An Adventure Day! (12/13/14)

This day was a very welcomed Saturday. Being with the children all week wore me out more than I originally anticipated. On this morning, we all headed to the Biscuit Mill. This is a market with different food and goods vendors. It supports local businesses and artists. There are many farm fresh foods with awesome prices. My breakfast was delicious!

           

Once we were done gorging ourselves at the Biscuit Mill, we headed for the train station to meet Maxwell’s friend Richard. Richard lives in Cape Town and was a friend of Maxwell’s when he lived here. We wanted to go to a specific beach and he offered to take us on the train and show us the ropes. The beach we intended to go to was Boulder Beach- the beach with warm weather penguins. Max and I went last year and it was worth the long trek to go see the large amounts of penguins. 

            After we got off the train, we still had two miles to go and no way of getting there. We thought that there would be taxis waiting at the train station, but there were not. There were mini taxis available, but I had always been warned about them. They are large vans with many seats available and they are very cheap to ride in. I’ve heard horror stories about women being beaten and raped while riding them. Luckily Richard spoke Zulu and communicated effectively with the mini taxi driver and we made it safely to Boulder Beach. The penguins were as cute as I remembered.

            Unfortunately, we could not find any rides back to the train station at the end of the day. We began walking the two miles and eventually found another mini taxi, which Richard communicated well with again. We rode the train home and this time it was stuffed full. There were people drinking with open containers and smoking marijuana openly. This was very different than America. We made it back safely thanks to Richard. I do not know what we would have done without him.

            The beach wore us out. We got take out food and ate back at our residence. It was a wild and crazy Saturday night spent reading “Long Walk to Freedom” by Nelson Mandela.