The rest of September...

Since Spring Break, I’ve been very busy. I started going to a local hot yoga studio, completely changed my capstone project at Yabonga, went to the annual Hermanus whale festival, and got some visitors from the States!

I am still helping to run the theater workshops at Yabonga, but now my primary project is that I am writing a manual for the people who run the Orphans and Vulnerable Children’s Program (OVC) support group. I’m writing a booklet that covers all of the information about different support group topics, along with activities to help open discussions or teach about the different topics. The subjects range from grief & mourning for children to personal hygiene. It’s definitely a learning experience.

I’ve also gone to lots of cultural events in Cape Town over the past few weeks! I visited my first professional soccer game, with the Cape Town Ajax against the Sowetho Pirates. We dressed up in Ajax colors, painted our faces, and went crazy when the team won! It was a lot more fun than I had expected and I had a great time. We also went to the annual Human Rights Film Festival, where we saw a documentary called “I Was Worth Fifty Sheep.” This past weekend, we spent our Saturday at the Whale Festival, browsing the craft market, eating, and listening to live music. When we wandered towards the ocean, we could see whales’ tails out in the water.

The weekend before the festival, we had a township homestay in Langa. Two of us went to each homestay house, but they were all neighbors and friends, so we saw each other a lot through the weekend. My family was a lot of fun – I had a mother, brother, brother’s girlfriend, and nephew. Hlomla, our brother’s son, had his 8^th birthday the day that we arrived. We had a great time there. My homestay family lived in a little 4-roomed brick house, and they fed us more traditional Xhosa food than we could imagine. Saturday was Heritage Day in South Africa, and we spent it exploring some of the other townships. We visited Lookout Hill and the beach in Khayelitsha, and spent six hours at Mzoli’s Meat in Gugulethu. That was a wild experience, but definitely longer than I would have spent. Needless to say, I slept well that night.

Last week, my mom and Aunt Betsey came to visit. I’ve had a great time getting together with them, chatting about South Africa and showing them the things that I like here. We went to the Kirstenbosch Gardens and Mzoli’s, rode a minibus taxi, and spent many meals in beachside restaurants. It has definitely been a nice break from all of my cooking! This week, they spent several days on the Garden Route and today they came to stay in a guesthouse just a few minutes' walk from my house! I'm excited to spend a few more days together before their trip ends.

Spring Break on the Garden Route (a bit belated)

It’s been a long time since I last posted, so I’ll be posting a few blogs in quick succession to catch up! First of all, I have to post about spring break.

It happened, and it was fantastic! Six friends and I backpacked across the Garden Route (a highway that goes from Cape Town to Port Elizabeth). We used a backpacker’s bus called the Baz Bus that picked us up and dropped us off at the doors of our hostels. The hostels were so nice that they blew our minds – hammocks, internet, bars, bonfires at night, fully stocked kitchens… one even had a pool! They were all in great locations and provided meals and shuttles to the local activities for small fees. And all of this for about $15 a night. It was ridiculous.

We stopped in four towns along the route. First was Backpacker’s Paradise in Oudtshourn, where we did an adventure tour of the Cango Caves, and followed that up with a casual camel ride. We opted out of ostrich-riding and racing at the local ostrich farm because those things are terrifying looking.

Next, we spent three nights in Storms River (near Tsitsikamma) at Tube-n-Axe. We had a fantastic time getting to know the staff there, because it was our longest stay. The first day, we ziplined over waterfalls and abseiled, then I spent a relaxing afternoon reading in the hammock while a few girls from the group took on the largest commercial bungee jump in the world. I wasn’t in the mood to dive headfirst off of a bridge into a 96-story oblivion that day, but they said it was fantastic. The next day, myself and another girl hiked the Otter Trail in Tsitsikamma National Park, which is supposed to be one of the most beautiful hikes in South Africa. The trail ends at a massive waterfall, where we waded in freezing water and hung out on the rocks, enjoying the view. We had so much fun that we returned to Tsitsikamma the next day, to lounge on the little beach, and explore some of the other trails.

Our next stop was the Orange Elephant, right near Addo Elephant Park (near Port Elizabeth). We stayed for two nights in “The Hut”, where we had to light a small flame to heat the pipe to heat the water for our outdoor shower. It was a super cool, funky hostel, but it was definitely an adventure! We spent two nights and one full day there, which we spent doing a day-long safari in the park. We were later told that it was the best day for seeing animals that anyone could remember. We saw hundreds of elephants and kudu, three mudsnakes (apparently the most dangerous snake in Africa), tons of zebra, two water buffalo, meerkats, warthogs, and five of the nine lions in the whole park! It pretty much felt like we were living in the Lion King.

Our final visit was to Plettenberg Bay, which sort of reminded me of a small town in Cape Cod. We spent two nights at Albergo, which was right downtown and potentially the nicest hostel we visited. We spent the day that we arrived riding elephants in Knysna Elephant Park. In Plett, we discovered the best French pastry shop that exists outside of France, a great secondhand bookstore, and a lot of time at the beach. It was a little windy and chilly on our beach day, so we ended up leaving pretty early to find a restaurant with a nice view of the water, but I still had time to get a little sunburn.

The next morning we packed our bags and hopped on the Baz Bus for a 10 hour drive back to Cape Town. As with every Baz Bus ride, we met lots of other travelers, full of interesting stories, and we heard stories about dozens of other places that we want to visit now. If anyone wants to backpack sub-Saharan Africa sometime, just let me know and I’m there! Maybe a trip through Mozambique, Botswana, Zimbabwe, Namibia, and the Wild Coast of South Africa…? I’d be okay with that =)