Day 3 in Cape Town

We started off with breakfast once again. The buffet had just about everything anyone could want for breakfast from bacon, sausages and Canadian bacon to omelets, fruits of every variety, potatoes, yogurts, 4 types of fruit juices (Guava was the favorite with the group), toasts, cold cereals and hot porridge (oatmeal). Greg is amazing at how much he can eat, but I guess his food choices are quite limited in Burkina-Faso so he is making up for all those tastes he missed back in the States.

Speaking of which, Greg can’t believe we are in Africa. He said it is very similar to the US at its best. I can’t help agree with him now that the Apartheid regime is long gone and a full populist democracy is in power. The more the masses have been empowered with jobs and money, the faster the economy grows. There is a lot of money in Cape Town with a huge Lamborghini and Maserati dealership, as well as any other type of upscale vehicle. Inasmuch as this was a free day, I visited the BMW car and motorcycle dealership to get details on things. The BMW motorrad community (think motorcycle) is quite small and they knew a friend of mine who runs a motorcycle touring agency out of the US, Ron Ayers. As a result, they gave me first class treatment both in the dealership and in the motorcycle rental agency for future reference.

The next hassle was getting a cell phone service that worked. When I was in Brazil in early June for 3 days my iPhone was on roaming and it was outrageously expensive. For 3 days the cost was over $1,700 USD. I was livid when I got the bill and they knocked off about $1,000 USD but it still ended up costing me $700 for 3 days. Hence, I am not using my cell phone here and wanted to get a local provider for it. There is no problem except that Apple and ATT lock the network provider in US phones and you have to get it unlocked in order to switch providers. Apparently, that is quite a hassle and I phone ATT in the US attempting to get it sorted out. At the end of the 1 ½ hour conversation they realized that only Apple can unlock it and they are not likely to do so. However, there are local retail cell companies that will do it for a price. The cost of Internet and cell service is not great, so once I get it unlocked it should work like a charm.

Most of the group sun tanned around the pool or took a walk along the “strand” (think beach boardwalk) or shopped in the afternoon while I went back to grade papers for my Issues in Management class and watch a bit of Wimbledon. Dinner was in the hotel and we all turned in early, as we had to get up at 6 for our tour on Wednesday.