It is 4:30 a.m.  We kept ourselves on the border of unraveling all day yesterday forcing ourselves to stay awake.  Melia fell asleep on our baggage at the airport, in the lobby of our hotel and at the restaurant.  Micah fell asleep on the floor of our hotel room as we unpacked.  Too tired to think or move, I almost fell down the stairs in the lobby and had difficulty a few times just carrying on ordinary conversation.

    Now in the light before dawn everything seems so magical.  The traffic I hear outside is not ordinary traffic, people off to Google, Intel, HP, Apple and Cisco, these are Africans driving off on African business.  In college there was no place that was both as distant or near as South Africa.  Stephen Biko’s name was written everywhere – I especially remember graffiti on the rubbish bins along Telegraph Avenue and above the entrances to stores and on curbsides.  We were discouraged from buying anything made by IBM because they provided technology for surveillance that supported apartheid.  I banked at Wells Fargo because protestors kept smashing up the Bank of America offices because they persisted in doing business in South Africa.  One morning seventy riot police from across the state descended on the campus as a police helicopter kept circling the campanile.  They came to address the shanty town protests.  My rugby teammates were dismissive and ridiculed the protesters, but ultimately they/we were probably right.  Divestment did probably encourage change here.

    But I am straying from my point – South Africa was far away in the sense that I much more readily imagined visiting the USSR or communist China than coming to South Africa.  I only read books about this place and met people who suffered political repression because of their activism and had to flee.  At the same time the importance of what was happening in South Africa brought it very near.  Now I am in the place that formed Alan Boesak, Desmond Tutu and Nelson Mandela.  In the twenty-first century one does not have to hide the South Africa stamp on one’s passport.

    I feel badly about whatever I wrote about the car renters yesterday.  Fortunately we didn’t wait for them and explored.  But they did eventually come through and brought us our vehicle at about 6:00 p.m.  Fortunately, we had all the rates quoted ahead and printed on a sheet from our travel agent because they did try to seriously overcharge us on the contract they brought.  We ended up taking the care that was there that morning but which the renters variously told us was “too dirty,” “already reserved for someone else” and that “they didn’t even have the keys for.”  This all sounds too bitter though.  We shared light conversation and enjoyed our time with the renters.  That was part of the whole experience too even if they seemed to withhold the care somewhat arbitrarily.  I guess I was frustrated because we are here for such a short time.  I didn’t want to miss anything especially since we had thought ahead and ordered a car in advance.

    In any event yesterday was an absolutely extraordinary day.  Our first visit took us down the street to St. George’s Anglican Cathedral, the first Anglican church in Southern Africa, a sister to our own Grace Cathedral.  Plaques on the wall everywhere reminded us of the long anglo history of this place.  Walking around I imagine the Khoikhoi’s who first lived here, then the Bantu people who migrated, the Portugese (?) the Dutch and the English, and what this beautiful place must have meant to them when they arrived.

    We went into a few banks before we realized that the ATM’s are the best way for us to get money.  Micah and Melia really felt uncomfortable with all the security measures especially the little glass entry room in which the door must shut behind you in order for the door in front of you to open up.  They didn’t like how it separated them with Heidi from me.  Our whole time here Micah has been like a little Border Collie.  In public he is constantly trying to make sure that we are all together, that one is straying too far from the group.  When you ask him to watch our bags, he vigilantly stands only two feet away and nothing will move him.  Despite this he did manage to get lost at St. George’s.  When we went out to the labyrinth he missed the turn.  He really was not upset by this though.  He feels so at home in the church that he knew everything would be okay.  He simply went up to the attendant for help at around the time we were returning to get him.

    We ate at Mao’s a restaurant for business people with five (?) other locations mostly in Scotland and Ireland.  They had only been open two and a half weeks and seemed nervous about their chances for success.  I never thought that Chinese communism would be retro one day.

    We walked very briefly around the stalls at St. George’s Place and then hurried back to the hotel so that we could figure out how to go to the top of Table Mountain.  These mountains so dominate the landscape.  They define the character of the place.  We took a cab ride up to the cable way station.  It is circular with windows in front and back.  The floor rotates so that everyone has a chance to see.  On the way down we watched a rock climber who was about 4/5’s of the way to the top.  His dirty fellow climbers were on the way down with us looking exhausted.

    We took pictures – maybe they can convey a sense of the place, probably not though.  It reminded me so much of learning the Berkeley Hills – only a little bit is revealed at a time, as your conception of the place continues to expand.  At first we were so overwhelmed by the view from the cliffs right at the cable car base station, amazed by what we saw after getting out of the car.  Then riveted by the view of the harbor from the top station.  Next we discovered how spectacular the other side of the plateau looked.  The kids and Heidi stayed on the top there and I went to the other hillside (on the way to Maclear’s Beacon).  Along the way I couldn’t believe the view of the Atlantic side of the Cape of Good Hope with its sharp granite cliffs plunging down, the stretch of ocean so much more vast than I expected.  I took this to be the coastline in general and expected to see a view facing into the interior of the continent next.  Instead I was amazed to see the ocean on the other side of that hill too and realized that the coast was the Cape of Good Hope which every school child reads about.

    Sitting here now in our hotel room as the sun rises I see the clouds over Africa illuminated in a new way.  Devil’s Peak is totally obscured by thick clouds and I am looking forward to exploring some of the land and sea that we saw from the top of the world yesterday.  The flowers on Table Mountain were remarkable (Proteas?) as were the lizards.  We didn’t see any Dassies (Rock Hyrax).  They look like rodents but are closest anatomically to the elephant.  Elephant Squirrels.  The birds we’ve seen are amazing to.  Geese like I’ve never seen and sea birds.