South Africa

First day in South Africa. A few hours docking late. Seems to be something pretty commonly occurring actually. Sucks because this is my only full day in Cape Town. The view from the boat is spectacular, Table Mountain is shrouded in clouds, there are seals jumping around in the water everywhere.
       
Cape Town is a very special port and an absolutely amazing city. I have always wanted to go to South Africa, and Cape Town was more beautiful than anything I expected.

       The first day all of my friends were busy so I set out finding people to hang out with. I asked Justin if I could go geocaching with him. Geocaching is quite an interesting pastime. Basically he uses his GPS to take him to the coordinates of hidden treasures that people hide all over the world and register online for others to find! How interesting, right? He has found them everywhere and I really wanted to go treasure hunting with him. So we set out as soon as we could get off the ship. Our first find was unsuccessful unfortunately, but no worries, there were two more within a couple of miles. Our walk took us all over the place, into the main part of the city, on the outskirts, even up a mountain. We found our first cache in this field in the back of a circus school. Yeah, a circus school. The description for the cache included directions to record your own performance and leave a picture of it. The cache was instead of a tree, a little glass jar, we pulled it out and looked at what people had left, a log book with everyone’s name who had ever visited and little things like a Pez dispenser, pencil, stickers, and little cards that say the person’s “name”on them, like Cow N Chicken. He left his University of Vermont pen. We signed our names. That cache had been there since February 2008 and had been visited by many geocachers.

       We followed the GPS to our next cache, which just so happened to be all the way at the top of Signal Hill. I was in no way prepared to climb a mountain, and it ended up pretty embarrassing for me. Justin was in sandals and basically raced up the hill while I struggle to keep up. Once I was pretty much having an asthma attack so I had to stop for a little. Actually I’m pretty sure I have bronchitis because I am often out of breath for really little things, I mean I’m not that incredibly out of shape.

       Anyways after much sweating and panting we made it to the top, all the way to this abandoned cannon shelter, where we found the next cache hidden inside one of the bricks. This one was like a small Tupperware, and more items were in it because there was more space. It had been there since 2005! There were two logbooks inside. Everyone seemed to comment on whatever weather they had dealed with that day as well as the beautiful view. And the view was beautiful. Standing on top of that hill and feeling the breeze rush past me after that climb was very gratifying. We signed our names then climbed down again to catch a taxi. Justin went off to his MICE performance and I went to Long Street to meet up with Smith.

       Smith, Jessica, Heather, and Luisa had just finished eating, and we all explored the flea market for awhile. I bought some great gifts for people at home, as well as for myself, and grabbed some food and beer for the go. Smith and I brownbagged it as we hopped on the Red Bus Tour. I am so so happy I decided to do this tour. You see them in every big city in the world, but for this little time I had in Cape Town specifically, it was the perfect option. I saw so many things and places I would have never seen, and I really learned a lot! For the whole day it was only twelve dollars, or 120 rand, so worth it. We listened to the info as it went all over the city. We hopped off at Table Mountain but unfortunately it was cloudy on top so we decided to wait till another day so we could experience the great views. So we took some pictures and hopped back on. The bus next took us over to Hout Bay, one of the most beautiful beach areas I’ve ever seen. We hopped off here and had a great time exploring the beach. We really wanted calamari so we sat down at this great café and had some sea food and drinks. The drinks were incredibly strong and Smith and I shared a few and were laughing a lot by the time we left.

    We hopped back on the bus and Smith and I headed over to Mama Africa to meet up with Hannah, Kendra and Lexi for dinner. They were all booked up for dinner so we all had a seat at the bar. This restaurant was fantastic. We all started off with a springbok shot, which tastes just like mint ice cream. Then we had dinner, which consisted of crocodile, kudu, ostrich and springbok. Delicious. All of it. Especially the ostrich. We had some more drinks and listened to the AMAZING band. There were three xylophonists, a guitarist, a sax player, and the icing on the cake, baritone/opera-singer/Christina-Aguilera main singer Zwelibanzi. Hannah and I loved him, we made “I love you”motioning to him until he brought both of us on stage with him for a dance party. It was fantastic.

    We left from there around 9 and stopped into a bar for a little while, just happened to see Alicia and Caroline and Greg walking by, and traveled with them over to a club called Chrome which was selling shots for 1 rand each, or 10 whole cents. Wow. So we go into this club and it is entirely Arab, which is strange because I have barely seen an Arab person the entire day. And the dance floor is empty. But whatever Hannah and I change that rather quickly. We got out on the floor and did our best choreographed Zumba moves. Then Smith taught me the Texas two-step. Unfortunately I had to be up at 4 so we left rather early to head home to pack and all that good stuff.

    Set my alarm on my phone to get up. Unfortunately the clock on my phone was an hour off, and I woke up in a panic to my friend calling me telling me I was running late. AH! So I scrambled and got all my stuff together and ran upstairs. I made it fine, we headed to the airport, most everyone was hung over, some people hadn’t even gone to sleep. I had at least gotten three hours or so. Unfortunately I barely slept on the two hour plane ride or the three hour bus ride, but Smith slept pretty much the whole time so I just listened to my ipod and tried to rest. The part of the drive I do see is beautiful though. The countryside is everything you would imagine it to be.

    We finally get to our campsite. Our tents are pretty awesome, beds made, mattresses off the floor, even a little side table with a light on it. Mackenzie and I room together. At this point the heat is unbearable, maybe 100 with an incredible amount of humidity. Sitting down is too much, I have to stand to avoid the thigh and back sweat.

    But we all complained a bit too soon. I have had the immense pleasure of having near perfect and unusual weather for the season in every country I have gone to. Like in Spain, we had amazing weather in Cadiz. In Namibia, we went to the sand dunes at just the perfect time, when the weather was cool and there was cloud cover. And, in South Africa, we had three days of warm weather but often with cloud cover, making most of our stay completely comfortable and unusually cool!

    We hop into our safari cars and take off for an afternoon game drive, after grabbing a quick lunch of egg salad sandwiches, delicious green apples, chicken nuggets and juice and sodas. The food at this place was amazing and just kept getting better. So our driver was named Caz…little did we know that Caz is pretty much the most badass person I have ever encountered. In fact, I will go so far as to say she is a BAMF, and I have never used that word as a descriptor before in my life. She has been a safari guide for six years and grew up in the bush with her parents who were also both guides. She has some crazy stories and I will tell some of them later.

    So we first have a twenty minute ride over to the actual game park, Hluhluwe. The ride over passes by a very rural area where as far as I can see only poor black people live. Everyone is walking, and the couple of bikes I did see, the tires were completely gone so that the bike was running solely on rims. There are cows and goats all over the roads, we have to slow and honk at them so that they move. As we drive by some young boys yell at us in Afrikaans, “Don’t touch my cows! Leave my cows alone!”It is the young boys’jobs to care for the family cattle. I saw a boy that couldn’t possibly be older than five tending to a herd. Most people wave at us as we pass. I feel a bit stupid sitting there in a safari vehicle passing by all of this poverty. The houses are nestled all along the hills. The houses are more like shacks, but some are painted brilliant colors of blue and pink, and most have little enclosures for crops and cattle. Kids are walking in their school uniforms home from school. Caz informs us that most kids walk about three miles to school, and they really are kids. Not everyone that passes by us is nice, however. During the few drives from the park we had back and forth, once we had boys throw rocks at us. Caz immediately stopped the vehicle, got out, and started chasing them, and they ran like hell. She said that sometimes she’ll go get a rock, take her car back and go throw one back at them. Another boy flicked a switchblade as we drove by.

    Anyways, we get into the game reserve, and the first animals I spot are a family of warthogs all hanging out in a grassy patch. They had six babies, and all the babies crawled on their front legs to munch on grass. They were so cute! Next we encounter the African jumping gecko…there was this awesome gecko crawling around our seat. It tried to crawl on my leg so I moved my leg over, then it jumped like a foot and a half to the seat! Well being the girls we are we screamed, and Caz laughed, and we had a brush with a lizard. Caz said we would never make it in the bush. Next we ran into zebra. They are absolutely gorgeous, their designs are spectacular. We would see many of those before our trip was over.
Next we ran into four rhino feeding right by the road, about ten feet from our car. They were so huge and cool! We watched them for about five minutes, when suddenly we heard an elephant cry from somewhere in the distance. The rhinos were instantly alarmed, and all four of them startled and ran away! Watching them run was hilarious. Ca said the elephant cry had been a distress call and had come from five kilometers away. It sounded like it had come from no more than 100 feet away!

    We drove around for about three hours that day before returning to get ready for dinner. It was cool enough now to shower, so we did quickly, then they picked us up for dinner. It was pitch black, and the area we were in was entirely lit by candlelight. It was such a beautiful and romantic setting. We were the only guests there other than a French family. The food was all traditional African food and served in large quantities…many different meats, a delicious plate of many cheeses and crackers, and amazing desserts with all sorts of toppings. We ate and drank our fill and even got a little show when all of the workers came out and danced for us. After that we headed back and everyone hit the sack pretty early as we were all exhausted. Smith and Teresa and I sat around listening to music from our childhood and I went to sleep in my bug-free tent in shorts and a bra and feeling very content.

    The next morning we woke up to the sound of drums around 6 am. Smith and I took an early morning walk and were attacked by caterpillars hanging on strings off the trees and a million gnats. We all got up, put on safari gear, and hopped in the jeeps. We ate a delicious breakfast with lots of fresh fruit and headed out on the road by 7. We were on a game drive until about 4 that afternoon. The weather all morning was amazing, nice and cool. The first thing we see are a herd of about 30 elephant crossing the road right in front of us! Babies and everything. It was amazing, they were so close! They were just scuttling along, Caz said they were kind of skittish and that she was paying close attention to the women because they are the most aggressive. Suddenly one of the big adult females turns on us and gives a warning yell, then starts charging! Caz started the car in a flash and quickly backed up. The elephant backed off, but Caz said we were seconds away from a potentially very dangerous situation. Fun!

    We saw a ton of giraffe all day long. The coolest giraffe sighting were of these five all hanging out, three of which were right in the road and could care less that we wanted to get by. Caz would scoot the car up by them and they would slowly and barely move out of the way. They were snobs. We loved it. We also saw the herd of elephant all playing in the watering hole. And two water buffalo having a mudbath.

    I think possibly the funniest thing on the planet could be personifying animals. And trust me, I did a lot of it. I invited others to join but nobody thought it was quite as enjoyable as I did. My favorite was when the water buffalo opened her mouth and I said, “Oh yuck, got a fly in here.”Haha.

    The coolest thing by far we saw was a huge male elephant that we just happened t run into on the road. He walked on the road as we backed up for about 2 miles! It was amazing just watching him eat, play in the water, his huge trunk scraping the ground. He was also in heat, so Caz was very cautious of him. We thought he was peeing, but turns out that’s just a huge glob of testosterone. And then, all of the sudden, he flashed us! Elephant penis is pretty huge. Apparently they can control them, like slap it against their bellies and stuff. It was probably as long as my lower leg and a little smaller around than my thigh. It was pretty funny. The boys said they were going to show off theirs in return, but they felt intimidated haha. It was scary at times too because he was about five feet from the car at times and he was gigantic and could easily flip us if he wanted to, but Caz watched him carefully, and he just walked us down the road. It was really great.

    Unfortunately we never did see any lions or leopards, but we had an amazing time nonetheless. It got extremely hot only for about an hour, and the rest of the day was so pleasant. Dinner was at the lodge, delicious once again, and we all got pretty tipsy at this dinner. So afterwards we hopped in a car with Peter, who took us straight over to the pool. The night consisted of skinnydipping, playing “never have I ever,”listening to good music, singing, and playing mafia. It was a great night. Smith and I were drunk enough that we felt comfortable laying on the ground, not a very good idea, but we stargazed for awhile with Win and I woke up about 30 minutes later still on the ground haha. After that it was bedtime, sleeping outside was not a good idea.

    The next morning we were up at 5:30 am, again to the sound of drums. We had a quick breakfast, walked over to the pond to check out the crocodile, then had a 3 hour bus ride and two hour plane ride back. We were back in Cape Town by noon. So I took off with some people to go to the District Six Museum, which is a museum about a neighborhood that was demolished during apartheid to clear all of the black people out. Most of the area remains covered in grass today. Next we hit up Long Street to the flea market again, but they were closing up and I didn’t nearly have enough shopping time. South Africa was the first country I didn’t get a T-shirt or postcards in. ☹

    So we all sat down in a café and had delicious pita sandwiches and drinks and coffees. Mmm. Then back to the boat to get ready to go out for dinner and nighttime festivities.

    The next day I visited a township called Kayelitsha. Townships were originally places groups of people were forced to live during apartheid, and Khayelitsha is one of the biggest. Today townships remain some of the poorest as well as racially segregated areas, and also the most dangerous. The experience was great. Everywhere I went in South Africa I was surrounded by music. It was a Sunday so there were church services going on. I got to sit in on two of them. They were beautiful and the voices of the people were very moving. I particularly enjoyed the black Jesus. I loved listening to the preacher speak Afrikaans and hearing the congregation break out in laughter. The children were my favorite part. They clamored all over us to get gifts of stickers and candy. One little girl gave me one of her stickers, which moved me to tears. Another little girl grabbed my hand and walked with me for quite some time. That hand felt so supportive to me.

    We visited Vicky’s B&B and talked to Vicky herself, then had a walking tour of the township. We came on a very special day. South Africa is about to have elections and one of the candidates, Zuma, was speaking in Khayelitsha that day. People were being bussed in from miles around to hear him speak. We could just see the auditorium and it was packed. People were yelling and cheering and wearing supportive T-shirts everywhere. Everyone raised their fists in the air and shouted “Viva Zuma!”It was funny because SAS tells us specifically to avoid rallies of any type, and here we were right in the middle of one, taking pictures. It was a great sight to see, these people gathering behind a candidate they believe in. The current South African president, Mbecki, has been a huge disappointment for the people after Nelson Mandela. Mbecki has put forward such measures as denying the seriousness of AIDS in the country.

    I still hadn’t seen Table Mountain so Sarah, who shaved her head, and I took a taxi to the mountain to take the cable car up. Unfortunately it was closed and would be for the rest of the day due to high winds. Very disappointing as it was my last chance to go up. So we decided to go to the botanical gardens instead, called Kirstenbosch. They were so beautiful, Sarah and I were both really enjoying taking photographs. It was a very peaceful place on a wonderfully warm day, families were everywhere, I was that creeper taking pictures of the little kids. There was a concert going on too, the philharmonic orchestra of the area or something like that. On our way out, I ran into Canadian John, who we skydived with in Namibia! Small world huh?

    When we finally returned it was time to get back on the boat.

    Now we are en route to Mauritius, which is basically going to be a day of sunlounging. It is a very popular celeb vacay spot, hopefully I’ll run into Perez.

    We had our first global studies test and I’m pretty sure I failed it but so did everyone else so no worries. I got a B on my first art test and an A on my first Islam quiz. Sweet.