After being off of Semester at
Sea for over 3 months now, I randomly got determined to finish my blog. SO,
here’s South Africa!
I fell in love here. Cape Town is
one of the most beautiful cities I have ever been to. The nice sunny weather with a subtle breeze,
the beautiful coastline, and the majestic Table Mountain makes this place look
like a painting. South Africa was everything I was hoping for, and more.
RANDOM OBSERVATIONS
-There’s no Starbucks in South Africa! Mugg & Bean is an
EXTREMELY popular place that is comparable to Starbucks, and local competition
is too high for good ole' Starbs to thrive in the South African market
-Uber is extremely popular here, with many men sitting at
the airport waiting to drive people
-Domino's Pizza just recently entered into the South African
market. I sat by a guy on the plane who was working on opening various
restaurants across the country, but Pizza Hut beat them to it by a few weeks.
And now there's a pizza war
-Pretty much every car I saw was white!
-Amarula is this delicious cream liqueur comparable to
Bailey's Irish Creme that I saw everywhere. "Springbok Shots" are
really good, with half amarula and half peppermint liqueur
-Safari means to “travel through a journey with luck” and
boy did I sure get lucky on my safari
-The "simba" brand is quite popular (I got so many
of their peanuts) and is owned by PepsiCo. I wonder why the name appealed to me
so much? THE LION KING!
-The Big 5 (the traditionally 5 hardest animals to hunt)
are: elephant, lion, leopard, rhino, and buffalo. The “Magnificent 7” are all
of those plus wild dog and cheetah. I saw the Magnificent 7!
DAY 1
Right when I got off the ship, I waited with a group of
friends for our car to pick us up. We got in and headed on our 2 hour journey
to go to Gansbaii where shark cage diving is! There were 10 people including
Emily’s mom who was on the parent’s trip in South Africa. After a beautiful
drive parallel to the coast, we got to a small building called “SharkLady
Adventures”. We went inside and met our awesomely sarcastic guide named Lance.
I honestly thought he was Australian when I first heard him talk, but South
African’s just have a certain accent that to me sounds similar to an Aussie’s. He
was offended. In a sarcastic way. We had a snack then another group of 10
walked in and the workers there said they were joining us on the boat. They
were all SAS’ers and the majority of them pretty good friends of mine too. It
was a great shark cage diving group! Lance then went through the safety
precautions, and we were on our way out.
We then went on a 15 minute boat ride out into the ocean,
and it was very rocky. When we stopped the boat and started throwing the shark
bait in the water, it started rocking even more. I went up to the top deck of
the small boat and freaked out when I saw the first fin. Mitchi and I are both
insanely scared of sharks and we started getting really nervous about what we
were about to do. The first group put their wet suits and goggles on, then got
in the cage. The cage was right against the boat and there was about 2 feet of
air so that you could go down to see the shark when it comes, but come back up
whenever you want even though the cage was closed. It definitely is not as
scary as other shark cage diving could be where the cage is far away from the
boat and way under water so that you would have to scuba dive.
After watching the first group for about 15-20 minutes, I
felt ready to go. I put my wetsuit on, sat on top of the cage, and slowly sunk
into the cold water. There were 5 people total in the cage and they made me go
on the end and it was terrifying. They closed the cage above us and I hung out
in the cage waiting for sharks, filming a GoPro video, and trying not to think
about the fact that I was in the water with sharks surrounding me. Lance yelled
to us that a shark was coming and said to go under, so I went under and didn’t
see anything. The water was quite murky and the whole 20ish minutes I was in
the cage I saw nothing but fish and ONE shark body/fin (but I didn’t see the
face) swim by. There were a lot around the cage, but they had to come up close
for us to really see. We got out and slowly dried off, then the third group
went in and had better luck with many sharks going close to the cage, jumping
out of the water, and even bumping into the cage. That was fun to watch from
OUTSIDE the cage.
After the third group went and we were all freezing from the
water, we headed back to shore. They served us coffee and lentils and had us
watch the video they quickly put together of us shark cage diving. I had to buy
one. We left after that and didn’t get back to the ship until 7pm. I quickly
ate and showered, then met up with a group of people to head out to the Cape Town
Jazz Festival.
The jazz festival was on a big stage in a park by a street,
and there were a ton of people there enjoying the music. Heather, Oswaldo and I
pushed through some people and ran into other SAS friends by the front, and it
was so much fun with great music! Very very upbeat jazz. It ended around 11pm
and we headed to Long Street where we found a restaurant/club. I wasn’t there
for long and went to a place called Mitchells on the V&A Waterfront close
to our ship. Basically everyone from SAS was there and there were at least 100
of us. Like I’ve said before, SAS sure takes over when in port.
DAY 2
I didn’t get much sleep, but managed to wake up for our day
to start bright and early around 8am. Mitchi and I met a taxi driver the day
before that said he would drive us places the next day, so he was there waiting
for Mitchi, Jordan, Cindy, Lynn, and I at 8am. Our first stop was Stellenbosch
which is wine country and has many wine farms, and we went to one called
“Spier”. We walked around and saw a mini farm that had the most adorable things
like bunnies and BABY PIGS. They were so cute! After admiring the animals for a
while, we finally made it to the wine and went into a restaurant building place
where we sat down. Wine tasting is this whole interesting science that I didn’t
really know about beforehand, but it was really cool. There were different
options we could order where we would get 4-6 glasses of different wine. There
was a wine & chocolate option that Mitchi and Jordan went for, and I would
have done that too if the chocolate did not contain gluten! When the wine came,
they went through this whole process of biting into a specific chocolate and
drinking a specific wine to make it taste the best possible. I just picked 5
different wines randomly and they were all amazing!
This was just on one farm. The majority of people in South
Africa go on full day wine tours where they get taken to different farms and
drink many glasses at each, so they are just completely drunk by the time the
day is over. One farm was definitely good enough for me. After we drank our
wine, we got driven by our amazing taxi driver to a place where we could pet
cheetahs. I thought it would be a cheetah walk, but it was instead petting a
sleepy cheetah. It was still great though!
We then got driven through a township where we made a
surprise stop of what turned out to be our taxi drivers’ mom’s house. We only
stopped for a few minutes and stayed in the car, but his mom was so nice and
just had such a joyful spirit. After driving through the township and hearing
about how our taxi driver used to be the head of a gang but reformed when he
had a daughter (that sure was interesting to hear), he took us to a
buffet-style restaurant to grab a quick bite, then we made our way back to the
ship. I had a flight to Johannesburg that night and our taxi driver offered to
wait for me to pack then take me to the airport.
After about an hour or two, I came out and got into his
taxi, where there was already a woman in there sitting in the back. Turns out
the woman was his wife and he was giving her a ride home from her work that was
close by. The entire car ride to the airport, the driver was talking about how
much he loves his wife and kept saying that true love is really out there. I
was just amazed; I have never seen a couple so in love before and they’d been
together for what…like 30 years?! So sweet. So we got to the airport and it all
went way faster than I thought it would, so I had over a solid hour to kill
before boarding even started. I went to go sit at a long table with high
chairs, and a couple of men sat across from me. I asked them if they knew the
wifi password, and that eventually got us talking. The two guys were uber
drivers taking a break at the airport and waiting for people to request a ride.
They told me the vast majority of people around were all uber drivers, and I
looked around and saw many men around their age. One of the guys then got up to get some coffee
for him and his friend and he asked if I wanted one. Of course I couldn’t turn
down free coffee! And it was some of the best coffee I’ve ever had. Such nice
people in South Africa.
I eventually met up with Bryan, my safari buddy, and we got
on our flight. We both have always dreamed of going on an African safari and we
were so excited to experience it together. When we landed in Jo’burg it was
dark and we needed to find a hotel. Jo’burg (that’s what South Africans call
Johannesburg. Yeah yeah, I know I’m cool) has quite a high crime rate and we
even got escorted to a shuttle area by a security guard because he said it was
not safe to be out. Eventually after trying literally 4 hotels that all
happened to be booked, we took a taxi to one a bit further away and crashed in
a nice room.
DAY 3
We woke up quite early so we could grab a taxi to the
airport where we would get picked up on a shuttle. We first had an absolutely
delicious complimentary breakfast at our hotel, then went on our way. After waiting
a bit and Bryan accidentally shattering a bottle of wine (sorry Bryan, it’s too
funny and sad not to mention), our driver found us. She loaded our stuff in and
there were about 6 or so other people in the car. We drove for a few hours and
arrived at a gas station. I had no idea what was going on when we got there,
but turns out that the gas station was a central meeting point for all the
safari lodge shuttles around the area I guess. Bryan and I got into a safari
jeep and met our guide, Robbie Williams! Other than his cool name, he was just
an all-around cool person who was fun to talk to and had a great laugh. We
drove for a few more hours and finally arrived at the place we were staying at,
Nhongo Safaris at the Numbi Gate of Kruger National Park. Kruger is an
extremely well-known (and one of the most popular) safari parks in South Africa
and Africa in general, so I was so glad Bryan’s mom found us a great deal!
We only had a little less than an hour to get ourselves
situated into our room which was our own personal cabin-like place a little
ways down a path. We went back out and met up with our safari guide who was a
guy around our age or a few years older (this was the only time we did not have
Robbie as our guide). We hopped in our own personal safari jeep and headed out
for our night safari about an hour or so before sunset. We picked a great place
to stay at since our hotel was actually IN Kruger. Like on one of our safaris,
we saw a huge elephant right by our hotel just casually eating from a tree. The
majority of hotels are on the outskirts of Safari Parks! But we drove to the
road to another main entrance then started driving around trying to find
animals. We came across a nice area with a small pond close by. We stopped the
jeep and our safari guide said he has some snacks and drinks for us. I didn’t
realize this was included in the deal, but it was, and usually there are way
bigger groups so he had a lot of drinks and snacks. We hopped out of the jeep
after he surveyed the scene to make sure there were no animals around, then he
brought out some trail mix, other snacks, and one bottle of Brandy and a bottle
of Amarula, both half full. We stood for a bit and chatted, ate and drank (he
didn’t drink of course) then got back in the jeep right before the sun was
setting.
It was kind of a gray day sadly. There had been a heat wave
and we came at the very end of it where it started to get pretty dreary out.
But the colder weather also meant that we had a better chance at seeing
animals, and that was definitely proven. As it started getting dark, our guide
brought out these big flashlight things to scan the area with. He said the eyes
of any animal we shine our flashlight across will glow so we can easily tell
when we found an animal. It was so much fun! We were non-stop waving the
flashlights around for an hour or two and got so excited whenever we thought we
saw something glowing. Many of the times we actually found the animal, like the
basic Impala antelope and even some random birds. It was a blast!
DAY 4
We woke up very early to go out on a morning safari. We had
an amazing buffet breakfast and good ole’ Robbie Williams came in and joined us
too! We then left for our morning safari and were gone for HOURS. At first we
didn’t see too many animals, but it kept getting better and better. Robbie made
sure to keep his radio on to hear other safari guides mention sightings, so he
was determined to find us tons of animals. By the end of the safari, we had
seen 3 of the big 5 (elephant, buffalo, and rhino but not lion or leopard) plus
so many other animals. Some include warthogs, hippos, tons of zebras (I always
spotted them), monkeys, whatever breed of bird Zazu from The Lion King is, a
chameleon, and many others I can’t remember off the top of my head. Such a great
safari! The best part was when we found a cheetah sitting about 50 feet away on
a rock. He then started moving and as we kept following him, he came closer and
closer to the road. He then was just a few feet away from us on the road for a
while, then crossed to the other side. He then proceeded to CLIMB A TREE. A
large cat just casually climbed a tree and started stretching on it. It was
like he was putting on a show for us. Now of course, with my luck, my camera
died RIGHT before we spotted the cheetah, so all pics and videos I got of this
amazing encounter were crappy phone pics or on my GoPro. But that cheetah was
awesome, cute and playful and it was one of the highlights of my safari.
We then I guess went back to our hotel/lodge for lunch I
guess? This is why I try to type up my blogs right after going to a country…I
don’t remember some details! But where and when I had lunch ain’t no biggie.
Then it came time for our afternoon safari. We were told that a random Swedish
couple would be joining us. They were a really cute couple in their
mid-20s/early 30s who were really sweet! It was interesting seeing the
difference between us though. Like when on our safari when an animal was
spotted, Bryan and I would instantly move to the side of the jeep the animal
was on and start taking pictures. The Swedish couple just kind of sat and
looked without taking pics, then just looked uninterested after like 30
seconds. They made me feel like such a tourist, in a place where you’re
supposed to be a tourist!
It was a great afternoon safari and we finally found the 2
remaining big 5 animals: lion and leopard! We found the leopard taking a nap in
a tree (what’s up with cats and trees?!) and the lions were all taking a nap in
tall grass (what’s up with cats and naps?!). After another awesome safari, we
got back to our place and had a nice buffet dinner with the Swedes (is that
what you call them?) and Robbie Williams. After dinner, we grabbed Bryan’s
bottle of wine, the one that he didn’t drop, and casually drank it in the
beautiful, open, lobby by the bar. It was a chill night and we talked to the
Swedes for some time.
DAY 5
We went on another early morning safari with the Swedish
couple and it was the perfect way to end the trip. We were happy with seeing
the Big 5, but Robbie was determined to find us wild dogs so we could say we
saw the Magnificent 7. Well, we had the best wild dog encounter that lasted for
at least 30 minutes. There was a huge pack eyeing a herd of buffalo and they
began following them. None ever tried to attack the buffalo, but the dogs were
running along on the road a few feet away from our jeep. They looked like dogs…but…evil.
Strange creatures!
We left Kruger National Park completely satisfied and drove
the long way to the gas station and then the airport. I was so happy I got to
live one of my childhood dreams and was glad I still had another day in South
Africa. My only regret is that I did not get to climb Table Mountain which
gives an amazing view of Cape Town because I was constantly busy in South
Africa. The last and final day I would have, but I had a field lab for my “social
media and global change” class.
DAY 6
I left for my field lab with my class and we went straight
to the District Six Museum in downtown-ish Cape Town where we learned about the
forced removal of entire neighborhoods during apartheid. We then drove to a
very colorful row of houses and got out for lunch. We were separated into two
groups: one for people with food allergies/restrictions and one for “normal”
people. One woman welcomed us into her home where she made us absolutely
delicious food targeted towards our various allergies and restrictions. Well,
she definitely thought more of us were gluten free (I was the only one) and
made baskets full of traditional South African gluten free food. I was in a
food coma and it was so worth it. #noragrets (We’re the Millers reference.
Hilarious movie.)
After lunch, we got to tour a radio station called Bush
Radio and even got to be in the room for a live radio broadcast/interview. This
community radio station was firmly anti-apartheid and broadcast without a
license for years in opposition to the apartheid government. We learned about
how the radio station was a form of alternative media and used many participatory
communication tactics such as doing radio shows about topics people stated they
were interested in, and dedicated a few hours a week to letting children on the
air to talk about whatever they want. It was a really cool experience, a great
field lab, and good ending to being in South Africa!
South Africa is one of the countries I have always wanted to
go to and it exceeded my expectations. It’s such a beautiful country and I
would love to go back there someday (and finally climb Table Mountain).
