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.