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