Sorry

Been a very, very rough couple of days. I came for an education, and I'm getting it. 

The Garden Route: A Journey For The Books, Volume I "A Vigorous Kloof"

We arrive in Wilderness a little sweaty, but no worse for the wear. If you ever come to South Africa, do not expect air conditioning.  If you ever ride the Baz Bus, open the window and stick your head out.  The hostel that we stayed in at Wilderness (that's the actual town's name- isn't it funny?) was called Fairy Knowe and was RIDICULOUS. It's owned by a woman named Monica, and it's a series of colonial houses from the 1800's with hardwood floors and thatched roofs. The bar (every hostel has one, alcohol is big money) is a tiki hut, manned by a rather effeminate Brazilian in his mid-twenties. 

I went for a run (read here "casual jog") with Alex and did a little exploring of Wilderness. It's a cute little place. We ended up in some dude's backyard and he yelled at us. Sorry, man. Back to Fairy Knowe. Olivia and I took outdoor showers, Monica cooked us a delicious dinner, and we roasted marshmallows around a campfire with some Englishmen and a couple of Germans. They were fascinated by the concept of a s'more. Maybe because the only marshmallows we had were passion fruit flavored. 

  For all of those who Skype called me that night, you know I went to bed really early. The beds were so comfortable, and I was mildly freaked out by a beetle that I saw in the hallway and wanted to forget about it, so I went to bed. It was a huge, crunchy brown beetle right out of the Lion King. You know, the scene where Timon and Pumba eat bugs? Just like that, except in the hallway right outside of my room. I've been making a lot of Lion King comparisons lately. I wish I had a picture of that damn beetle. 

   The next morning we woke up to a fabulous breakfast by Monica and put on our bathing suits in preparation for kloofing. What is kloofing, you ask? Singularly the greatest outdoor sport ever invented. EVER. Think of a river with a lot of boulders and cliffs. Throw in the occasional waterfall. Put on a wetsuit. Swim through that river, climb over the boulders, and float down the waterfalls. That's kloofing, an Afrikaans word that means something similar to canyoning. Kloofing was the best time ever. You’ll notice, if you look at the picture above, that there’s only one guy with us besides Paul. That’s Isaac, there in the white in the center. Poor Isaac had a difficult kloof. He lost his shoes, lost his glasses, and was wearing a miserably tight wetsuit. Poor Isaac. He was a good sport. 

Paul, our guide, was great. He was clearly annoyed by our loud and girly Americanness, but I think he secretly enjoyed it. Maybe not, though, because at one point he decided to throw rocks at giant old trees along the river that were filled with bee metropolises.  Thanks, Paul. Olivia and Erin got stung on he head and the rest of us dived into the water for cover. I think Paul himself got stung a couple times. Kloofing jerk. 

After kloofing, we removed our wetsuits and gratefully ate some cookies provided to us by the kloofing company. We stopped at one of the two ATM’s in Wilderness, paid Paul his due, and headed back to Fairy Knowe to gather up our things and catch the Baz Bus to Knysna (nys-na). Oh God. Knysna. Wait until you hear about Knysna. 

The Garden Route: A Journey For The Books

You might have been wondering where I’ve been. Delinquent on the blog posts, I know, but I promise to write with some regularity now that my life has some semblance of, well, regularity. This past week, I’ve been backpacking across the garden route, which is a series of little towns along South Africa’s southern coastline. It was an incredible time for a multitude of reasons. Lots of firsts, lots of food, lots of interesting people. It might take me a couple posts to chronicle, but I’ll do my best. Let’s start at the beginning. Sometime last week, in the midst of a ubiquitous iced coffee at Cocoa Wahwah, I was talking to a group of girls on my program about what to do in the last week before classes start. It has been so much fun exploring Cape Town, but we were all in agreement that it would be fun to see some more of the country. Lindsay and Erin, two brave and fabulous girls on my program, planned a trip along the garden route. They took care of everything from transportation to hostels to activities that we could do along the way. It sounded awesome, so Olivia, Brittany, and I decided to jump right in. We went to STA Travel and booked our tickets on the Baz Bus, which is South Africa’s backpacker bus. It was pretty inexpensive and easy to book, so that was good. I’m a big fan of the Baz Bus. Fast forward a couple of days. I pack up my little carry-on suitcase and throw some granola bars in a bag. It’s about 7am and my roommate Ian and I head out into the early morning, ready for our backpacking adventure. We meet up with the rest of the Upper Liesbeek crew and head over to the hostel where we are to meet the Baz Bus. Between the Upper Liesbeek and Osborne Road groups, we were 13 people all together. It was a lot of people to travel together, but it ended up working out really well. We waited at a hostel in the Observatory neighborhood for about 45 minutes before the Baz Bus arrived. We really had no idea of what to expect. The bus rolled up with a little trailer behind for our luggage, and our excited driver Sam popped out and helped us throw all of our giant bags in the back. The Baz Bus is colorful and well run. It seats about 20 people and goes door-to-door, bringing travelers to most of the backpackers (hostels) along South Africa’s coast, even venturing into Kruger and Mozambique. We pile in and Jackie, our resident hippie, pops in some awesome reggae. We’re off to Wilderness, the first town on our epic journey. We hit four towns in total- Wilderness, Knysna, Plettenberg Bay, and Storms’ River- with some interesting pit stops on the way. I figure the most logical and relatively obnoxious way to chronicle them will be in installments. Epic.

Blackouts

I don’t know how well it’s been publicized in the States, but there’s been something of a power crisis here. In order to conserve power, the South African government has decided to instate two-hour intervals of cut power. There’s a schedule of when they are, and they can last anywhere from 20 minutes to two hours, depending. It seems that this still isn’t enough. On Friday, power cut off at about 9pm and came on around 4am. This blackout wasn’t planned, and it’s got a lot of people thinking that there is worse to come.  

At 9pm on Friday, I was getting ready to go to dinner and just finishing my makeup. That was the day we climbed Table Mountain, so no one wanted to cook. The lights flickered twice, and then everything cut off. It’s interesting how you come to rely on certain things; constant power, constant water, clean clothes. It’s also interesting how a person responds when forced to do without these things.  I never really thought about the importance of power before, and how life must go on in the midst of non-functional traffic lights and refrigerators.  

      

As I walked out the door, still adventurous and hungry enough to catch a cab into town for dinner, the city was quiet and eerie. The stars were bright and poignant in the absence of street lamps. Shops closed, and people took to the streets. We felt a sense of danger in the pervading helplessness; what, in realistic terms, could be done? We ate   dinner in a candlelit cafe in the suburb Observatory. While content with our intimate experience in this small restaurant, we waited with a kind of impatience for the return of light, and thus, security.  

Dinner finished without a hitch, thanks to a talented and resilient waitress, and we walked to a street corner to wait for a cab to take us home. Traffic was crawling. With the loss of traffic lights, there was no regulation, and no one was forced to stop.  We stood, watching these cars go by, looking at each one with a wish that it had come to take us back to our apartments. As our cab finally turned around a corner, our exasperated driver Al shook his head in disbelief. He felt a sense of helplessness similar to and perhaps worse than ours. As the outage shut down factories and interfered with manufacturing, with vendors, with municipalities and homes, it affected Al’s livelihood and his ability to provide for his family. But what could he do? What could anyone do but accept the situation as a lesson in resilience and forge ahead with life as usual?   

 

A planned blackout occurred yesterday around 3:30pm, as I was putting my clothes into a dryer in a laundromat down the street.  As the lights went out, I placed my soggy clothes into a plastic bag they offered me. I trudged home with a load twice as heavy as the one I came with, watching the steady stream of cars crawling past blank traffic lights. I hung my things on hangers and self-fashioned clotheslines across my apartment and balcony, hoping that they would dry in time and not blow away.  They remain wet, waving in the breeze that comes off the mountain. I know they’ll smell fresh when they’re dry, and I’ll feel a sense of accomplishment, if not ingenuity. I also know that my inconveniences, however grand they may seem, are slight in comparison to those who are sent home from work early, or cannot buy food for their families because all of the stores have closed. 

With the World Cup looming ahead in 2010, South Africa stands to gain so much. But as she struggles to rise to the challenges set forth, her weaknesses begin to show.  It will be interesting to see how the power crisis will be addressed by the government, if it is at all. Will FIFA choose another location, thus taking from South Africa a huge opportunity for income and positive publicity, which she needs so desperately in the midst of her growing pains? I look to how the country’s people demonstrate their adaptability, ever hopeful for a tomorrow that is full of light.     

  

Mountains, Oceans, Divisions

While many of my American friends search for a bar in South Africa that's broadcasting the Super Bowl, I'm sitting in my bed. Quite tired. Head spinning.  I've been so busy.

The past three or four days have been a whirlwind. It's pretty hard to remember what was when and where, I've been all over the city and beyond. On Thursday, we went to the District 6 Museum, which is a museum in downtown Cape Town that tells the story of some 60,000 people who were forced from their homes in the District 6 neighborhood in Cape Town into planned slums as a result of apartheid city planning legislation. Honestly, it was a really difficult concept for me to wrap my head around. You got to see these pictures of people who had lived in these homes all of their lives, only to be forced out for the color of their skin.  The homes were supposed to be demolished for new high rises and residential complexes, but they never were. They stay there today, deserted, as a kind of national monument, nestled under Table Mountain.

Speaking of Table Mountain, I climbed it.

Yep. Climbed it.

On Friday, our entire Interstudy group scaled Table Mountain. All 60 of us, some sorority girls, some plump hippies from UVM, some relatively out-of-shape Columbia beatniks, climbed the mountain.  We started out in what's called the Constantia Nek, a trail that begins in a little wine suburb not far from where I live. From there, it was all upwards.  There were beautiful views the whole way, and there were intervals that were pretty strenuous, but we all made it. On our way up, we got to swim in a dam that is actually Cape Town's water supply (they're all drinking my sunscreen right now) and it was really cool because the water looked really dark and blue until you got close, when it became apparent that it was actually a deep red color. It was the coolest looking thing. I don't know why it was red; something about copper deposits. Eh. Nature's mysteries, I guess. It was really cool, once reaching the summit, to be able to see all of the Western Cape. Table Mountain is, after all, the highest point in Cape Town, a city of mountains.  Walking down was treachery.  You walked down a hollowed down gorge on ledges and cliffs that were about 3 feet thick. A misstep and you would fall thousands of feet. What's worse, the path was made of small boulders and rocks. Walking directly downhill for hours and hours on boulders and ledges is painful and scary, but a cool thing to be able to say you have done. I'm all for adventurousness. When it is followed by lots of sleep and a warm shower, that is.  

The day after summiting Table, we went to the Two Oceans Aquarium (this is for you, Julie). I hadn't been to an aquarium in years and years, and I forgot how cool they were. This one was especially awesome, because it's a lot of fish that were caught locally. Weird to think, since there's not much more that trout and the occasional crawfish in the roaring springs of Nazareth, PA.  Really wanted to see a Great White, since they are very, very common in False Bay, but no such luck. Guess they're a little big for the aquarium shark tank.  It was kind of a lazy day, since my legs were still screaming from the hike the day before. That was good, though, I think.  

Today, Sunday, was an awesome day.  I was skeptical, since it was our first day of IAPO orientation, which is the international student orientation that UCT does.  There were a good amount of us, perhaps 400, and they took us all to the Cape of Good Hope.  We went in tour busses, which I was initially not very happy about, but it was nice to look at things in a fresh and more touristy perspective, because tours are really good about history and events and things like that. The drive down through Hout Bay was the most gorgeous thing I have ever seen.  I feel like I say that every day about something.  Mountains and mountains above a misty green ocean; it looked like what I imagine New Zealand must look like.  

We stopped midday at a little shanty town called Ocean View, which is a coloured (it's an actual term here for a race) town on the suburbs of the city. It is clear that the town understood poverty, and as the tour busses pulled through, children chased them in excitement.  We were served pretty traditional barbecue food in a big gymnasium type of place, and a bunch of the local kids came in and performed for us. One girl sang Celine Dion and Shania Twain, while smaller kids break danced and the crowd of international students cheered them on. It was clear that they were really excited for us to be there. Everyone had a really good time.

On to Cape Point, we passed a bunch of desolate fields where fynbos bushes had been set to burn. We passed literally acres and acres of scorched earth. It is also a great habitat for baboons, which I was dying to see. Only one short glimpse of two lazy baboons. Apparently they're fierce and very dangerous, breaking into people's homes and stealing their food. The people who live there have to put bars on their windows just so that the baboons don't break in!

Cape Point was pretty cool. Beautiful, just like the rest of the country I have seen so far. It was cool to think that I was standing on the southern-most tip of a continent, with the next closest land mass being Antarctica.  It's also the spot where the Indian and Atlantic Oceans meet.  I'd like to go there again, next time without 400 Americans, and maybe just spend a day hanging out and looking at the ocean. Hopefully seeing a couple baboons, if I'm lucky.