The seventh week

 

After my fantastic weekend with white sharks,  Monday I went to school and I followed my regular lessons. In the afternoon I had music assemble. I was happy that I could finally play on my flute. I miss my Dutch orchestra a lot. Yesterday a wildfire started  at the mountains and at Hout bay.  There are quite some fires, because the fynbos vegetation  requires regular burning for  its persistence. But it seems  this fire is more extreme than usual. When we went home we could see the fire is spreading across the mountains and everywhere were large grey smoke clouds.  You could hear continuously helicopters which are carrying water bombs.  In the evening the wind direction changed and all the smoke came over Constantia, where we live. It was a very strong smoke, you could even smell it inside the house.
 

Cape Point

 Tuesday we went on an excursion with grade 9 of Bishops (Jeff’s grade). We visited Cape point. Our bus drove through the area of the wildfire. It was scary to experience this huge fire from so close. Cape Point is the southmost point of Africa and it was about one hour drive from Cape Town.  I heard  that this is the point where the cold Atlantic Ocean and the warm Indian Ocean meet.  This theory not exactly correct, because the geographic meeting point of the two oceans is 150 km further to the South-East, but that doesn’t really matter. The Cape Point has a spectacular view! Geographically it is an interesting point and it has a colourful history.  There are different kinds of rocks  as Bellows Rock and Albatross Rock. It is fantastic to see but it is very dangerous for  boats. That is the reason that the light of the lighthouse of Cape Town  is the most powerful . Portuguese explorer Bartolomeu Dias was the first to round the Cape Peninsula in 1488. He called this place: “Cape of Storms” because of strange, rapidly changing weather.  But later this name was changed to “ Cape of Good Hope”. Vasco da Gama navigated his sailing boat along the coast of Africa and he opened a new trading route for Europe with the Far East.  We could see its beautiful beach, where was not possible to swim because the water was extremely cold  and apparently it was really dangerous. It was a very interesting and beautiful day, but we were completely exhausted, because it was 43 degrees. Cape Town was the hottest city in the world that day!


Beautiful beach at Cape Point

Luckily on Wednesday it was much cooler, but 35 degree was still a hot summer temperature.  The fire-fighters were still working on the fire day and night. Some area’s around Hout bay had been evacuated. A girl from school had to leave her house in the middle of the night. 

Thursday after school we went home and we had an early supper.  At 9 pm we went to the “Moonlight Mass Night Cycle”.  This was organised at full moon and the aim is to raise awareness for cycling in Cape Town as alternative transport and to reduce air pollution. We cycled about 12 km in an hour. It was a great experience to do it together for cleaner air in town. Steff, Julien, Agnes, Anto, Pia, Vicente and Theuns were also there. It was a lot of fun together.

“Moonlight Mass Night Cycle”. 

Friday after school I had a nice afternoon with Maxime in Cavendish. We did some shopping and we ate something there.  Friday evening we were invited by Julien . He organized a farewell party for his exchange student, Vicente, but it was also a goodbye to Anto and Pia. It was a great party with some pizza and we had fun together. We could hardly believe that time flies so fast. Most of the Chilean exchange students were busy packing their bags .  We promised each other to keep a touch by facebook, whatsapp etc.  We had eight fantastic weeks together and probably this is a start for new friendships for a lifetime.