Okay, it’s time to do this. The pictures are resized, ready for uploading. They need an accompanying post. Surely someone out there has a twinge of curiosity about my trip. This is it. I spent about two weeks in South Africa, and I did A LOT!
The first part of the trip was work, and it was totally exhausting. We started off in Johannesburg, and since we stayed in the suburbs, I never really got to see the city. I did, however, get to cuddle baby lions and watch cheetahs feed on hunks of meat at the Lion Park, among other things. Highlight of the Joburg trip. I’ve included a picture of the Indaba, our hotel, which was pretty fun. We lost internet every time it rained - I was soon learning how shoddy internet is in South Africa. Oh wait, I’m getting way ahead of my self - how about that plane ride?! From Atlanta, 8 or 9 hours to Dakar, Senegal, where we landed, but we didn’t get to deplane - so we basically got to get up and stretch our legs, allow security to ascertain that the flotation devices beneath our seats weren’t stolen by those getting off in Dakar and to spray some kind of aerosol into the air. And then another 8 or 9 hours to Johannesburg. Very long.
After a couple of days, we flew from Joburg to Durban. Durban’s totally sketchy, well, downright scary, but they sure have nice beaches. Our hotel was on the beach, and they were having a Roxy women’s surf competition while we were there. It made for good entertainment. I got a pretty decent tan in Durban, not what I expected to get in December. I can’t really remember a whole lot else from Durban, other than…the nice beach. Oh gosh, how can I forget the casino. The internet was solid in Durban, but we had a casino attached to our hotel for god’s sake! Every evening following dinner we headed down to the casino, where, with our exchange rate, we lived like kings…of the slots. There were some machines that accepted 2 cents. That’s 2 cents of a rand - not a dollar. At the current exchange rate of 10 rand to a dollar, I calculate that it’s two-tenths of one penny to us. Pretty incredible.
And then to Cape Town! Obviously I was getting pretty excited, because this was where the work part of my trip would conclude and my mini-vacation would begin. During the work part, we stayed in a hotel right at the base of Table Mountain and it was something heavenly to wake up and look at it every morning. When I checked out of that hotel, I checked into a hotel downtown right on Long Street. I stayed there exactly one night before my new friends, Kim and Werner picked me up for our weekend excursion.
Kim works with the South African partner that we work with, so we’ve developed a relationship over the year. Werner is her Afrikaaner husband of exactly 3 weeks! The night before we left, they invited me over for an ordinary braai (all homes seem to be equipped with built-in braais). That’s a BBQ to the layman. There was a kudu steak that was delicious, along with some chicken skewers and boerwors. I know I spelled that wrong, but it’s a type of sausage. I loved it, and am glad I had that typical South African experience in someone’s home.
Kim, Werner and I headed out for Knysna (pronounced nye-sna, or knee-sna if you’re Afrikaaner - I think I have that right) on Friday afternoon, where we stopped for dinner in Mossel Bai - that’s Bay to you and me non-Afrikaans speaking people! Afrikaans is defined as a “Dutch honky language” and it’s quite ubiquitous in South Africa. Very, very strange language to me and I already thought Dutch was weird. It’s like Dutch on steroids. But I digress - we stayed in a beautiful log cabin in Knysna.
The next day was packed. In the morning we took a canopy tour at Tsitsikamma Forest. This is where you go zip-lining through the trees. I think there were about 12 lines. It was pretty harrowing at first - not so much as the slide itself, but taking that first leap off and sending yourself on. The heavy gloves are for you to monitor your speed, but my attitude was - go all out. Worry about braking later. I had one or two exciting crash landings.
Regardless of how brave I was in the trees, it evaporated when we paid a visit at the World’s Highest Bungy, which we passed on the way to our next destination. The Bungy is set up on a bridge (as most are) that spans a huge ravine that empties to the ocean. There is a bar set up on one of the banks, where a live camera is setup over the jump site. We stopped in and watched a few jumps, and I’m quite sure one of the guys we saw wet his pants on the way down. I know I would have. After we watched a few and were back on our way, we stopped on the bridge to look down - which, stopping on the bridge is illegal and I could see why. Let’s say that Werner took a few liberties with the law, or at least for the sake of his American tourist-guest. Now, I am mortified of bridges, but for some reason, I jumped out of the car and looked down, even snapped a few pics. After I got in the car, I was sick to my stomach as to what I had just done. I could have died! Statistically impossible, but still - I could have been carried off that bridge, and died one of the worst deaths I can think of (I have been afraid of bridges and falling from them since a very young age).
Following my near-death experience, it was time to try another - driving on the wrong goddamn side of the road. Kim and Werner graciously laid their lives in my hands as Werner handed over the wheel to me. They drive on the left side of the road, but you drive from the right side of the car. Most vehicles in South Africa are standard, so you had to shift with your left hand instead. However, the gear order was the same - thank you for small miracles. When I was in Jamaica, it took every ounce of willpower to not lunge over to the wheel and throw the car back to the right side of the road. I had to resist the urge to do that in South Africa, as well. In fact, in Joburg, I tipped the passenger of the taxi van (otherwise known as a transfer) that dropped us off at a restaurant, thinking he was in the driver’s seat. I have no idea what he must have thought when I handed cash to him. I couldn’t understand why he resisted rolling down the window when I was waving cash at him. I mean, I never got used to it - people couldn’t understand why I was always standing at the driver’s side door - “Other side, Mel”, I can still hear Kim say. Again, I digress, but the driving experience was fun. I managed to get us to Plettenburg Bai before Werner took over again.
So this was all in the same day, but it wasn’t over - there were elephants to ride. We went to the Knysna Elephant Park where I had a somewhat private elephant walk with either Harry or Namib - can’t remember which. I think I rode an elephant at a circus once, but this couldn’t compare - the animals are huge! And dirty! They are caked with mud and quite filthy. It was a wonderful experience. I tried my best to get as clost to Africa’s Big 5 as I could (Want to know how to stump a South African? Ask them to name the Big 5).
The next day was Sunday and we had to leave our Knysna log cabin in the trees. We were headed for wine country, which is just north of Cape Town in the western Cape. No, we didn’t stop in the famed Stellenbosch. Our destination was Wellington, where we went horseback-riding through the vineyards. Again - it was something like an out-of-body experience, because the scenery was so stunning. It was a Pinch Me, I’m Dreaming afternoon. I had a hard time convincing the horse people that I’m a Texan and feel quite comfortable on horses.
That night, Werner and Kim deposited me back at the hotel where I was checked in earlier. The hotel was a boutique, artsy affair, where every room was different and had a theme. My first room had been the poetry room, and the second room was the Mentos room. There were about 5 million rolls of Mentos in there. It was also the only room that had a TV. Ahh, I love foreign TV. It seems like a waste to watch TV while in a foreign country, but I still like it. The last night I stayed in the Photo Booth room, which had about 6 million pictures on the wall that formed the face of a man. That particular room didn’t even have the luxury of a functioning outlet (actually, there was one that kinda worked, but you had to pull the bed away from the wall to access it). Let alone a hair dryer. No internet. The next day and my last day there, I took PUBLIC TRANSPORTATION aka THE BUS out to Canal Walk, a pretty nice, suburban mall, where I did xmas shopping for the family, along with some shopping for myself (can’t get over the awesome exchange rate + great stores). Now, I am very proud I took the bus. I was definitely the only white person at the bus station and on the bus. The man who sat next to me on the bus informed me that I was experiencing something most white Capetonians had not - ride the bus. It certainly wasn’t in the tourist guide. Sometimes I make small concessions with myself (especially on planes - “okay, I’m fine with this plane going down, so long as it crashes on the first part of the trip and not the end”) - I somehow bargained with myself that I wouldn’t be upset if I lost my possessions to theft if I saved the $80 roundtrip cab fare. I am actually totally surprised I came home with all my possesions and I wasn’t mugged. It’s not like I got myself into many dicey situations, but, well, Africa is a dicey situation. In the movie Blood Diamond, they say TIA (This is Africa) a lot, and you find yourself saying that a lot.
The next morning I headed to the Cape Town airport and began the long journey back home. Now this is the part in the blog where I wax poetic about my travel. A lot of South Africans asked me, “Are you surprised by the poverty? Were you shocked by it?” Actually, I wasn’t. Shantytowns, Favelas…different names in different countries, but same damn poor people. Seen that before. But what I was shocked by was the racism. I guess if I weren’t so ignorant about South African political history, I would have been more prepared. Apartheid didn’t end that long ago. But wow, there were too many situations that felt like 1950s America. The racial tension seemed to always exist, like the tablecloth on Table Mountain - somedays it was thicker than others. I don’t normally think of your average American as being radically progressive, but I definitely felt our attitudes toward racism (and homophobia, I should add) are vastly elevated above the South African attitudes. It will just take time.
Beyond that, South Africans are privileged enough to live in one of the most beautiful countries in the world - and they know it. In one small geographical area, you have forests, beaches, mountains…nothing I read in the tourist books prepared me for how stunning the country is. I can see why it’s one of the most popular tourist destinations in the world. The country is gorgeous, friendly and cheap. And still quasi-Western. The food was another story. NYC, Chicago, LA…and Austin all have incredible restaurants and so the bar is set high for the culinary experience. I was told the seafood would knock my socks off and I expected it to. And for that reason, I ordered it everywhere I went - and each time disappointed me. I don’t know if I had a lot of bad experiences, but I felt that, not only the flavors, but the preparation was bad. Almost all the shrimp I had was so overcooked, that it nearly disintegrated in my mouth - so who knows if it was nice and fresh or not. The mussels were generally disgusting - tasted like eating a sack of sea water. Mussels are like that if not cooked properly, which is why a lot of people do not like them, I guess. Fish was average, and one night I splurged on a crayfish, their equivalent of lobster (NOT crawfish!). A real waste of money, but by the production of its presentation and from other tables staring at us, you would have thought the server just brought us a bucket of truffles. The meat, although good, was rather flavorless, and definitely not sweet. There was a lot of squid, too, which was usually rubbery and inedible. I was very disappointed with the seafood, I think I already said that. The steaks did not disappoint - and boy were they cheap (okay, everything was cheap with our exchange rate). They’re called rumps there. I already talked about biltong, which I’ll dream about until the day I die (yes, I’m weird).
Well, I’m not sure what else there is. As if this post isn’t long enough. I purposely did not go to the top of Table Mountain, because I wanted to have that experience with Robert. I look forward to going back with Robert. South Africa is an amazing country - I would recommend it to anyone in the world. The Rainbow Nation is truly that - beautiful people with a variety of cultures, languages and food. It’s Western yet African at the same time. On that token, I look forward to experiencing more of Africa, although I’m sure that won’t happen for a very long time - it just doesn’t seem that safe. But wow, is it gorgeous.
Enjoy the pictures - I know I enjoyed the experiences that they captured.
