Cape Town!

Cape Town!  What an amazing place.. Wow!

Before getting to the winlands we drove for around 14 hours through the Karroo.  The picture above is pretty much what all of the Karroo looks like.  You can't see it in this picture, but on the mountains/hills you can see lines in them.  The Karroo used to be a huge lake!

After the Karroo, we passed through the Hex river valley (Winelands).  Beautiful mountains and vineyards.

Entering the Winelands.. It is amazing, especially after driving through the Karroo.

This is still in the Winelands, but this is where the people that work the vineyards live.  All of these homes were shacks, but when the Fifa world cup World Cup came, the government quickly built a bunch of block houses.  If you look closely you can see that mainly the houses closest to the road were built with blocks.  It was all merely for looks.  

These grape vines were all burned during protests a year or so back.

More of the beauty of the valley.

Hiking Table Mountain!!  We hiked up the Platteklip Gorge.

This is what the trail looked like toward the beginning. 

This is a picture of the city from about half way up Table Mountain!  You can see Robben Island in the distance.

A nice RJ photo on top of Table Mountain =)

Lizzy climbed all the way up Table Mountain BAREFOOT! 

So this is looking off of the top of Table Mountain (the side opposite of the city bowl).  The little guy you can see to the right is a Dassie.. somehow their closest relative is the elephant!

This is one of the first (maybe the first) Dutch Reformed churches in South Africa!  We visited it while in Stellenbosch. 

This is the inside of the church looking away from what would be the pulpit.  What an amazing building.

The City Bowl!  I took this picture from the Water Front.  The big building is the FNB bank.  The 4 tallest buildings (they looked like they were the tallest) were all banks...

Robben Island!  This is a picture of the quarry that Mandela and other political prisoners were forced to work in.  The limestone wasn't used for much of anything.  They would make the prisoners move it from point A to point B one day, then back to A the next.  Working in the mine was a time that the prisoners could talk to and support each other, though many of the prisoners suffered from eye problems from the dust and sun reflecting from the stone.

Looking from Robben Island to Cape Town.

A nice team photo with Table Mountain somewhat in the background.

This is the cell that Nelson Mandela stayed in.

The beautiful view from the balcony of the backpacker we stayed in while in Cape Town.  We stayed on the False Bay side in Muizenberg.  There was some amazing surfing =D 

Back in KZN!  When the rain comes in the summer, everything will be green again!  Unfortunately I won't be here to see that =/  My time here is coming to an end very quickly.  I only have 2 more weekends.... Soon I'll post pictures from our trip in St. Lucia!  Be prepared to see some African animals!  Oh and I thought I might add a picture of the sunset that welcomed us back from Cape Town =)