Built by the Dutch East India Company between 1666 and 1679, the Castle is the oldest existing colonial building in South Africa.
The tour was quite interesting and there was a view of the torture rooms and the rooms where criminals and soldiers were kept until trial. They were small and dank and dark and would give a person nightmares. The castle is said to be haunted, I wouldn't be surprised if it is and I'm pretty skeptical about such things.
When you have a lot of time on your hands you carve verses into the door of your cell.
After visiting the castle we were going to go to the Gardens and have lunch but the GPS had run out of battery. Either the charger doesn't work in foreign cars (why wouldn't it, it's the same voltage?) or there is something wrong with the charger. Since the soles of my feet felt like they were on fire we couldn't walk anywhere either. So, Don had enough battery left in his phone to turn on GPS and get us back home where we decided we needed to do some emergency shopping. We left for the Blue Route mall and bought new tennis shoes for me, another adapter for our numerous electronic devices, and some blister bandaids.
See that? That's City Hall. We had hoped to go there and the surrounding area that day. Oh well, we still have 19 more days here, plenty of time to make it back to downtown Cape Town.
See, on any other trip we would have driven around until we found what we were looking for. However, we have been warned that there are roads in Cape Town that you just don't want to be on! We've been told that we shouldn't drive on the M5 or Military Road at night (Wouter, our taxi driver from the airport, wouldn't even drive on the M5 during the day because he said it was dangerous) and there is even a "Warning, Smash and Grab Area" sign on the road just a few blocks from here. Not being locals we really don't know what areas to avoid yet. Even our National Geographic guide book lists areas of Cape Town that you shouldn't visit without a guide and in groups. What we didn't think to buy on our shopping trip was a road map, we need to know how to get around if the GPS isn't working or if we need to take an alternative route. We're buying one tomorrow. Especially after I panicked today driving home in the dark (some people here won't drive after dark either if they can help it) and refused to take Military Road like the GPS said we should. I made a u-turn, tried to think of another way home, turned into a gas station, argued with Don, got back on the road and finally used the GPS after all and made it safely home although we did go through some back roads in sketchy areas (I think, how do I know what's a sketchy area yet?). Here's a tip from Russell, the owner of this home we're staying in, "traffic lights and stop signs are yield signs after dark, providing it's safe to go of course" which I totally embraced. Here's a picture of me panicking:
Okay, that's not me that's one baboon chasing another. I just felt that this blog needed some levity.
Tomorrow I'll post: the Cape of Good Hope, Cape Point, baboons, penguins, and an ostrich. Plus great views of the Indian and Atlantic oceans and a folder full of pictures.
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