We had our “fall” break trip last week. It was a 9 day CSB/SJU group excursion to Cape Town…and then 10 of us flew to Durban then 6 of us drove to the Drakensberg Mountains while the rest stayed in Durban. Cape Town was a lot of fun. We had a tour guide who planned everything down to the last minute basically. We got to do and see so much but had little free time to explore. Here is an outline of what we did the whole trip: (warning…do I even need to say it….it is long J)
Fri. (April 22nd): bus to Tsitskama where people went Bungee Jumping at world’s highest commercial jump…me and a few others watched and took pictures…I was terrified just to look at the bridge….later we went for a hike to a beautiful waterfall. We jumped into some frigid water in a pool at the base of the falls….I have never been in colder water…I seriously started to hyperventilate because I could not breathe
Sat. (April 23rd): Spent night in Guguletu Township outside of Cape Town…. We first went to the home of Mama Knox who runs the homestay program. It was started with 2 mamas and now there are 14. They all live within 1 mi of each other. Lindsay and I stayed with Mama Nosichele, she said we could call her Ellen. Her house was pretty clean and quite nice. It was small but not that small. It was nicer than I expected. Right away when we got there she turned on her tv (maybe she assumed we as westerners would want to watch tv) and we watched American Idol. Ha! We talked with her a bit and she gave us a cooking lesson. We learned how to make Stavey mealie pap. It is a lot like mashed potatoes. We also had chicken, gravy, and butternut squash. It was so good.
Sun. (April 24th): This was definitely the weirdest Easter of my entire life! A few of us went to the Catholic Mass and then we joined the group at a multi-cultural, non-denominational church service. It was pretty cool. They had some Magis like songs, interpretative dance, the “Everything” LifeHouse skit!!!, and a sermon. Then we went to lunch at Mzoli’s, which is supposedly one of Cape Town’s greatest restaurants. It was crazy and chaotic. They brought out huge buckets of meat and it was basically a free for all. They also had “fat cakes” which is pretty much deep fried bread. Overall, it was just too overwhelming for me. After lunch we went to Robben Island, which is where Nelson Mandela was in prison for 17 of the 27 years he was in prison. Going to prison on Easter was quite interesting. We went to a nice restaurant for dinner and I ordered some African cuisine. I tried Couscous with a cucumber, carrot, onion, green pepper, and tomato sauce on it. It was delicious!
Mon. (April 25th): The breakfasts at our hotel were awesome! You could order omelets, French toast, eggs, sausage, etc. Today we climbed Table Mountain….there was a super difficult rock scramble and I wasn’t feeling the greatest. There was a group of about 6 of us who aren’t in the best shape who took the Cable Car up to the top. We all took the long way to hike down the mountain. It was a chilly, rainy, foggy day. It wasn’t the greatest day for a hike but it was still fun.
Tues. (April 26th): We drove to Cape Point today…it is said to be the Southern most tip of Africa. It was really pretty. We then went to a place that had a lot of African penguins….fyi…for some reason penguins remind me of my brother. Sorry Jacob, but you would make a good penguin. J Then we went to Groot Constantia Winery where we tasted 5 types of wine. I found out I am not a huge fan of wine.
Wed. (April 27th): A group of 10 of us flew to Durban bright and early. We explored a bit of the city. We went to the botanical gardens, went to an Art center, the Natural Science Center, and then to TacoZulu for dinner. Our backpacker was a bit sketchy…it was in not the greatest area of town and it had quite a
few cockroaches. It was an interesting night, but now it makes a great story.
Thurs. (April 28th): Lindsay, Taylor, and I started to drive to Drakensberg. We got to our backpacker and had a very chill day. It was in such a pretty area. There were mountains galore.
Fri. (April 29th): All I wanted was a box of Kleenex, some orange juice and a bed but instead I climbed a mountain. I felt soooo sick. The mtn we climbed was 3121 m. It was a 2 hr drive from our backpacker. The climb consisted of a zig zag portion, then the beginning of a loop, a 45 min. difficult rock scramble, picnic lunch on top, walk to waterfall, rest of loop, down creepy ladders, and then back down zig zag portion. We left at 7:30 am and returned around 9pm. It was an exhausting day but so worth it. The views were indescribable. Tugela Falls is the water fall we climbed to. It is the 2nd tallest waterfall in the world and the tallest in Africa at 948 m. The first tallest is in Venezuela. The ladders we had to go down were terrifying. The 1st was 9 m and the 2nd was 23 m. They were metal and strapped to the side of the mtn…I just about died. The hike was sooo pretty. It is probably one of my favorite places in South Africa, potentially in the world. It is beautiful.
Sat. (April 30th): I WENT SKYDIVING! LIKE JUMPED OUT OF A PLANE FROM 12,000 FT! See separate blog post J
After skydiving, we hung out around the backpacker. There was a women’s music festival going on called the Smoking Dragon. It was a huge hippie fest. …very interesting. It was fun to look at the different tents. Later at night they had some interesting music, a different, yet still pretty cool light show, and an awesome fire show (probably would not have been legal in the US at a festival).
Sun. (May 1st): We drove 14.5 hrs home to PE. We saw lots of goats, cows, baboons, and dogs on the roads on our way home. Overall, this trip was so awesome. I loved it!
No comments:
Post a Comment