My timing is off on this final post, but part of the delay comes from the fact that it does not feel possible that my time in Cape Town is over. My
last couple of weeks in Africa were quite amazing, with time to see
more of Cape Town as well as a hastily planned trip to Victoria Falls.
I got to take a day trip with a couple of friends to Kalk
Bay, were we hiked around and attempted to find a cave we had been told about.
View at the top of our hike
We did find one cave, but lack of a good flashlight (and fear) prevented us
from exploring too deep into it.
The roof of the cave
Tom's theater class put to use in this 'falling' shot
We stopped in Muizenberg on our way back and I
saw this cool Beetle with matching surfboard:
That night I saw a play called The
Brother Size at the Baxter Theater. The
show actually originally played in Syracuse. It was quite entertaining and was
apparently laden with references to African mythology, which would have made it
even more interesting if I better understood the mythology.
Kevin and I made a trip to the aquarium, since I had not yet
been. We were lucky enough to see both the penguin feeding and the feeding of
the big fish in the aquarium’s huge tank. The penguins were funny because they
are fed whole fish, some of which end up slipping away, so they
waddle away, chasing after the evasive fish.
Jellyfishing Jellyfishing
The turtles get fed on a separate day because they are too slow
to beat the big fish, but this one tried anyways
On the Friday of our first exam week, Kevin and I made the
impulsive decision to take a trip to Victoria Falls. We had been hoping to take
a trip between exams, and even previously found a planned trip that fit perfectly into
our schedule, but there had not been anyone else signed up, so the company was not
running it. After finding that out, we sort of faded in our efforts
and were distracted by exams. We ended up finding a somewhat reasonable flight,
however, and hastily booked it two days before it was scheduled to leave. We expedited our Yellow Fever vaccinations, packed up, and left Sunday
morning. While we had begun to get used to some of the inefficient frustrations
of South Africa, we were shocked when we got to the airport for our 6AM flight. Less than an hour before our
flight, with a line rapidly building in front of the
South African Airways check-in area, there was not an employee in sight. Eventually,
employees made their way into work, and we did make it through South African ‘security’ and to our gate.
We flew to Johannesburg and then into Livingstone, Zambia.
We arrived by early afternoon and got a ride to the backpackers we were
staying at, called Jollyboys. The place was really nice with a pool and a
travel agent desk set up to book different activities by the falls.
A nice lounge area at Jollyboys
Monday we had a packed day with touristy, but fun,
activities. We first took a helicopter ride over the falls. It was somewhat
unlike helicopter rides as I’ve been taught to imagine them from the Bachelor/Bachelorette.
There was another couple on the ride, which may have contributed to this.
Kevin, another woman, and I sat in the back, with the woman’s husband and the
driver in the front. I think the woman had a similar romantic idea of
helicopters as me, evidenced by her trying to hold her husband’s hand as he
reached it behind his seat. He had a different intention, however, as he evaded her grasp and grabbed for a different camera lens behind his seat. The views were truly incredible and I was sad
that the ride seemed to end in the blink of an eye.
After the ride we made our
way to the falls and walked around for a while along the paths. There is a point of no return after which it is impossible to keep walking without getting
soaked. We had on rain gear, but still ended up pretty wet. There is an awesome
bridge that we got to walk across and the way the water emanates from below,
there seemed to be rainbows all around us. Having been to Niagara Falls many times in
my life, I can definitely say that Vic Falls is winning. We wound up back at
Jollyboys to relax for a short time, then onto a sunset cruise. I am not sure
if there were code words that we missed in the description (perhaps the words ‘slow’ or ‘mature?’)
but I think we somehow checked the box for ‘old people cruise.’ We were by far
the youngest people on the boat, but we had a great time. I did not anticipate
that we would see animals, but we saw a group of hippos and a bunch of birds, too.
Hungry, hungry hippos
Nice sunset view from the boat
Tuesday we got to go white-water rafting on the Zambezi
River, probably our favorite part of the trip. There was quite a hike down from
where we were dropped off to actually get into the water. Eventually, we were in
the boat and on our way, with our guide in the back of the boat named Potato,
to keep us safe.
Prepped for rafting
One of the first things Potato had us do was jump off the boat,
climb up some a little cliff, and jump off into the water.
I was scared
We went though the second half of the rapids.
While no one fell out and the boat did not tip over naturally, Potato sought to
ensure that we experienced all of these things- having us jump out of the boat
and hold on during some of the rapids, and directing us how to flip the boat over on
ourselves. Overall it was a ton of fun and we were excited to learn that there
was a cable car to take us back up at the end.
Ducking
Morale-boosting paddle high five
Wednesday we toured Livingstone with one of the guys from
the backpackers. It is a relatively small town, but it was neat to see the
markets and different places, including a really old run-down hotel where
royalty used to stay. We also went to a museum right near where we were staying
that had exhibits on archeological finds, David Livingstone. as well as the
history of the town named after him, and general history of Zambia. Walking
around Livingstone, some people were very aggressive about trying to sell
different items, such as necklaces with Nyami Nyami, the Zambezi River God, a
snakelike figure. We noted that unlike in Cape Town, no one seemed to be
begging for money, however.
Next we made our way to Chobe National Park in Botswana. We
took a boat across the Zambezi to enter the country. I was confused when a
person at the border directed me toward a dirty towel on the ground. I later
learned that the towel had disinfectant on it, so visitors must step on it to
kill anything that may be brought in on the bottom of shoes. We got to go one two safari adventures, first
on a boat to see animals by water, and after that we went into a safari vehicle to
enter the park on land. We saw a lot of elephants, giraffe, antelope,
crocodiles, monkeys, and hippos, among other animals. One of the craziest things we saw
was an elephant that had died on the shore and was being picked apart by
hundreds of vultures:
Eat up
We got dropped off at the border to Zimbabwe after the
safari. We were glad we had set up transport from there, because we did not see
any taxis around, despite what one of the workers at Jollyboys had told us. The
transport we set up even made me a little wary. There was just a man with a
van, with no signage indicating he was any sort of official taxi driver. We got
in and so did his extremely large friend, apparently along for the ride. When
the car did not start, they tried to jump it using their friends’ car that
looked to be many hours of repair away from running itself. When that did not
work, they just swapped out the battery and we were off. We made it to the
backpackers just fine. The next day we got to see the falls from the Zimbabwean
side, which most people say is the better side to see the falls from, and I agree. We ended
up soaked once more from the water of the falls, but the sun popped out just as
we were done walking around, which dried us off perfectly. There seemed to be
less to do in Vic Falls, with the town itself more geared exclusively
toward very touristy things. We explored some, though. At the backpackers we met a guy
named Dexter, who created an amazing work of art that is meant to represent all
different countries of the world and is run by pulleys, which move the
different people in his set up. The Americans were having a BBQ.
Just a small portion of Dexter's huge masterpiece
Saturday we made our way back to South Africa, getting home just in time for the last group dinner at Kevin’s house. All of his housemates had made different dishes and they even had a cake and sang ‘Happy Birthday’ for my upcoming birthday.
The next couple of days were spent studying, despite some beautiful weather. At 7 PM Tuesday I finally had all of my exams finished, and
popped a bottle of (cheap) champagne to celebrate. Unfortunately, my last few
days in Cape Town were slightly rainy. I did get in some souvenir shopping as well
as a trip to Stellenbosh. We made it an Afrikaaner day, wandering Stellenbosh
and visiting ‘Taalmonument,’ a monument in Paarl built to celebrate the
declaration of Afrikaans as an official language.
Taalmonument in Paarl
We even stopped for a quick
wine tasting on the way home at this beautiful vineyard
On our last day
in Cape Town we squeezed in some last minute errands and got a chance to visit
St. Georges Home for Girls, an orphanage in Wynberg. Kevin’s cousin had
volunteered there when she studied abroad a few years ago at UCT, and she had
wanted us to come visit. It was fun to get to play with the girls for a little.
They gave us a tour of the home, which has a cheery look with each room painted
a different bright color. We went outside and jumped on the trampoline. Some of
the little ones were especially interested in playing with our phones; one even
snuck off and made a call to our friend Andile from Kevin’s phone. We wished we
had visited the home earlier in our trip, because it would have been a nice
place to come and visit and to get to know the girls better. I suppose that is just evidence that there are
always opportunities missed regardless of how long you
spend in a place.
We had our final dinner at Pancho’s, a Mexican place we all
adore in Observatory. I do agree that it is a little absurd that one of our
favorite restaurants in Cape Town is Mexican. We ended the night seeing a band
we saw early on in the trip called Sixgun Gospel. They were releasing an LP, so
the crowd was larger this time, but they sounded just as great. It was quite a neat way to end our time in Cape Town.
The flight home went relatively smoothly, with a delay
taking off from Johannesburg. We ended up missing our connection in Washington,
but luckily there was another flight to Buffalo just a couple of hours later.
It has been nice being home so far. The weather has really been timed well-
just as it was beginning to cool off in Cape Town I am now home for summer. Some things
about being home feel quite strange. We are back on the other side of the road
again, everything feels much more spread out, there is much less traffic, and I don’t have to use three
keys to get in and out of the house. I do not know how to end this all in an
epic way, but perhaps I don’t have to because I am confident that I will be back in South Africa again some day.
