SOAN 243 Blog

Hello everyone, this is Emma and KayLyn! Today was the long-awaited safari day! We started out with our typical class in the morning and then headed to the Aquila Safari, a Big 5 Safari in Cape Town. It is a private game reserve that focuses on protecting and restoring the natural wildlife that is in support of animal rescue initiatives.  Our group quickly ate at the buffet and eagerly waited to go on our safari tour. We met with our tour guide, who presented us with many facts and answered our questions. The first animal we saw was a hippo in the water, sadly not the whole hippo, but its nose and part of its head. He explained how hippos are herbivores but will defend themselves and, especially, their babies with their incredibly strong bites. If you get in between the hippos and their water source or their babies, there is a high likelihood that it will charge at you and leave you bleeding out. Definitely a fact that we were not prepared to hear! Additionally, the top 3 most dang...

  Free day!! Hello blog, this is Henry and Anna. Today looks a little different because we don’t have any class, but we will do our best to showcase some of the activities a portion of our class did today. Hopefully, this gives everyone an idea of what a free day could look like in Cape Town. A number of us decided today would be a great chance to spend the day outside. We started our morning with a hike. We saw some amazing views and had a great time hanging out with one another. Here are some photos from our hike!    After our hike, we started to look for lunch. There was no food in the area so we tried to get an Uber to the nearest restaurant, but Uber wasn’t working so we decided to walk instead. We accidentally extended our hike another hour and a half. Tallying our mileage to 6.5 miles by lunchtime. A great morning to be outside. We ended our walking in Hout Bay, a town 30 minutes outside of Cape Town. We split up and got some nice lunches in Hout Bay. After lunch a...

  January 25th: Street Art in Salt River Hello! We are Emma and Quinn. We had a wonderful day looking at street art in the town of Salt River which is about 10 minutes away from where we are staying. In 2017, street art started to become more prominent in this neighborhood. We met up with our guide, Nadia, who is an active member in the community and whose passion for social issues and justice is palpable. She led us on a 2 hour tour of murals throughout the neighborhood. We saw a wide range of art spanning from marine life to support for Palestine. Nadia explained that in order to create a mural, you need a permit and special permission from the city and some of the surrounding buildings. The city can take a long time to sign off on a mural, and there has been rebellion against the notion of needing to have a permit. The photos below will display some of the amazing art we saw today.   Our guide, Nadia, is standing in front of the “freedom fighter wall” consisting of 36 hum...

Today we had the opportunity to go to Seven Sisters Wine Farm in Stellenbosch, and it exceeded our expectations! Seven Sisters is owned by Vivan, a first-generation wine farm, and one of the first Coloured-owned farms in Stellenbosch. They began construction in 2011, fully finished in 2015, and began harvesting in 2016.  We got to explore the farm a bit when we got there, which included visiting Pedro and Ali (their rescue horses), playing piano, and admiring the beautiful white architecture of the farm buildings. Vivian’s son then showed us around the vineyard and explained some of their bio-sustainable agricultural practices. We all got to pick a grape from the vines for a taste! It was 95 degrees today, but we were informed that warmer weather harvests greater sugar content in the grapes, so we weren’t sweating for nothing. Also, it was so hot that Pinias even said it was hot, so we were not being dramatic!! Vivian then gave us a presentation of her personal narrative growing ...

  Hello! This is Andrew and Lucas reporting in for another blog in our Cape Town adventures! Today we visit Bo-Kaap, a uniquely diverse neighborhood facing gentrification at every corner. Later in the day, our group walked upon Kirstenbosch Gardens, a famous national grounds in South Africa which is home to plentiful species of plants. This day was extremely hot, but also full of incites and beauty. Let's get moving! We began our day in Bo-Kaap, one of Cape Town’s most beautiful and unique historic neighborhoods. Most of the area’s residents are descended from the slaves and other laborers who built Cape Town, and unlike many other neighborhoods, they were mostly able to avoid being forcefully evicted during Apartheid, giving it a sense of community that has lasted for centuries. You can always tell that you’re in Bo-Kaap when you see rows of colorful houses on steep roads. The residents have full control over how their houses look, and the neighbors consult with each other to make...

  Our first stop of the day was at a national park to see African Penguins. We were able to walk along a boardwalk and down to the beach where there were hundreds of penguins. There were even several who were laying eggs or nursing their young. A lot of them had their mouths open to the sky, which we learned was how they cool off. They do not have sweat glands like we do so that is their method of cooling. The African Penguin is an endangered species so it was very special to be able to see them.  A little further down the beach, we stopped at another spot, a little more secluded. We got to see more penguins up close and a couple of starfish. The view was breathtaking and felt very surreal. Before we left the first spot, we grabbed lunch as a group where we ate burgers, fries, coffee, milkshakes, and gelato.  After lunch, we stopped at Muizenberg Beach for a little over an hour. This beach felt less touristy and seemed to have more families spending their Saturday afterno...