Tuesday, May 1, 2012

Which is the More Dangerous Activity in Cape Town...

Swimming with Great White Sharks or walking down the street. I'll give you a hint. It rhymes with: stalking clown the feet. I might have thought the shark as well until I got held up at knife point while walking down the street in broad daylight.  Skinny black dude runs up behind me and asks me to give him all my Rand (currency in South Africa). I didn't have any because I have been fighting with my ATM card again, so telling him that I didn't have any was the truth. I did have $1200 USD on me as I had just left the bank, but didn't have the local currency. After repeatedly telling him I had no money, he then asked for my cell phone. Didn't have that with me either. After emptying my pockets, making sure to conceal my USD, I guess I convinced him that I really didn't have anything to give him, so he gave me a fist bump, told me to have a nice day, and walked away. He's not really good at his chosen craft because I had $1200 USD on me along with at least $5000 in camera equipment. Still have it all too.  Alot of things go through your head in situations like that, none of them good.

Shark diving was fun. Essentially  we were in a cage off the side of a boat. Spotters on the boat would yell where the sharks were. We would then dive under and try to spot them as they swam innocently by. It was fun and not dangerous in the least.

I leave on my 4 month trip through Africa tomorrow morning. Won't be able to blog all that consistently, but I will do my best to try and keep all of you updated.


But the good news for all of you as a result of street fiasco is that I have holed myself up in the hostel and spent the better part of the last 48 hours editing photos from my entire trip. Bad news is, this silly hostel has the slowest upload time and I have to pay for internet. As a result, these are the only pics I had time to upload. They are of the Forbidden City in Beijing






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5 comments:

  1. Needless to say, we're glad you're safe and sound. Makes you realize how lucky we are to have fast, internet service and ATM machines that cooperate and give you money! Can't wait to see some of your safari pictures.
    Happy Travels-
    MomG

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  2. Good luck on the safari. Should be extremely interesting and quite different from all that you've seen so far.
    Enjoyed talking with you this am on Skype. Hurray for modern technolgy (when it works.)
    Looking forward to your next blog.
    Jane

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  3. om goodness - i'm glad you're okay!!! will look forward to seeing pics from your safari!! :o)

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  4. Dude, sucks that happened to you but at least you got through it unscathed with your Baltimore street-sense!

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  5. Glad you are safe. That robber is right up there with the burglars who wear light up shoes and wonder how people catch them...

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