Fall Break: Durban Day 2

Thursday, 28th April

             The second day in Durban was lovely in all it’s simplicity. We returned to Florida Road and the African Art Center. The moment I stepped in the room, I wanted to take it all home. I planned to be generous and split it with my Grandmother but alas I don’t think my suitcase was large enough. I settled for getting both of us a Zulu wire basket but thoroughly enjoyed browsing through the explosion of colors. After we spent almost 2 hours in the African Art Center, we made our way to the new and improved accommodation, Surf ‘n Dreams. It was inviting, warm, clean, and safe! There was a locked gate and then a thumb scan entry into the house itself so compared to the lovely Banana, we were quite happy. We ran into a Tommy grad (St. Thomas in Minneapolis, for those who are unaware, are the largest (friendly) rivals of the illustrious Bennies and Johnnies of CSB/SJU) who was traveling the world. We settled into the place, feeling safe about leaving our things as one should in a backpacker, and made our way down to the famous beaches of Durban. The walk provided a great view of the pretty part of Durban. Once to the beach front we grabbed a bunny chow (1/4 loaf of bread hollowed out and filled with curry) and ice cream and browsed the vendors. On the way home, we decided to try the Kombis of Durban seeing as we are pros at the public taxis in PE now. We asked around and found our way onto the correct Kombi and were told where to get off and transfer. At the transfer location, we were greeted by students who seemed to be astounded that we had been riding a Kombi. They asked us questions and took a picture, as if to provide evidence that yes, they did see a bunch of white girls on a Kombi. Once we had shaken the gawkers, who were quite normal and friendly thankfully, we got on the next Kombi and were yet again gawked at and asked questions. The only problem came into play when we had to shift seats. We got off the Kombi at our stop and my heart plummeted to the sidewalk when I felt my empty pocket. My feet carried me faster than I knew possible, chasing after the Kombi whose backseat carried my camera. Alas, my short legs could not carry me as fast as a Kombi can drive and I became resigned to the fact that the camera was gone and someone else was very happy to have my Christmas present in their possession. Dinner and drinks on Florida Road that night were a nice consolation prize. I had a curry roti wrap, which astonished us all when it came out at least double the size of a Chipotle burrito. Needless to say, I did not finish the beast. We went to bed full and happy, albeit lacking a camera.

Fall Break: Durban Day 1

Wednesday, 27th April

            Summer through all seasons is an enticing phenomenon. As the weather in Port Elizabeth gets colder, eternal summer becomes even more inviting so we planned a trip to Durban. Ten girls left on Wednesday morning, and three other people left on Thursday to visit the warm city. Our trip started out a little tenuously as a few of the ten got back to the hotel from Long Street (the famous party street in Cape Town) a little too close to our 5 am departure for the airport. Everyone was back to a normal state by the time we landed in Durban and we made our way to Banana Backpackers, our accommodation for the few nights were there. We got a pretty unpleasant surprise that got much more so the more we saw of the backpacker. In the ground floor of the building that housed the backpacker, was a lovely establishment called ‘Sonya’s Massage and Escort’. No, I am not kidding you. The young lady in her bikini looked very nice but for some odd reason, I wasn’t the happiest camper with the location, which also boasted a slightly sketchy neighborhood. The cockroaches we found later didn’t help either.

            On the more positive side of our first day in Durban, we got to explore some great spots. We began the day at the Durban Botanic Gardens, a little piece of Eden in the middle of a dense city. We each took about a bajillion pictures (that’s the scientific term for the amount of pictures taken) and the browsing seemed nearly endless, especially for Taylor, who was still on crutches from her Table Mountain ankle incident. After we’d had our fill of flowers for the day we made our way to find some lunch. We went to Nando’s in The Workshop (chain restaurant in a shopping mall). Afterwards, we decided to walk our way to the BAT Center. We stumbled upon the Natural Science Museum and my dorky self was even more in heaven. I had forgotten how much I loved museums until we begin to explore the exhibits. The Insect Arcade was a favorite of Taylor’s and boasted a really cool diagram that lit up little dots on the human body where various insects make their homes.

            We eventually left the museum, to the slight reluctance of those who wished it were bigger and to the relief of the antsy ones. The walk to the BAT Centre gave us a look at urban Durban and not necessarily of the prettiest parts of Durban. We finally found it, thanks to our handy dandy tourist map. We had to walk into a tunnel structure that took you under the train tracks and it smelled of urine and certainly housed people at night. But the creepy tunnel was certainly worth it when we came upon the eclectic building. There was more character in the building than I have ever seen grace a single structure. It really didn’t seem like a building anymore, rather it was a constantly morphing work of art that housed wonderful sounds of jazz and art that tempted the browser to the extreme. Sadly only a few of the artist shops were open when we went so our next stop came too soon. The quick spar doesn’t seem quite exciting enough to write about but it allowed for the purchasing of breakfast food and became the last stop of the day until dinner.

            We went to a Mexican restaurant on Florida Road. The Mexican food was certainly the closest we have come to that breed of cuisine and the road was a nice return to a neighborhood where we felt safe. We sadly had to return to Banana Backpackers, at which point we found the cockroaches. We got ready for bed and I called Zach, who is thankfully still able to calm me down about cockroaches and creepiness from 9,000 miles away.  I laid down on the sheets, about which I had a few doubts, and used my beach towel as a blanket. Sleep came a little easier knowing we had reservations for the next two nights at a backpacker by Florida Road and we would be departing Banana’s lovely establishment, and leaving the vicinity of Sonya’s, in the morning.

Fall Break: Cape Town Day 2 :)

Tuesday, 26th April

            Today was perhaps one of my favorite days of the trip. We began the drive out to Cape Point and stopped for coffee and a treat at Noordhoek Farm Village. I was accosted with the aroma of freshly baking bread and sugary delights upon entry. It seemed as though flour actually hung in the air as we marveled at the quaint little place, packed to the brim with people milling about the shop. After purchasing the largest carrot cake cupcake with Taylor, Heather, Mellissa, and Lindsay, we browsed through the art. I found a great Mother’s Day card and a painting of horses on an African beach that would be in my suitcase in a heartbeat if my suitcase was anywhere near large enough. Just before we were ushered out, we found a row of charming little shops that we had no time to explore. Warm chai tea lattes in hand, we continued on our way…to the edge of Africa.

            Cape Point is the point of Africa that is closest to Antarctica. To climb to the lighthouse on the point, which stands on a cliff towering over the ocean, you must traverse over 200 stairs and a whole lot of slanted sidewalk. Once on the point, we had to be careful not to blow over for the wind. After pictures were snapped and a quick sandwich was grabbed, we made our way to the penguins at Boulders Penguin Colony. The hundred some Korean tourists provided an entertaining backdrop to the African penguins braying and preening each other.

            Following the viewing of the cute little creatures, we made our way to a vineyard in the Constantia Valley. Groot Constantia played host to our large group as well as an even larger group of French children. I had not pictured a vineyard being so boisterous before. The road lined with fruit trees leading the way to Table Mountain’s beautiful backdrop thankfully wasn’t lessened in its effect by the French kids who had just downed a glass of wine and were playing on the lawn. I made a comment about said children and realized there was a French man behind me who asked what I was saying about French people. I replied that it’s well known that the French love wine and food and that it was great wine and food. He heartily agreed and a laugh was had. I’m glad I left out the part about the snobbery often connected with said love of dining. Shortly after the French episode, we began the tasting, which involved 5 nice wines: Sauvignon Blanc, Blanc De Noir, Shiraz, Cabernet Sauvignon, and Port. Even though the sommelier didn’t deign to explain the wines in any depth, the tasting was pleasant and the conversation was light and happy. The oven-fired pizzas we enjoyed for dinner that night were a great ending to a simply charming day.

Fall Break: Cape Town Day 1

Monday, 25th April           

            We spent Monday and Tuesday in Cape Town. Monday boasted the adventure of Table Mountain. The hike up is 2 hours straight up a gorge so 7 of us elected to take the cable car up and just hike down. The cable car had the capacity to hold over 60 people and its floor rotated 360 degrees as it made the four and a half minute ride up the mountain. We were able to see the city, ocean, and mountain but somehow the view from the top was even better. The mist that hung low to the ground  provided an amazing view of the mountain’s impressive drop, houses climbing its skirt. After a beer on the top with the girls and lunch with the crew who had climbed, we all headed back down the mountain, a trek that would take four and a half hours. The harsh rain on the top dissipated after about 45 minutes and we all dried by the time we made it back down the mountain for the most part. The scenery was absolutely stunning, reminiscent of what I imagine Ireland would look like, combined with a little Lord of the Rings. We had reached a bakkie (truck) path when Taylor decided to find an uneven piece of ground and roll her ankle quite badly. It swelled immensely in the first few minutes and the boys all had to take turns giving her a piggy back down the mountain. Once home, she went to the doctor, Laura accompanying her and Bruce since she hadn’t been to a hospital in SA yet. Heather and I decided to explore our way to The Chocolate House we had passed in the car that morning to buy Taylor some chocolate. We found our way and were pleasantly surprised to enter a room plush with deep red furnishings and gilt in gold. The older lady whose store it was was quite a convincing sales person and we left the irresistible shop with far more chocolate than we had planned on. She had given Heather and I two fresh cream chocolates each, one tasting faintly of Swiss cheese in a delightful way. Despite our slightly more empty pockets, we had tummies full of delicious chocolate and a treat for our wounded friend. Dinner that evening was at a restaurant famous for its burgers and milkshakes. We had great conversation and sat with the tour guides which was interesting since got to hear more about Cape Town that way. The peanut butter banana milkshake and feta cheese on my burger very obviously made for a happy Katie.

Fall Break: Easter Sunday

Sunday 24th April 2011

            This Lent has been quite bizarre to be honest. Holy Week has been even more so. Bungee jumping on Good Friday just seems a little odd. The agenda for Easter Sunday held Mass at a catholic church in Cape Town, returning to the multi-cultural service at Kanyisa back in Gugulethu that the rest of the group attended, lunch at Mzoli’s, and a tour of Robben Island. Mass was nice, but it was certainly the first time I had sat on the floor in the aisles of a church before. There were only 6 of us who went. Thankfully we were able to get to Kanyisa before the service ended. We watched a youth group give an interpretive dance and a skit to a song called ‘Everything’ by Lighthouse. A man and an interpreter gave a sermon and those of us from the catholic mass who were sitting in the back were then taken  to save spots for lunch at Mzolis. The service at Kanyis ran really late so we sat there for almost two hours. We ate a fat cake while we waited, which is an enormous African doughnut that has been fried to the point of tremendous greasiness. When the whole group arrived, we ate meat out of huge tubs that were passed around the table. Plates were nothing to mess with and napkins were used to the max as we ate and talked. Mzoli’s was loud and boisterous, the atmosphere of a bar being quite odd on a Sunday, much less on Easter.

            After lunch we made the trip out to Robben Island. We were taken to a group cell and told how life at the prison was. We saw Mandela’s cell and the quarries in which he and other prisoners toiled and were tortured. The day was rainy and gloomy which seemed to fit the mood of the island. None of us expected the island to be that large and spread. The tour was short and not overly exciting but it was powerful to be in the place that Mandela, the hero of South Africa, spent so many years.

            The evening brought a delicious couscous dinner and scrumptious Haagen Dazs ice cream. We stayed at the Saasveld Lodge near Long Street. Some people even went out on Long Street but we elected not to go clubbing on Easter. At the end of the day, we reflected on the diverse Easter we had. The homily at mass came in handy just then. The priest had spoken about being open to life and to what God has in store for you. God had provided us with an Easter full of surprises. Yes, we ate in a messy loud place without our families but we still celebrated the day with the community we have built in South Africa. We went to a prison but that gave us a chance to be grateful for our own freedom. We woke up in a township and went to be in a comfortable hotel. We were afforded the opportunity to see just how blessed we are to have been given such a distinct Easter Sunday in South Africa.

Fall Break: Gugulethu Home Stay

 Saturday, 23rd April, 2011.         
             We departed from Tsitsikamma early Saturday morning and made the drive to Cape Town, stopping for a nice lunch along the way. Our destination for the evening was Gugulethu, a township about 10 miles outside of Cape Town. Mama Knox had started a cooperative business with our tour guide, Mike, through which people were taken into homes of other Mamas in the neighborhood for home stays. She started with just a few Mamas and now has 16 other Mamas in her business.  We arrived in Gugulethu around 6:30 pm that night, an hour behind schedule and our Mamas had all gone home to finish cooking dinner. When they returned they took us in pairs to their homes. Heather and I were to stay with Mama Ndsentu and her family. Her youngest son, Siko (who was 5), was a bouncing dancing ball of energy the entire time. When we got to the house, we met her older daughter Natasha, who was 15, had cooked us all dinner. The home was quite nice inside. The rooms were in no short supply of decorations and the appliances you would find in any other home were present. Besides the neighborhood, the only ways you could tell you were in a township home were from the age of the house and the building materials. The bathroom was half-finished and the laundry was obviously done in the bathtub. After we sat and had some introductory conversation about her family and the usual questions about our schooling, we took a short walk to her friends house. A short distance from her house we heard a dog crying and saw one lying in the street. Mama Ndsentu immediately said that her dog always sleeps in the street and was probably just fine but when the crying persisted, we went over to the dog who’s gritted teeth revealed its pain. A neighbor man came to carry the dog back to the driveway of the house as Mama Ndsentu’s husband was arriving home from work. Eventually the dog was stood up and it shook the shock off and seemed fine. They took the dog to the garage and Heather and I still don’t know what came of it. We continued on our walk following the dog incident. When we arrived at her friend’s house, her friend’s son let us in and we stayed for a little while even though his mother wasn’t home. He and Mama Ndsentu’s two sons taught me how to play UNO which was quite funny playing with three tricky little boys.

After the lively game of UNO we went back to the house and ate dinner. They were all quite surprised that Heather and I had eaten samp before and liked it. Dinner brought good light conversation with the whole family, Shrek 2 providing a charming ambiance. After eating, Heather and I offered to do the dishes and Siphosethu, the 12 year old daughter whose turn it was to do dishes, emphatically accepted. To be honest it was the most fun I have ever had doing dishes. We chatted with Sipho and Siko commanded Heather and I to wash the dishes, demonstrating with an imaginary dish. Siko also graced us with his modeling walk and tried to teach us how to dance. It’s a little embarrassing when a 5 year old boy is better at dancing than a 20 year old girl but it’s entertaining nonetheless. Siko then decided to label Heather and I as different kinds of fruits and finally me as a shark and Heather as a fish. While the conversation with Sipho remained light and on the surface, giggles were had and a little bit of expectation was broken down. They were all surprised Heather and I had offered to do the dishes and when we had fun doing it and chatted with the family as if it were normal, I think they were pleasantly surprised.

After dishes and a little more of Shrek, the family began to yawn and bedtime became imminent. When we were shown the bedroom, it became obvious we had displaced two of the children, which was slightly uncomfortable but we knew there was nothing we could do about it. We whispered our thoughts about the day for a few minutes and promptly fell asleep. At 2 am the dog started barking relentlessly for like 10 minutes and I was up the rest of the night every half hour. When morning broke, we were offered a shower but we said we could just pin our hair up. It seemed like taking a shower was quite the task as Mama would have had to heat water on the stove and put it in the tub and we only had 20 minutes before Mass. We ate a quite breakfast and took a picture with the two boys and Mama Ndsentu and were walked back to Mama Knox’s house.

While we didn’t have any conversations that explored life in the township or racial boundaries, the home stay was still a wonderful experience. We were offered insight into what a family in a township, albeit a nicer part of the township, lived like. It’s a simple thing, but we broke down some boundaries that are not often broken. We were told that foreigners, much less white foreigners, do not stay in the townships often. It was unheard of for whites to sleep in the townships until only a few years ago and whites during apartheid could not enter the townships for fear of violent repercussions, fears based in reality. So our simple home stay is evidence of the small steps in the continuing road of breaking down the continued legacy of apartheid.  

Fall Break: Tsitsikamma

Friday, 22 April, 2011
Bright and early found new meaning for our early departure from PE to embark on our 10-day adventure. We’d been packing and skyping into the late hours and had only gotten an hour and a half of sleep before the 630 am car ride. I slept most of the drive to Tsitsikamma and when my eyes opened they were accosted with the sight of breathtaking mountains and sheer drops. The world’s highest bungee jump, Face Adrenalin, at Bloukran’s Ridge was the first stop of the day and 25 out of the 29 in our group made the jump. Laura, Lindsay, Heather, and I sat out the terrifying leap (Lindsay and Heather for financial reasons and Laura and I for fear we might die of a heart attack on the walk there or at the edge of the bridge). The fact that the bridge had cars driving over it while people jumped surprised me for some reason but I’m sure the pumping music on the platform (underneath the road) made the outside world disappear. We were able to watch them plunge and bounce into the canyon from a balcony as well as watch their faces and a zoomed in account of their jump on a TV screen. Everyone said it was the best thing they had ever done, that the thought of utter regret as they got to the edge was replaced with the complete adrenaline of the fall and the total peace and quiet in that moment alone in the canyon. I had a few moments of wishing I had forced myself to do it because the looks of utter ecstasy on everyone’s faces made such a frightening prospect seem appealing. I made a pact with Laura that we would do something that terrifies us before we leave (she went skydiving in Drakensburg at the end of break). I’m not sure what else I can do that terrifies me other than skydive and I’m not sure I would be able to do that unless Zach became a professional skydiver first and jumped out of the plane with me. Something tells me that won’t happen in the next 3 weeks. So I may have to extend the pact to the next few years.

Following the death-defying bungee, we drove to Tsitsikamma National Forest. The drive down to the coast wound through think forest that held an element of jungle in its leaves and roots. The waves crashing along the rocky coastline were absolutely spectacular, each at least 20 feet with impressive spray misting over the rocks and drifting up to us. Our tour guide took us on a hike along the Otter trail, which he warned would be quite hard. We took it a pace so fast that pictures turned out blurred as we walked. We were still able to cath glimpses of the beauty surrounded us as we hiked up and down rooted hills and traversed along the huge boulders of the coast. The boulders presented a special challenge for those of us who were vertically challenged because our feet were almost always 5 inches short of their destination and leaping onto unstable rocks was a little nerve racking.  We finally reached the waterfall and proceeded to jump in the water and swim up to it, climbing onto it for a photo op. The water was quite literally the coldest water I had ever felt in my life. Laura and I nearly panicked on impact with the icy pool and Taylor’s reminder to breathe was quite helpful. We were helped up onto the rocks of the waterfall and stayed there for enough time to calm down and take in the brilliant sight of ocean coast in front of us and mountains stretching behind us. The hike back seemed less strenuous and we enjoyed the strength it took to clamber over the rocks. By the time we got to the backpacker for the evening, we were exhausted and ready for the yummy meal provided across the street. After dinner we sat around the fire and chatted for an hour or so. After a phone call to Mom and Zach, I went to bed happy and tired and ready for the next 9 days of the adventure.