Perfect Weather Weekend

I don't know if I have introduced you to the other students on our program yet...Ryan, Jay, and Erin are all 4th year medical students graduating as soon as they return to the States and entering residency programs. Erin has been here for three weeks already and this was her last weekend here in Cape Town. She wanted to go to Robben Island and climb Table Mountain. Both of these activities were weather permitting. We lucked out with spectacular weather. On Friday night we got our Ford Tracer rental car which took about 7 tries to get it started each time we got in the car and would have easily qualified as a clunker in the states. We went to Long Street where there are some great restaurants. We ate at Addis in Cape, an unbelievable Ethiopian restaurant. The pictures above show the traditional eating style and coffee ceremony we enjoyed. We also went across the street to watch and partake in some belly dancing at Mesopotamia. Early Saturday morning we drove to the waterfront to be the first in line to get "walk on" tickets for the ferry to Robben Island. We were lucky enough to get on board the 9 am ferry. Once on the island, we were loaded on to tour buses that took us around to the important locations on the island including the prisons, leprosy cemetary (lepers were concentrated on the island long ago), the lime stone quarry where ex-political prisoners labored, and the maximum security prison where Nelson Mandela spent 18 years of his sentence as an ex-political prisoner. I have included a picture of the cell he occupied above. When we returned to the waterfront in the afternoon we had lunch at a South African inspired restaurant called Karibu, the food was amazing. Then we explored the shops in the area since Jay and Ryan hadn't been there yet. Later we drove to Camp's Bay to eat dinner and watch the sunset. We had some tapas and sushi. It was a busy day!