People here are so friendly. This guy was power walking by Cocoa Wah Wah with frozen yogurt in his hands and I glanced up from my computer and we made eye contact. He changed his path and came into the coffee shop and stopped short next to me. His opening line was "can I get you some ice cream?" Apparently people can read my favorite food on my face. I declined but we talked for a minute, then he ran off to wherever he was going. This is why I love Cape Town.
Love from the friendliest place on earth,
A
Monday, September 27, 2010
Friday, September 24, 2010
Sometimes that's what it feels like...
Long weekend at UCT began at noon when Spencer and I took off for Stellenbosch, which is around an hour away by train. While Spencer went to procure some tickets, I was approached by a nerdy looking young man in his mid-20's who asked me for the time and then posted up next to me on the bench. I attract THE WEIRDEST people (evidenced by the fact that Marlee is literally 5 feet away from me taking self-pics inside of a laundry basket), so I should have been a little more suspicious, but the dude started chatting me up and I sort of went along with it.
He began telling me about his sensual Black girlfriend and how he used to be a goth, so I was pretty happy when Spencer returned. We still got a 30 minute history lesson on WWII that we didn't ask for, but luckily we were able to escape him when we got on the train.
We spent hours walking around Stellenbosch and finally settled on a good backpackers. As Stellenbosch is essentially the wine capital of the world, we intended to make it to some vineyards, but being without a map or a laptop, we ended up spending hours walking around the town and drank wine we bought from the pick'n'pay. It was more fun that way.
On the way home we met a couple girls who go to schoool in the Northern part of the country in Natal. They reported feeling extremely unsafe in their digs, and one of the girls had her flat broken into and was physically grabbed by the intruder who entered her room. She's on a government scholarship to learn Zulu, but it looks like they'll be transferring her somewhere more secure. I can't imagine living like that.
To play catch up on last weekend, it was jam packed with adventures. Friday we checked out an area of downtown I have never been to. Posing as Gabriella and Charles, we crashed The 15th on Orange- a super nice hotel- for a bit of pool shooting. We hit up the South African National Art Museum, where we saw some seriously interesting Apartheid art and then went to see Inception, which was worth all the build-up and hype!
Saturday we went to the beach and spent a gorgeous day catching some rays on a beautiful beach with a calm surf. Sunday was the hike up Table Mountain which was so much harder than I thought it would be! It took around 2 hours to get to the summit, and Spencer pretty much had to drag me up. As we approached the summit, it began to sprinkle but we pushed on. Once at the top, we had about a half mile walk across the table to reach the restaurant at the top. The wind began to pick up and it poured. Visibility was about zero. If we'd gotten seperated, I may never have seen Spencer again. We were certainly so glad to seek cover, and whipped out a picnic of food we'd packed. After evaluated our options and hearing the horn blare indicating everyone should get off the mountain due to gale force winds, we decided to take the cable car down the mountain to safety. I wish it had been a clear day as I imagine the view would have been spectacular, but I was glad when we made it down in one piece and returned to Rondebosch feeling accomplished.
Lucky for me I've finished my trade report and can relax a bit for a while in school. Tomorrow we're going whale watching with our program in Hermanus, which should be great (even though we've already accidentally been whale-diving without a cage hahaha). Today is National Braai Day so there's a massive barbeque cooking in our backyard that I must attend to!!
Love from the honor system train,
A
He began telling me about his sensual Black girlfriend and how he used to be a goth, so I was pretty happy when Spencer returned. We still got a 30 minute history lesson on WWII that we didn't ask for, but luckily we were able to escape him when we got on the train.
We spent hours walking around Stellenbosch and finally settled on a good backpackers. As Stellenbosch is essentially the wine capital of the world, we intended to make it to some vineyards, but being without a map or a laptop, we ended up spending hours walking around the town and drank wine we bought from the pick'n'pay. It was more fun that way.
On the way home we met a couple girls who go to schoool in the Northern part of the country in Natal. They reported feeling extremely unsafe in their digs, and one of the girls had her flat broken into and was physically grabbed by the intruder who entered her room. She's on a government scholarship to learn Zulu, but it looks like they'll be transferring her somewhere more secure. I can't imagine living like that.
To play catch up on last weekend, it was jam packed with adventures. Friday we checked out an area of downtown I have never been to. Posing as Gabriella and Charles, we crashed The 15th on Orange- a super nice hotel- for a bit of pool shooting. We hit up the South African National Art Museum, where we saw some seriously interesting Apartheid art and then went to see Inception, which was worth all the build-up and hype!
Saturday we went to the beach and spent a gorgeous day catching some rays on a beautiful beach with a calm surf. Sunday was the hike up Table Mountain which was so much harder than I thought it would be! It took around 2 hours to get to the summit, and Spencer pretty much had to drag me up. As we approached the summit, it began to sprinkle but we pushed on. Once at the top, we had about a half mile walk across the table to reach the restaurant at the top. The wind began to pick up and it poured. Visibility was about zero. If we'd gotten seperated, I may never have seen Spencer again. We were certainly so glad to seek cover, and whipped out a picnic of food we'd packed. After evaluated our options and hearing the horn blare indicating everyone should get off the mountain due to gale force winds, we decided to take the cable car down the mountain to safety. I wish it had been a clear day as I imagine the view would have been spectacular, but I was glad when we made it down in one piece and returned to Rondebosch feeling accomplished.
Lucky for me I've finished my trade report and can relax a bit for a while in school. Tomorrow we're going whale watching with our program in Hermanus, which should be great (even though we've already accidentally been whale-diving without a cage hahaha). Today is National Braai Day so there's a massive barbeque cooking in our backyard that I must attend to!!
Love from the honor system train,
A
Tuesday, September 21, 2010
Procrastinating feels good right now...
I'm on the eve of submitting a major strategy report for trade bargaining which is supposed to explain how I intend to play the game. All my alliances and schemes need to be backed up in this 2500-5000 word document by research in flawless citation. It's going to be a long night: we'll leave it at that.
In the mean time, I need to drift back to more exciting times for a moment while I break from feverishly scanning white paper foreign policy documents pertinent to the island of Fiji. Back to Jefferey's Bay...
We sorted through a couple potential crash spots for the evening and settled on Ubuntu Backpackers as they offered free internet and breakfast. In the morning Spencer and I watched and documented Parker as he shredded some wave-age during a surfing lesson. The water was cold and the weather a bit dreary, but we were quite impressed with Parker's ability to balance and dubbed him the diamond in the rough of the group. He definitely made the skintight wetsuit look good out there.
That afternoon we took off to go horseback riding through the dunes, which was particularly exciting for me because I was lucky enough to have two horses growing up - Pippi and Killian- and for a very long time horses were a very important part of my world. When I was around 16 I stopped riding and haven't sat on a horse since. I can't begin to explain how special it was to be on a horse again... not just on a horse, but on a horse in the sand dunes of South Africa. The catharsis it always brought me was still there and I was surprised at how balanced I felt and how much I remembered. Once I got my bearings I was off at full tilt, galloping down the beach and racing the guide over the dunes. I had asked for the most spirited animal they had, and they didn't dissapoint. My animal was fond of rearing up whenever I asked him to stand quietly, which made me giggle and created some pretty excellent pictures.
Watching Spencer and Parker ride was hilarious as well. Spencer was given a little white pony to ride named Tinkerbelle, who was giving him quite the run for his money, dragging him across the dunes away from the group. After the ride, Spencer mentioned his throat feeling tight and he was covered in a splotchy rash-- turns out he was allergic to the little fellah who we henceforth referred to as "poisonbelle."
When we got home, we made a big dinner with two level 5 vegan chicks who refused to put anything non-natural in their bodies... It sounds good on paper, but one of them had a major infection from putting gauges in her ears (that seems non-natural?) and she refused to put any sort of anti-septic on them. I was like "whatever, hippie." Despite their questionable lifestyle choices, the girls were very nice and we enjoyed hanging out and chatting them in the evening.
Early to bed we went after our big day and we awoke early the next day to begin our journey home. We stopped in George for the night to break up the drive, but didn't do anything of note at the Afrovibe Lounge that we stayed at-- except complain that the hottub was non-operational and drink Russian Bear on a swingset.
We arrived home on Friday with the weekend ahead of us and an amazing vacation behind us.
What an experience, what a life! I'm beyond lucky.
Love from Garden Route Memories,
A
In the mean time, I need to drift back to more exciting times for a moment while I break from feverishly scanning white paper foreign policy documents pertinent to the island of Fiji. Back to Jefferey's Bay...
We sorted through a couple potential crash spots for the evening and settled on Ubuntu Backpackers as they offered free internet and breakfast. In the morning Spencer and I watched and documented Parker as he shredded some wave-age during a surfing lesson. The water was cold and the weather a bit dreary, but we were quite impressed with Parker's ability to balance and dubbed him the diamond in the rough of the group. He definitely made the skintight wetsuit look good out there.
That afternoon we took off to go horseback riding through the dunes, which was particularly exciting for me because I was lucky enough to have two horses growing up - Pippi and Killian- and for a very long time horses were a very important part of my world. When I was around 16 I stopped riding and haven't sat on a horse since. I can't begin to explain how special it was to be on a horse again... not just on a horse, but on a horse in the sand dunes of South Africa. The catharsis it always brought me was still there and I was surprised at how balanced I felt and how much I remembered. Once I got my bearings I was off at full tilt, galloping down the beach and racing the guide over the dunes. I had asked for the most spirited animal they had, and they didn't dissapoint. My animal was fond of rearing up whenever I asked him to stand quietly, which made me giggle and created some pretty excellent pictures.
Watching Spencer and Parker ride was hilarious as well. Spencer was given a little white pony to ride named Tinkerbelle, who was giving him quite the run for his money, dragging him across the dunes away from the group. After the ride, Spencer mentioned his throat feeling tight and he was covered in a splotchy rash-- turns out he was allergic to the little fellah who we henceforth referred to as "poisonbelle."
When we got home, we made a big dinner with two level 5 vegan chicks who refused to put anything non-natural in their bodies... It sounds good on paper, but one of them had a major infection from putting gauges in her ears (that seems non-natural?) and she refused to put any sort of anti-septic on them. I was like "whatever, hippie." Despite their questionable lifestyle choices, the girls were very nice and we enjoyed hanging out and chatting them in the evening.
Early to bed we went after our big day and we awoke early the next day to begin our journey home. We stopped in George for the night to break up the drive, but didn't do anything of note at the Afrovibe Lounge that we stayed at-- except complain that the hottub was non-operational and drink Russian Bear on a swingset.
We arrived home on Friday with the weekend ahead of us and an amazing vacation behind us.
What an experience, what a life! I'm beyond lucky.
Love from Garden Route Memories,
A
Tuesday, September 14, 2010
I hope tomorrow is like today
It took me a while to get around to this post because I had an unfortunate incident at the beach this weekend where my phone got stolen from under my nose by some evil beach riffraff. I had to enter a code from google to re-start my account due to suspicious south african activity I guess. Luckily my friend Kalilah had an extra one and she let me borrow it for the remainder of the semester. Now I'm back in action and connected with the universe again.
To pick up where I left off, our journey took us next to Knysna, another small town along the route, that boasted a rich history of washed up Ostrich Dynamos and Elephant Parks. The weather turned sour and when we stopped to pick up groceries in the supermarket, Parker misnegotiated a corner and the cement tore a chunk of tire off and some of the rim off. It's definitely so much harder to drive on the wrong side of the car and road in a parking garage and we learned the hard way. I'm my father's daughter and avoiding rental car company accident fees runs in my blood. We were worried about the tire blowing out if we continued to drive on it, so we took the car to an auto shop and had them throw the full size spare on the car's normal rim. For about $10 a piece we managed to avoid paying a couple hundo for a new car tire. To sweeten the deal, we bought 2 rand superglue to reattatch the piece of rubber to the tire in the back from the Happy 5 Rand Store.
Feeling a little buzz kill from the near auto death, we decided to leave Knysna and push on to Wilderness. On the way, we stopped in Victoria Bay where we suited up and swam in the cool waters of the Indian Ocean against the most stunning backdrop. After relaxing in the sun for a while, we found a hostel situated 4 kilometers away from the main drag at the top of a mountain called The Wild Farm. We arrived to beautiful weather and an old man showed us to a cabin where we would be able to stay the night. A panoramic view of the ocean and surrounding woods made me sure this would be my favorite place I'd visited without a doubt. We drove our fixed up buggy to town and ate some italian food while researching our plans for the next day.
When we woke it was onto Plett where we found a cool surfer vibe and a fun hostel called Albergo Backpackers. I was surprised to meet Marlee and Kalilah there that evening as they were riding the baz bus down the Garden Route. Marlee had bungee jumped, zip lined and played in an elephant park that day. After swimming at Victoria Bay, I was excited to freeze my face off again and despite the less than perfect weather, I managed to wrangle Spencer into boogie boarding in the ocean with me. Getting down to the beach was the first adventure as the woods were dense and the path beset with difficulty. When we emerged from the understory, a perfect beach with bluest ocean, black rocks and olive sand came into view. Parker brought his nice camera to take pictures of the ocean and climbed up on a big rock to photograph. We were havign such a good time on the perfect-for-boogie-boarding waves that we didn't notice a whale an its calf in our proximity, breaching out of the water and floating lazily by the shore. Luckily, Parker managed to catch it on his film! When Spencer and I became aware of the whale we called it a day on the boogie down, but it was an amazing time. We returned to the hostel to warm up and braai with the rest of the crew staying there the night.
A good meal, some good drinks, and we were back on the beach for a while longer to soak up some ocean air. We almost didn't make it make because of the impossible path, but it was worth the climb.
We said goodbye to Marlee and Kalilah the next day as we moved on to Jeffrey's Bay. On the way there we were slated to stop at the Bungee Jump to make my worst nightmare a reality. Since I was very young, I can remember being afraid of heights. I was the only kid in 6th grade that didn't complete the ropes course during outdoor ed. I've been talking about doing this bungee jump for a month now, and I knew there was no way I was getting out of it. When I climbed into the car Parker asked me to open the glove box for something and I was given a surprise: a smirnoff ice. The tradition of icing goes as follows: if someone gets you to reveal a smirnoff ice they've hidden, you must get on one knee and chug said bottle. Being that I play by the rules, I took my punishment outside the Albergo backpackers with a smile on my face-- and later was thankful for it because it took the edge off right before I flung myself off the highest bungee jump in the world.
I didn't feel nervous until I started to walk across the bridge. I broke into a cold sweat. I felt the smirnoff ice threatening to reappear in my mouth and perhaps projectile into the ravine. The boys charged down the cage built underneath where bungee-ing people walk to the platform. The footing is a sparse mesh, so if you walk fast enough it looks like there's nothing there at all. I began to plot ways of getting off the bridge, but the guide was behind me. Spencer grabbed my hand and pulled me down the walkway at one point when I slowed my roll to turtle pace.
Once on the platform, I entered a haze. The feeling inside me can only be described as "despair." The look on my face can only be desribed as "about to face death by a firing squad." Luckily, your imagination doesn't have to take you far, there's a video that captures every tremble which I will post on the internet as soon as I can. Spencer and Parker jumped first... I thought I would have more time but before I knew it they were binding my legs with 2 pieces of foam and a single rope. The harness around my chest was only for sitting me up after I jumped and would not be attached to anything. They stood me up and helped me to the platform. I breathed in, I breathed out. They began their countdown and I kept my eyes closed lightly. 5, 4, 3, without any option I bent my legs and sprang from the plank. Then I felt myself falling away from the men holding my arms, my eyes opened, I was soaring. I was shocked that I had jumped of my own free will. For around 1.5 seconds I thought I'd just committed suicide. Luckily, my free fall was around 6 seconds and I had a complete lack of thought and sound for about 4.5 seconds as I plunged towards the ground, completely unaware of the cord that would be saving my life.
My legs caught and I swung smoothly underneath the bridge, rebounding and falling again in the world's 2nd highest bungee which I was ready for this time. And just as quickly as it began, it was over and I was bouncing shallowly up and down by my feet kilometers above the earth. I became acutely aware of the strap around my ankles. It felt like it was slipping. The blood rushed to my head. All of a suddent I realized: this is real. I felt the biggest emotional swing of my life to complete panic. The spider came down to collect me and I was, for lack of a better description, paralyzed with fear. He sat me up and I closed me eyes as he removed and added clips to my body. If I opened them, I probably would have belligerently accused him of trying to kill me as he was unclipping me to pull me up. He tried to make small talk with me, but I was completely unresponsive. When I finally got pulled back onto the platform I kissed the earth and declared that I would never do that again. I'm so glad I did, but it was once in a lifetime.
After bungee jumping, I knew my day was going to be amazing. We all lived, afterall. After running into a few exchange students we knew on their way to bungee we gave them some words of encouragement and moved onto our next destination: Jefferey's Bay or "J-bay."
More later...
Love from the girl with a Game Theory Exam tomorrow!
A
To pick up where I left off, our journey took us next to Knysna, another small town along the route, that boasted a rich history of washed up Ostrich Dynamos and Elephant Parks. The weather turned sour and when we stopped to pick up groceries in the supermarket, Parker misnegotiated a corner and the cement tore a chunk of tire off and some of the rim off. It's definitely so much harder to drive on the wrong side of the car and road in a parking garage and we learned the hard way. I'm my father's daughter and avoiding rental car company accident fees runs in my blood. We were worried about the tire blowing out if we continued to drive on it, so we took the car to an auto shop and had them throw the full size spare on the car's normal rim. For about $10 a piece we managed to avoid paying a couple hundo for a new car tire. To sweeten the deal, we bought 2 rand superglue to reattatch the piece of rubber to the tire in the back from the Happy 5 Rand Store.
Feeling a little buzz kill from the near auto death, we decided to leave Knysna and push on to Wilderness. On the way, we stopped in Victoria Bay where we suited up and swam in the cool waters of the Indian Ocean against the most stunning backdrop. After relaxing in the sun for a while, we found a hostel situated 4 kilometers away from the main drag at the top of a mountain called The Wild Farm. We arrived to beautiful weather and an old man showed us to a cabin where we would be able to stay the night. A panoramic view of the ocean and surrounding woods made me sure this would be my favorite place I'd visited without a doubt. We drove our fixed up buggy to town and ate some italian food while researching our plans for the next day.
When we woke it was onto Plett where we found a cool surfer vibe and a fun hostel called Albergo Backpackers. I was surprised to meet Marlee and Kalilah there that evening as they were riding the baz bus down the Garden Route. Marlee had bungee jumped, zip lined and played in an elephant park that day. After swimming at Victoria Bay, I was excited to freeze my face off again and despite the less than perfect weather, I managed to wrangle Spencer into boogie boarding in the ocean with me. Getting down to the beach was the first adventure as the woods were dense and the path beset with difficulty. When we emerged from the understory, a perfect beach with bluest ocean, black rocks and olive sand came into view. Parker brought his nice camera to take pictures of the ocean and climbed up on a big rock to photograph. We were havign such a good time on the perfect-for-boogie-boarding waves that we didn't notice a whale an its calf in our proximity, breaching out of the water and floating lazily by the shore. Luckily, Parker managed to catch it on his film! When Spencer and I became aware of the whale we called it a day on the boogie down, but it was an amazing time. We returned to the hostel to warm up and braai with the rest of the crew staying there the night.
A good meal, some good drinks, and we were back on the beach for a while longer to soak up some ocean air. We almost didn't make it make because of the impossible path, but it was worth the climb.
We said goodbye to Marlee and Kalilah the next day as we moved on to Jeffrey's Bay. On the way there we were slated to stop at the Bungee Jump to make my worst nightmare a reality. Since I was very young, I can remember being afraid of heights. I was the only kid in 6th grade that didn't complete the ropes course during outdoor ed. I've been talking about doing this bungee jump for a month now, and I knew there was no way I was getting out of it. When I climbed into the car Parker asked me to open the glove box for something and I was given a surprise: a smirnoff ice. The tradition of icing goes as follows: if someone gets you to reveal a smirnoff ice they've hidden, you must get on one knee and chug said bottle. Being that I play by the rules, I took my punishment outside the Albergo backpackers with a smile on my face-- and later was thankful for it because it took the edge off right before I flung myself off the highest bungee jump in the world.
I didn't feel nervous until I started to walk across the bridge. I broke into a cold sweat. I felt the smirnoff ice threatening to reappear in my mouth and perhaps projectile into the ravine. The boys charged down the cage built underneath where bungee-ing people walk to the platform. The footing is a sparse mesh, so if you walk fast enough it looks like there's nothing there at all. I began to plot ways of getting off the bridge, but the guide was behind me. Spencer grabbed my hand and pulled me down the walkway at one point when I slowed my roll to turtle pace.
Once on the platform, I entered a haze. The feeling inside me can only be described as "despair." The look on my face can only be desribed as "about to face death by a firing squad." Luckily, your imagination doesn't have to take you far, there's a video that captures every tremble which I will post on the internet as soon as I can. Spencer and Parker jumped first... I thought I would have more time but before I knew it they were binding my legs with 2 pieces of foam and a single rope. The harness around my chest was only for sitting me up after I jumped and would not be attached to anything. They stood me up and helped me to the platform. I breathed in, I breathed out. They began their countdown and I kept my eyes closed lightly. 5, 4, 3, without any option I bent my legs and sprang from the plank. Then I felt myself falling away from the men holding my arms, my eyes opened, I was soaring. I was shocked that I had jumped of my own free will. For around 1.5 seconds I thought I'd just committed suicide. Luckily, my free fall was around 6 seconds and I had a complete lack of thought and sound for about 4.5 seconds as I plunged towards the ground, completely unaware of the cord that would be saving my life.
My legs caught and I swung smoothly underneath the bridge, rebounding and falling again in the world's 2nd highest bungee which I was ready for this time. And just as quickly as it began, it was over and I was bouncing shallowly up and down by my feet kilometers above the earth. I became acutely aware of the strap around my ankles. It felt like it was slipping. The blood rushed to my head. All of a suddent I realized: this is real. I felt the biggest emotional swing of my life to complete panic. The spider came down to collect me and I was, for lack of a better description, paralyzed with fear. He sat me up and I closed me eyes as he removed and added clips to my body. If I opened them, I probably would have belligerently accused him of trying to kill me as he was unclipping me to pull me up. He tried to make small talk with me, but I was completely unresponsive. When I finally got pulled back onto the platform I kissed the earth and declared that I would never do that again. I'm so glad I did, but it was once in a lifetime.
After bungee jumping, I knew my day was going to be amazing. We all lived, afterall. After running into a few exchange students we knew on their way to bungee we gave them some words of encouragement and moved onto our next destination: Jefferey's Bay or "J-bay."
More later...
Love from the girl with a Game Theory Exam tomorrow!
A
Friday, September 10, 2010
I want to celebrate and live my life
I don't know how its possible to come back after a week of wandering and feel so utterly... amazing.
The journey began like any other Saturday morning would. The clear skies promised a beautiful barely spring day perfect for driving lazily through the mountain passes of the N2. I gathered a duffel bag of only a few changes of clothing, toiletries and all the food I had left in the house. I couldn’t forget my camera, but I somehow managed to forget a towel. I hustled over to Nursery to meet my travelling companions Spencer and Parker.
We took our sweet time getting over to the Budget rental, re-hashing the previous evening’s events with a couple couch crashers in the Nursery Living Room. When we finally made it, armed with coffees and credit cards, we were shown to our brand spanking new Opal. We were naturally scared shitless at the prospect of driving manual on the opposite side of the road in a mint-condition car. Spencer’s 22 so his name was on the documents, but we casually allowed Parker to negotiate the vehicle out of the treacherous parking lot. I happily report that I was able to contribute to the driving success by pointing out to Parker that he thought 3rd gear was 1st gear. I had to find a way to earn some street credit with these boys and I think that observation took care of it.
So off we went, snapping pictures of our city, retreating into the distance as we accelerated into the unknown with no plans at all for our week of vacation. Parker’s favourite music blasted from the stereo- a mixture of mash-ups and dub-step. After some deliberation we decided our first stop would be Mossel Bay, which had a sleepy beach town vibe.
The first Backpackers we saw, we decided we would stay at. Mossel Bay Backpackers was clean and welcoming, and run by a 20-something bleach blonde surfer dude who seemed pretty cool and possibly drunk on arrival. We settled into our digs and chowed down on some of the pasta with veggies and sauce I’d cooked the night before for all of us. At some point during this organizational period, “Ze Germans” showed up and our lives got a lot more interesting. Ze Germans are 4 guys who are also exchange students at UCT. They were bombing around in a little red VW and they were in search of a place to stay so they could drink “ze be-ahs” (read: the beers). They generously shared some of their precious beers with us and I couldn’t help but notice how uncanny the similarities were between the characters in the movie Beerfest and these German exchange students. We left the house to find a place to watch the rugby game after shotgunning a few in the backyard with a Lebanese chick sporting a weave and her Jewish hippie ambiguous boyfriend. We were a crew of 9 now rolling through a deserted Mossel Bay.
Many things happened this night, few of which I am at liberty to speak of. Spencer, who at this point was rocking an alter-ego we referred to as “Chaz” because he was trying to grow a moustache, needed to be assisted to his bunk bed at the backpackers at around 10 PM after flipping me over in a shopping cart. Ze Germans found Weiner Schnitzel outside of an abandoned club so we spent some time there watching them devour it and talk about how it was more delicious in the motherland. Before packing it in for the night we all decided the next day would be spent quad biking through a game reserve per suggestion of Parker. Ze Germans and the hippies were interested in joining us, so with a start time of 7:30 AM we clamoured into our crowded bunks and dreamt of what the next day would hold.
Reluctantly I exited my bed the next day, secretly trying to get out of the quad biking Parker had planned. Luckily, he dragged Spencer (AKA Chaz) and I out of bed and threw us in the Opal. We made our way down a sketchy dirt road towards the game reserve with little idea what to expect, but upon arriving we realized that they day would be quite the adventure. Ze Germans needs “be-ahs, cigarettes, and coffee” so Spencer, Parker and I went out in the first group with Jewish hippie on 4 wheeled motorized bikes, or “quads.” They taught us how to operate our steeds and offered us goggles and shotty bike helmets that were optional on these machines that reach about 100 kilometres per hour. We learned quickly how to make them go and took off down the dirt path into the jungle to see what animals were waking up. I watched a giraffe run over a ridge with a herd of wildebeests—it was like the discovery channel in real life. The 2 white rhinos on the reserve found their way over to us and were literally 10 feet away as we snapped pictures. When they charged us I was so scared I rammed my quad into the guide who was also furiously trying to retreat from the angry animal. Once a safe distance away, we laughed about the incident and marvelled at hilarious series of photos showing the rhino’s approach. We visited a special area where two cheetahs with sway-hip were being kept. Due to in-breeding, these cheetahs had a genetic defect that causes them to lose balance when running at top speed. Our guide told us these cheetahs have still tried to take down animals before and warned us to be still and quite when entering. Just as he was about to open the gate I noticed one of the cheetahs crawling over the ridge, low on its haunches, staring at us. I pointed it out to our guide and he slammed the gate closed and said that today was not a good day to meet the cheetah dubbed “bitch” because she was preparing to pounce on one of us. Dodged a bullet.
After quad biking we had light meal of muesli and yogurt with coffee while looking out onto the reserve. They offered to take us out on the reserve in a jeep at night if we stayed for the evening, but we were antsy to keep moving. The lodge was beautiful, and I hope to one day get my parents there for a vacation.
I will continue this post soon but right now I’m exhausted and have crazy amounts of laundry to do.
Love from a story where the best is yet to come,
A
The journey began like any other Saturday morning would. The clear skies promised a beautiful barely spring day perfect for driving lazily through the mountain passes of the N2. I gathered a duffel bag of only a few changes of clothing, toiletries and all the food I had left in the house. I couldn’t forget my camera, but I somehow managed to forget a towel. I hustled over to Nursery to meet my travelling companions Spencer and Parker.
We took our sweet time getting over to the Budget rental, re-hashing the previous evening’s events with a couple couch crashers in the Nursery Living Room. When we finally made it, armed with coffees and credit cards, we were shown to our brand spanking new Opal. We were naturally scared shitless at the prospect of driving manual on the opposite side of the road in a mint-condition car. Spencer’s 22 so his name was on the documents, but we casually allowed Parker to negotiate the vehicle out of the treacherous parking lot. I happily report that I was able to contribute to the driving success by pointing out to Parker that he thought 3rd gear was 1st gear. I had to find a way to earn some street credit with these boys and I think that observation took care of it.
So off we went, snapping pictures of our city, retreating into the distance as we accelerated into the unknown with no plans at all for our week of vacation. Parker’s favourite music blasted from the stereo- a mixture of mash-ups and dub-step. After some deliberation we decided our first stop would be Mossel Bay, which had a sleepy beach town vibe.
The first Backpackers we saw, we decided we would stay at. Mossel Bay Backpackers was clean and welcoming, and run by a 20-something bleach blonde surfer dude who seemed pretty cool and possibly drunk on arrival. We settled into our digs and chowed down on some of the pasta with veggies and sauce I’d cooked the night before for all of us. At some point during this organizational period, “Ze Germans” showed up and our lives got a lot more interesting. Ze Germans are 4 guys who are also exchange students at UCT. They were bombing around in a little red VW and they were in search of a place to stay so they could drink “ze be-ahs” (read: the beers). They generously shared some of their precious beers with us and I couldn’t help but notice how uncanny the similarities were between the characters in the movie Beerfest and these German exchange students. We left the house to find a place to watch the rugby game after shotgunning a few in the backyard with a Lebanese chick sporting a weave and her Jewish hippie ambiguous boyfriend. We were a crew of 9 now rolling through a deserted Mossel Bay.
Many things happened this night, few of which I am at liberty to speak of. Spencer, who at this point was rocking an alter-ego we referred to as “Chaz” because he was trying to grow a moustache, needed to be assisted to his bunk bed at the backpackers at around 10 PM after flipping me over in a shopping cart. Ze Germans found Weiner Schnitzel outside of an abandoned club so we spent some time there watching them devour it and talk about how it was more delicious in the motherland. Before packing it in for the night we all decided the next day would be spent quad biking through a game reserve per suggestion of Parker. Ze Germans and the hippies were interested in joining us, so with a start time of 7:30 AM we clamoured into our crowded bunks and dreamt of what the next day would hold.
Reluctantly I exited my bed the next day, secretly trying to get out of the quad biking Parker had planned. Luckily, he dragged Spencer (AKA Chaz) and I out of bed and threw us in the Opal. We made our way down a sketchy dirt road towards the game reserve with little idea what to expect, but upon arriving we realized that they day would be quite the adventure. Ze Germans needs “be-ahs, cigarettes, and coffee” so Spencer, Parker and I went out in the first group with Jewish hippie on 4 wheeled motorized bikes, or “quads.” They taught us how to operate our steeds and offered us goggles and shotty bike helmets that were optional on these machines that reach about 100 kilometres per hour. We learned quickly how to make them go and took off down the dirt path into the jungle to see what animals were waking up. I watched a giraffe run over a ridge with a herd of wildebeests—it was like the discovery channel in real life. The 2 white rhinos on the reserve found their way over to us and were literally 10 feet away as we snapped pictures. When they charged us I was so scared I rammed my quad into the guide who was also furiously trying to retreat from the angry animal. Once a safe distance away, we laughed about the incident and marvelled at hilarious series of photos showing the rhino’s approach. We visited a special area where two cheetahs with sway-hip were being kept. Due to in-breeding, these cheetahs had a genetic defect that causes them to lose balance when running at top speed. Our guide told us these cheetahs have still tried to take down animals before and warned us to be still and quite when entering. Just as he was about to open the gate I noticed one of the cheetahs crawling over the ridge, low on its haunches, staring at us. I pointed it out to our guide and he slammed the gate closed and said that today was not a good day to meet the cheetah dubbed “bitch” because she was preparing to pounce on one of us. Dodged a bullet.
After quad biking we had light meal of muesli and yogurt with coffee while looking out onto the reserve. They offered to take us out on the reserve in a jeep at night if we stayed for the evening, but we were antsy to keep moving. The lodge was beautiful, and I hope to one day get my parents there for a vacation.
I will continue this post soon but right now I’m exhausted and have crazy amounts of laundry to do.
Love from a story where the best is yet to come,
A
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