BACK.

I am back from April vacation! I travelled along the Garden Route with three other girls (Lindsay, Allegra, and Alice) from the states. We took this awesome bus called the Baz Bus, which is a shuttle that picks you up from your hostel and takes you to your next one. It was GREAT! Very convenient and safe, since we didn’t have to find our way around new places to find our hostels. Here is a brief outline of our trip. I don't have all of our pictures, because we designated photographers each day, and haven't had the big photo swap yet (I'll probably post more later)

-Port Elizabeth: the closest city to Grahamstown. We stayed at my friend Katie’s house for one night before continuing on our journey. It was so nice to be in a home with a family (and not in res) – they were very welcoming and hospitable!

-Tsitsikamma/Storm’s River Valley: This is the beautiful “garden of the garden route,” with forests and mountains and the ocean really close by. Also home to the highest bungy jump in the world (although none of us ended up doing it…). We spent 2 days here hiking and ziplining, staying at a funky hostel in the middle of NOWHERE.

-Knysna: a touristy town on the water. We only stayed for about 24 hours, after walking around town, getting a scenic tour of the beautiful views, and going on a short tour of the township. I was resistant to the township tour, because of the concept of touring others’ poverty and horrible situation. The tour was very educational and very interesting to compare to what we know and have seen in the township in Grahamstown. The township in Knysna is situated in the hills with a GORGEOUS view of the water, but this does not make up for the schism between them and the opulent white neighborhoods just up the road.

The four of us (Lindsay, Alice, Me, Allegra) in Knysna

-Mossel Bay: a beach town, about halfway to Cape Town. We stayed here for three nights and enjoyed beaches and SKYDIVING (that’s why we didn’t do the bungy… one thrill at a time)!!!!! Don’t worry, I went tandem, which means I had a professional harnessed to my back. We took tons of pictures, and I got the video! We stayed at a really amazing hostel that is a renovated Victorian mansion – stunning. We liked Mossel Bay.

-Stellenbosch: A town just outside Cape Town, home to wine country, beautiful mountains, and a major South African University (where Katherine Knopf is going, and I got to see her! And her parents!)! We stayed here two nights over Easter, and went to a small and welcoming Anglican church on Easter Sunday. We also went on an amazing wine/cheese tasting tour with our friend Courtney. Stellenbosch is gorgeous (SEE PICTURE BELOW!)

Here is a view (from a vineyard in Stellenbosch) of Table Mountain in Cape Town! We climbed that!

Us + Courtney, wine tasting in beautiful Stellenbosch!

-Cape Town! We spent 5 nights here at a really nice backpackers (thanks to Lauren Galinsky’s fantastic recommendation!)! Things we saw/did: Kirstenbosch botanical gardens (gorgeous HUGE garden right in Cape Town), Camp’s Bay beach, Table Mountain (we hiked up and took the cable car down), art gallery, I met up for coffee with Meg Mateer (who is studying at UCT for the semester!!!!), Cape Point (aka the Cape of Good Hope and where the Indian and Atlantic oceans begin to meet!), Boulder’s Beach (where thousands of penguins live!). Cape Town is an amazing and beautiful city. We left Cape Town on Saturday evening on a 13-hour overnight bus trip. I arrived exhausted in Grahamstown on Sunday morning at 9:30am.

Camps Bay

One of the 2010 World Cup Stadiums!

It was quite a trip, and a much-needed vacation from Grahamstown and from academics. The four of us had a great time together. We made lots of new interesting friends from around the world, such as a reality TV producer from LA and a SCUBA instructor who is from Australia but works in Greece.

It is good to be back in Grahamstown. Even though it is small, Grahamstown is a really nice place to call “home” in South Africa. I feel like know this place and these people! I also have my own room and looooots of clean clothes again!!! I am slowly re-acclimating back to academics (even though I am currently avoiding an economics essay). Familiarity and community is refreshing, and I am excited to get back into the routine of classes, volunteering, Bible study, etc. I LOVE travelling, but it is definitely nice to be back. It is getting chilly here since we are getting into Autumn. It is crazy how everything is opposite here!

Just to give you an idea, here is my basic timeline for the next few months.
-April 20 (yesterday): Term 2 begins (semesters are broken up into two terms)
-April 22 (tomorrow): Election day! Pray for South Africa! Here is an interesting article, and a pretty good summary of the situation here.
-May 29: Lectures end. Yeah, I am not used to going to class throughout the entire month of May. This could be a challenge…
-June 1-5: “Swot week” – study days for exams. I’ll probably travel somewhere. Not sure where yet!
-June 6-26: Final exams (That is a LONG time, hey?). When I told some South Africans here that sometimes people have two exams in one day back at BC, they FLIPPED out.
-June 26-July 2: Not sure exactly what I’ll do, I might visit some of my friends in Joburg. Or just bum around Grahamstown/Eastern Cape
-July 2-July 7: ARTS FESTIVAL! The festival lasts until the 11th, but I can’t stay for the whole thing.
-July 7: fly home.
-July and August: BW/DR for the summer!

I hope you all are doing well. Please stay in touch! I definitely really miss home, but I am nowhere near ready to leave yet. Good thing I am only about halfway through my 5 months here.

Cheers,
Linda

Less words, more photos.

Since there are many photos on this post, I feel a little bit less obliged to write something lengthy. Especially since my last post was so wordy. Personally, I am a visual learner, so when I can see something I internalize it much more than if I read about it. So, guided by captions, I will let the pictures tell the stories this time.

READING CAMP
(for description, see last post)

All of the kids with some of the volunteers

Holding "Flat Tire" with the owner in the background. He collects reptiles, and showed the kids a few of them including a python. Named "Monty" :

Monty was molting. Check out the kids' faces in this photo! :)


Potjie
(Pronounced "poy-kee," this is an Afrikaans celebratory food tradition when they cook yummy stew in a massive pot over a fire. This potjie was with the mountain club.)

This potjie was accompanied by "poi" which is when someone has this chain with two lanterns/torches on the end and swings them around. Mesmerizing.

Alexandria
One of the craziest hikes I have ever done. I went with the mountain club (I still really think BC needs one of these), and it was a group of 10 of us. 7 of us were international students, from London, the Netherlands, Canada, and the US!

First we hiked through the forest. I often found myself hiking in the front, dealing with gazillions of spider webs. Like this one. That spider's body (not including legs) is about the size of a quarter. Slightly intimidating!!

Then, after crossing a beautiful field and walking down the road, we hiked along the beach for MILES. It was the most untouched beach I have ever seen. If you look in this picture, we hiked all the way to (and beyond) the cliff at what looks like the end of this beach.

Me and Merran. She is an exchange student from Canada!
Then we hiked up the side of the cliff in a sandy part, using a rope to pull ourselves up. If you look closely in the photo above, you can see the people ahead of us walking up the side of the cliff.

Then we were in the dunes.

We were hiking next to the cliff like this for a while. Then we got to the hut, which was in a wooded part of the dunes and overlooked the ocean.
Waking up to another beautiful day! On the deck of the hut, overlooking the Indian Ocean.

After hiking through the woods, then using another rope to get up a massive sand dune, we reached the most beautiful landscape of dunes I have ever seen.
I felt like I was in the Sahara desert...
...but the ocean was right there.
Then we went back into the forest and climbed over a few hills to get back to our minibus.

I hope you enjoyed the pictures.

As I said last time, I am looking forward to our big 2-week vacation starting this coming Saturday! I can't WAIT. My next post will probably be all about April vac :)

Much love,
Lindapants