traveled much in South Africa, she said yes, she’d been to Durban. In all of her 50 or so years, she’s been to one other city in her country. I asked a question about train routes, and she said, “I can’t afford to ride trains much, but I always like to sit with another person because it’s safer.” I was momentarily distracted by the inference that riding alone might not be safe, but my mind shot back to the idea that for this woman, a train ride was a luxury.
She’s one of the fortunate who have a job and a place to live–so many South Africans don’t even have even that–and I felt abashed when I thought about the hundreds of rand I’d spent in taxis and cable car rides and earrings just this afternoon alone, not to mention the 1000 rand custom-made, leather boots I’ll be picking up tomorrow. So many excesses that I take for granted, and this sweet, soft-spoken woman was stretching her budget for a 5.5 rand train ride. Less than a dollar.
What a blessed life we lead in the States, to be able to afford homes and cars and food and education, when so many people in the world would be happy with just one of those things. Today, take a moment to think of my friend on the train and be grateful. 
http://picasaweb.google.com/eekauppi/TableMountain?feat=directlink
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| Table Mountain |
The End of Africa
It’s just after 2am in Cape Town, around 8pm Eastern time. I’m still dealing with my insomniac-like inability to sleep before 4am in the morning, so I’m wide awake, and since a storm has apparently cut out the internet, I’m without my usual late-night diversions (facebook, skype). The only other guest at the hostel left this morning, and it’s just me and the night desk guy, a quiet South African guy named Elvis who is terribly sweet but terribly quiet–not the best companion for a chatty insomniac. September is a slow month in Cape Town in terms of tourist traffic.
I’m reading Isable Allende’s “The Sum of Our Days,” but to pick it up now would require turning the light on and admitting defeat to my insomnia; at least darkness allows the delusion that I might spontaneously fall asleep.
The past few days have been rainy in Cape Town, foiling first Monday’s plan to explore the waterfront and then Tuesday’s plan to explore the township of Khayelitsha. Instead, Jen (the other hostel guest) and I spent a lot of time inside, chatting with the hostel staff, shopping, sitting in front of the fire, and eating. All very pleasant pursuits, but my time in Cape Town is not limitless and the potential activities are.
Sunday, however, was rain-free if not sunny, and I took a tour of the Cape Peninsula. Normally, this is something I’d prefer to do on my own, but I am wary of renting a car because I A) can’t drive a manual (automatic rentals are hard to come by) and B) have never driven on the left side. Not to mention the twisty cliff roads and mad South African drivers with their tendency to run red lights. So, after my small bus pulled up an hour late, I set off with other sleepy travelers for the dreaded tour, complete with headset-adorned guide cracking bad jokes.
My fellow foreigners and I watched seals from a boat in rough seas, saw penguins in the wild at Boulders Beach, and watched surfers on the crazy even waves at Muizenberg. A tolerable morning, but a bit too cattle-herdy for me. On the bus, off the bus. Moo.
But an hour later I was flying down the road through a national park on a none-too-stable mountain bike, and all was well. After riding through some incredibly stark country, we had lunch next to the cliffs. Now, I’m a sucker for gorgeous landscapes, and the Cape Peninsula is downright stunning. Towering, jagged cliffs line the shore, with small bays where tiny, picturesque villages spread along white-sand beaches. It’s rugged and rocky and kind of forlorn…quite fitting for the end of a continent, I think.
After lunch, we set off again on our bikes for the Cape of Good Hope, which is the most southwestern point in Africa. I say “we,” but my desperate need for independence (or control) saw me riding ahead of the group, legs burning and loving the rare opportunity to be alone in the open country.
I’d not paused to think much about the Cape or build up any anticipation, so when I came racing down the cliff road to the shore, I wasn’t expecting the sheer beauty that appeared. It was like seeing Michelangelo’s David for the first time–literally took my breath away. You turn a corner, and all of a sudden, the sea spreads out in both directions and the waves pound on shoreline that would make any beach lover cry. Not sunbathing/surfing kind of beaches, but the wild kind where the wind whips your hair and the sea spray hits you even on the road. The kind where you can walk on your own, completely isolated by the sounds of the wind and the surf.
Had I not been on a tour, I would have ditched the bike and disappeared down the shore. Possibly forever.
As it was, it was all I could do to pedal ten feet before stopping to take another picture and try to take it all in. The other people on the tour didn’t seem to be quite as taken with the coastline as I was, but then, not everyone loves the lonely, remote places. After so long among the stones of Buenos Aires and now the chaos of Cape Town, my inner Yooper rejoiced in recognition of wilderness. My heart will never belong to a city, I think.
Riding up to the Cape of Good Hope sign was like accomplishing a goal I didn’t know I had. But as I pedaled past wild ostriches to the end of the road, it was like the Cape had been there in my head, pulling me just like the idea of Everest Base Camp pulled. Oh, it’s the most mesmerizing place–all crazy rocky cliffs and towering waves and howling wind. We hiked up to the cliff top and were met with yet another heartbreaking vista of cliffs stretching to the point where the two oceans meet, and then hiked along the high trail. Even with people all around, it’s such a lonely place…but it’s a lovely kind of lonely, the kind that makes you want to seek out all of these kinds of places on earth just to have that feeling of being just you and the rocks and the ocean and the wind. It’s the wind that creates that illusion, because it takes away your words and blows away all human sounds and leaves you blessedly by yourself in the silence. If I were a writer, I’d go there to let the wind block out the rest of the world.
Too much beauty to process, really. And once again, I was reminded of what a privilege it is to be able to seek out these places or, even better, to happen upon them by chance.
http://picasaweb.google.com/eekauppi/CapeTown?feat=directlink
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| Cape Town! |
http://picasaweb.google.com/eekauppi/CapeOfGoodHope?feat=directlink
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| Cape of Good Hope |
Photos!
About time I posted some photos, I think. Here are some from my last couple of weeks in Argentina:
http://picasaweb.google.com/eekauppi/AdiosBuenosAires?feat=directlink
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| Adios, Buenos Aires |
Mother Africa!
Sometimes, work really kills the excitement of traveling. The idea of a new country is exciting–and a new continent is even more so–but it’s tempered with the constant awareness that come Monday, you’ll be glued to your laptop for eight hours instead of being out having adventures. Before I left Buenos Aires last week, my roommate asked if I was excited…and I wasn’t, really. Not in the oh-my-god-I’m-going-to-Africa-tomorrow-can’t-sleep kind of way, anyway.
A few years back, I visited Washington DC for the first time. After years of exposure to photo and video of the monuments, seeing them in person was like revisiting a familiar place. The experience was new, but those familiar symbols validated the fact that you were actually there.
I’m in Africa now, and I’ve yet to see any of the stereotypical symbols that spring to mind, things I can photograph as proof– a lion, maybe, or one of those flat trees on the savannah. So, I can say “I’m in Africa,” but I don’t quite feel like I’m here yet. It’s a curious fight between unconscious association and intellectual understanding…my mind knows but doesn’t quite believe. (On a side note, it’s somewhat alarming that the things that stick out in my mind are the half-naked dude from “The Gods Must Be Crazy,” the savannah, and images of Darfur.)
Cape Town proper, you see, is just another city in the world. Big buildings, parks, cars. Touristy stores. People of all races. Based on a small window of exploration, I’m not madly in love with this “mother city” of South Africa, but I do like it…and I quite like that I blend right in with the pale blonde South Africans of Dutch and British heritage. I love being called “sister” and being able to chat fluently with everyone instead of hacking away in my pathetic Spanish. Latin America is fantastic, but I really miss being able to talk.
For me, the people really give the city its charm. I love their warmth and diversity, and I’m fascinated by the race relations in the wake of not-so-distant apartheid. Here’s something I didn’t know–people in South Africa are still grouped as black, white, or colored (anyone who’s not black or white). Some areas of the city and suburbs are referred to by the predominant racial makeup–Athalone, for example, is a “colored” neighborhood. During my short tenure here, I haven’t seen a lot of racial mixing. And, as our South African waiter said at dinner tonight, “racial slurs are the thing in Cape Town.” He called Jen (from NY) and I gringos–odd, coming from a white guy. And he meant Americans–our British, Irish, and Swiss friends were something else entirely, apparently. On the menu, the small sizes were called “Mexican portions.” Stores have signs that say “we reserve the right to refuse admisson.”
I can’t sense any just-below-the-surface animosity, but I’m interested to know how things have changed. After all, apartheid only just ended in 1994…when people my age were in elementary school. Jen asked about a minibus taxi in Hermanus, and the older white shop owner said in disgust/warning, “but those are black taxis!” I suppose it’s hard to change after a lifetime of racial separation.
Lots to think about, lots to do. Fascinating locals and travelers here. Tomorrow, I’m taking a tour of the Cape and Peninusla–apparently there will be both monkeys and penguins–and on Monday, Jen and I are going on a bike-riding wine tasting. On Tuesday, we want to go to the township of Kayelitsha if it’s safe to go alone. Wednesday–Table Mountain. Look for pictures soon!