CAPE TOWN, Cape Peninsula, South Africa,, September 27, 2005 — Things have changed from an incipient gentrification to full-blown Disney-fication in the Waterfront area.

It seems like a tourist duty to visit, though.

In 1997, Mags dropped me off to visit Robben Island. Tickets were sold from a tiny shed and the boat used was one used to transport prisoners in the bad old days. Now there is a fancy terminal for fancy boats to go on that tour. And there are lots of shops just like any mall in the world. I check out

some souvenirs. I like to buy kitchen towels with souvenir printing like maps or birds of the region and then use them to dry dishes until they wear out, remembering my trip every time I'm doing that chore. But the price for the ones I find is about ten or eleven dollars. Mags says she will take me where souvenirs are more reasonably priced later.

We have lunch at a curry place and the curry is hot and spicy and good. It's windy out and we feel like we've done the waterfront and Mags isn't feeling well, having possibly caught from me the thing I didn't think was contagious.

After that excursion, we spent an evening in with me hoping I hadn't brought disease and pestilence to Africa.