The Highest Bungee Jump in the World

Monday and Tuesday (the 20th and 21st) were quite interesting days at Pendla. Mrs. Kadi did not show up either day! We had complete control of all of our classes for the entire day we were there. Turns out another teacher was missing on Monday also and Pendla was a voting site, so a few other teachers were at school, but were never in the classroom. CSB/SJU students were basically in control of the school. Yikes! It wasn’t so bad though. Amy and I decided to play some semi-educational games with our classes. We played Hangman, but changed the name to Strike for obvious reasons. They absolutely loved that. It is basically impossible to get the kids to be completely silent in order to explain the game to them, so it was a loud day. We played word unscramble too, which they also loved. In general, we did have a really fun day. I also noticed that the kids can be kind of violent. I’ve noticed this before, but never really acknowledged it. They often hit each other when they get mad and in class that day we saw one boy try to kick a girl for calling him a cockroach in Xhosa. It seems like they hit so much because there is never really any discipline when they do hit, so they can get away with it. I also rarely hear any of the kids say I’m sorry. The one day I did hear an apology, it took me by surprise because I think I almost forgot it existed. The second day we did basically the same thing, but we made them write stories that had to have the words tiger, soccer, and plane in them. They actually did really well and made me kind of proud. The two days really put the education system here into perspective for me or rather education at Pendla. Education elsewhere in South Africa I’m sure is of better quality. Substitute teachers don’t seem to exist and if we weren’t volunteering or even after we left, the kids had no teacher for the rest of the day. It kind of seemed like a waste of time to me. We recently learned about education in our Senior Seminar class this week and discussing the education system in class really explained things. When the Apartheid fell in 1994, education was labeled a basic human right. Therefore every child in South Africa cannot be denied the right to education. The quality of black education before Apartheid was really lacking, but instead of improving the quality of education, the new democracy just wanted to make sure they got the 2 million children who were not being educated previously into the schools, therefore they were looking for equality among all rather than quality of education. Since the different races lived separately even after Apartheid fell and some races still continue to do so, the students simply attend the school in their neighborhood. Therefore the black neighborhood schools are generally a poor area. The government does fund all schools equally, but that often is not enough for the school to have a quality education. The government then actually encourages the schools to do their own sort of fundraising, often forming a committee of parents who decide one fee that the parents additionally are asked pay to the school. Therefore, in the areas of the higher-class whites, these students get a better education because they have better funding and the government actually encourages this because they don’t want the whites to break off and start their own private education system. That leaves Pendla stuck with very little funding and poor education. It is quite ironic too because no child can be denied the right to education because they cant pay fees and yet parents can be sued for not paying fees. We personally have seen these fees being collected at Pendla. Just yesterday a little girl came into our 7th grade classrooms asking for her brother and sister because she did not have money to pay the fee. A few other times we saw some students asking other students for money because they didn’t have any. So that is the education down here at Pendla.

Wednesday was election. We kept turning on the TV looking for election results, but they didn’t seem to have any. Silly us, we were once again referring back to the customs of the US. We didn't realize that they all vote with paper ballots that they just sick into a box down here, so the actual counting would not begin until the next day. I did see some voting booths as I came back from school and it there were huge lines. It turns out that they even ran out of ballots at the end of the day and even though their were still long lines at the voting centers at 9 pm they had to close the centers and cut off voting. The next day we found out that a whole voting center virtually disappeared- ballots, the tent, pencils, everything! In the end it looks like the ANC won out and Zuma will be sworn in. The other results beyond that would be too hard to explain unless you understood all of it, so I’ll save myself the work of explaining it. That night we went to our Literature professor’s house on the beach and discussed the book Disgrace. The conversation was extremely interesting and one of my favorites so far. It was actually quite philosophical too, but it had some very interesting points.

Thursday was pretty uneventful except for the power outage. I was sitting in the computer lab and all of a sudden all the computers went off. I’m just thankful I wasn’t writing an important paper. The power stayed off for a good couple of hours, which led to us being let out early from Political Science because the teacher couldn't use her power point. We actually had a good class. It’s funny how technology sometimes is a hindrance to learning because how fast it makes each lesson and how little time we have to take notes, understand them, and absorb the meaning.


Friday was the day I had been waiting for! This weekend three of my roommates and I were heading to Tsitsikamma to go bungee jumping!! Early Friday morning I went to the airport to pick up our rental car. Luckily I had another girl come with me who also needed to pick up a car and I followed her home. Driving on the left side was a little scary in the beginning, but then it got really fun! The part that was probably the hardest was the blinker, shifter, and windshield wipers. Since the driver is on the opposite side of the car, they also switch what side the blinker, shifter, and windshield wipers are on, so often all I wanted to do was turn left and all of a sudden the windshield wipers would be going. No worries though, I mastered it pretty fast. It was great to be driving and we headed out on the N2 with the windows down and the music blasting. Our first stop was Seaview a lion and game park. We drove through the park with the windows down and saw a bunch of deer. We have no idea the real name of them would be. Then at the end we saw buffalo, zebra, and giraffes. The giraffes were just sitting on the side of the road. If we wanted to we probably could have petted them. It was fun to see them so close. Then we walked through the lion and tiger area where they’re fenced in. They have white lions, which I didn’t really know existed. I’m guessing they get fed in the morning because a lot of them were munching on legs and stuff. We even saw a lion and lioness kind of fight over some food and some baby lions in another cage were playing and sharing their food too. Then we drove to the cub petting area. As we were waiting one of the staff was sitting outside and had a Meer cat just chilling on the table. I went and talked to her and they had just gotten him. He was just a baby and was probably a pet of some people, so he was tame. I got to pet him and pick him up and stuff. They took us down to the baby lions then. We went in the cage of two girls- Shannon and Umani. They were so calm! I was able to pet them on their heads and hold their paws and they barely even moved. I probably could have cuddled with them like I cuddle with my cat and they wouldn’t have even minded. We had lunch there and then headed off to Tsitsikamma to be on time for our bungee jumping appointment. Sadly, as we came within 30 minutes of the bridge it was started raining and then pouring! We continued on hoping to make it, but when we got there they had closed for the day. They said to come back tomorrow, so we headed back to our hostel for the night. The hostel was great, there were hammocks and bonfires all over the place, but sadly, everything was wet. We were all really tired, so we took a nap before dinner. After dinner we played some pool, played Pass the Pigs, and talked awhile before heading off to bed.

Saturday we started off early because we wanted get our bungee jumping in before we headed home that evening. At 7:30am we were scheduled to do canopy tours. The tours were pretty awesome. We had ten different zip lines between platforms on trees and we learned a bit about the forest. We were also taking a tour with four adults on holiday from England and Ireland. Amina provided most of our entertainment as she wouldn’t break on the zip line and came speeding into the platform multiple times. At the end of our tour, a meal was also included in the price, so I had a lunch of a burger and chips at 10:30 in the morning. It seemed like a really good tourist company. They were really working on being environmental and they provided jobs for locals. The place we had lunch was a restaurant operated by ten local women. I was happy to see such a positive business. After our lunch we headed over to the bungee bridge right away! It’s called Face Adrenaline and is off the Bloukrans Bridge. It is the highest continuously operation bungee jump in the world. Apparently there is a higher jump in China that opened two years ago in China, but they are only open every other day, where Face Adrenaline is open every day. We wanted to make sure we got our bungee in. Luckily when we got there we didn’t have to weight long. We paid and then they put on our harnesses right away. We went with a group of about 25 people. We had an official guide, but we never really caught his name, it was something like Jason or Jaclyn? We opted to zip line out to the bungee jumping point in the bridge so we did that first. That was awesome! It was such a good view and was pretty thrilling to see how high we were before jumping. There wasn’t really any sort of brake though because to stop me I just plowed into the guy standing there. I’m surprised I didn’t knock him over; I was going pretty fast. From there we stood in the middle of the bridge in the canyon and watched the people before us jump off. It was so great. I was pumped. We’re not sure exactly how they choose who goes when, but we think it has something to do with weights and the ropes they use, so the first in our group to go was supposed to be Amina. Amina got all the way up there, but then kind of freaked out. I’m mean really; you’re jumping off a bridge. I ended up being the one going next. I sat on this bench while they put the cushiony things around my ankles then Jason came over and tied the rope around my ankles. I had two knots and that was the only thing that I would be tied to while I was flying in the air. Don’t worry we did have a second safety hook up. Then they brought me up to the edge, counted down from five, and I just kind of leaned over and fell off. We had about four seconds of complete free fall and then we bounced from there. Personally though, I just felt like I was falling the whole time. On the way down I could see the ocean through the gorge, then on the way up I’d twist around to see the mountains. As I started to slow down I realized my head hurt super bad. I have bad sinus colds a lot and apparently I had one right then because the pressure in my head was really intense. I had some tears around my eyes too. I think the pressure just popped them right out. It wasn’t long after that I stopped bouncing that the guy came down, hooked me up to a sitting position, and took me back up to the bridge. Wow, what a thriller! It was such an awesome experience! I would say it wasn’t as cool as skydiving or as long, but I was definitely more nervous. Not long after I came back in they were looking for me. They said the pictures they took of me doing the zip line didn’t work, so I had to go do it again for free. At first I didn’t hear that I was doing the zip line again and I was like “Wait, what do I have to do again?” I think I would definitely bungee jump again, but with the pressure in my head at that moment, I didn’t want to do it again right then. It was only the zip line though. I walked back on this little bridge, which is a bit freaky. You can totally see through the metal underneath your feet. Scary! The zip line for the second time was fun. This time instead of plowing right into the man as a break, one guy grabbed my legs to slow me down. After I got back on the bridge we watched both Laura and Katie jump, took a group picture, and headed back on the bridge. The guys who work up there were so awesome. They are all just so pumped up and they’re really fun to talk to. They would have to pull up the ropes every time and they kind of have this rhythm/dance thing going. Laura says they have a good sense of beat because their mothers carry them around on their backs when they’re little. The sad thing I learned this weekend is just how little we get back and really how well off us Americans have it. Unemployment and poverty are huge down here. When I was talking to the guy who led us on the canopy tour we were telling him where we traveled down here in SA and he said, “Wow, you must have a lot of money.” Then when I asked him if he traveled much or if has been to Cape Town, he said no, that they don’t get much money to travel and if they want to travel they have to save up for a long time. I was also talking to the workers at the bungee jumping place and commenting on their apparel. They all have Face Adrenaline clothing (the name of the place). I asked if his whole wardrobe was filled with that clothing and I was telling him they’re pretty awesome uniforms just because they looked cool. I was telling him the uniform I have to wear for the catering business and he said, “Well, you get paid a lot more than us. I’ll wear any uniform as long as I have enough money for living.” These are actual workers in South Africa that have a semi-decent job and they probably still get paid very poorly. They have such good attitudes too. They are so fun and so upbeat, but here they are catering day in and day out to tourists who spend their money so freely and travel around their own country that they might not ever get the chance to see themselves. Anyway, side note. After jumping we went and watched our videos, bought our pictures and apparel, and headed out to Monkeyland to finish up our day. Monkeyland is a monkey sanctuary, where monkeys from zoos that closed down come, or monkey that were previous pets, or even found hurt somewhere. We got a guided tour, which was so awesome. I learned more about monkeys than I ever thought I could know and it was really fascinating. Our guide was pretty amazing too. We saw the Capuchin monkeys, also known as Hollywood monkeys because they are the monkeys seen in Pirates, National treasure, Ace Ventura, and on Friends. We also saw a bunch of lemurs. Then there was this special kind of monkey, I don’t know what it was called, but they have a lot of hair on top of their head. I guess each monkey does it’s own hair do, so the guides can tell us each of their names depending on their hair style. Towards the end of our tour we walked across the longest suspension bridge in South Africa. The guy who went first across the bridge had a monkey jump on him. I just he’s a bachelor monkey and so he likes to hang out with his other monkey friend around the bridge area and terrorize other monkeys and people. Silly monkey. From there our weekend trip was over. We had to head back and finish up writing another political science paper. We headed back to PE and had a fun car ride. Laura and I made up this game where we tried to throw our apple cores out the window to hit signs. The people here are really nice drivers too. A lot of the time if you want to pass them, they’ll just move over on to the shoulder and let you pass (it was a two lane road). They’re just really courteous about passing, which I now understand why I’ve heard people say stuff before about the Americans not letting people pass. When we came in that evening we found out that the boys had gone deep sea fishing that day and caught a whole tub of fish, so they had started a braai and they shared all of their fish with us. Yum yum. Sunday and Monday were pretty uneventful. We had a political science paper due on Tuesday, so most people worked on that for those two days. Monday we had off of school because it was Freedom day down here. It’s basically equivalent to our Fourth of July. It’s in memory of the first day in 1994 when they were allowed to vote. It is kind of cool and sad at the same time, that many were living and can remember that day. For us Independence Day was like 200 years ago.

The paper I wrote about for political science was interesting. We had to write about South Africa’s biggest challenges today and how they were going to face them in the future, especially with this recent election of Zuma. The biggest challenges South Africa faces today are poverty and inequality. When the Apartheid government fell, one thing that did remain was that most of the white retained their holds on their businesses. Therefore the whites still remain to be the majority of the professional sector and make the majority of the money in this country. I was talking before about the education system and even though more black are getting educated, a lot of times it’s not a very good education and they aren’t often taught skills to help them get a job. Recently still under president Mbeki, he tried to revive the economy by modernizing it and focusing on private and international investments. This didn't really help the black Africans much at all and unemployment and poverty are still increasing. If you want some statistics- here they are


48 percent of South Africans live in poverty receiving only R462 per month and 23 percent of those South Africans live in poverty receiving only half of that income
Inequality continues to be prominent with the white population earning more than seven times as much as the black population
The poorest 10 percent of the citizens earn R1,032 per capita monthly while the richest 10 percent earn R98,639.
The unemployment rate remains at 21.9 percent at the end of 2008

Writing the paper, I kind of understand why some people voted for Zuma. He is advertised as having a more grass-roots approach to solving the social and economic problems down here. He just doesn’t really have much else going for him. The funny thing that I was thinking about the other day too is that the presidents here really down have much of an education compared to our presidents. Mandela at least had a law degree, but I’m pretty sure Zuma only has a high school education. Our presidents, of course, go to the top Ivy League schools.

Last night, was a lot of fun. We had a surprise potluck for Andrew to celebrate his birthday. Our flat made this amazing chocolate cake with coffee flavored frosting. We had another braai with the Gemsbok, which Zach shot when he went hunting this weekend. Then we went out dancing for a bit to some of the bars near by. The blacks really can dance here- I’m so amazed at their moves! Laura says she’s going to tie her children to her back so they have good rhythm too. Sean met a second year in the computer lab earlier this semester named Ndyebo (I know hard to say) and brought him over to hang out with us. It was fun to talk to him before the braai and here a bit more from his perspective about Africa. He went to Pendla school where we volunteer! He doesn’t like Zuma and was really disappointed with the election results. He said most young student support COPE and mostly older people vote for the ANC out of loyalty. He is actually studying law and wants to go to the U.S. really bad, I think for law school. I might have said this before, but everyone down here can speak at least two languages. Ndyebo can speak four- Afrikaans, English, Xhosa, and Sesotho. I feel so dumb.

Whelp, that's all for now folks.

Frontier Farm Excursion

So I’m a little behind in updating, but I’ve had a few busy weekends. The week right after I got back from “Holiday” we had a senior seminar paper due, so I had a lot of work to do. Then that night we went to a play called Ours was the New Dawn. I originally saw this play back at CSB/SJU right before I was accepted to the South Africa program. I didn’t actually like the play that much, mostly I think because I didn’t understand anything that was going on. This time after seeing it I thought it was fantastic! Knowing the culture, history, and country of South Africa I really understood it and loved it! We got to sit and talk for a while afterwards with the two actors in the play and it was a lot of fun.

The next morning (Friday the 17th) we headed out on our Frontier Excursion. I honestly have no idea where in the country we went except that it was near the area of Grahamstown and about a 2 ½ hour drive. We arrived on Winnie’s farm at about 2 that afternoon. Winnie is this crazy, loud Afrikans farmer’s wife and we love her to death. She acted just like she was one of our own mothers. We met her husband, whose name escapes me, and then were immediately fed lunch. Yum yum. They had tea, which is my new favorite drink, sandwiches, and dessert. Dessert was probably my favorite part. They had brownies with frosting, something I haven’t had in three months! They also had what us Minnesotans would call bars, haha, and pancakes (they called them flapjacks) with jam and whipped cream on them. Oh, it was fabulous. Then we were kind of let free to roam the farm. Oh, I almost forgot, we also met Charlie Brown, her little schnauzer puppy dog who was just adorable. Fenced in right outside their door were three kudos, two females and a huge male with horns. We were able to just go up to the fence and pet them. Then they had ducks, geese, chickens, and duikers (sp?). We also rode their horses, which were a little skittish and someone from our group ended up falling off of one (don’t worry he was okay). We went down to the fields to see their other deer and that afternoon we also had a cow milking demonstration. I kind of got to milk a cow, although it was only one squirt and to cross it off my life goal list I do feel like I need to fill like a cup. We did get to squirt the milk into our mouths though- straight from the udder and it tasted like (surprise, surprise) warm milk. That night we chilled out in the backyard in the warm weather and had some wine and appetizers while our braai was cooking. It was like a warm summer night on family vacation back in MN. Dinner was delicious as always. The braai food was kinda of like a turkey stew and then we had pumpkin bread, garlic bread, roasted potatoes, and a sort of vegetable salad. I was so stuffed. Half of our group then headed to Francois and Aurelia’s farm where we would sleep for the night. The other farm had a very nice house!! We fit 13 of us in the master bedroom and the boys slept in the pool house. They had very ornate decorations, a pool, and a tennis court. Oh yes, we were also amazed by the toilet which was entirely made of stone. We even found a scale in the bathroom! We hadn’t weighed ourselves in months. Unfortunately it was in Kg, but thankfully due to my nutrition education, I remember how to convert it to pounds. I am happy to say I’ve pretty much maintained my weight down here, although I have no idea how that happened.

Saturday the 18th we started by driving over to Winnie’s farm for breakfast. We had toasted sandwiches with bacon and egg or tomato and cheese, some sausages, and tea. It was so nice to have home cooked meals. Then all of us hopped in the back of three bakkies (trucks) and head out on the road. It was so fun to ride in the back of the bakkies. The area we were in is all grassy mountains and we drove for a while until we stopped to hike a bit. When we stopped we hiked on the top of a “mountain” to look at the top view of a waterfall we would hike to when we went down, then we hopped back in the bakkie and drove down to that path. When we got to the waterfall (or rather dried up waterfall) we had to swim back to where it carved out the rock. A few of us daring individuals jumped into the freezing pool water and kicked along with a few tubes. The water was freezing! It was like Lake Superior in South Africa. I guess the water will be that cold when it only gets sun a few hours a day. We made it back and climbed on the rocks back there. Laura scrapped her knee at one point in the adventure and decided to write her name on the rock in the blood flowing out of her scrap. Gross, Laura! We finished up our hike and then headed back to Francois and Aurelia’s farm. Our host is big on hunting, so we got to see all the stuffed animals he killed. We actually saw a stuffed zebra and a giraffe, in addition to other crazy cool animals. Apparently, you just have to get a permit to shoot a giraffe here and there’s no limit to how many you can shoot in your lifetime. Crazy!!! He also showed us all of his guns. He reloads them himself and makes all of the cartridges (I’m sorry if I’m using the wrong terminology). I even held the gun that he shot the giraffe with. That must be one powerful gun! He had all kinds of pictures with him and his son, Dawie, and the animals they’ve killed on the wall. Not long after that we hopped into the back of the bakkie and went down the road to his sheep-shearing place. Francois and Aurelia have a sheep and cattle farm. They have about 3,500 sheep, which they use for wool and mohair. Wool is the largest source of income on their farm, then usually the beef, then the mohair. They can tell if mohair will have good year by simply looking at the fashions popular that year in a Paris magazine, ha J. For the first time in my life I got to see a sheep be sheared and that was a bit of a scary experience, not that it hurt the sheep or anything, I was just afraid he would. The worker would have the sheep kind of sitting in an upright position on it’s butt and it would just cut the wool off with a pair of huge scissors. At times we weren’t even able to see the shears underneath the thick wool and we have no idea how the worker was able to see what he was doing. I’m guessing lots of practice enables them to fully shear the sheep without cutting its skin. They shear them in such a way that all of the wool stays together in one piece and then they lay that whole piece down covering a whole table and divided out the good and bad parts. Wool that is usually a couple inches long is of the highest grade, so then they divided it up into grades and what part of the body the wool came from. Usually the sheep all get sheared in September. It takes around 8-9 months for them to grow wool long enough to cut it. They usually only get sheared once a year where as the mohair sheep get sheared about twice a year. Other than that the farm inoculates the sheep once a year and then he only sees them about one a week for the rest of the year. Amazingly he only has nine farm hands that help him out on his farm. I guess he hires an extra crew from Lesotho for the shearing though. As common in South Africa, all of the hands on the farm are black. These two farming families where we stayed though have a bit more of a worldly education and do not hold any racist attitudes towards the black people, like many Afrikaners that we run into do. The land that they live on is also not in question either. Often the land here had been taken away from black tribes either in 1918, when the second wave of Europeans settled here or under the Apartheid. The two farms that these families live on have been in there families for ages. The land wasn't a general area that tribes settled on either. That afternoon, we got to hang out at the farm, play tennis, or swim in their pool. We got a really good game of ultimate Frisbee going too with the Wildebeest contesting the springbucks. That night for dinner we had another braai. This one though they grilled all thirty of us steak! It was so good. We also have homemade bread, chili sauce pasta salad, cheesy potatoes, and wine. After dinner we went out again in the back of the bakkies for a night game drive. We had Dawie the son leading us in the first bakkie with a spotlight. It was so fun to drive around at night in the cool air underneath the clear sky. The stars here are so gorgeous and you can see every single one, as there are no city lights. We can’t find any constellations we know though over in this hemisphere. We saw a porky pine, kudus, a jackal and some cows J. When we got home I headed off to bed.

Sunday the 19th we woke up and had breakfast of toasted sandwiches and tea again and departed not long after for the vista. Apparently a vista is the view from the top of the mountain. The only vistas I have ever heard of is the tour boat fleet in Duluth. The view was amazing and we got a lot of fun pictures up there. We were able to see the hilly/mountainous area all around us. I’m really going to miss the landscape here. About 11:30 we headed home for P.E. The car ride was fine, but something I could do without after al the driving we’ve done lately.

Pony-Rides and Fat Cats

After stopping by the Ironman Expo and buying a sweet Ironman shirt, we headed to the airport to catch our flight to Durban at 1:30. We went quite early and ended up having a good amount of time to sit and chill because even though our plane was scheduled to leave at 1:30, we didn’t end up boarding until about 1:45. Other members of our group who were flying with us, but not coming to Lesotho, should have logically missed the plane if we had been in the U.S. because their taxi was 45 minutes late and they didn’t get through security until after the plane should have left. Thank goodness we’re on Africa time! We flew to Durban once again on Kalula airlines, which is the really funny airline that had funny quotes from previously. We saw a ton of Ironman shirts everywhere too. I was wearing mine, so maybe people thought I actually did it, but in all reality I was just a poser. Once we got into Durban we were picked up by the Underberg Express and had another 3 hour drive to Underberg where our backpackers was located for pony-trekking. We had a beautiful drive through a mountainous area with the sun setting in the background. We arrived at the backpackers at about 6pm, just starving for dinner. We found out that the power was out in the town, which I guess kinda happens frequently. They immediately gave us Old Brown Sherry and started the braai (South African BBQ) on a bonfire outside. It was sooo good. We had steaks from cows raised in the area, sausages, baked potatoes, pasta salad, and some sort of carrot/vegetable salad and ate by candle light. I ate soo much! Then we got a quick briefing on where we would be going for our pony-trek. We were going to head into the country of Lesotho, which is quite untouched, mostly because it contains the Drakensberg mountain range. We all went to bad early that night.

Tuesday we got up at 7 am to pack our saddle bags and eat breakfast. I love eating breakfast here because we use the same milk that they use for their coffee and tea, except it’s not really milk, its cream. The milk and cream here for some reason are much creamier than U.S. milk too. I’ve fallen in love with the tea here too. We drink Rooibos tea for breakfast, lunch, midafternoon tea, and dinner. I’ve officially become a tea drinker. We also met this couple from who traveled around Africa for a year on a motorcycle. They were sweet to talk to. Check out their website: http://www.2canadiansonbikes.com/. After breakfast we hopped into the back of the bakkie (truck) and rode 50 km to the passport check. It was here that we saddled up our horses and hopped on. I had a beautiful chestnut brown horse with black feet, mane, and tail. I was told her name was “Soma,” but her name slowly progressed throughout the week. The guide would come back and get her going sometimes and call her “Suma” or “Sama” and eventually I figured out with his accent her name was probably “Summer.” That whole day we just trekked through the mountains on our horses. There was no official line of where we entered into Lesotho. We were told before hand that there were just two sticks, but we didn’t even see those. There were brown lines on the grass all over and we liked to call those the borders, but those were actually fire stops in case of a wildfire. The mountains that these horses climbed with us on them were amazing. It was a steep and rocky path, so we would weave a lot and at one point it got too rocky so we got off them and let them go up. It was so amazing though. My horse really liked to walk on the grass, probably because it was softer on her feet, but at times she would walk on the very edge of a cliff. Oh boy, that made me nervous. We stopped for lunch on the top of a flat mountain and stopped a few times to stretch our legs. I could feel the soreness already. We came into the village where our lodge was at about 3:30ish that afternoon which is mostly a guess because I took my watch off for the whole trip. Originally I thought the village we were staying in was all the “houses” in front of us, but it turns out it was a couple of villages together. Our guide was from the village we were in, which only had 16 people in it. The lodge was actually pretty simple with beds, a kitchen, and lounge area with beanbags. We mostly chilled out that afternoon and chatted. We did go for a walk that evening down the road of the village. The language they speak in this village is Sosotho, in which we know absolutely no words. We saw some little kids and said hello, but none of us could speak the same language. Our horses were set free and would just roam around and eat grass around our lodge. Other horses, donkeys, and cows in the village would also just roam around. The “houses” were more so shacks, but they were in pretty nice condition. They often were made of cement or clay and had tin or straw roofs. They did have access by road to town and it looked liked one truck did exist in the village, so they weren’t completely isolated. That night for dinner we had homemade bread, potatoes, peas, and chicken. I had a ton to eat again, but I never quite reached fullness. After dinner a few kids from the village came in and sold us purses and baskets that their mother had weaved. Then they sang us a few songs. The lodge had no electricity, instead it ran on a generator to cook dinner from 6-9 and then it was turned off. Once again we spent the evening in candlelight. I was incredible sore after one day of riding and a bit terrified for how riding would go the next day.

Wednesday we woke up and had an amazing breakfast of homemade bread, a type of malt-o-meal, baked beans (although not as sugary as in the US), and scrambled eggs. Then we saddled up our horses and took off on another adventure. Today we headed through a lot of the villages and over streams and between lots of mountains. We saw a lot of old “houses” build under the rocks of the mountains and stopped twice at these houses to look at the old San paintings. You could distinctively see humans and animals in these paintings. It was so odd because there was no protection over these paintings and they weren’t in any sort of national park. They were just out in the wilderness of Lesotho and you could go find them if you knew where they were. We passed through a few more villages which we so beautiful. They were just plopped on the tops of flat mountains in the middle of nowhere. We climb the last mountains and passed some boys herding a donkey carrying stuff. We climbed up through a wheat field and stopped for lunch. For lunch we had cheese and onion sandwiches on homemade bread, tea, and toppers (a name brand cookie here). We just kinda sat there and looked at all the beauty around us while the horses wondered around us and munched on grass. After lunch we headed back to our lodge on a road that was being expanded. We passed a lot of workers, male and female, digging into the mountain rocks and dirt to expand the road. We said hello to a lot of them and it seemed like many of them laughed at us, either from our lack of ability to speak their language or how ridiculous we looked riding those horses. At one point, we started trotting and then cantering on the road and we got to see quite a spectacle. Brooke lost her foot holds in the saddle and while cantering almost fell off the horse. Our guide was right next to her holding on to her reins trying to get the horse to stop. I saw it all from behind and it looked like a wild horse chase from the Western movies. Thankfully Brooke did not fall off though and was okay. We mostly walked the rest of the way back to the lodge. We did pass through a few more villages and little kids would run on the roads next to us. We also crossed the paths of many children walking home from school singing. That was a priceless encounter- seeing children walking on a small road across a large mountain singing cheerful songs on their way home from school. That night was pretty uneventful. Our soreness was starting to fade and we all gave each other back massages to help with the soreness. That night we played spoons by candlelight before heading off to bed.

Thursday morning we woke and had the same breakfast with tea and then packed up our saddlebags and headed out. Our path home was a bit different and was most plains, which was really awesome because I got a chance to have Summer gallop! We saw a few baboons in the distance and passed through the Valley of the Wild Horses which, of course, had wild horses in it. We stopped at a waterfall for a break and it started to sprinkle lightly. Our lunch stop today was the same as the first day and we crossed paths with three Dutch women going on a two day ride. Two of them had never ridden horses before and it seemed they were a bit unprepared for what was ahead of them by the look of their clothes (pretty nice looking tank tops and t-shirts) and the fact that they kept asking if there would be Coke at the village. Our lunch was cheese and onion sandwiches and toppers again and tea, of course. We started our way down the mountain as a huge storm cloud rolled in over the mountains next to us and it started to lightning and thunder. We thought the horses would get spooked, but they never did. The storm actually turned out pretty cool to ride next to. It eventually cleared up by the time we reached the border. Once we came in we unsaddled our horses and hopped in the back of the bakkie for the ride back to the hostel. The rest of the day was spent hanging out and relaxing. We had another awesome dinner at the hostel and that night I watched 27 Dresses with Katie and Laura. The first movie I’ve watched in a couple months!

Friday we decided to stay at the hostel for another night and so we spent the day lounging around again. We met Simon the horse, who thinks he’s a dog and frequently tries to get in the kitchen. We also met Fat Cat. This fat is bigger than any cat I have ever met, including my own, and still seems to be extremely agile. It will jump to its food dish on the counter in the kitchen and even though its food dish is in the kitchen and it can walk all over the counters, it appears to not like human food. Additionally, no matter who we ask, no one can remember if the cat had a real name or what it is and therefore is just always called Fat Cat. There were also three dogs wondering around. A white one called Shmegil, who is the sheep herding dog, Blue, a Belgian shepherd who really just looks like a German shepherd, and Jas, who also responds to Spook. We took a walk around and I got to see the sheep being herded and we also got up to a random cabin in the middle of nowhere and watched Blue swim in the swimming hole and bark at us to jump in with him. Instead we just threw rocks for him to try and fetch. We also watched two movies and did Stations of the Cross as it was Good Friday.

Saturday we got picked up at 7:30 am on the Underberg Express for Durban. Riding the Underberg Express with us was a girl from Minnesota who now lived in Atlanta and was visiting SA for work. She attended Carlton College. Small world! We got to Durban about noon and I went on a run with Laura and showered. Then we hit up a small market nearby and went grocery shopping too. We also finally got a chance to check our e-mail! That night was pretty uneventful. We just made dinner, watched a movie and went to bed.

Sunday was Easter Sunday! We found an 8:30 Mass where we had gone to church previously. It was good, but we all missed our families. After Mass we packed up at the hostel and caught a taxi to the airport to fly home to PE. It was good to be back and meet up with everyone else after break. That night a group of us went out to eat at an Italian place to celebrate Easter. Our break was finally over, but in all we had a great time and an experience I won’t forget.

The Most Beautiful View in the World (In my view)

I had a terrific “Spring Break” and a wonderful two weeks of classes. It was amazing! But now that I’m back into the flow and have free internet I figured it was about time to update. First of all, I say “Spring Break” because we’re actually entering the fall season down here. The weather is getting a bit cooler, although by cooler I mean I have to wear a sweatshirt over my t-shirt and shorts when I’m in the shade. The days are also getting shorter and the sun rises later and sets earlier. The sun used to wake us up, but today I woke up at 6:10 and waited half an hour for the sun to rise. It’s funny because I know you guys over there on the other side of the world are just starting to escape these kinds of days. Anyway, back to break.

My break started out on Tuesday April 31st when our coach bus took off for Cape Town at 7am. We had a long ten hour journey ahead of us! It actually turned out to not be so bad. We got bathroom breaks every two hours, we drove over the bridge that I will be bungee jumping from in a few weekends, and I read a full book for my literature class, although it was a short book. I did start reading Three Cups of Tea too, which is a very good book. I highly recommend it. Anyway, the scenery was pretty awesome too, but really it kinda is anywhere here. We passed through a lot of green rolling hills and mountains and mostly countryside. When we finally arrived at our backpackers (which had a perfect view of Table Mountain) I went running with a few people. Note to self: Cape Town is very hilly. Yes, my gluteus maximus got quite a bit of a workout that day. That night really wasn’t too exciting, we just went out to eat at an Asian Restaurant (which my Japanese roommate Amina was quite excited about) and played on our free internet (rare occasion) and went to bed.

Wednesday morning we headed over to the District 6 Museum. This museum is inside a church that is on the edge of the old District 6 property. District 6 was an old section of the town where all different races lived, of course except the whites, or at least there were very few whites living there. Yet, at one point, common in most cities down here, under the Apartheid system, all of the races were moved out of this area into the countryside much farther away from the city where they wouldn’t be in such close proximity to the whites. All of the structures and houses of this entire district except of a few churches were then plowed down to the ground until there was nothing left. The museum was really good and had quite a few old artifacts. We also got taken on a tour of the property where District 6 used to be. There is still quite a bit of open land and thankfully a lot of that land is being given back to the descendents of the people who had once lived there. It’s a pretty prime piece of property too because it has a beautiful view of Table Mountain right behind it. I got to talk to a black guy who was observing the tour with us. He is going to school to be a tour guide and he was telling me about how he lives in the townships and how bad the conditions are there. His English wasn’t super good so it was hard to communicate, but it was an interesting conversation. After the tour we headed back to the hostel for lunch and a group headed out to climb Table Mountain. I really really wanted to climb it, but I wanted to take the other option to see the Jewish Immigrant and Holocaust Museum and figured I would climb it later on our free day. The Jewish Museum was pretty good. The director of the museum came and talked to us and it was great just to hear her. She was so passionate about her work and really showed us how beautiful the Jewish culture is. She was also quite excited about the traditional foods served at Jewish holidays. I can relate to any one to loves food! From there we headed out to meet the other group at the top of Table Mountain, but we cheated and took the cable car. The view from the top was spectacular! I would say Table Mountain and Cape Point are the two most beautiful views I have ever seen in my whole life. I saw Grand Canyon maybe too long ago, but this view was amazing! Table Mountain overlooks the ocean and a bunch of mountains all around it. It was also sunset, so the light was just dazzling. We were also able to see Robbin Island, where Nelson Mandela was imprisoned from the top. That night we had a lot of fun too. We went to an authentic African restaurant called the Africa Café. We ate all kinds of samples of African food. We had everything including Malawi chicken, ostrich, etc. and then we got traditional face painting. After two hours I was stuffed and tired and we headed to the hostel to bed.

Thursday was a really fun day; we were heading down the coast to our final destination Cape Point, the southeastern most point of South Africa with various stops on the way. Our first stop was in Simons Town to see the African penguins. The East Coast of Africa has a cold ocean where these little guys swim. They were everywhere! It was a super super windy day and the waves were crashing in, so most were hanging out on the beach. We were able to get really close to them. We even saw a seal swimming in the ocean near the beach. And contrary to popular belief, some penguins I saw were not just cuddling, no, no, they were mating. Lucky me. Then we hopped back on the bus and proceeded to Cape of Good Hope. This was very very pretty, but very very windy, windy enough to blow us over. We stayed long enough to run around on the rocks and take some pictures and then headed on to Cape Point. Cape Town is one of the most beautiful places I have ever seen in my life along with the view from Table Mountain, but I think I’d say Cape Point takes a first. You are honestly on a point pretty high off the ground completely surrounded by ocean. On one side you can see some land and behind you that has these beautiful blue mountains and the water all around is just sparkling. It was extremely windy here, but that just made it that much more fun. We wandered around top lighthouse and then went down a trail to look at the other lighthouse much closer to the water. It is a beautiful view, but I’m not so sure I could live out there all by myself. After checking those out we walked down a bunch of stairs to this secluded beach. Since the water was so wavy there were just piles of the little blue bottles (mini type jellyfish). Then we headed home early because of the wind. That night we went to a play called Coming Home writing by Athol Fugard, a very well known South African playwright at the Baxter Theatre. The play was very good and told the story of a mother who is HIV positive coming home to her old country home where she grew up with her Opa (grandpa). The mother gets sicker as the story goes on and she “marries” her old childhood best friend so that he might take care of her son when she dies. It really brought a personal element of the HIV/AIDS situation to all of us, especially those not volunteering at the AIDS Haven.

Friday started out with a tour of Parliament. In South Africa there are kinda two capitals. Cape Town is considered on of them since Parliament is here and then Pretoria is the other one. Looking through parliament was pretty cool. We saw where the two different houses sit. They have two houses like in the United States. After Parliament we had free time at Victoria and Alfred Waterfront. It was a bit like Duluth, they had a small bridge that would move when little ships came in and they definitely had a greater amount of yachts and sailboats because of the warmer weather down here. The waterfront had quite a bit more shops too for the tourists. We looked around, but I didn’t buy anything except for an iced coffee and that may have been one of the best things I’ve had in a while. It was so good I think because it was totally like I would get in America. It was a bit of a comfort. At 1:00 we all met together and got our tickets to go to Robbin Island. I was soooo pumped! It takes about half an hour to get there and is about 18? km from land at the closest point. The reason I know that is because they told us when they told the stories of the prisoners who tried to escape. There was three time periods on the island. The first was the time period of the lepers. Lepers in South Africa were once sent to live here to protect the other citizens of the country. Then is the war period, during WWII when they placed their prisoners here. Lastly is the Apartheid period where any prisoners lived here from until 1990 many of which were political prisoners including Nelson Mandela. We first had a 45 minutes tour of the island on bus and the tour guide was great! Today people actually live on the island and he was one of them. They have a small school and post office, but a lot of the buildings are from the past settlements. One of the largest colonies of penguins lives on the island so for the second time this trip I was able to see penguins here and there under the trees. We also saw the South African oyster catcher, which is an endangered bird because it only lays one egg per year and often on the beach unprotected. After our bus tour, we headed into the prison and were guided around by an ex-political prisoner known as “Sparks.” He showed us his old room where 60 men were crammed in together. Then we also got to see the courtyard where Mandela did his exercises and planted a garden and the small little cell where he was imprisoned for 18ish years. That was very cool to see, especially because he had described it in his book Long Walk to Freedom that we read. The tour guide was also very interesting to hear from. Here he was giving tours of a prison that he was just free from less than 20 years ago! Then that night we went to the Cape Town music festival. I was exhausted from a whole day of activities, but we saw some really good artists like New York Voices and Goldfish. And I got some deep fried calamari and chips. Oh so good.

Our last day Friday was kind of a free day. For the morning we had an optional tour of the slavery museum and I decided to take that. The museum was pretty good. I had been to any sort of slave museum, so it was good. The temporary exhibit they had on display was on Steve Biko. I mentioned him before when I blogged about visiting his house in King Williams Town. The last part of that exhibit was my favorite. The well known artist Peter Gabriel wrote a song about Biko, I think called Biko. If you get a chance YouTube it. I like it a lot. I’d maybe look up the story about Biko too, incase it doesn’t make sense. When we were finished about noonish, Melissa and I headed out to try and find a pastor of a Methodist church that her sister’s best friend’s mother knew. Long connection, I know. We did find him though and talked with him for a bit. He seemed a bit tired though. Then we wandered through a nearby market and headed home. That evening six of us went to Mass at the Cathedral which was just a 10 minute walk down the road. It was Palm Sunday! They gave us palms which we actually green! When I get them at home they’re always white/brown and dead, but I’m guessing they get these ones down here fresh off the trees. Then after Mass we caught a taxi straight to the Jazz Festival for the second night. We didn’t see as many artists this night, but a few more popular ones like Hugh Masakeba and if you’ve ever heard of Mos Def, who is popular in the states, they were there too. Then we came home and packed. Our stay in Cape Town was over. L

We left the next morning for Port Elizabeth at 8 and endured another 11 hour drive until we arrived. We had to take a bit different of route into town and to our flats this time because the whole road in front of our flats was closed down for IRONMAN SOUTH AFRICA!!! We got in about 6:30, so only the running was going on and it was a bit sparse, but we still had runners running right in front our flats all the way until they got cut off at midnight. Jenny and I walked down to the finish right around the pier and cheered people in. It got dark pretty fast and it was actually raining for part of it. Lightning had been going on for a while too. The finish was really awesome! They had people running in with their families and music playing (Jenny and I were the only ones singing along to the Grease medley), and the finished would shout “You are an Ironman!” into their faces as they finished. We even got to see a blind man finish, who ran the whole race with someone next to him. I’m a bit sad I didn’t get to see the whole race, but I guess that just means I’ll have to do one myself. In all, the trip to Cape Town was great. I would definitely recommend it to anyone who wants to come down here!