Playing Tourist.

This weekend I decided to be a tourist and headed into Cape Town with a North Face backpack and a DSL camera around my neck; two telltale signs of the American tourist. Though I consider myself a South African resident at the moment and hate being lumped in with the tourist/backpacker population, I thought spending two days sightseeing wouldn't hurt. Since I am not on a study abroad program this time around, I have found it more difficult to get out of Stellenbosch and thus haven't been on as many adventures as I would have liked. So Friday afternoon I took the one hour (on a good day) train ride into the city and got a bed at a local backpackers.  I have found the backpackers/hostels here to be fantastic - cheap but always clean, friendly, safe and an overall good way to meet some interesting characters from all over the globe. 

Saturday turned out to be the most beautiful day we have had here since I arrived in July. I ended up taking the City Sightseeing tour bus and loved it despite being super hesitant of it's extreme touristic nature. It is a double decker bus that is open at the top so you get excellent, unobstructed views. It has two different routes that each make about 15 stops around the city and surrounding areas. I got to see many places I wouldn't have been comfortable or able to visit on my own. I visited the oldest wine farm of South Africa, Groot Constantia, which was built way back in 1685, then headed on to the Imizamo township. Later I explored the harbour at Hout Bay and got to experience the madness that is Saturday afternoon fishing.  I also walked around Camps Bay a bit before the African sun started to fry me. Camps Bay is the Venice Beach of Cape Town and is where celebrities such as Prince Harry can be spotted quite frequently. Sadly, Harry was no where to be found this weekend so there won't be a royal wedding for me anytime soon! I ended the night watching the sunset over the Indian Ocean from Signal Hill which looks out over all of Cape Town and the ocean. (put new CT pictures from this weekend in my Stellenbosch Rondte Twee album on the right --->)

 Groot Constantia

Imizamo Yethu township

Hout Bay

Camps Bay

Sunset atop Signal Hill

Table Mountain at night

Bit of exciting news here: Table Mountain in Cape Town was recently declared one of the New Seven Wonders of the World along with Puerto Princesa Underground River in the Philippines, Komodo Island in Indonesia, Jeju Island of South Korea, Iguazu Falls in Brazil/Argentina, Halong Bay in Vietnam, and the Amazon Rainforest of South America. 

Today, Sunday, was like a whole different season. Cold, rainy, and windy which is by far the worst here in Cape Town. I spent the morning taking the bus around the second route and then wasted an hour or two in Cape Town's aquarium before calling it a day and taking the train back to Stellenbosch.

Countdown to St. Louis: 24 Days

To sum up my last few weeks...

After my last update in NYC, I had a 24 hour layover in Dubai before making it back to Cape Town. Originally, I was excited to spend the day sightseeing in the city. When I got there though, I was exhausted, it was hot and because it was a Friday, and thus the Muslim religious day, the public transport and pretty much everything else were closed until 3 in the afternoon. In addition, I found it a bit more difficult to navigate the city than I had expected so I ended up just taking the metro into town and walking around for an hour or so. A bit disappointing! Next time I will know to book a tour or something. Because of this, my pictures are not too exciting! Really, Dubai was just hot and sandy - everything was brown.

When I arrived back in Stellenbosch I slept for almost two days straight. I have been back two weeks now and my sleeping habits are finally getting back to normal. The temperature is beginning to rise and I think summer is just around the corner here - finally! Last weekend some friends and I took the train into Cape Town. We went to one of my favorite places, the Old Biscuit Mill, which has a market on Saturday mornings with the best assortment of delicious foods and local up-and-coming designer clothing. It is very upscale, trendy and you will find all the Americans of Cape Town here.

Old Biscuit Mill

View of the countryside from the train on our way back to Stellenbosch 

This past weekend I enjoyed hanging out around Stellenbosch and went to another local Saturday morning market. 

Saint Louis Blur

It's 2:30am and I am crashing in the desolate JFK terminal 4 on my way back to Stellenbosch after an 8 day visit to Saint Louis. Two things I've learned today: not all taxis take credit cards and not all airports are open 24/7.  I flew out of Saint Louis and after a two hour delay I was on my way to Newark.  I was feeling a bit nauseous from the flight so I decided to splurge and take a taxi from Newark to JFK instead of the alternative of a series of trains and subways. I found out halfway through the drive that I needed cash and I had to have the driver take me to an ATM - no big deal, just another $30! Anyway, now I'm camping out by the check-in counters with a handful of other weary travelers because apparently I can't check in for another few hours. A bed sounds really great right about now. Too bad I have another 54 hours of flights and layovers... 

My visit home was really great even though it was too short! I don't feel like I stopped going the entire week yet I didn't do most of the things I had on my to-do list. For the most part I just hung out with my family since my aunt and little cousin were in town from Switzerland. I picked and carved pumpkins, picked apples, stuffed my face with my aunt's delicious cooking, visited Bread Co. over once a day on average, saw a couple of much missed friends and attempted a few crafts I found on my new obsession, Pinterest. Yes, we made a candle out of a clementine! It was so great to come back for a bit of Fall also. Fall is my favorite season and is up there with Bread Co. on the list of things I miss the most. I'm not going to lie, I was a bit sad to leave - I think I was half dreading the long venture back to Cape Town and half wanting more time in Saint Louis. I will be back in two months for Christmas though! At that point I'm not sure where my life will be headed - I could be staying in Stellenbosch for a few more months, continuing to work at Women on Farms Project or there is the possibility of moving back to Boston with a friend and starting up a wedding planning business. Or maybe living at an ashram in India for awhile? Who knows!

the cousins - Abby, Shawn, Kaisla, Janie, Kelly and I.

Sigma Kappas at Eckert's

Rombach's

Rocking the Daisies.

These past few weeks have been hectic as a local South African would say. Apparently the end of September is a popular time for NGO funders to want projects wrapped up and reports turned in. So in South African time that means things get done mid-October. I did two survey analyses and two reports for funders - one survey on hunger and land access for farm workers in the Rawsonville area and the other on labour rights and wages for farm workers and farm dwellers.

After the busy week, I was eager for a break! This past weekend I went to a three day long music festival called Rocking the Daisies, just an hour and a half from Cape Town. It is a huge deal, happens once a year, and is probably the most well know music festival of its kind in the Southern Hemisphere. It is pretty much a modern Woodstock. Anyway, I went with a few friends. We camped all weekend, listened to music, laid out in the sun around a reservoir, and enjoyed the outdoors. Besides being extremely hot, we had beautiful weather. The only downer to the weekend was Sunday morning's Rugby World Cup game where the South African Springbok's lost to the Australian Wallabie's in a tight 9-11 match. The entire festival crowd got up at 7am (or just never went to bed) in order to gather around a huge screen and cheer on the Boks. The South African unity and pride when it comes to the Springboks is really amazing actually and I have loved getting into the game. I have never seen so many people wearing the same green and gold jersey - no matter what age, gender, race, social status, etc. This is a pretty big feat for South Africa. 

And now I am hanging out in the Dubai airport enroute to Saint Louis! I'm taking a little 2 week holiday mostly because my aunt and cousin will be in town from Switzerland as well. I got jealous at the thought of everyone hanging out together without me... and I could really use some quality Panera time. I get in Tuesday evening and am in town through Wednesday the 19th!

chowing down on braaiday

Yesterday was National Braai Day here in South Africa. To braai is basically to BBQ only it is a whole day event and EVERYTHING gets braaied; tons of meat, vegetables, fruits, breads, really anything you can think of. I would compare Braai Day to Labour Day in the States. Here is a funny youtube video which will give you an idea of how big of a deal Braai Day is. For those of you over about 30, you probably won't find the humor in this because it is a parody of a funny American song called "Friday."

My friends and I went to Kogelbaai, a beach just a little over a half hour from Stellenbosch on the Indian Ocean side of Cape Town, for the weekend. We swam and braaied all day long and then I had my first sleeping on the beach experience. It was a bit chilly and uncomfortable but so cool to fall asleep with the stars above you and the sound of waves crashing a couple of feet away. The weather could not have been anymore perfect and I'm pretty sure I have never seen a more beautiful beach or sunset so all in all it was a fantastic weekend! We even saw two whales on the drive home this morning! Just a heads up - none of these pictures are photoshopped, the sky was really that colour!

The Crazy Americans Take Lesotho and Kruger!

I have officially returned home to Stellenbosch unharmed after my 10 day roadtrip to the Kingdom of Lesotho and Kruger National Park with two other American friends! The majority of the people who knew about this roadtrip were convinced that my friends and I would not make it back in one piece - whether by car accident on the deadly N1 highway, rural crime in Lesotho, or lion attack on the safari, they were sure the Crazy Americans (a name that has for some reason stuck to us) were going to meet their death. We were very happy to prove everyone wrong...

We departed Stellenbosch last Friday afternoon and hit the open road, planning to spend the night in the small town of Touws River, which is about 2 hours into the trip. We reached Touws River, however, and found the accommodation a bit sketch so we continued on and ended up driving all the way to Colesburg, which was our intended second night stop. After grabbing food at a petrol station and taking a nap in the parking lot, we continued on our way to Lesotho. The last four hours or so of the journey were on very rural, dirt, pothole ridden roads and considering we were in a medium size sedan, we found this leg of the drive very slow going. Still, we had such a great time driving (something we don't get to do often here) and the scenery was beautiful. When we reached the Lesotho-South Africa border we were shocked at how easy the immigration control process was - there basically was none. No car check, no nothing. But as you will commonly find us saying here, TIA. This is Africa. So we crossed the border, stopped to ask a few directions, drove along crazy mountain side roads and finally found ourselves at our backpackers!

We spent three days at the Malealea Lodge in Lesotho and it was absolutely incredible. Lesotho is known as the Kingdom in the Sky and that description really is fitting because the small nation is almost entirely up in the mountains. The majority of the population is rural, poor, and herds sheep and cows for a living. It has to be the most 'traditional' place I have ever been in the sense that it is so untouched by the western world. This being said, there is not a whole lot to do there. We took it as an opportunity to relax, get lots of sleep, and detox from everyday life.  We spent one day hiking on our own - it was amazing hiking in such an untouched land. There were local herders and their livestock everywhere along the mountains so we hiked to the sound of nomadic songs and cow bells. We walked around a local village one day and went into the 'city' of Masuru another day. The most inspiring part for me was the night sky there - there is no way for me to describe just how many stars I could see. It was like the sky was bright from the stars and even a few planets.  And all the constellations are backwards from what we know in the States which is a bit weird! There must be very few places in the world where you can see stars like that! The morning that we left Lesotho we got up early to watch the sun rise up over the mountains, which again was an incredible experience.  We could see candles being lite on nearby mountains as villages awoke and roosters were making a racket everywhere. All in all, it was just an experience you won't find very many places in the world!

After Lesotho, we drove to Johannesburg, stayed there one night, and then got picked up bright and early the next morning for our Kruger National Park safari! Besides Jess, Whitney and I, there were two other girls our age, a 30 year old guy, and an older woman on our safari with us.  To be honest, I was not all that excited about the safari leg of our trip just because I thought it was going to be super touristy but it turned out to be amazing! The small group made the experience more national geographic like and our guide knew everything there was to know so I learned a ton. We saw the South African Big 5 - lion, leopard, elephant, buffalo, and rhino; as well as giraffes, zebras, hyenas, and much mores. We camped two nights and stayed the third night in a lodge. We slept to the sound of lions roaring in the night, we saw a ton of baby lion cubs, herds of elephants and buffalo crossing the street, and even got close enough to touch a few of the animals. While I have seen all of these animals at the zoo, it was incredible to see them in the wild.