Rockin’ the Daisies in True Reiser Fashion

The weekend of October 8^th, 9^th, and 10^th there was a huge music festival on the Darling Wine Estate called Rockin’ the Daisies. It was a three-day festival full of lots of local music, food, and comedy. I, with a group of friends, rented a car and made the hour-ish trek to get out of Cape Town and go party in the winelands!

            Anyone who knows my parents knows that the idea of a music festival is one that is not new to them. Looking back at old pictures of George, you are immediately greeted with a flowing beard that would rival that of a Medieval Viking Warrior. Jac-E, on the other hand, wore her flared jeans and cute little crop tops with the unmistakable air of a flower child. Knowing this, I knew that my parents would nothing but support my choice to go party in a field for 2 days.

            When we got to Darling, we walked into the venue to meet some friends and were greeted by the site of at least 300 tents! It was amazing. Everywhere you looked there was a group of people either setting up or that had already set up their tent to stake their spots for the weekend. We arrived around 5 pm and it was clear that almost everyone had already begun their festivities for the night. There were sparkles all over people’s faces, guys walking around without shirts, and more bottles of wine than I think I’ve ever seen!

Tents, tents, and more tents!

The venue

            Once the sun had gone down, everyone headed into the actual venue where the music was. There were 3 different stages; the main stage had local rock artists and was totally out in the open are, there was a “trans-music” stage, which was inside of a huge bubble, and there was a “barn” stage that played a sort of folk-type music genre. A comedy stage was also set up in the same area. Paul and I stuck together for pretty much the whole night, bopping around from stage to stage the whole night. We fell in love with the music in the barn, and definitely got our hippie dance on.

            After a night full of dancing and head bobbing, the 5 of us that came in the same car (Judy, Ben, Paul, Meira, and myself) headed back to the car for some serious R&R. If you’ve ever tried sleeping in a compact car with 4 other people, you’ll know what I mean when I say the night was anything but restful and relaxing. The 3 girls tried to squeeze in the back with the seats down but after my feet fell asleep within 20 minutes I knew we were going to have to rearrange. We put the seats up, yet Judy decided she could fit in the trunk (don’t worry, it was the type of trunk that opens to the rest of the car). After trying to sleep in a space smaller than a shoebox, Judy headed into the back seat with Meira and I for a nice upright, leaning on the windows and each other, sweaty, mashed together sleep. Needless to say, I think everyone woke up in the morning on the wrong side of the bed (or steering wheel in Paul’s case).

Bed for a night

            The next morning we ventured to the “watering hole”, a gross lake filled with water the color of algae, to meet some friends and actually relax. We also made our way up to the main stage where some awesome bands played an array of really good music. Feeling exhausted and ready for a real bed, we all headed home pretty early that day to let the rest of our friends party their Saturday night away. 

Girls just want to have fun! Carolyn, Judy, and I rockin' the daisies away.

The Watering Hole- that balloon in the middle has a person inside!

National Braai Day

South Africa: the land of crazy holidays.

            Earlier this trip we celebrated Women’s Day with a day off of school, and now they give us National Braai Day. It’s actually officially called National Heritage Day, but has come to be known affectionately by locals as National Braai Day. To celebrate heritage, Natalie and I headed downtown to visit a few of the museums, as they were free this whole week.

The House of Parliament

            To start the day off we ate at one of the most delicious restaurants in Cape Town called Fork. It is a tapas restaurant that has some crazy good concoctions. After some morrocan meatballs, a pumpkin, hummus, and pine nut salad, and a couple glasses of wine, Nats and I were ready to start being cultural.

            First we went to the Iziko Slave Lodge Museum, which is in an old slave home that commemorates the slave trade all over the world. There was also a great Nelson Mandela exhibit that told all about Madeba’s life.

Stained glass mural inside the Slave Lodge Museum

            After that, Natalie and I headed to the District 6 Museum, which is an absolutely great place to visit. The museum itself is pretty small, but between all of the writings done by residents of District 6 and writings from visitors all over the world, one could end up spending hours reading everything! The floor is a covered in a map that was re-created by old residents, and each resident wrote where their house once stood in the area.

Inside the District 6 Museum- the memory cloth and original street signs from the neighborhood.

            To finish off the day properly we had a huge InterStudy braai where almost all 40 or so of us were outside on the porches cooking out. It was great and definitely made me feel like a local!

Better Late than Never- Fish Traps and Potjkie

Wow! It’s been over a month since I last wrote on my blog! I’m so sorry to all of you that are trying to keep up with my crazy adventures… school has been pretty tough but we’re coming into a month of finals so hopefully I should be able to write more often.

            I left off in the middle of my Spring Break, so that’s where I’ll pick up!

            For the second half of Spring Break we headed further north to Kosi Bay, a little rural town that is only about 15 minutes away from the border to Mozambique. Our backpackers was called Thoebeka and it was the most gorgeous little place! All of the pathways were made out of sticks, and it looked like Peter Pan’s tree house. The drive to the backpackers was a bit of an eye-opener to a side of Africa we hadn’t really seen yet. There were herds of cows and goats on the side of the road, usually with one guy to look after them all. All of the animals were extremely skinny (nothing like we’d see in the U.S.) and they would wander into the streets whenever they wanted. Also along the drive we’d see tons of school kids going either too or from school (we later learned that many of them have to walk up to 5 kms to get to school). Once we got there, we met the owners and the “manager” named Ino. The first night we just kind of hung out, ready to adventure in the morning.

Thoebeka Backpacker- Should be called Peter Pan's Treehouse

            The next morning, Marilyn (one of the owners) drove us down to the mouth of Kosi Bay. First we saw the famous Kosi bay fish traps, which are incredible. She gave us all sorts of information about how one family owns the trap and it can ONLY be passed onto the son of the owner, and down the generations. We got down to the lakes where we would be snorkeling, and it was the most gorgeous view! Marilyn told us how to get across the river and then let us on our own. We did all sorts of cool things, snorkeling up to where the fish traps were, had lunch on a huge sand dune, and then came back for some more snorkeling. It was amazing.

The Kosi Bay Fish Traps! So beautiful.

A view of where we went snorkeling.

Spring Break Tweak-Fest 2010

            For dinner, Marilyn had told us she would cook us a traditional meal called Potjkie (pronounced Poy-key), which turned out to be amazing. They take this huge black cauldron looking pot and layer potatoes, sweet potatoes, pumpkin, carrots, chicken, tomatoes, onion, and cabbage, and then pour in a bottle of cider and let it cook slowly for a couple hours. Ino cooked some Pap (maize meal and water) for us to have on the side. It was one of my favorite meals since being in South Africa. After dinner, we played some drinking games with a couple German students who were also staying there. Incidentally, we ended up meeting up with all of them a couple weekends later at the Waiting Room!

            The next morning we woke up and took a walking tour of the rural side of Kosi Bay. It was extremely humbling. The houses were dotted very sparsely all over the land, and pretty much each house had its own garden and land to farm. There were women working the fields dressed in long skirts and some times long sleeved shirts. The hike took a bit longer than expected, so we ended up having to hurry out of the backpackers to make our flight on time. Being the silly college kids we are, we didn’t fill up with petrol (gas) before our drive back to the airport and ended up having to drive on empty for about 60 kilometers! We rolled up all the windows, turned off the radio and the AC, and pretended to be skinny to try to conserve gas. We did finally make it to a gas station and then made it to the airport in time for our flight!

Our tour throughout rural Kosi Bay, and our guide telling us about what the crops are, and how they plant them!

Rural houses in Kosi!

            The trip was absolutely amazing and definitely woke all of us up to the reality of how a lot of Africans live their lives. Cape Town is truly its own part of Africa- the Europe of Africa as everyone says. 

A man carrying reeds for thatching a roof.

In the Land of Swimsuits, No Shoes, and Booze- St. Lucia

When those of us from the states picture Spring Break, we imagine huge crowds of attractive twenty-somethings ready to boogy down with other drunk twenty-somethings. Well my friends, my spring break was not much different. I went with a group of four other people (Grace, Natalie, Paul, and Paul’s sister Evie). We tried our hardest to keep costs down but adventures up. To do this, we decided to go to St. Lucia and Kosi Bay, which are both up the eastern coast of South Africa, just south of the border with Mozambique. Naturally, as these places are famous for their amazing scuba diving and animal spottings, we were in.

After a horribly early flight to Durban, we started on our way to St. Lucia. Anxious to adventure, we tried to stop everywhere we could see that might have been something exciting. After the first stop to the non-existent Craft Fair, we decided to stop for a sign that read “Reptile City”. After paying a whopping R30, we were greeted with skinks, snakes, emus, peacocks, crocodiles, turkeys, birds, and so much more. Upon walking around for about ten minutes, we were all a bit burnt out from the animals, and Paul- the only “man” on the trip- was too scared by the snakes, so we decided to head out. Adventure #1 complete.

The crocodiles at Reptile City

We got to St. Lucia and found our backpackers, ran in for two seconds to put our stuff down, then went immediately to find more adventures. We followed a sign to a Crocodile and Hippo cruise, paid for a ride that would take off in a couple hours, and went to find food. On the menu was a traditional African mean called Bunny Chow, so of course Grace and I had to split that. They take a loaf of bread, hollow out the middle (like the bread bowls we are used to) and fill it with a delicious curry meal with veggies, meat and amazing seasonings. It was awesome. Then it was time for the cruise, so we headed down to the water to hop on the boat. Within the first 10 minutes, we saw a herd of about 15 hippos, and 1 baby hippo! Throughout the trip we saw at least 50 hippos, maybe 15 crocodiles, water buffalo, kingfishers, and other birds, each of which the boat driver was not afraid to get us up next to. Wild.

Hippos! Just the first of many...

The next morning we woke up for another adventure to the beach. Upon reaching the beach, we saw waves that were at least double our height. Being the bushy-tailed kids we are, we ran straight in and got clobbered by every single wave. It was crazy. After the beach, two of the workers from the backpacker invited us to go to the Ski Boat Club with them to get drinks. We headed over, ordered a few ciders, and kicked back to watch even more wildlife. There were tons of monkeys around the town, and we quickly learned that there is not much that they are afraid of. One monkey walked over to the restaurant, looked around to make sure no one was watching, then ran into the kitchen. About a minute later we heard some silverware crashing to the ground and saw the monkey running out with three bananas in hand. After drinks we went to the river to watch the beautiful African sunset, then headed out to Key West (how aptly named for Spring Break!) for some drinks with friends.

The huge waves we played in!

The monkeys who stole the bananas

Grace, Natalie, and I at sunset.

My new friend, the dungbeetle.

To describe our last day in St. Lucia will be almost as hard as explaining to my parents why I was drunk the first time they caught me drinking. And probably includes the same amount of alcohol. We had planned a safari with our backpackers without knowing who our guides would be. We were told to meet in the lobby at 8am. Knowing we were on Africa time, we arrived in the lobby around 8:15. Fifteen minutes later, one of the guys from the bar the night before (Kevin) showed up asking if Darren (the other guy from the bar the previous night) was up yet. We shook our heads unknowingly as Kevin instructed us to go eat breakfast before the safari. By 9am, we had ordered our breakfast right as Darren came stumbling up to the restaurant with a Hunter’s cider in hand and eyes that barely opened. We noticed that he didn’t have shoes on his feet, and they looked as if he had not worn shoes since Before Christ. Over breakfast, conversation consisted of Darren explaining to us the fact that he doesn’t wear shoes and simply will not go places that make him wear them. At 10am, we paid the bill and headed into the Land Rover that Darren told us Kevin had to drive because he was going to be drinking. 10:03am and we are stopped outside a grocery store to get lunch items (or so we thought). 10:10am Darren and Kevin come outside the store with 8 six-packs of Savanna Dry and 8 six-packs of Black Label. 10:12am Darren is cracking open the first Black Labels and handing them out around the bar. 10:15am Darren is asking Kevin if they remembered the food. By the time we got to the game park (iSimangolo- meaning a place of wonders and miracles) we were already one beer deep. The moment the Land Rover crossed over the gates to the park, Darren somehow became a new person and immediately started rattling off facts about the park, the animals inside, and so much more. The first half of the safari consisted of Springboks, Red Dykers, and Dungbeetles- nothing too exciting.

Grace getting ready for snorkeling in Cape Vidal.

After this, we stopped to go “snorkeling” in Cape Vidal. Knowing this was supposed to be one of the best scuba diving places in the world, we were all psyched. Upon arrival, though, we realized our snorkeling trip would consist of us swimming out as far as we were able to, fighting off the huge waves, and seeing no coral reefs. Well, it was time for another beer. We were in the water for about 30 minutes then came in for lunch. During lunch, we learned all about one another over more cider. We now know the story as to why Kevin only has ½ of an ear (it was bitten off in a bar fight), how Darren came to work in a backpacker, and so much more. The second half of the safari was a bit more successful in that we spotted a leopard and a rhino! 

If you look close enough, to the left of the tree you'll see the spots of the leopard- he got camera shy.

Upon our return to the backpackers, we realized that our original plan of driving to Kosi Bay would not be a safe option, so Darren offered us a free night. We all were asleep by 4:30pm, woke up for a quick dinner around 8pm, then passed out yet again. In the morning we would be off to Kosi Bay!

A springbok!

The beautiful Cape Vidal on not such a beautiful day.

The rhino that would not get out of the road to let our car pass! He was on a mission.

Water buffalo that was ready to charge at us!

The True Meaning of Football

Before coming here, I had prepared myself for a new world of sports by watching Invictus and following most of the World Cup. Rugby and soccer; two sports Hunter and dad had never been particularly interested in watching, and thus two sports that I myself never got into. I have been a football, baseball, and basketball girl my whole life. I had no idea that sports would play such a huge part of my life here.

To begin, it seems that every game the Springboks or Bafana Bafana play elicits crowds larger than any team in the States. The Springboks are the country’s national rugby team, and Bafana Bafana, the national soccer team. While we haven’t been able to see either team in the flesh, we have gone to popular sports bars around town to watch the games. We went to watch a friendly match between Bafana and Ghana, which we ended up winning, and the bar we went to was absolutely packed; we had to wait until half time to get a table. The Springboks are in a tournament currently, but not doing as well as hoped. They did just beat the Australian Wallabys today, though.

Partying at Forester's (lovingly called Four-y's by the locals) for the Bafana Bafana friendly match with Ghana (we won 1-0)

The games we have gone to see, though, have been amazing as well. Western Providence is the rugby team for the area that we live in. InterStudy paid for us to go see one of those games, which was really fun. Last night, Judy, Paul, and I went to see the first Friday soccer game since apartheid in the new World Cup Stadium. We made friends with a local in the beer queue (what a great place to meet someone!) who told us that since apartheid was instated, the country stopped Friday soccer matches, which had always been extremely popular. This was the first Friday game since then, so it was huge. It was a double header with the first game between Vasco de Gama (Cape Town), and the Pirates (Johannesburg). The second game was between Ajax (Cape Town), and a team in Blumfontaine. Walking up to the stadium, the sound of vuvuzelas is absolutely unmistakable. We had of course brought our own, and on the walk toward the stadium were taking lessons from the locals. By the second game, I had perfected my skills so much that a local sitting in the row in front of me was impressed and cheering me on! The game was so much fun. I can tell that I will quickly become as much of an enthusiast about soccer as I am about basketball.

Judy and I outside the World Cup Stadium in Green Point, vuvuzelas in hand.

Inside the beautiful Green Point Stadium!

Part of my interest in sports comes from one of my classes, though, too. In my gender and development class, we are learning about different ways of ensuring gender equality. It is clear that in South Africa, women have much different societal roles than men. Most of the kids in my class think its weird when girls play football, rugby, or really any sport other than netball (of which I have yet to learn). We are learning about the ways that sport can increase society’s knowledge of the role that women can and should play in the world. Over the course of this class, it has become clear to me that gender roles in South Africa are much different than in the States. What I have come to appreciate is the role that sport can play in uniting a people, whether it be a country that was once divided by race, or that of lessening the divide between genders.  

Whales, Paintballs, Gelato, Oh My!

The program that I am in South Africa with, InterStudy, planned a weekend getaway for our group to a town called Hermanus. Not knowing much about this town, I was excited about the fun times that the group would provide us. We left Friday afternoon, and drove for about an hour and a half to get to the backpacker we would stay at for 2 nights. Upon our arrival, the backpacker made us a traditional braai with a salad. The night was pretty mellow other than the crazy Dutch guy that pretended to be the DJ of the night, playing songs that he “wanted us to dance to”.

Friends at the Hermanus Backpacker!

The next morning we woke up to go sea kayaking. To do this, either 1 or 2 people get in a kayak and paddle out to sea. The fact that I tend to get a bit seasick on anything that rocks didn’t damper my mood. Charlotte and I hopped into our kayak and played the game of teamwork. Our guide (who would later in the month make a stop to Helena 5 for a casual date with Elizabeth) took us all along the coast to marvel at the beauty of Hermanus from the ocean. Here, we learned that the white foam that dots the ocean is not from pollution or a dirty ocean, but rather a result of kelp cleaning itself. The white foam took me back home, as I decided that an appropriate name would be “The Ocean's Snow”.

Here enters the gelato. Gelato Mania was a little shop right on the water that served the most amazing gelato at an advertised 93 calories a scoop. Needless to say, gelato enters the picture more often than I’d like to admit to.

Next, we had the opportunity to go whale watching. The boat ride to find the whales lasted about 30 minutes. Once we found the sweet spot, though, we really hit the whale lottery. There were a total of 7 whales all in one spot, all playing around the boat. At one point, 2 whales swam under the boat, and reappeared literally 10 feet from us. It was an absolutely amazing sight.

The whales were SO close to us

A whale breeching-- quite a rare sight, but this morning we saw about 15 whale breeches!!

That night, after another wonderful meal from the Hermanus Backpackers, we headed out for a night on the town. We went to a little restaurant we had heard of that had a Bob Marley cover band. After a bottle of wine and of course a round of Malva Pudding, Grace and I were feeling brave enough to dance our little hearts out. The best part of the night was when the guy who had been watching us dance came over to me to ask me for a dance. At this point, One Love was making its second appearance of the night, and he and I went for a spin. What a dance that was.

My own living Bob Marley

The next morning, a few brave souls went shark cage diving, but a few others and I decided to stay back. Niko, one of the backpacker employees, took us on a little hike up to a waterfall, and then to the beach. It was a relaxing morning, which we had to of course follow up with another round of gelato.

For the last part of the trip, we became true warriors. We had the opportunity to go ATVing and paintballing. My group went ATVing first, which turned into one of the funniest moments on the trip. This is when Judy, the resident New York hipster of the trip, had her proudest moment. Before getting on the ATVs, Judy had warned us all that despite having her driver’s license, she hadn’t driven in about 3 years and didn’t really know how to drive. We all shook it off deciding that if a 7 year old can play Mario Kart, a 20 year old should be able to turn the handles enough to stay on a road. Oh, were we mistaken. Within 30 seconds of putting her foot on the gas, Judy had been unable to steer (straight), and ended up on the side of the path in the bushes.

The amazing landscape of Hermanus

The waves were getting a bit hectic...

Now the pain starts. Upon gearing up in some of the least attractive brown suits, we were handed guns filled with hard paint bullets. The marshall told us that because we had come at the end of the day, some of the professionals wanted to play, and that luckily, they would be our opponents. After 2 loooooooong games of paintball, I had about 4 huge bruises, but an awesome story to go along with them.

Here, we left Hermanus behind and headed back to the real world of school and work.

African Word of the Day: “swak”, a slang term meaning “weak” or not cool. In America, we might use the term to describe a bad play in football- “That play was swak.”

The Marvels of the Garden Route

I'd like to claim that the reason I haven't been blogging is because I've been supremely busy with nothing other than school work. While this is partially true, I've also just been busy being in South Africa in general.
The first thing I need to catch the world up on was my trip up the Garden Route. This is the eastern coast of South Africa, and all in all we travelled a total of about 10 hours up to reach Port Elizabeth. South Africa celebrates its women once a year with a holiday called Women's Day, which meant that UCT had a 3 day weekend. With about 14 other InterStudy kids, we rented 3 cars and decided to get outta' Cape Town.

The view on the drive there.

The first day we travelled to Mossel Bay, which is about a 6 hour drive. Here, we stayed at the Park Lodge House Backpackers. It was absolutely marvelous, with an outdoor "tribal circle" where we were all able to hang out. This night consisted of banging bongo drums, and meeting some fellow European travelers. The hilarity of this trip came out of our friend, and resident Dad, Ross Caton. As the main planner of the trip, we were all reliant on him for just about everything. In sharing a dorm room with him that night, we all found out about the infamous Sleep Sack. This is a thin sheet that Ross slides his body into before bed, so that he may sleep on the backpacker beds with, free from athlete's foot and STD's as he would explain to us.

Carolyn, Ross Daddy, and Grace in the tribal circle.

Ross in the sleep sack. Ross, we promise they wash the sheets!

The next day we traveled to Bloukrans, also known as the highest bungee jumping bridge in the world. I, along with 11 other adventurous souls, suited up to jump off. This is the most thrilling thing I've ever done in my life. The walk to the jump is probably the most scared I've ever been. The bridge runs over this 213 meter (700 feet) drop, and there is a rickety little cage set up under the bridge that walks you out to your doom. The whole walk I was trying to look down to prepare myself for what I would be looking at as I jumped straight down. A group of about 20 people goes up at one time, and one by one you jump off the bridge, then hang upside down for about 1 minute until a man comes to rescue you. I won't even try to describe the feeling of jumping off that bridge. I was completely calm and collected (with adrenaline pumping through my veins) up until that last couple seconds when the men are counting you down with your toes hanging over the edge. Then you jump.

About to take the plunge...

That's me!!!!

After Bloukrans, we went to Jeffery's Bay for another stop on the Route. This night we went to a lovely dinner right on the beach, where we all discovered Malva Pudding. Absolutely life changing. The soft, spongy, chocolate-y dessert, paired with the white chocolate warm syrup that flows over top of it will make any person melt. Wow. After what I loving refer to as "The Best Meal Since Africa", we went back to our backpacker called Ubuntu. The guy who ran Ubuntu was almost as wonderful as the malva pudding I had enjoyed earlier in the night. Of course I couldn't resist the tall, blonde, surfer dude who toured us around the backpackers, who also had the most adorable dogs. Then of course, in order to fully capitalize on being in South Africa and on the beach, Paul, Grace, Ben, Lill and I decided to take a late night trip to sleep on the beach. Because I was scared of getting kidnapped, though, I decided it would be smart to sleep with my drivers license in my sock so that the police would be able to positively I.D. me. Luckily, the worst thing that happened to me was a head full of sand.

My girls! We either share appetizer and dinner or malva pudding. Both good choices. 

The next day, 2 cars of friends decided to go to an animal reserve. There were tons of lions of all ages. We payed R60 (about $9) to play with baby lions which was absolutely amazing. Driving through the reserve se saw Springboks (the South African rugby team is named after these guys), zebras (pronounced zeh-bra), water buffalo, and giraffes. In one day I got 2 of the Big Five checked off my list of animals to see.

Just some new best friends. 

Then we drove to Port Elizabeth, which because we hadn't planned to do anything here was less than eventful. We backtracked this day to go to the Tube'N'Ax Backpackers in Storm's River. The Tube'N'Ax was the most amazing place. They had a bartender working, and our group stayed up all night playing drinking games, with Thumper being the main game of choice. The drive back home the next day was a long one, but our car decided to take a couple detours to adventure through a cheese house, great ocean look-out, and an illegal trip through some beautiful yellow flowers.

Devin and I at Port Elizabeth

The beautiful ocean view and the wonders of a self-timing camera.

Ah, the joy of life. And the illegality of this picture...

African Word of the Day: "hectic", which locals use to describe just about anything that is hard, crazy, or slightly faster-paced than normal. I have also had a professor use this term to describe the process of photosynthesis.