15-17.09.2010
So I did end up sleeping for a little while before getting up at 4 am Friday morning, but it ended up being a good decision, the people who didn’t sleep wished that they had. We were all ready to go in front of the local grocery store with our luggage at 4:55 like we were told, but the bus that was picking us up to go to the airport ended up being at least an hour late! It was so cold and we were so tired it was very annoying, I could have slept more! When the bus actually got there, I, naturally, made a grand entrance and hit everyone already on the bus (people I did not know yet) in the head with my luggage. Very classy. We took a flight from Cape Town to Jo’burg (on which I slept the whole way) and then got on a truck to begin our drive. Everyone called it a bus BUT, “it is not bus it is a truck” according to our trip leader Ruth. I asked if I could call it a Caravan (acceptable) and once called it a boat (?!) but mostly it stayed a bus.
For the long trip, I got to meet a few of the people I didn’t already know on the trip, read some of my book, snack, nap in awkward positions (i.e. on top of a cooler) and play cards (with onions, milk, tomatoes, and chickens instead of suits, thank you Minnesota State Fair). I sat in the front where two sets of chairs faced each other and the regular rows began. Even though I got on near the end of the line of people, there were still spots open. But after everyone else saw how awesome these seats were, they were the first ones taken for the rest of the trip. I’m kinda a trend starter. Pretty much all Friday consisted of was driving, which was not very fun, but we were all so excited that it luckily didn’t seem that bad. The only interesting stop made this day, was to cross the border from South Africa into Botswana. Basically this consisted of getting off the bus, standing in a line, handing my passport to someone behind a counter (who called me Nevin…awkward) to get stamped out of SA, getting on the truck, getting back off, standing in another line, handing my passport to Ruth and getting back on a bus, getting my passport handed back with a new stamp in it. This process happened multiple times on this trip and now I have a lot of stamps in it! By the time we got to Camp Itumela in Palapye where we were staying, we had briefing on how to set up our tents, saw the first spider of many, and ate a bunch of food. Then pretty much went straight to bed. It was the first time I hadn’t been able to drink the water straight from the tap for my whole time in Africa, which was difficult to get used to.
The next day we woke up at 5 and packed up and got back on the road. It was another day of lots of driving. This driving trip had a very exciting stop in the middle of nowhere for a pee break! We stopped at the only tree we could see. The funny part is that we didn’t even use the tree; it was too close to the truck and the road. Instead, we hopped over a barbed wire fence and found a bush to use. Then got back on and kept travelling. We arrived at Sitatunga Camp in Maun in the afternoon, set everything up and got a briefing about our next few days to come. After, everyone in my group except me and Amber (my tentmate :) ) went on a scenic flight, while we sat at the pool and talked to some of the people on the other truck (they were the Lions while we were the Leopards). I chose not to go on the flight because you had to pay extra and if I were to plan this trip on my own, that would not have been something I chose to do. Once everyone else was back, we had dinner of Baboon steak (really lamb but that is what our cook Albert decided to tell us). Then we stayed awake awhile getting to know each other some more.
Sunday we woke up at 5:30 and began our travels into the Okavango Delta. Here we were to stay for the next two nights without running water or electricity, our bush campsite! We drove on a large 4 wheel drive open Safari truck for an hour and a half to get to a loading dock. Here were paired up and got our stuff and ourselves into a Mokoro (plural: mekoro) which is a small hollowed out canoe that uses a poller to move through the water (aka a guide with a large stick). I paired up with Leah and one of the pollers immediately approached us saying his mokoro was small so he needed small people. We got in and were ready to go, but he was not lying when he said that it was small! He pushed around a little while we waited for everyone else to get situated and we constantly felt as if we were going to tip. Luckily, his fellow pollers had some sense and made him switch mekoro. The only cool thing about the first one was that it was actually made out of wood, they have had to start making them out of fiber glass (?) so as to stop cutting down so many trees. We used our sleeping mattresses as seats which was really comfy and set out on a two hour trip to our campsite. I really enjoyed this, it was really relaxing and a great opportunity to both take photos and get a tan. There were waterlillies everywhere, it was really beautiful. The Lions got ahead of us, and even though there were less of them, they got the larger campsite. So we crammed more people into tents and more tents into a smaller space, making our campsite really cozy. The bathroom the guides set up for us was down a little path that was not exactly fully hidden, and was a large hole dug into the ground. Our bathroom door was whether or not the roll of toilet paper was at the beginning to the path. At the Delta, it was really hot which made it hard to do anything, especially in our tight quarters. Plus, the animals we were supposed to be seeing were all inactive at that time because it is too hot even for them. So instead, we spent the afternoon either at the swimming hole or playing cards under our makeshift shade/fort. Trying to get back to camp from the watering hole required a ride in a mokoro, which naturally means getting back into a mokoro from the water. I got in fine as did Ashley, but then when Big Nick tried he just ended up filling the mokoro with water and dumping Ashley out. The guide and I managed to stay in and started going to the nearest bank in order to dump out the water but just a few strokes after, the whole mokoro tips over. After all those years of “Aria don’t fall in” and “Aria don’t get wet,” I am not surprised I am the one who tipped over in the mokoro. Nick and the driver took the mokoro to shore and emptied it before coming back to pick us up. During this tip, the driver lost his shoe somewhere in the water, which Ashley was miraculously able to find! After we got back from swimming, there was a sighting of elephants, so I went speed walking through the African brush in my swimsuit with two cameras slung around my neck. There were three of them far off in the distance eating from a tree, but it was still really cool because it was our first sighting of the elephants in the wild. As the sun was setting, we went for our first nature walk. They called them nature walks because there was no guarantee that we would see any animals. We learned about the different plants: which could be used as toilet paper, which worked as bug repellent, and even what could cure gonorrhea. We also saw some elephant bones and tracks of hippos and zebras, but we saw no animals. But the sunset was gorgeous. The sun turned a bright red while the sky turned a light pink/orange. The color of the sun itself was nothing I had ever seen and unfortunately, it was impossible to capture in a photo. During this time, Albert fell ill with Malaria (he had already had it 7 years ago and it decided to come back the day our trip began) so he left the Delta to go get some meds and some rest. Our truck driver, Gordon, was supposed to come replace him but it was too late and he had to wait. And this happened right before me Leah and Jen were supposed to help cook (of course it would be our group). So we were in charge of dinner! Luckily, Ruth and the guides took charge otherwise I’m not sure we would have been eating supper that night! After, we spent some time star gazing at the large, clear sky. It was really cool to experience the southern hemisphere’s set of stars, I knew nothing, and there were a ton of stars! I learned how to find which direction the polar south is in by using the Southern Cross (the polar north stays in almost the same spot, so we only need to find the north start to know the direction, it is much more complicated in the south!) and I also saw Scorpio.
The next morning we woke up at 6 (notice a pattern? Haha). And we went in a mokoro ride to a different island in the delta to go on another nature walk. This mokoro ride was not as pleasant. This trip was through a ton of reeds and was filled with spiders, including really really big gross ones. One of this kind decided it was going to hop in our boat, so Leah, who is extremely afraid of spiders, freaked out. Don’t get me wrong, I am not nearly as frightened of them, and I was freaking out at this one. Eventually our mokoro driver managed to get it back into the water, but the rest of that ride we were paranoid and not having fun; we were super glad to get to the island for the walk. This walk was much similar to the first and no animal sightings. On the mokoro ride back our guide began spotting the huge spiders before they got near us and moving them away with his stick, which was very nice. The afternoon was spent very similarly to the day before. I got to try driving a mokoro. It was pretty easy to move in the clearer water, but got a little tougher in the thick reeds and was even more difficult to turn. This day at sunset, we went on a “cruise” in our mekoro, stopping at an island that had 4 elephants on it. After dinner (Gordon did show up this day) the guides sang and danced for us. To thank them, the 6 of us who are taking African dance did a few samples of what we are learning and then the whole group sang a number of songs, most of which I ended up only know the chorus of. After, Ruth said that we were the best group she has seen do that in all of the trips.
Tuesday, there was an optional nature walk, which I chose to sleep through (they only ended up seeing antelope anyway). And then we packed up our tiny camp into the mekoro for the ride back to land. This trip was nicer again, and I remembered why I liked it on the way out. It turned out that we didn’t go through nearly as many reeds, so there were a lot less spiders and the ride went smoother. During this when we had fallen way behind the group our mokoro driver told us that we were his first group he has ever taken out. This made so much sense, since we kept getting stuck, hitting other people’s boats, not traveling on the path, and feeling like we were going to tip! Luckily, we made it back without tipping, which was wonderful. We got back to our other camp in time for lunch and a quick swim then packed all of our stuff onto our truck to make the trip to Planet Baobab. A Baobab is a really large tree that were everywhere at this site, including the biggest tree I think I have ever seen. Here we went for a swim, ate dinner and I stayed up with some of the people playing card games and get to know you games.
Wednesday morning, we got up and packed up to go to Chobe National Park. Before we left though, we got to take pictures in front of the giant aardvark at the entrance to Planet Baobab, which is something I had been wanting to do since I saw it on the way in, so that made me happy. Driving both this day and Tuesday, we drove through giant areas of bush fires; we saw smoke, large stretches of burnt ground and huge flames all on the side of the road. Also throughout the trip we saw elephants and giraffes just right next to the road, it was crazy: Oh hey, I’m an elephant just next hanging out next to this road, no big deal! Once we got to Chobe, Kasane, we went on a sunset cruise, this time on a large pontoon boat. This was one of the best things about this trip. We saw soooooo many different animals including crocodiles, impala, a water monitor eating a crab, elephants, giraffes, baboons, buffalo (NOT water buffalo, no matter how many times I sang the Veggie Tales song), and my favorite, HIPPOS!!!!!!!!! They were so cool and are working their way into my list of favorite animals. They are just so big and funny looking! Plus they are supposedly the most dangerous animals to humans; do not get in the way of a Hippo’s water! But seriously, super cool. Another cool thing was that on one side of the river was Botswana and the other was Namibia. Back at the campsite, I think this is the point in the trip when I began going to bed before 9pm haha, oh boy.
The next morning we woke up really early again in order to go on a game drive in Chobe. It was pretty cool, but not as good as the cruise the night before. There was supposed to be a good chance that we were going to see lions in the wild, but it didn’t happen. We did, however, get really close to numerous elephants (to the point where they almost weren’t a big deal anymore), giraffes, and impala. We also saw zebras, more hippos and buffalo way out in the distance, and then a snake, mongoose, some sort of fox thing, kudu, and another type of large antelope that slightly resembled a gorilla. After, we packed up camp and started our travels into Zambia. The border point that we crossed at is where four countries come together: Botswana, Zambia, Namibia and Zimbabwe. The point where they meet is in the middle of the river, so in order to get across we had to ride on a ferry (truck included). We were told that the process of crossing the border could take from 1 to 6 hours! Luckily, we were able to cross really quickly. Other than that, crossing the border was much the same as it was the first time. It is surprising how easy it is to simply cross over into another country. They barely look at your passport when the stamp it, and they don’t even really check to see of it’s actually you. After driving a short ways more, we were at the camp we would be staying at for the rest of the trip, Zambezi Waterfront in Livingstone. This place was right on the Zambezi river (hence the name) and actually had monkeys that just lived in their trees. After settling in, we set off to see one of the 7 natural wonders of the world, Victoria Falls. It was super amazing, so beautiful. There was a rainbow and we got to see the sunset over the falls. A group of us somehow ended up having these locals pay off the cops for us to walk in the water on the top of the falls. It was a long trek that required us to form a hand holding chain and walk carefully on the rocks at the top of the river. We did not know that it was going to be so far and we were under a time schedule of when to be back, of course we missed it by an hour. When we got a ways out, some other local came and started shouting things at our locals, but we didn’t understand because it was not English. We found out later this person was sent by Ruth to come get us to come back, but the ever persistent locals kept us going. We paused at one point a ways in to take photos of ourselves standing on top of the falls, and while this seemed like a good place to stop and turn around, we kept going. A little bit later, we made it to our destination: a Devil’s pool. These are pools of water at the top of the falls that you can swim in and look over the edge without falling over. A few of the boys I was with all jumped in. I did not but I should have, but by this point most people were trying to get us to leave especially because it was getting dark. It was a lot harder climbing back across the rocks without being able to see where you were stepping, I eventually stopped trying and just stepped. There was supposedly a short cut, but that was swimming across so only the boys who jumped in got to use it, and they had to wait for us anyway. When we got back, we got our scolding and were told we owed someone who waited on the bus a drink. Unfortunately since we were already in trouble, we ended up not arguing the amount we owed the people for taking us there and each person paid a steep price of $20, and since there were 12 of us, that is a lot of money, especially compared to everything else in Africa. But it was really cool and I don’t regret it, I just wish I had jumped in too! After the tiring adventure, we pretty much got back to camp, ate and I fell asleep.
Friday was our first day of optional activities at Vic Falls. I along, with the majority of the group decided to go white water rafting on the Class 5 rapids. There were 25 rapids, but we had to get out and walk around number 9. The first half of the day was intense and a complete adrenaline rush. The rapids were HUGE. I was in a boat with Steve as our guide. Steve happened to be in charge of the whole trip. We spent a lot of time saving other people who fell out of their boats and we didn’t have anyone fall out of the boat until the last rapid we lost one person, Sophie from France. The best part about this was that we were a group of all small girls and one small guy; you would have thought we would have been bad! But don’t worry, we did tip our boat, on rapid number 8, called Midnight Diner. For this one, we had to option of either taking the easy way on the side or head right into the middle of it, so naturally we chose the latter. Right before we went, we were talking to another boat and told them how none of us had fallen in yet, to which they replied, you have spoken too soon! And of course, we tipped. We were the last boat to go down and the only one to flip, everyone else said it was really cool to watch though so it must have been a pretty cool flip. I managed to hold on to the “Oh Shit Line” aka the rope attached to the boat the whole time but it was still pretty scary. We flipped on the first wave of the rapids so we had to ride out the rest of the rapids in the water. It felt a lot like drowning, especially when I would get sucked under the boat. It was so much fun though and the whole experience was incredible, I mean I rafted on the river that happens right after Victoria Falls. Insane. We had lunch after rapid number 10 on the rocks, then continued our way down the river with two extra small girls in tow! We got to ride one of the rapids just floating in the water, which was a lot of fun but trying to get back to boat was a challenge. The current kept pushing you away from it, plus my helmet was too big (because I have the world’s smallest head) so it was completely covering my eyes. I was trying to swim but I wasn’t moving and I laughed so hard at myself that it hurt. Once we mastered all the rapids, we got to ride a cable car up to the top of the gorge and we handed some nice cold beers. What a day.
Saturday I got up early (not that I hadn’t been getting up early all trip) to cross the border into Zimbabwe to ride elephants with Andrew! We had been told to meet at our campsite at 6:15 to get a ride to the border to get picked up by another truck, but when we got there, he told us we were supposed to be there at 6:15! He drove us to another truck where we met up with the only other girl joining us on our trek and then we drove to the elephants. We each were able to have our own elephants which was cool (the people who rode the Zambian elephants had to share) and we went for a peaceful hour walk on our elephants. It was a lot smoother than a horse, let me tell you. My elephant was a left-handed 18 year old girl. Afterwards, we got to sit on the leg of the elephant and feed them treats. Their trunks were a lot rougher than I imagined them to be and felt really strange, but the way that she reached for the food was so cute. Fun Fact: apparently, African elephants have two finger type things in their noses that they use to pick things up, while Indian elephants only have one. After the elephants showed off some tricks, they fed us breakfast, and we were finished by 9am. We were planning on meeting up with other people in our group later in the day and catch the bus back to Zambia at 3:30, so Andrew and I had some time to waste in Zimbabwe. First we went to the Zim side of the Victoria Falls. In order to waste time, we decided to follow a tour group of old people, a nice slow pace. This side of the falls was HUGE. It was way more impressive than the Zambia side; it definitely made more sense why it is one of the 7 natural wonders of the world. The mist bubble was actually like rain fall, so much that the park had areas of nature that were growing as if it were in a rainforest directly next to the dry grass so often associated with Africa. At times, all you could see was white, this unfortunately made it harder for photos, and I actually think that the Zambian side was better for photos. It was really amazing to see though. After effectively spending 2 hours looking at the falls (thank you oldies) we took a short cut path back to the entrance. As we were casually sauntering our way down the path, we suddenly see Baboons just chilling on the sidewalk ahead of us. Knowing how vicious Baboons can be, we freeze. We stood there standing waiting for them to move and wondering what to do and then, what can only be described as a pack of Japanese tourists decked out in matching yellow ponchos comes and just walks straight into the Baboon territory, taking photos as they go. Like it’s no big deal. Since they could do it, we decided we could do it so we crept slowly along the path, cameras in hand. I was literally a foot away from a baboon, in the middle of a herd. It was probably the scaredest I had been the entire trip. But, we made it out safe so that’s good. After this debacle, we walked our way into town searching for “a U shaped market where you can trade things.” Getting into town was easy enough, but finding where the market was, was near impossible. And when we asked for directions, all we got were funny looks. We decided the best tactic was to follow the trail of white people. Surprisingly enough, it worked. We weren’t sure if we were in the right place, but it seemed like it so we decided to try it out for a little while and see if anyone else we knew showed up (which the eventually did). The market in itself was ridiculous. A bunch of handiwork and people crammed into a small space all fighting for you to buy something from their “store”. Plus all the stores had ridiculous names like Mr. Cheapest Price, The LA Lakers, and Chris Rock’s shop (he did actually look like Chris Rock). I made my way around to all of the shops without buying anything (a feat), looking for what would seem like the best price. Little did they know, I actually had no money on me only small things to trade. In the end, after much bartering, I got two things, that I cannot disclose in this because they are gifts, (even though one broke on the plane ride back :( ) for two pairs of socks including the ones off my feet, the state fair deck of cards, a pen, a highlighter, $5 worth of random currencies, and a pair of flip flops. Pretty successful if you ask me. Oh and I also got a 50 billion dollar bill. Zimbabwe’s currency is in horrible shape, so they sell their money and instead use American Dollars, British Pounds, Zambian Kwacha and South African Rand. They even have a One Trillion Dollar Bill! After being content with my “purchases” I walked across the border (which was a lot longer than I expected since I rode over in a car) without socks in my shoes. When we got back to the campsite, we changed and embarked on the final hurrah of the trip, a sunset dinner cruise with open bar. It was a good last night of bonding experiences, especially with Gordon (who when he wasn’t driving, could without fail, be found at the bar). We also saw another hippo :)
The final morning, I got to sleep in a little, before packing up and heading to the smallest airport I have ever seen. It was one gate big, and our tickets were handwritten. It was a large culture shock. We flew from Livingston, Zambia to Johannesburg, South Africa, and then from Jo’burg to Cape Town. Once back I continued to read my book, talked to my parents and fell asleep. All in all, it was an amazing experience I do think that it was worth my money.
Monday was pretty boring, it was weird to be back in school, and I’m not sure if my mind is fully back there yet. Tuesday I had my first South African test. It was a test and went fine. I still don’t understand their grading system so I have no idea what to expect on it though. Thursday we had a cultural dinner talk about culture shock (which really just translates into free food), followed by a night of dancing at our favorite Thursday night club, Springboks. Today, I got some more free food and bought my ticket for Earthdance -Cape Town edition. Earthdance is a worldwide music festival, where at the same time all over the world (so it will be 1am here) the same song is played “connecting all participants at every Earhdance in solidarity for Peace.” So this should be an incredible weekend. The only downfall is that my program had planned a hike up a mountain for us on the same day, so I will have to do that at a later time.
Friday, September 17, 2010
Thursday, September 2, 2010
WHALES!!!!!!!!!!!
02.09.2010
After I left my blog last, I went out to a bar that was apparently celebrating Friday the 13th by having a zombie party. It was very strange, especially since we didn’t know that was why it was weird. There were actually people dressed up as zombies, and then it was playing clips from horror films while playing techno music. It reminded me of Too Much Love at First Ave.
The next morning, we went to the Old Biscuit Mill, which is a gathering of people making and selling food as well as some shops. But the food is what is really important. A lot of people seem to day drink here on the weekends, it is very different. But I had my first ostrich burger! It was delicious, and I even ate it with “rocket” which is like a lettuce medley, and caramelized onions! Being here has made me start eating vegetables, weird right?! After eating lots, we went to the beach for a little bit. I got some ice cream that tasted like icing and devoured it. I went a little ways in to the water this time, it was ice cold. It was fun running from the waves though. Then my friend Craig was standing further out than I was, and the waves crashed against each other and suddenly turned huge and got him soaking. It was really funny. I think the rest of the day was pretty relaxed. Then on Sunday, I didn’t leave my apartment trying to get some reading done.
On Mondays I am volunteering with a group called SHAWCO. There are different programs that all go into local townships and work with the kids. I am working at Mannenberg, which is a Coloured community. I was supposed to be teaching soccer, but somehow I got roped into teaching Netball, which is like basketball without a backboard and with different rules. The first game I saw of this new sport was in fact played by the girls I am supposed to be coaching. They don’t seem to mind though, they get to play the sport and be in my company. They really like my hair and like to touch it all the time because it is so soft compared to their hair. They also like the color of my eyes and my piercings. They are a really sweet group of girls, I just wish I knew what I was supposed to be teaching them!
This Wednesday, I went with a group of people from my program to go see Inception, which was a crazy movie. The theater was super small and far away from the screen. I think there were only about 12 seats in a row and only rows from A-J. Or something ridiculously small like that. The timing of when movies come out is very weird here. Some will come out at the same time as in the US, but others will be months after. Inception was one that actually came out on time. The other strange thing about the theater was that you have to reserve your seats when you buy your tickets. It is not just first come first serve. And you actually have to sit in those seats, so we got to sit front row! Haha.
Then that Thursday, I went out to eat and we got sangria with dinner, which was amazing! It was my first time having sangria and the fruit in it was wonderful. Afterwards, we went to our favorite bar, Springboks!
The weather was not so good this week, and in addition to rain, it was also really windy, so we had to postpone our weekend in Hermanus for the next weekend. Instead, Friday night we went to what was supposed to be an underground dance party, but it ended up being in the small basement of a bar called Mumbo Jumbo, (or as someone told me, Mojo Jojo). It was not as cool as it sounded.
Saturday we went to the Old Biscuit Mill and this time I split Pannekukens with some people, which were super delicious, but also called something different here. And then I got a peach with strawberry sauce and whipped cream crepe. It was good but I should have went with the classic Nutella and Banana. I think that night I stayed in and watched Blood Diamond by myself. It was weird watching that movie and knowing what South Africa is like now. Before, Leo’s accent sounded really accurate, but in reality it is way to British and just made me laugh. He also uses the word “Bru” a lot which is the S.A. version of “Bro.” Still a good movie though (and yes I did watch two Leo Dicaprio movies in a week and referenced them both in my blog haha). Sunday was another homework day.
I had two essays due this week so I spent most of my time not in classes working on those. But after some freaking out and lack of sleep, I turned them in so that’s all that matters now. On Wednesday, I went on adventure. The first by myself! I had to get my film camera fixed because it broke on the plane ride over, and I wanted to make sure that I had it for spring break. I took a cab, who didn’t know where he was going even though I brought directions, to around the area where the camera shop was supposed to be and from there had to call the number in my call history that I thought might be the store. Luckily, the number was right. The driver was able to tell the photo guy where we were, and when he didn’t understand the directions the photo guy was giving him, I took the phone and managed to figure out enough information for the driver to eventually figure it out, I got overcharged though. The photo guy even made a comment about how the cab driver didn’t seem to be the smartest. Once I finally got there (the land mark was a mural of a woman with a TV on her head), I told the cab NOT to wait for me and went in. They guy was super nice and I spent awhile talking to him. I called a different cab company for the ride home and it was much cheaper.
Thursday and Friday were more days spent in the library working on my essay. But Friday evening, we left to go to Hermanus for the weekend! The first night when we got there, we sat around a fire waiting for our Braai to be done. The food was so good, they cooked each of us a huge piece of chicken, some veggies, potatoes, garlic bread, and a steak. We just hung out for the rest of the night. Saturday, the weather was really windy unfortunately, so our plans got screwed up a little but it ended up working out. We went to the town and got a good view (and saw a few whales) from over the edge, then went to a market and ate some really good gelato. Then in the afternoon we went whale watching. Since it was so windy, the waves were HUGE and rolling. Unfortunately, a lot of people got sick but I just thought it was fun. The basement of the boat was the pukers lounge and was VERY dismal. The people were not excited to be there. But while they were being miserable, I was watching whales! There were three main ones that we spent a lot of time with. One was an albino (which is pronounced really funny here). Unfortunately, they decided they were not going to breach for us. But they were swimming with their mouths open, apparently feeding. According to the captain, this NEVER happens, in the whole time he had worked there. Whales apparently come to their home in Hermanus to breed, and while they are here they are fasting. They other months they are away are the months they go further out to sea to feed. So I have got some rare photos! But I still wish it would have breached at least once… Again we just had a pretty chill night. I decided to organize the movie collection of the Backpackers. I also played a few games of pool with one of the guys who worked there as my teammate against first two boys in my program Craig and Jack, and then against Craig and Macy. And both times, I played amazing and totally won, sinking crazy shots and usually two balls in a turn. Macy and I played a third game against Craig and the worker which didn’t go as hot…haha.
The next day was crazy. While some people went Shark Cage Diving, I went Sea Kayaking which was really fun. I ended up doing most of the work in my kayak (they were two person) which was not as fun, but it was fine. We got pretty soaked because the waves were choppy. We also got to see some whales. Afterwards we met back up with the Cage Divers and went to a place where we split up in groups (again). One group went Quad biking while the other went Paintballing. I went Quad biking, which in American, is ATVing, or fourwheeling. We went through orchards and winelands and ended at the top of a mountain which had a great view of all of Hermanus and the coast. Unfortunately I didn’t bring my camera with. Someone in my group hit a tree, but luckily it wasn’t me. I did almost tip mine over though, taking a corner too fast. Then paintballing was crazy. It was my first time ever doing it and the place was perfect for it. We played three rounds. The first two I had to be in the fortress protecting it, which was not as fun. When we finally got invaded, my friend Geoff kicked in the door and just pummeled me and another girl Emily, both of us cowering in the corner, and perhaps screaming I don’t remember. I got shot twice in the leg, one which left a nice bruise. It was funny though because it was totally a movie move and it even felt as if it were going in slow motion. The third game I got to roll around in the forest trying to get into the fortress, which was a lot more fun. But we still lost. Afterward, I still had leftover “bullets” so I got to participate in a western style shoot off. It was three against three, and another girl I was there with Glynis, was on the other team. We started 20 meters apart and each got one shot, then the other team would take 4 steps forward and take their one shot each. If you got hit, then you were out. I think on only our second time being shot at, my other teammates both got shot out and left me on my own against all three of the other team. I took my 4 steps forward, and they told me I could take 3 shots, instead of the 1. I aimed for my first shot, and someone yelled to aim lower so I did and shot the guy right in the nipple. I aimed for guy number two and grazed the top of his head. I took my third shot and hit Glynis right in both of her wrists, and I made them bleed! It was crazy. Everyone was watching and then they all cheered for me. Craig yelled “This is just like pool last night!” and he was right, both were crazy feats of luck, or as he kept insisting (which is not true if you have ever seen me actually play pool), natural talent. Overall, a very fun and accomplished day. After that we drove home and as soon as we got back I took a shower and went to bed, even though it was only 9pm.
Since, I had those papers the week before, I had an easy week this week which was nice because everyone else’s week seemed the opposite. I just have been taking it easy. On Wednesday, I had to start taking my malaria pills for my spring break trip, which was exciting! I also went back to pick up my camera. (It was fixed the next morning, I just hadn’t had time to go get it). This time I took our trusted taxi company. We also got a little lost but I knew from the week before and used the same landmark to figure out where to go and we got there a lot easier. Once I paid to get my camera back, I took a few pictures of the guy who fixed it with his wall of cameras behind him. I am excited to see what they turned out like; I missed my film camera!
Today is Thursday night and I leave for my spring break trip to Botswana, Zambia and Victoria Falls, and Zimbabwe tomorrow morning at 4:55am. I am trying to not go to sleep before the flight, so we will see how that goes. I am super excited for this trip though!
After I left my blog last, I went out to a bar that was apparently celebrating Friday the 13th by having a zombie party. It was very strange, especially since we didn’t know that was why it was weird. There were actually people dressed up as zombies, and then it was playing clips from horror films while playing techno music. It reminded me of Too Much Love at First Ave.
The next morning, we went to the Old Biscuit Mill, which is a gathering of people making and selling food as well as some shops. But the food is what is really important. A lot of people seem to day drink here on the weekends, it is very different. But I had my first ostrich burger! It was delicious, and I even ate it with “rocket” which is like a lettuce medley, and caramelized onions! Being here has made me start eating vegetables, weird right?! After eating lots, we went to the beach for a little bit. I got some ice cream that tasted like icing and devoured it. I went a little ways in to the water this time, it was ice cold. It was fun running from the waves though. Then my friend Craig was standing further out than I was, and the waves crashed against each other and suddenly turned huge and got him soaking. It was really funny. I think the rest of the day was pretty relaxed. Then on Sunday, I didn’t leave my apartment trying to get some reading done.
On Mondays I am volunteering with a group called SHAWCO. There are different programs that all go into local townships and work with the kids. I am working at Mannenberg, which is a Coloured community. I was supposed to be teaching soccer, but somehow I got roped into teaching Netball, which is like basketball without a backboard and with different rules. The first game I saw of this new sport was in fact played by the girls I am supposed to be coaching. They don’t seem to mind though, they get to play the sport and be in my company. They really like my hair and like to touch it all the time because it is so soft compared to their hair. They also like the color of my eyes and my piercings. They are a really sweet group of girls, I just wish I knew what I was supposed to be teaching them!
This Wednesday, I went with a group of people from my program to go see Inception, which was a crazy movie. The theater was super small and far away from the screen. I think there were only about 12 seats in a row and only rows from A-J. Or something ridiculously small like that. The timing of when movies come out is very weird here. Some will come out at the same time as in the US, but others will be months after. Inception was one that actually came out on time. The other strange thing about the theater was that you have to reserve your seats when you buy your tickets. It is not just first come first serve. And you actually have to sit in those seats, so we got to sit front row! Haha.
Then that Thursday, I went out to eat and we got sangria with dinner, which was amazing! It was my first time having sangria and the fruit in it was wonderful. Afterwards, we went to our favorite bar, Springboks!
The weather was not so good this week, and in addition to rain, it was also really windy, so we had to postpone our weekend in Hermanus for the next weekend. Instead, Friday night we went to what was supposed to be an underground dance party, but it ended up being in the small basement of a bar called Mumbo Jumbo, (or as someone told me, Mojo Jojo). It was not as cool as it sounded.
Saturday we went to the Old Biscuit Mill and this time I split Pannekukens with some people, which were super delicious, but also called something different here. And then I got a peach with strawberry sauce and whipped cream crepe. It was good but I should have went with the classic Nutella and Banana. I think that night I stayed in and watched Blood Diamond by myself. It was weird watching that movie and knowing what South Africa is like now. Before, Leo’s accent sounded really accurate, but in reality it is way to British and just made me laugh. He also uses the word “Bru” a lot which is the S.A. version of “Bro.” Still a good movie though (and yes I did watch two Leo Dicaprio movies in a week and referenced them both in my blog haha). Sunday was another homework day.
I had two essays due this week so I spent most of my time not in classes working on those. But after some freaking out and lack of sleep, I turned them in so that’s all that matters now. On Wednesday, I went on adventure. The first by myself! I had to get my film camera fixed because it broke on the plane ride over, and I wanted to make sure that I had it for spring break. I took a cab, who didn’t know where he was going even though I brought directions, to around the area where the camera shop was supposed to be and from there had to call the number in my call history that I thought might be the store. Luckily, the number was right. The driver was able to tell the photo guy where we were, and when he didn’t understand the directions the photo guy was giving him, I took the phone and managed to figure out enough information for the driver to eventually figure it out, I got overcharged though. The photo guy even made a comment about how the cab driver didn’t seem to be the smartest. Once I finally got there (the land mark was a mural of a woman with a TV on her head), I told the cab NOT to wait for me and went in. They guy was super nice and I spent awhile talking to him. I called a different cab company for the ride home and it was much cheaper.
Thursday and Friday were more days spent in the library working on my essay. But Friday evening, we left to go to Hermanus for the weekend! The first night when we got there, we sat around a fire waiting for our Braai to be done. The food was so good, they cooked each of us a huge piece of chicken, some veggies, potatoes, garlic bread, and a steak. We just hung out for the rest of the night. Saturday, the weather was really windy unfortunately, so our plans got screwed up a little but it ended up working out. We went to the town and got a good view (and saw a few whales) from over the edge, then went to a market and ate some really good gelato. Then in the afternoon we went whale watching. Since it was so windy, the waves were HUGE and rolling. Unfortunately, a lot of people got sick but I just thought it was fun. The basement of the boat was the pukers lounge and was VERY dismal. The people were not excited to be there. But while they were being miserable, I was watching whales! There were three main ones that we spent a lot of time with. One was an albino (which is pronounced really funny here). Unfortunately, they decided they were not going to breach for us. But they were swimming with their mouths open, apparently feeding. According to the captain, this NEVER happens, in the whole time he had worked there. Whales apparently come to their home in Hermanus to breed, and while they are here they are fasting. They other months they are away are the months they go further out to sea to feed. So I have got some rare photos! But I still wish it would have breached at least once… Again we just had a pretty chill night. I decided to organize the movie collection of the Backpackers. I also played a few games of pool with one of the guys who worked there as my teammate against first two boys in my program Craig and Jack, and then against Craig and Macy. And both times, I played amazing and totally won, sinking crazy shots and usually two balls in a turn. Macy and I played a third game against Craig and the worker which didn’t go as hot…haha.
The next day was crazy. While some people went Shark Cage Diving, I went Sea Kayaking which was really fun. I ended up doing most of the work in my kayak (they were two person) which was not as fun, but it was fine. We got pretty soaked because the waves were choppy. We also got to see some whales. Afterwards we met back up with the Cage Divers and went to a place where we split up in groups (again). One group went Quad biking while the other went Paintballing. I went Quad biking, which in American, is ATVing, or fourwheeling. We went through orchards and winelands and ended at the top of a mountain which had a great view of all of Hermanus and the coast. Unfortunately I didn’t bring my camera with. Someone in my group hit a tree, but luckily it wasn’t me. I did almost tip mine over though, taking a corner too fast. Then paintballing was crazy. It was my first time ever doing it and the place was perfect for it. We played three rounds. The first two I had to be in the fortress protecting it, which was not as fun. When we finally got invaded, my friend Geoff kicked in the door and just pummeled me and another girl Emily, both of us cowering in the corner, and perhaps screaming I don’t remember. I got shot twice in the leg, one which left a nice bruise. It was funny though because it was totally a movie move and it even felt as if it were going in slow motion. The third game I got to roll around in the forest trying to get into the fortress, which was a lot more fun. But we still lost. Afterward, I still had leftover “bullets” so I got to participate in a western style shoot off. It was three against three, and another girl I was there with Glynis, was on the other team. We started 20 meters apart and each got one shot, then the other team would take 4 steps forward and take their one shot each. If you got hit, then you were out. I think on only our second time being shot at, my other teammates both got shot out and left me on my own against all three of the other team. I took my 4 steps forward, and they told me I could take 3 shots, instead of the 1. I aimed for my first shot, and someone yelled to aim lower so I did and shot the guy right in the nipple. I aimed for guy number two and grazed the top of his head. I took my third shot and hit Glynis right in both of her wrists, and I made them bleed! It was crazy. Everyone was watching and then they all cheered for me. Craig yelled “This is just like pool last night!” and he was right, both were crazy feats of luck, or as he kept insisting (which is not true if you have ever seen me actually play pool), natural talent. Overall, a very fun and accomplished day. After that we drove home and as soon as we got back I took a shower and went to bed, even though it was only 9pm.
Since, I had those papers the week before, I had an easy week this week which was nice because everyone else’s week seemed the opposite. I just have been taking it easy. On Wednesday, I had to start taking my malaria pills for my spring break trip, which was exciting! I also went back to pick up my camera. (It was fixed the next morning, I just hadn’t had time to go get it). This time I took our trusted taxi company. We also got a little lost but I knew from the week before and used the same landmark to figure out where to go and we got there a lot easier. Once I paid to get my camera back, I took a few pictures of the guy who fixed it with his wall of cameras behind him. I am excited to see what they turned out like; I missed my film camera!
Today is Thursday night and I leave for my spring break trip to Botswana, Zambia and Victoria Falls, and Zimbabwe tomorrow morning at 4:55am. I am trying to not go to sleep before the flight, so we will see how that goes. I am super excited for this trip though!
Friday, August 13, 2010
South African Road Trip
13.08.2010
So I know my goal was every two weeks for a blog post, but this is a little late. Life here is starting to feel a bit more normal. We just finished our third week of school so I think that means I have already been here for almost 5 weeks. Time is seriously flying. I am officially taking Race, Class and Gender instead of Social Justice and Inequality. It’s really interesting because all of my classes except African Dance are linked to each other and even our readings reference readings for the other classes. And it is a lot of learning about South African History and how it is affecting living in South Africa now, which I really enjoy. But at times I wish I had taken the Art History Class instead just so I would be learning something different, it was very difficult to choose which class, they were all so interesting. One thing I don’t like about my classes is that it always seems like the Americans are the ones who decide to talk in class. I came to South Africa to learn about South Africa, not to learn about America, I would much rather hear what the South Africans have to say. So I don’t like that so much. African Dance is another story. That class is all exchange students, so it helps with meeting more Americans. But the teacher is INTENSE. For a long time he yelled at us for smiling and told us we needed to be serious, and would yell at us because no one could do or remember the moves. But this last week was good, he smiled and actually told us we were scaring him because we were too serious. And apparently we are learning things because he is happy with us. We have officially learned all of our warm up dance thing. We have barely even touched any kind of actual dance. It is really cool though because for every class we have live drummers to play the music for us. Taking Belly Dancing at home has definitely helped me learn some of the moves! For classes here, there is A LOT of reading that is expected of us. We don’t really have busy work to turn in (and if we do it won’t be graded), which kind of sucks because that means most of my grade is going to come from my final test. Pretty much everyone I know is behind on their readings though so that isn’t good. But I have also had South Africans tell me that it is a lot of work and they can’t do it all either. I had 5 1-2 page papers due in the first week of school, so I didn’t start off easy. There are two really strange things about school here is that they have a period of the day called the Meridian, which is a lunch period where there is more or less no classes for anyone, and everyone eats lunch together. I don’t think I really like it because it basically just elongates my day at school. The other thing is that each class has 2-3 different teachers who will teach for a certain number of weeks and then they switch. It is very strange. Plus, it is really weird just being in school so early in the year.
The weekend after I blogged last I went on a cycle the Stellenbosch winelands tour. It was really cool thing to do. We started really early in the morning. We had to wake up at 6am to go drinking! We got our bikes and went to the first winery and had our first sip of wine at 9:34am. This stop had the best wine of all of our stops, including the best wine I have ever had, a sweet red wine that cost a whole $3 to buy a bottle of, and a strictly South African wine called Pinotage, which is a hybrid grape between Pinot noir and Cinsaut which is known as Hermitage here. After sampling 5 glasses of wine here, we made our way to the next winery and had 5 more glasses. Right next to this winery is a Cheetah sanctuary. Unfortunately, we didn’t have enough time to actually go into the sanctuary and play with the cheetahs, but we got to see one named phoenix (I think). I definitely plan to go back there (and to the first winery). Then we headed to a Brandy distillery. This place was super fancy and brandy is gross. We had one mixed drink which was really good and then we got to try the 10 year and the 12 year brandies. They were both not to my liking but the 2 years definitely made a difference for the better. At this point in time, most of us were super tired and our butts hurt a lot from the bike seats and we had the hardest part of the biking to go, pretty much all up hill. We ended up walking most of the way, it was horrible. But once we got to the last winery, we had lunch, which is the best burger I have had here (burgers are a little weird here…..) but this one was super super good, it had two patties and an egg on it and thick bacon. Ironically, all 5 of the wines we tasted here all tasted the same and wasn’t very good. Then the trip back was straight downhill through the winelands on dirt. Me and two other girls got really far behind taking pictures and just being plain tired, and we had 20 mins to catch the last train of the day back to Cape Town. One of the tour guides came back to find us and then we had to take the “express short cut” down the hill. The other groups were complaining how steep their path was, they should have seen ours. I should have wiped out more than once speeding down that hill, even the tour guide told me he thought I was a goner with my back tire whipping back and forth but I’m cool. However, I did manage to get tangled in a really big curly wire thing that was on the ground and needed the guy to untangle me. We made it down that hill in record time, got our free bottle of wine that came with the tour and made it to the train stop with time to spare. When we got back I went straight to bed for a long nap.
The next day I went with a small group of people to a braai (barbeque) in a township, which turned out to be an all day party. We felt a little awkward when we pulled up because we saw no one white there and here we were a big group of white Americans stepping out of a van. It turned out absolutely fine though there were people of all ethnicities around the corner. Trying to find a table was near impossible. We had to ask several people and we finally got a really small one and were told it was the last table. Turns out that several tables came out later for other people. But we did get the last chairs. And the chairs we got were not the best quality and we had to sit on two at the same time so they didn’t collapse. But they were two chairs short, so me and someone else ended up sitting on one and hoping for the best (no one collapsed so that’s good). But so many people came up to us and asked if they could take one our chairs thinking we were just being greedy Americans. We felt so bad. And then some guy at the table behind us decided to steal one of our chairs, so that was nice and another person had to sit on only one chair. It was really cool though we all just hung out outside and waited for our meat to cook, drinking cider and listening to the DJ.
Then another week of school. Not very exciting, just more readings for me to get behind in.
But Friday, we went on an African road trip! We went on the garden route, which is a pretty famous area to travel around along the southern coast. It was a lot of driving but super fun. Although, it wasn’t all that pretty to look at, not really anything garden-y about it, but then again it is winter here, so maybe it will be prettier when I do it with my parents in November. There were 15 of us in total split into 3 cars. In my car were Lill, Chelsea, Ben and Andrew. The first day we drove for over 5 hours to Mossel Bay, where we ate dinner at the worst place ever. The service was horrible, and even though the food was pretty good tasting it was nowhere near worth it, especially since the portions were so small. I really cannot even express how horrible the service was there, the best way to give a glimpse is the fact that the starter came out as a dessert. After dinner it took us about an hour to find our hostel that was about 5 mins away from the restaurant. We let Lill drive so she could say she had driven on the wrong side of the road. First we went to the wrong hostel and got really confused. While Ben was out of the car trying to figure out how to get into our wrong hostel, Lill decided to try to park the car and instead just crashed into the sidewalk, slightly bending and scratching the hub cap which was really funny. And then a black cat sat and stared at her for a min and then ran in front of our car, which also led to more jokes for Lill. Once we figured out that we were at the wrong hostel, we drove past cops checking for drunk drivers who just pick random cars and pull them over for routine checks (this was the third time we had driven by), and of course we got pulled over both the second and third time we drove past, before we finally made it to the hostel. My car didn’t really see anything of Mossel Bay because we pretty much went straight to bed once we got to the hostel and slept in the next morning (aka, 9am). This was my first time staying in hostels so that was exciting, but they were really called Backpacker’s, which isn’t technically a hostel, it’s nicer.
Saturday we went Bungee Jumping of the World’s highest bridge!!!! It is called Bloukrans Bridge and is 216 meters high (about 709 feet). It was so crazy, we were just driving over this bridge and remarking at how beautiful the view was and then we realized it was the bridge we were jumping off of. Our group ended up being too big because we accidentally only reserved spots for 10 and we had 11 people, but one car was late so it ended up working out and we split into a group of 7 and a group of 4. I went in the group of 7 with Natalie, Lill, Chelsea, Ben, Taylor, and Devin. They played music on the bridge for us to all get pumped up. All of us were so excited and were dancing around the whole time; we all just wanted to go already! Unfortunately, I was the last to go of all of my friends (it was done by weight bracket, and then within that bracket who had paid first and got the lowest numbers went first) and I was third to last of the entire group. This was only a problem because everyone else was so excited about how amazing it was and the hype to go had worn off for all of them and that brought my excitedness down, and let the fear start to creep back in. Your legs are bound together so there are people are there to help you hop to the end of the bridge and they also kind of push you off, while you jump out as far as you can. I screamed at first because I was jumping off a bridge and couldn’t believe it. It was scary but amazing at the same time and is so hard to explain to someone who hasn’t done it. I came back up and they asked me how it was and I was seriously speechless. When the bouncing started to calm I had time to look at the mountains and the river and ocean around me. All I could hear was the brook below me and my breathing. It was crazy, and actually super relaxing. I feel so accomplished with myself having done this. I would do it again, but I would still be scared to do it.
That night we stayed in Jeffery’s Bay and went to a really good restaurant which made up for the night before. Again, I didn’t see a whole lot of the town, but from what I did see, it was really pretty. This night me and Lill and Ben stayed in a room with random people because none of us had stayed in a hostel before and wanted to have the closest experience to a real hostel as possible (even though this was also a Backpackers). The next morning we went to a Lion Sanctuary, which really ended up being like a zoo filled with a lot of lions. But there were really beautiful white lions there. They also had garaffes and zebras and a Timon and Pumba, and buffalo and Springbok. And the best part is that I got to pet and play with 4 baby lions. They were so adorable and cute and playful. Even though when we got in to see them, they were pretty much all asleep. But they were so cute. One scratched my hand and made it bleed so I have a battle wound from a lion ;) haha.
This night we stayed at a backpackers literally called Tube N’ Axe, in Storms River. This was a really small town kind of in the jungle. We went to dinner at pretty much the only restaurant in the town that was the host of the biggest Elvis festival outside of the US. Unfortunately other than the menu, there was not really any Elvis paraphernalia. They weren’t even playing Elvis music, so that was a little disappointing. We stayed up and taught the bartender at Tube N’ Axe drinking games which was fun, he really enjoyed them.
The next day was the public holiday Women’s Day (which is why we didn’t have school and why we went on this road trip). We were all pretty much exhausted and we decided just to drive straight home. This was about a 7 hour drive. We stopped at a small town and went to eat lunch at Resturant. Which was next to a giant amount of Baboons. Random. And we tried to get gas and asked some guy on the street where the gas station was and he told us it was closed for the holiday. Luckily it actually wasn’t closed so that was good. Once back on the road, we hit traffic that literally was stop and go for about an hour and a half. It was ridiculous. The best part of being in that car was the fact that we only had one CD to listen and we listened to the same songs over and over. The theme song of the trip ended up being “I can see you, stalking like a predator” there is really no way to describe this. And this soundtrack still played in my head for the following week. Although technically we had two CDs, but the CD I made got pretty much fully vetoed right away after the first time we listened to it on the car ride leaving the city, and then only got played once on the way back to break up the other CD for a little bit. Once we got back we were all happy to get out of that car.
Then back to school on Tuesday. Luckily this week of school went really fast because of no Monday, but it also made me feel like I was even more behind in my readings. Thursday night (last night) we went out to a bar called the purple turtle with some other Americans in a different program (and a lot of them in my dance class). At this bar we sang karaoke!!! I have never done it before and technically I don’t know if you can say I really have now either. The only song I sang was Spice Girls –Wannabe with a very large group of (mostly) girls. I didn’t have enough courage to sing by myself or do a duet, but it was still super fun. We definitely plan to go back there! After the karaoke pretty much ended, we went to another bar called the Dubliner where we caught the end of some live music which was also fun. Actually a pretty relaxed night.
Today a little less than half of our Interstudy group went on an excursion with our program, which I, and the rest who didn’t go this week, will go on next weekend. Lill went with them, so I am all alone in the flat this weekend. But I am glad I didn’t go this weekend because hopefully I will be able to catch up on some of my readings!
So I know my goal was every two weeks for a blog post, but this is a little late. Life here is starting to feel a bit more normal. We just finished our third week of school so I think that means I have already been here for almost 5 weeks. Time is seriously flying. I am officially taking Race, Class and Gender instead of Social Justice and Inequality. It’s really interesting because all of my classes except African Dance are linked to each other and even our readings reference readings for the other classes. And it is a lot of learning about South African History and how it is affecting living in South Africa now, which I really enjoy. But at times I wish I had taken the Art History Class instead just so I would be learning something different, it was very difficult to choose which class, they were all so interesting. One thing I don’t like about my classes is that it always seems like the Americans are the ones who decide to talk in class. I came to South Africa to learn about South Africa, not to learn about America, I would much rather hear what the South Africans have to say. So I don’t like that so much. African Dance is another story. That class is all exchange students, so it helps with meeting more Americans. But the teacher is INTENSE. For a long time he yelled at us for smiling and told us we needed to be serious, and would yell at us because no one could do or remember the moves. But this last week was good, he smiled and actually told us we were scaring him because we were too serious. And apparently we are learning things because he is happy with us. We have officially learned all of our warm up dance thing. We have barely even touched any kind of actual dance. It is really cool though because for every class we have live drummers to play the music for us. Taking Belly Dancing at home has definitely helped me learn some of the moves! For classes here, there is A LOT of reading that is expected of us. We don’t really have busy work to turn in (and if we do it won’t be graded), which kind of sucks because that means most of my grade is going to come from my final test. Pretty much everyone I know is behind on their readings though so that isn’t good. But I have also had South Africans tell me that it is a lot of work and they can’t do it all either. I had 5 1-2 page papers due in the first week of school, so I didn’t start off easy. There are two really strange things about school here is that they have a period of the day called the Meridian, which is a lunch period where there is more or less no classes for anyone, and everyone eats lunch together. I don’t think I really like it because it basically just elongates my day at school. The other thing is that each class has 2-3 different teachers who will teach for a certain number of weeks and then they switch. It is very strange. Plus, it is really weird just being in school so early in the year.
The weekend after I blogged last I went on a cycle the Stellenbosch winelands tour. It was really cool thing to do. We started really early in the morning. We had to wake up at 6am to go drinking! We got our bikes and went to the first winery and had our first sip of wine at 9:34am. This stop had the best wine of all of our stops, including the best wine I have ever had, a sweet red wine that cost a whole $3 to buy a bottle of, and a strictly South African wine called Pinotage, which is a hybrid grape between Pinot noir and Cinsaut which is known as Hermitage here. After sampling 5 glasses of wine here, we made our way to the next winery and had 5 more glasses. Right next to this winery is a Cheetah sanctuary. Unfortunately, we didn’t have enough time to actually go into the sanctuary and play with the cheetahs, but we got to see one named phoenix (I think). I definitely plan to go back there (and to the first winery). Then we headed to a Brandy distillery. This place was super fancy and brandy is gross. We had one mixed drink which was really good and then we got to try the 10 year and the 12 year brandies. They were both not to my liking but the 2 years definitely made a difference for the better. At this point in time, most of us were super tired and our butts hurt a lot from the bike seats and we had the hardest part of the biking to go, pretty much all up hill. We ended up walking most of the way, it was horrible. But once we got to the last winery, we had lunch, which is the best burger I have had here (burgers are a little weird here…..) but this one was super super good, it had two patties and an egg on it and thick bacon. Ironically, all 5 of the wines we tasted here all tasted the same and wasn’t very good. Then the trip back was straight downhill through the winelands on dirt. Me and two other girls got really far behind taking pictures and just being plain tired, and we had 20 mins to catch the last train of the day back to Cape Town. One of the tour guides came back to find us and then we had to take the “express short cut” down the hill. The other groups were complaining how steep their path was, they should have seen ours. I should have wiped out more than once speeding down that hill, even the tour guide told me he thought I was a goner with my back tire whipping back and forth but I’m cool. However, I did manage to get tangled in a really big curly wire thing that was on the ground and needed the guy to untangle me. We made it down that hill in record time, got our free bottle of wine that came with the tour and made it to the train stop with time to spare. When we got back I went straight to bed for a long nap.
The next day I went with a small group of people to a braai (barbeque) in a township, which turned out to be an all day party. We felt a little awkward when we pulled up because we saw no one white there and here we were a big group of white Americans stepping out of a van. It turned out absolutely fine though there were people of all ethnicities around the corner. Trying to find a table was near impossible. We had to ask several people and we finally got a really small one and were told it was the last table. Turns out that several tables came out later for other people. But we did get the last chairs. And the chairs we got were not the best quality and we had to sit on two at the same time so they didn’t collapse. But they were two chairs short, so me and someone else ended up sitting on one and hoping for the best (no one collapsed so that’s good). But so many people came up to us and asked if they could take one our chairs thinking we were just being greedy Americans. We felt so bad. And then some guy at the table behind us decided to steal one of our chairs, so that was nice and another person had to sit on only one chair. It was really cool though we all just hung out outside and waited for our meat to cook, drinking cider and listening to the DJ.
Then another week of school. Not very exciting, just more readings for me to get behind in.
But Friday, we went on an African road trip! We went on the garden route, which is a pretty famous area to travel around along the southern coast. It was a lot of driving but super fun. Although, it wasn’t all that pretty to look at, not really anything garden-y about it, but then again it is winter here, so maybe it will be prettier when I do it with my parents in November. There were 15 of us in total split into 3 cars. In my car were Lill, Chelsea, Ben and Andrew. The first day we drove for over 5 hours to Mossel Bay, where we ate dinner at the worst place ever. The service was horrible, and even though the food was pretty good tasting it was nowhere near worth it, especially since the portions were so small. I really cannot even express how horrible the service was there, the best way to give a glimpse is the fact that the starter came out as a dessert. After dinner it took us about an hour to find our hostel that was about 5 mins away from the restaurant. We let Lill drive so she could say she had driven on the wrong side of the road. First we went to the wrong hostel and got really confused. While Ben was out of the car trying to figure out how to get into our wrong hostel, Lill decided to try to park the car and instead just crashed into the sidewalk, slightly bending and scratching the hub cap which was really funny. And then a black cat sat and stared at her for a min and then ran in front of our car, which also led to more jokes for Lill. Once we figured out that we were at the wrong hostel, we drove past cops checking for drunk drivers who just pick random cars and pull them over for routine checks (this was the third time we had driven by), and of course we got pulled over both the second and third time we drove past, before we finally made it to the hostel. My car didn’t really see anything of Mossel Bay because we pretty much went straight to bed once we got to the hostel and slept in the next morning (aka, 9am). This was my first time staying in hostels so that was exciting, but they were really called Backpacker’s, which isn’t technically a hostel, it’s nicer.
Saturday we went Bungee Jumping of the World’s highest bridge!!!! It is called Bloukrans Bridge and is 216 meters high (about 709 feet). It was so crazy, we were just driving over this bridge and remarking at how beautiful the view was and then we realized it was the bridge we were jumping off of. Our group ended up being too big because we accidentally only reserved spots for 10 and we had 11 people, but one car was late so it ended up working out and we split into a group of 7 and a group of 4. I went in the group of 7 with Natalie, Lill, Chelsea, Ben, Taylor, and Devin. They played music on the bridge for us to all get pumped up. All of us were so excited and were dancing around the whole time; we all just wanted to go already! Unfortunately, I was the last to go of all of my friends (it was done by weight bracket, and then within that bracket who had paid first and got the lowest numbers went first) and I was third to last of the entire group. This was only a problem because everyone else was so excited about how amazing it was and the hype to go had worn off for all of them and that brought my excitedness down, and let the fear start to creep back in. Your legs are bound together so there are people are there to help you hop to the end of the bridge and they also kind of push you off, while you jump out as far as you can. I screamed at first because I was jumping off a bridge and couldn’t believe it. It was scary but amazing at the same time and is so hard to explain to someone who hasn’t done it. I came back up and they asked me how it was and I was seriously speechless. When the bouncing started to calm I had time to look at the mountains and the river and ocean around me. All I could hear was the brook below me and my breathing. It was crazy, and actually super relaxing. I feel so accomplished with myself having done this. I would do it again, but I would still be scared to do it.
That night we stayed in Jeffery’s Bay and went to a really good restaurant which made up for the night before. Again, I didn’t see a whole lot of the town, but from what I did see, it was really pretty. This night me and Lill and Ben stayed in a room with random people because none of us had stayed in a hostel before and wanted to have the closest experience to a real hostel as possible (even though this was also a Backpackers). The next morning we went to a Lion Sanctuary, which really ended up being like a zoo filled with a lot of lions. But there were really beautiful white lions there. They also had garaffes and zebras and a Timon and Pumba, and buffalo and Springbok. And the best part is that I got to pet and play with 4 baby lions. They were so adorable and cute and playful. Even though when we got in to see them, they were pretty much all asleep. But they were so cute. One scratched my hand and made it bleed so I have a battle wound from a lion ;) haha.
This night we stayed at a backpackers literally called Tube N’ Axe, in Storms River. This was a really small town kind of in the jungle. We went to dinner at pretty much the only restaurant in the town that was the host of the biggest Elvis festival outside of the US. Unfortunately other than the menu, there was not really any Elvis paraphernalia. They weren’t even playing Elvis music, so that was a little disappointing. We stayed up and taught the bartender at Tube N’ Axe drinking games which was fun, he really enjoyed them.
The next day was the public holiday Women’s Day (which is why we didn’t have school and why we went on this road trip). We were all pretty much exhausted and we decided just to drive straight home. This was about a 7 hour drive. We stopped at a small town and went to eat lunch at Resturant. Which was next to a giant amount of Baboons. Random. And we tried to get gas and asked some guy on the street where the gas station was and he told us it was closed for the holiday. Luckily it actually wasn’t closed so that was good. Once back on the road, we hit traffic that literally was stop and go for about an hour and a half. It was ridiculous. The best part of being in that car was the fact that we only had one CD to listen and we listened to the same songs over and over. The theme song of the trip ended up being “I can see you, stalking like a predator” there is really no way to describe this. And this soundtrack still played in my head for the following week. Although technically we had two CDs, but the CD I made got pretty much fully vetoed right away after the first time we listened to it on the car ride leaving the city, and then only got played once on the way back to break up the other CD for a little bit. Once we got back we were all happy to get out of that car.
Then back to school on Tuesday. Luckily this week of school went really fast because of no Monday, but it also made me feel like I was even more behind in my readings. Thursday night (last night) we went out to a bar called the purple turtle with some other Americans in a different program (and a lot of them in my dance class). At this bar we sang karaoke!!! I have never done it before and technically I don’t know if you can say I really have now either. The only song I sang was Spice Girls –Wannabe with a very large group of (mostly) girls. I didn’t have enough courage to sing by myself or do a duet, but it was still super fun. We definitely plan to go back there! After the karaoke pretty much ended, we went to another bar called the Dubliner where we caught the end of some live music which was also fun. Actually a pretty relaxed night.
Today a little less than half of our Interstudy group went on an excursion with our program, which I, and the rest who didn’t go this week, will go on next weekend. Lill went with them, so I am all alone in the flat this weekend. But I am glad I didn’t go this weekend because hopefully I will be able to catch up on some of my readings!
Monday, July 26, 2010
Sharks and School
26.07.2010
I have been in Cape Town for two weeks now and its crazy. It is super beautiful and the campus is on the side of a mountain. It does suck though that it is super nice weather back home and not as nice here. The first day, it was about 40 degrees and really rainy, and it was like that again till the end of the week. It has gotten better though, during the days its been sunny and it get pretty warm (60’s?) but once the sun goes down it gets cold again. But luckily it hasn’t rained again since that first week. The sun goes down pretty early so I would say the majority of the day is fairly cold. Plus our rooms don’t really have heat so its even cold inside.
My flights were okay, the take offs and landings were smooth so that’s good (except the last one was a little rougher). The 15 hour flight from Atlanta to Johannesburg was a little tough. Very long. I do not look forward to that coming back home. My first two flights were delayed so I missed my transfer in Jo’burg. They put me on a later flight and everything ended up working out fine. But I was nervous because I couldn’t figure out how to use the pay phones so I couldn’t call the people who were waiting to pick me up at the airport in Cape Town. It turned out that they were all still there because the people’s who did catch the flight I was supposed to, luggage got delayed and they were all waiting for it.
I share my room with one other girl named Lill and she is super nice. We each have our own really big bedrooms and then share a kitchen and a bathroom. Since we have a two person flat, my room is also the living room and has a TV and couch in it (The three person apartments have living rooms too). There is also a door in my room that leads to a really pretty backyard with a picnic table and garden. To get into our room is a little ridiculous. First there is the gate that you need a button in order to open to get into the community of all of my programs housing. Then there is a gate to get into 4 of the apartments, then there is a gate door, and then a regular door to get into our apartment and then finally the door to my room. All of these are locked mind you. Plus then we also have the door in my room (with a gate as well) and a door in our kitchen (also with gate), so I have a massive amount of keys.
The first two weeks were pretty boring, minus the weekends. It was all orientation stuff during the days. At night we went out to different bars and clubs and that was pretty much it.
The first weekend, we went to a rugby game, which was cool but a little boring. It was not the Springboks, as everyone wants to know. It was the local team against a Jo’burg team. We won a lot to nothing. Then the next day, we went on a tour of the peninsula. It was really beautiful, but also required us to be up really early and to sit on a bus all day, so that part was no fun. First we went on a bus tour of the downtown area of Cape Town and learned a little bit of history about the buildings. Then our first stop was at Camp’s Bay area and we got a great view of the ocean and Table Mountain. Our next stop was in Simon’s Town at The Boulder’s where the penguin colony lives. It was pretty amazing. They were so cute and they were everywhere just hanging out on the beach. Sadly we did not get to get super close to them because there was a boardwalk for us to walk on. Still cute. Then we made a stop in the township of Oceanview and had a lunch and performance prepared for us by the locals. The performance was a youth group of students who are trying to better themselves by staying away from drugs and street violence and taking up forms of art. They were all really good and had multiple talents. They had seriously the best break dancing group I have ever seen. One kid had just put on a helmet and then they cut them off. I’m interested in what he would have done! To end their show they had two really young kids dance a tribute to Michael Jackson. One kid was spot on it was the cutest thing. The final stop to our trip was at the Cape of Good Hope. Unfortunately we were running late so we didn’t get to walk a whole lot through the cape but we did get to walk up to the light house and the views were amazing. On the way down I saw a scary giant rodent thing jump from one building to the next right in front of me it was freaky, Im just glad it didn’t attack me! I think it was a Dassie. Which is related to an elephant go figure. Back on the bus, as we were leaving the park, I saw two ostriches in the wild. Sadly, no baboons spotted (apparently they are very popular here, especially at the cape of good hope), but also very vicious so Im also glad one didn’t attack us.
The next week, like I said was pretty boring. Except I got to African Drum for a little bit which was cool but tiring work for your hands. Thursday I went to the Muzenburg beach. It was too cold so I didn’t go in the water but it was really pretty and they had these colorful little houses all along the beach. I definitely plan to go back! Then Friday was registration which was not fun. It was on paper, so first we had our preapproval classes when we were still in the US, then the week before we had to go around to the different classes we didn’t get approved for or for new ones we wanted to take and get the head of departments signature saying we could take the class. Then day of registration, we had to wait in a line to get our registration packet, we had to fill them out in a line, wait in a line to have them approved to be taken by some kind of high faculty, then we had to go to another line to wait to have somebody enter it into the computer system for us, then we had to wait in the longest line to get our UCT (University of Cape Town) ids. It took me from 9am to 1pm. Then I went home and napped.
Then on Saturday, I got ready to go hike up Devil’s Peak, the mountain on which UCT is located. They warned us that it would be strenuous but I figured I should hike it at least once if I was going to be living right next to it. Plus, I’m stubborn so I knew I would force myself to make it to the top. They claimed it to be a 7 hour hike, 4 up and 3 down, but of course in the US, that usually means about a 5 and a half hour hike. Not this hike. This was actually 7 hours, almost exactly. And it was not just hiking either; we had to climb up and down rocks using our hands and knees. We climbed directly on the edge of the cliff. At times, it seemed like we weren’t even following a real path. We had to switch mountain peaks about 3/4ths of the way up. There is no way we could have done that without the tour guide. I enjoyed the climbing more than I actually enjoyed the plain hiking parts, so that was good for me, but some people had to turn around. Once we finally found our way to the top of the mountain, we ate lunch and it was really a wonderful view, you could see all of Cape Town, the University, the Soccer Stadium, the Cape, Robben Island. It was definitely worth it for me. Then for the way down, we took a different path, expecting it to be a nice, easy way down. Also, not the case. It was pretty much just straight down on uneven rocks/dirt. I think everyone fell at least once. I twisted my ankle close to the top, so that made it hard for the rest of the way down. I also fell and landed in a pokey bush. Apparently called Climber’s friend, because if you slip you can grab the roots of the plant and they are so firm into the ground that they will catch you, but instead of course I fall on top of it and get really small needle things in my hand and bleed and what not. I think I still have some of the thorns in me. After we climbed down the main peak of Devil’s peak, we transferred over to part of Table Mountain but before we could go down, of course we had to go back up some. Eventually we kept going down and were hiking through a more jungle kind of area which was nice since everything else we had seen was pretty much brush. But I did also see some Calalilys at the top of the mountain, which was neat. By the time we finally made it back to pavement, everyone was dead tired and kind of loopy, and our bodies were sore.
Then on Sunday, I went Great White Shark Cage Diving(!!!) They picked us up in their van, and we drove for two hours to Kleinbaai. There they fed us some brunch and then got us geared up to get on this boat (which was not very big to hold 20 divers and a boat crew). The boat sped us to the Straits of Dyer Island, also known as Shark Alley. There in the water they had a cage attached to a red buoy, floating in the water waiting for us. And even before, we received our instructions and before they were throwing in the bate, there were sharks next to the boat (of course I was on the opposite side of the boat so I didn’t see it, but don’t worry I got to see my share). I ended up in the last group to go in the cage. They had us go 5 at a time, which was fun to have someone else see what you saw as well as offer support. When we weren’t in the cage or preparing to go in the cage, we stood on the top deck of the boat and got to see some great views and pictures of the sharks. (I also had an underwater camera with but it was hard to tell if it was working or not and it was just so hectic that I didn’t take very many pictures, let alone who know how good of quality, but my friend had an underwater digital camera so she got good ones, and I will probably steal hers). When it was our turn to get ready, we had a wet suit handed to us by a very gorgeous man, and put it on (very very difficult, for some reason I struggled a lot). Then we had booties and a weight and goggles. All of us looked ridiculous. I went in the cage (in order left to right) with my friends Ben, Carolyn, Avery, Me and Chelsea. It was amazing. It is so hard to explain it was exciting and scary and overwhelming all at the same time. We were not allowed to put our hands on the outer bars of the cage (which by the way, was not as big and protective as one might assume, it was not very thick bars at all) for good reason of course, so when we were resting and catching our breath, we held on to the top and then to hold yourself under the water there was a red bar that stuck inward to hold onto and then there was a red bar at the bottom of the cage to hook your feet in to stay under. I was really bad at getting my feet under the bar so often I just kind of floated upward, or sideways. We also had to simply hold our breath under the water, which was interesting. The cage sat right next to the boat and your head would float above the water until you wanted to go under. When a shark was coming, the boat crew would shout “DOWN DOWN DOWN” or sometimes “DOWN RIGHT” or “DOWN LEFT”. Then we would all as fast as we can duck underwater reaching for those red bars and SEE SHARKS. They would swim so close to the boat. One shark bit at our cage. You could hear the clink against the metal. All of us screamed under the water. I grabbed my hands away from the red bar I was holding onto because I was afraid that was even too close to the shark. It was crazy insane but so so cool. Apparently we saw 7 different sharks that day (I could only tell 3, but I’m no expert). There were two that would like swim next to each other kind of facing off and then there was a little one who was so cute (which is so wrong, because even though he was small, he is still a great white!) It all happened so fast with so much energy. On the drive back home everyone slept. But right before we got into the van, the sun was setting and there was a really pretty sight over the ocean of the full moon in the purple and pink and blue sky it was really beautiful and I wish it would have captured as beautiful in a picture as it looked. All in all a spectacular day.
Then today was officially the first day of classes. I only had one class which was good and fast, but I had some problems getting my password to log on to the computer systems so it turned into a very stressful day. As of right now I am signed up for African Dance, Contemporary Social Work Issues, Contemporary Urban Issues, and Social Justice and Inequalities. But I need to change the last one due to time conflicts, I am thinking about either Race, Class and Gender or Photography in South Africa: 1860-present. I am planning on sitting in on both of those classes, plus the class I need to drop just to see what they will be like, so I will have a very full day tomorrow, basically going from 10 to 7:30. I am not looking forward to that!
So far I really like being here but it still feels like a vacation, and I am ready for it to feel like home. Plus there is still a lot for me to see and I can’t wait.
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