I am writing you this as I watch the ship sail away from South Africa towards Ghana - from the shore.
Ok, that is not entirely true, but I wish it was. We haven't been able to leave yet because the winds are so bad and the seas are so choppy that we would not have an enjoyable departure from the jetty. This windiness is something I can personally attest to after my day today which did not go as planned at all unfortunately, but still turned out to be a fairly amazingly wonderful day - on top of four others in a row. I have to come back to South Africa for an extended period of time - enough to do another safari and see all of the coasts and everything I wish I had seen in these five days. I will probably need a month at least so if anyone has any interest in joining me or funding the experience feel free to let me know. I could definitely live here for sure and would love to if I can figure out a way to do so.
I am going to break this up into days so that I know where I am going with all my words, but if you only have five seconds just know that the moral of the story is similar to that of the terminator's - Ill be back.
Day 1 - 31 March 2010
We got into Cape Town, South Africa this morning without rough seas so I slept my little heart out and made it to the end of breakfast with Renae. I had literally slept the entire day before and therefore had not eaten in about a day so breakfast was intense - pancakes, croissants, multiple bowls of cereal, and a slightly ridiculous amount of orange juice [with ice, which is how I like it]. Also, I am not sure if I have ever mentioned it before or not, but the ice on the ship is Sonic ice which is my favorite and the most delicious type of ice in the world. I will be sad to go home to large cubes of hard ice but it is something I think I will be able to manage - no need to be too concerned just yet. Because I had spent the entire day sick in bed asleep I was not a pre-port, which is our two hour lecture about everything The Man thinks we should know about whatever port we are about to terrorize. After breakfast the ship was given clearance and Renae and I headed towards Robben Island for the morning so that we could meet Carson after her morning FDP and class picking.
You may have noticed something at this point about my day - I am already off the ship [around 9AM] and you did not have to hear me complain about the annoyances of going through customs and immigration. Do you know why that is? There is an extremely obvious answer to the question - one that I love - WE DIDN'T HAVE TO GO THROUGH ANY CUSTOMS PROCESS! We had no customs, no diplomatic briefing; no nothing! It was amazing and made my day that much better since I was about to be briefly depressed.
We figured out how to get to the ticket place for Robben Island, made our way there, and were immediately shot down. Boat tickets to the island were sold out until Monday - as in tomorrow 5 April as in when we would already be on the way to Ghana; South Africa disappointment #1. Instead we made our way to the aquarium since it was right around the corner - it was instantly relatively redeeming as there was a gelato & Cotton candy stand right out front that made us both smile. We got our tickets and went inside and were greeting by a doughnut shaped tank full of Nemo fish! We took turns getting in the hole and taking pictures like we were inside the fish tank and watching all of the cute kids do it too. Literally every kid I saw in South Africa was cute - it was ridiculous. Around the corner from the entrance were penguins! Emperor penguins, Rock-hopper penguins, and an adorable little baby fuzzy penguin that was making a lot of unnecessary noise but whose existence I still appreciated anyways.
There were all kinds of neat little exhibits and, just like being at home with the kids, the most popular one was full of sharks. It was interesting the way the sharks were displayed because it was much different than at home. All of the animals had little information plaques next to the tanks like usual, but the sharks had a huge campaign around them attempting to change the image people have of sharks - something that is very important in South Africa given their tourism industry. There were three giant posters that were advertisements that read the following:
1. Last year 652 people were killed by chairs. 4 people by sharks.
2. Last year 791 people were killed by defective toasters. 4 people by sharks.
3. Over 100 million sharks were killed by humans last year.
Granted none of these numbers include the amount of people bitten by toasters or chairs, but I think that the message was pretty clear and it made me happy to see because I think sharks are amazing. At the end of the line of ads there was a huge framed mirror hanging on the wall with a sign above it that said "Planet Earth's Most Dangerous Predator." A lot of people walked by it and just look in the mirror but stuff like that always makes me think - and I am pretty sure that that sign was extremely accurate in general.
We left the aquarium and walked through the craft market after filling our faces with lunch - pizza for Renae and Chinese noodles with chicken for me. The indoor market was really neat and was one of the places that always make me wish I had a house by the time I am done walking through it. I got a present for someone who will remain nameless because it was awesome and perfect for them and I was excited about it. It did not occur to me until I was getting onto the ship later on that I had purchased a contraband item as a gift but because I am awesome [or because they are dumb because it was in a sizeable box] I got it onto the ship and it is packed and ready to live in your home.
Anyways, we walked through some shops by the waterfront to kill time to get back to Carson since she had official Clemson business to deal with. While we did this I killed a lot of Christmas shopping [get excited] and also found stamps and postcards very easily. I did not send as many post cards as I would have liked because for some reason they are oddly expensive here, but I have pictures just as good as some of the ones on the front of these postcards so it will all be ok in the end. I also have AMAZING news for all of you out there in internet land reading this: THE STAMPS IN SOUTH AFRICA DO NOT REQUIRE DEHYDRATION ON MY PART IN ORDER TO GET SENT TO YOU! That's right! I got a break from licking everything I wanted to send to my friends and family! It was a much appreciated break that I honestly didn't even realize until I was halfway through putting stamps on things when I looked up at Carson and was like "Carson I haven't licked any of these stamps!" She had apparently already realized this, but I was so happy about it -and still am - that I thought it needed to be stated.
Incase somehow you did not know, the world cup is being held this summer in South Africa so there is tons of really sweet world cup merchandise all over the place. I am playing intramural soccer on the ship in 3-on-3 teams with Carson & Collin [assuming he does not get kicked off the ship] so I figured it was necessary that I got a shirt to wear [but definitely not to replace my amazing Mauritius jersey that I got at the last port]. There was an African music group playing outside by the waterfront so we listened to them and got a CD because it was pretty wonderful sounding, then we went to a grocery store, got milkshakes, and made our way back to the ship to find Carson and do some more exploring. She was still finishing her classes so I threw my pictures into my computer and was a bum until she showed up shortly thereafter.
We headed towards Table Mountain to take the cable cars for a ride and see all of Cape Town from the mountain. Given the way our morning had been going do you think that worked out? If you guessed no, you would be correct. South African Disappointment #2. It was too windy for the cars to run [something I did not believe, but understand now with more life experience four days later] so instead our cab driver took us to Long Street because it was supposedly awesome. It pretty much was.
He dropped us off on some random corner so we took a right and began our trek. We found some store with very Madonna-esque clothing but spent additional time in there because the techno they were playing was awesome and made me very happy. Then we went to a bead store, a used clothing store, a surf shop filled with gorgeous men, and then accidentally found the best t-shirt stand ever. It was called Beer Monkey and if you buy something they give you a beer with it. None of us wanted beer, but there was an amazingly hilarious shirt there that needed to be purchased, so Carson stepped up to the plate. I did not know anyone who I thought it was appropriate for, but it made me laugh for an extended period of time, as in I am still chuckling about it now. It is a green shirt with a little picture of a slightly saddened Jesus in the middle and says "I like Jesus but he loves me - Makes things kind of awkward." Carson and Renae had some of the beer and then we made our way around the corner because we could sense that Mexican food was within a 30 mile radius of our vicinity.
My Mexican food radar never lets me down and we walked in and sat down and were extremely happy, lucky bunnies. We got tacos, nachos, and fajitas to share and they shared a strawberry margarita because apparently that's what you do when you are pretending to be in Mexico. It was some of the best Mexican food I had ever had and I was highly satisfied - after dessert of course. We shared a banana chimmy-chonga with ice cream and it was intensely satisfying and we made our way down the other side of the road to continue exploring the new street.
We found a three story shop full of African souvenirs and such. I got a pair of stud earrings that are the South African flag which I am very excited about, and Carson found 3 masks that she wanted to get for her friends back home. Well, that seemed like a great idea but she needed cash to pay for them because the building was made up of groups of individual vendors, none of which accepted credit cards [something that most stores and restaurants in the area did, which I appreciated]. She went to the ATM with the vendor to get the cash to pay him and while she went inside the machine her credit card number was stolen [although it was not known at the time]. She didn't get the money out to avoid being robbed so we got in a taxi and headed back to the ship to sleep briefly before our early morning trips.
Day 2 - 1 April 2010
Let me explain to you, so there is no confusion, how much I LOVE waking up before the sun - I don't. Our safari group met in the Union on the ship at 4AM in order to catch our flights for the day. Flight number one went smooth [I started reading the book Scar Tissue which I am loving so much!] and we made it to the second air port which led to a quietly stressful situation [for me it was quiet, most people felt that complaining out loud for extended periods of time in loud voices would solve the problem - it seldom does, and did not this time either]. Our ticket situation was messed up and people were not getting tickets and it was taking forever and we thought we were going to miss the flight. I was one of the last people to get my ticket so I took it and walked extremely briskly towards security with Carson. My ticket was apparently registered to Mr. Simone Provence which I hope most of you realize is not the case with me. The guy let me go through anyways, which I appreciated because it gave Carson and I time to stop into the candy store and grab snacks since we had yet to be fed and the future looked dim. After a gate change we made our flight and survived it all.
When we landed there were two cheetahs sitting on the runway to greet us, or maybe eat us but I do not think that was the case since they wandered off before my ears did their final pop. We got out, climbed down the ladder ramp, and were in the airport - and by airport I mean we stepped onto an officially marked slab of cement. We made our way to our jeeps [which were way better than everyone else's if I may say so] and Carson asked which one of the drivers was named Richard because he was supposed to be the best, said her sister who did our safari last year. She approached a guide and said "which one of you is Richard?" and he pointed to himself and so we got into his jeep. We later figured out he was not the same Richard, but he was awesome as promised.
We drove to the lodge, seeing buffalo on the way [already 1:5 of the big five game!], and checked into our rooms - which were AMAZING - after being served some multicolored fruit juice [colored layered drinks are neat, I think]. My honey moon will happen in this same lodge on a safari because it was the most beautiful place ever, even though most of the building was made from elephant poop [which thankfully did not smell]. My roommate was Greta, a girl from Carson's sorority in Clemson; she was wonderful and was in our jeep as well. We had a fair amount of time to kill before our first safari drive of the day began at 4:30 so Carson and I used the free internet for a while and walked around the place to see what the deal was. The deal was it was amazing and I was not going back to the ship. And neither was Carson because her bank account was -90$; the guys at the ATM on Long Street had been successful, but as she said she put on her "big girl panties" and got the situation taken care of before it got worse.
Our first drive was awesome [as were all of the other ones, but you haven't heard about them yet so you wouldn't know]. We saw the following: buffalos, rhinos, zebras, giraffes, warthogs, impalas, bats, a bob cat, a squirrel, water bucks, Zazoos [I don't know the real name of the bird but it is what the bird Zazoo was in Lion King, which was my reference for everything I saw]. Carson and I spent a fair amount of time singing "I Just Can't Wait to be King" throughout the entire trip [on subways in Japan if you remember correctly] but it felt eve more appropriate to do constantly while driving through South African game reserves. We got back and went to dinner which was also amazing. I ate Kudu [which I felt bad about the next day when I saw it prancing around with its family, but it was really delicious] tomato soup [which was really just a sponge for their amazing bread], cheesy cauliflower, zucchini tempura, steak, and cheese and crackers. I went back to the room and showered then passed out hard in one of the comfiest beds I have had the pleasure of sleeping in for a while.
Day 3 - 2 Africa 2010 [Paul's Bday!]
Our morning wakeup call came at 5AM - something I did not mind because I was so excited to go back out and find something awesome during an African sunrise, so after a quick breakfast we did just that. We left at 6AM and saw zebras, elephants, wildebeest, rhinos, a baby giraffe, lions, and more impala. I just want to make sure it is known that I spotted this two week old giraffe and our driver and spotter did not because they had driven past it by the time I realized they had not noticed it behind some trees. It was so young and small that it still had its umbilical cord hanging on. We stopped for coffee / hot chocolate [delicious] and were approached by some apparently thirsty wildebeest as it began to rain. Richard, who by this time was showing his true colors, busted out the ponchos he pretended not to have and we drove on.
Let me explain Richard to you: he was full of women jokes with regards to anything he could find and he had no problem playing jokes on us. Whenever we would find a really cool animal that would do something he didn't like, such as run away, he would say it was a woman animal and it was just like a woman to run away. Eventually we learned he had a fiancé, but I am not sure I believe it just yet. On the last day of the trip [sorry for jumping ahead] before leaving for the airport his pen wouldn't write and Carson asked if he wanted another one. He said no, he just had to deal with his pen behaving like a woman sometimes - and at that point he had already explained to us how with lions, for example, the women do all the hunting while the men do all the eating, so I followed up with what I viewed as an appropriate response / question to his comment. With regards to the pen behaving like a woman by not writing I asked if he meant that the pen was bringing him all of his food or if it was paying all of his bills? I got no response.
After chasing elephants, which we saw for a second, we stopped by a watering hole where Carson and I got annoyed that we were just sitting. Out of nowhere a giant line of elephants came marching out from the trees and circled the watering hole; it was literally just like it happens in the Jungle Book. They hung out in the street with us and had some adorable baby elephants with them for our entertainment. It literally almost made me feel like I could cry, had I not found some self control somewhere along the way. We also ran across a Cheetah just lying in the middle of the road looking awesome. Then, because that was not enough for Richard, we found lions in the middle of the misty rainy afternoon. There was a mother with her two cubs, one of which was consuming some raw warthog. He seemed to be enjoying it so I did not feel it was necessary to mention to him that it had yet to be cooked or seasoned appropriately. They were visible but hard to see behind the tall grass and trees but it was awesome to see either way. The cubs were about 8 months old and were big but definitely not full grown yet at all. After the lions we went back, ate an amazingly delicious breakfast [lots of pancakes and fruit and muffins] and then had the afternoon to do some exploring.
Caron and I went for a walk on what we figured was a path where we could be [it didn't say not to be there which seemed like an invitation to us]. We saw some male kudu and then made our way to check out the wellness center when suddenly Carson was attacked! A foot long rock monitor stuck its head out from the grass on the path and Carson did a large inhale breath and a huge backspace which made me jump back as well. I immediately realized it was just a big juicy lizard and continued down the path laughing at the ridiculousness of the situation. We got to the amazing wellness center which had an endless pool that stopped in front of grass and a huge pond that had our first hippo in it! Carson fell asleep on the deck and I watched a giant stork do some bird-like things then we went and napped and read until the next drive.
Over the period of the second drive we saw two black back jackal, kudu, two hippos, a male lion, a female lion, and a leopard! The female lion was using herself as a road block and was my favorite animal to see for sure. I have a million amazing photos of her and I did not want to leave her ever, but we did and we found her boyfriend shortly thereafter. He was lying in the road and decided we were not what he wanted around so he gave us a nice long string of growls and roars. It was the first of three strings or territorial roars that we got that night from him. We found him just before it got dark which was nice because I hate using my flash in photos. By the time it was getting darker, but was definitely still light out in the sense that I could see easily, more jeeps showed up. One of them carried a row of annoying drunken frat guys that quickly caught the lion's interest. He shot them a strong stare while they noisily moved around in their row; our driver told them very seriously at one point "don't move" as in if you continue this behavior you are about to experience a lion attack. Personally, I am not a huge fan of those guys as they were all in my Viet Nam trip and were just as annoying then, and I thought it would be awesome to see a lion attack something. Never happened - but a leopard did.
We drove through the night looking for whatever we could find. Carson and I managed to get attacked by a bat - it flew into her stomach, bounced onto my leg, back onto her, then finally got off of us. Richard got a call on his radio asking for help so we figured someone was stuck or out of gas or something. Wrong. He started driving about 800 miles per hour and told us that someone had spotted the leopard. Leopards are only seen 2 or 3 times a week, maximum, because they are solitary animals and can get into and out of the reserve easily so they don't even know how many they have. We caught up to it after driving over a whole bunch of trees and getting slapped many times by their branches. As soon as we found it we heard it make a kill and the animal cried. It was the most awesome thing to hear. We saw the prey die and the leopard sit and watch it from behind some trees. The sky was amazing this night; there were no clouds and more stars than I had ever seen in my entire life were watching me walk back to my room from dinner in the dark rain.
Day 4 - 3 April 2010
Today's 5AM wakeup call was not met with as much speed. I was still extremely excited to be going out on what we thought was our last game drive, but I was sleepy for sure. I got food with Carson and we loaded into the jeep. The drive was quiet to begin with. It started to rain again Carson nodded off briefly, but we found some things eventually. We saw elephants, baby warthogs, water buck, wildebeest, and I saw a monkey when I looked over my shoulder once but it was running away.
A lot of people from the Semester at Sea group had done an elephant back safari that morning so we went to pick them up and got to see all of the elephants. There were adults being ridden and babies walking along with the group just for training and entertainment. I got a lot of awesome pictures at this point as well and thought that the baby elephants were pretty adorable. We headed back to the lodge for breakfast and to pack to go, forcibly, back to the ship. After I packed I went to the playground to use my new tracking skills. Really, I saw footprints and followed them and found 2 male Kudus chilling at the play place so I took some pictures of them and then checked out of my room and got into the jeep to witness the female pen episode and a spider episode.
One of the girls in our jeep, who conveniently sat behind me, was terrified of spiders - a great quality to have in the middle of the African bush since there were HUGE ones everywhere. A big juicy spider had decided to live under Richard's steering wheel so Carson and I informed him that we had found him a suitable girlfriend when he discovered the spider. The girl behind me saw it, screamed, and jumped out of the 4x4 and ran away. She had been dubbed spider girl by Richard already because of the dime sized spider she screamed about the night before when our guide managed to find a Chameleon in a tree in the middle of the dark as we sped by - something Carson and I thought was ridiculous to spot.
We got to the airport, which was really just across the street from the outside of the fence and gate of the reserve we were on. Our plane was delayed by about 40 minutes and since the Semester at Sea safari groups were the only people on the flight Richard decided it was time for another quick game drive - something that I will continue to expect every time my planes get delayed from now on. We didn't see anything new, but it was a nice drive and Carson and I took the time to sing more Lion King songs and mess with Richard about the fact that Carson had been to South Africa before and bred some buffalo while she was here.
Unfortunately we ultimately had to leave and we flew to the next airport where we had a 4 hour layover. Carson, Patrick [her friend from Clemson] and I got lunch in the airport when Pat, our trip leader from the tour company, told us the flight was actually an hour earlier and we had to pay our bill and run - so we did. At this point we had seen the Abels already which made Carson & I happy. We had also seen Lydia who was wearing what we thought was an ugly headband across her forehead, Paris Hilton style. We later learned that, in true Lydia fashion, she had managed to fall down with a safety pin in her hand which she stabbed into the back of her head before falling on it to stick it in there some more, so what we saw was the gauze holding the band-aid to the back of her head.
We got on the plane which was EXTREMELY hot and sat on the runway for an hour. You would have thought that at least 70% of the people on the plane had taken a dump in their seats because the plane smelled like farts the whole flight back to Cape Town - I was proud not to be in the assumed 70%. We got on our bus, drove back to the ship, and waited about 15 minutes in line to get onto the ship. Our progress was constantly interrupted by packs of skankily clad girls getting off the ship into one of the most dangerous ports full of sexual assault records and muggings. Luckily for me, I am not an idiot and therefore did not get mugged but when I woke up the next day I heard some stories that to be honest showed that the girls got exactly the attention they were asking for. I realize that is mean to say and I would never wish that on anyone, but some of these girls literally may as well have been naked except for their heels and their faces could have benefited by the distraction that some of their clothes could have provided.
I got dinner with Carson, Lydia, and Michael where Lydia explained the safety pin story while Carson and I cracked up in true friend style. I have a recent obsession with toast and strawberry jelly so that's what I had for dinner before getting my mail from Peggy and going to sleep after I showered.
Day 5 - 4 April 2010 [Easter]
Again with the early morning wake ups! I had my great white shark trip with Dr. Abel this morning and we had to meet at 515 so I was up at 444 exactly in order to have time to get some breakfast first. He ate breakfast with me and some of the other people going on the trip [small group of only 11] and then we headed to the waiting area for the bus, which was late, and by late I mean didn't show up because the trip had been cancelled due to bad boating weather [the same weather that has still prevented us from leaving as I am writing this and we were already supposed to be on the way to Ghana]. South African Disappointment #3 [but a good reason to return].
Instead, Michael and his friend Scott and I left the hike Table Mountain so that we could see the sunrise from the mountain. We took a taxi to the base of the mountain and our driver had just finished writing a book he hoped to publish within the next year or so. It was called "Seeds of the Son [or Sun, I really am not sure] of Africa" because his grandfather had been one of the original settlers of Cape Town in the 1800s [our driver was 71]. He asked where we were from and Michael answered first with "San Francisco," so the driver's immediate response was "oh, you're gay?" This made me laugh and Michael replied with a no that I hope was genuine as otherwise I will become concerned for Carson's relationship.
We got to the mountain in the dark and begin our hike up with what light we had [even though the guys had head lamps and flashlights in their backpacks]. About half way up the mountain I was getting annoyed with myself and didn't understand how I could have become so out of shape in such a short time. When I stopped to rest and take pictures and was looking around [around would include down] I noticed that I had worn my Reebok Easy Tone shoes which are designed to test your balance and force you to exercise when you walk to strengthen your legs. That was a dumb move on my part, but I had planned on seeing sharks in a boat, not hiking up a huge mountain so I felt less dumb with time. As he got higher and higher the wind that had caused my trip to become cancelled became more apparent and I stopped and had a seat on a rock and watched the sun come up more while the guys went up a little more. I was literally being blown over by the wind so I figure I shouldn't go too much higher. I was extremely close to the top and a very happy person so I enjoyed sitting there freezing and watching the sun continue its ascent into the sky.
We made our way down much more quickly and then made a new friend whose name was Ralph which immediately made me think of my dad who used to call all sharks in bed time stories "Ralph." However, the Ralph I heard about in bed was much different that the scraggly, stoned Ralph we met in Cape Town. He was nice and told us all about stuff that we could do and see. He was from the area and was back in town to collect money from his dad's will since he had passed away. We rode in our taxi with us back to the waterfront then we split up and Michael, Scott, and I headed to Dodge City for lunch. Dodge City was a wonderfully delicious burger bar with milkshakes and gelato where I knew I needed to eat, so I did. I got a burger, fries, union rings, a milkshake, and a strawberry gelato and that successfully cured my intense hunger after our hike which lasted between 3.5 and 4 hours.
From Dodge City we went to a bookstore where I got a copy of "Dawn Patrol" which I am going to read after I finish Scar Tissue [which I believe will be happening tomorrow on the top deck in the sun after my 2 classes and the hair cut I am scheduled to give Mrs. Abel at 2PM - yes I am that famous ship wide that I am now having to schedule haircuts]. From there I found a few more gifts and then watched some seals sleep and made my way to the ship where I have been uploading photos, writing, and watching Dexter ever since I finished my daily dose of toast with Jelly.
If we ever leave South Africa, which I hope we don't or cant, we are headed to Ghana and then to Brazil. I have two ports left and I find that to be completely depressing. I have 32 days left on this trip and, not that I don't want to come home in the sense that home would be a bad place to be but, I do not want to stop going all over the world. I am planning [not promising because I may accidentally not leave the ship] on coming to Fort Myers at some point in May and then working for the rest of the summer unless I get the chance to go somewhere else. There are summer Semester at Sea voyages in case anyone wants to accompany or sponsor me!