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.
