Adventures before Cape Town Part Four: Montagu, Hermanus, Franschhoek and our arrival into Cape Town

    It's been a while since my last post, since then I've moved into a new apartment, have adjusted to being back in New York, started working again and am currently in Wisconsin visiting my family in their new home in a town called Marinette. All that aside I do want to finish posting some things on here if only to have them written down, if others read it as well then that's just a bonus.

     As my last post left off we had decided to make a spur of the moment detour into the mountains in an area known as Oudtshoorn to visit a small town called Montagu. According to my trusty guide book Montague had picturesque views and natural hot springs, it sounded like a perfect one night detour. The drive up to Montagu was a bit lengthy, around 3.5 hours, however it was one of the most beautiful drives of the trip and well worth the winding roads and mountain passes. By the time we arrived in Montagu the sun was setting so we quickly checked into our hostel which was also a pecan farm. The rooms were adorable and the land was beautiful. The owner whose name has now escaped me, was a nice Afrikaans woman who suggested we get dinner in town. We headed into town and went to a small pub for a quick bite. I think perhaps the strangest sensation of this detour was for the first time since being in South Africa, we were in a seemingly predominantly white town. We asked the owner of the restaurant if it was safe to go to the natural springs after dark, something we as three young women traveling in a foreign country learned to ask, and her response suggested that we were crazy to think it wouldn't be safe. After a quick change into bathing suits at the hostel we headed out to find our 'natural' spring pools. In general when people say 'natural spring pools' I think of rocks and springs coming directly from the ground, this was far from the case. We arrived at what appeared to be a resort, paid the entrance fee to get in and spent a few moment searching for the spring pools, we had found two regular swimming pools but no natural springs. Come to find out our 3.5 hour detour for natural springs was all for a trip to a normal swimming pool filled with warm spring water. The pool was also filled with chubby white men speaking Afrikaans. Luckily there was a poolside bar where glasses of red wine quickly eased any frustrations we had at the situation. All in the all the pools were lovely and we floated around for an hour or so before heading back to the pecan farm. In the morning we were awoken bright and early by the resident rooster and when I left the room I ran into a number of chickens, peacocks and a couple of adorable farm dogs. We checked out but not before getting a bag full of free pecans.

    Next up on our stop was Hermanus, a small coastal town that is known to have the best whale watching in all of Africa. The drive was fairly short and once we arrived the weather was drizzly and cool reminding me of a afternoon at the Oregon coast. Whale migration season hadn't yet started so we didn't end up spotting any whales, but did enjoy the beautiful views and saw what I deemed an 'ocean gopher'. Seeing as our road trip was coming to an end we took our morning in Hermanus as being the perfect opportunity to go souvenir shopping before we got to Cape Town and things would be a bit pricier. After getting our fill of souvenirs we decided to give up on the whale search and head to the wine portion of our trip, Franschhoek.

   The drive into Franschhoek was incredible, through a small mountain pass that gave us views that literally took my breath away, I wish we had had the opportunity to stop to take photos. Once we arrived in the town we drove down the main road seeing the dozens of restaurants, touristy shops and vineyards along the way until we ended up at the hotel we would be staying at, Fransvliet. After some initially issues, we finally got checked in and enter perhaps the most beautiful hotel room I've ever stayed in, the floors were heated (and so were the towel racks) there was a fireplace in the room and a massive tub, after staying in some cold and not so cozy hostels this was a welcome change of pace. We quickly decided that this portion of the trip would be our opportunity to splurge a bit. We got changed and headed to a French restaurant that was suggested by Victor, the man that runs the hotel. Once we arrived at the restaurant we were seated back by the kitchen, where a glass window allowed us to watch the chefs in action, which was incredible. This was one of those experiences where we kept having to remind ourselves that this wasn't real life, that this wasn't going to happen back in New York, the food was artistic, delicious and beautiful. Stuffed from all the food and wine we went back to the hotel and crashed for the evening. In the morning we had a lovely breakfast at Fransvliet and then decided that maybe instead of wine tasting, we would go to a spa instead (like I mentioned earlier, this was our splurge weekend). We headed to this beautiful spa and had massages and facials. I think we were all extremely content at this point and thought that maybe we could just stay in Franschhoek for the next two months. After a rough day at the spa we had dinner at a small italian restaurant that, to be honest, no matter how good it was it wouldn't come close to comparing to the meal we had the night before. The next morning we woke up preparing to head to Cape Town and realized that we were in a wine valley and had yet to stop and actually taste wine at a vineyard, so after we checked out and left we headed into Stellenbosch and stopped at a vineyard where we stocked up on a number of bottles of wine and decided to start the real part of our adventure, and headed into Cape Town.

On our way into the city the nerves started picking up, we were about to arrive in what would be our home for the next two months. I was excited and anxious to get to the house and finally unpack our bags, relax and start to explore Cape Town. We entered in the address that our Professor had given us into our trusty GPS and headed to Ivy Road. We were pretty far on the outskirts of town and pulled up to a nice two story house. The gate was open so we parked the car in the driveway and got out, as Colleen and Tracie headed for the door I noticed the second car parked in the driveway and all the clothes hanging on the line...something seemed strange. Having no doubts that this was definitely our house Colleen opened the door and said 'hello', suddenly a small black boy and his older sister came running down the stairs and stopped, startled by the five foot tall blonde who had just entered their home. Quickly realizing we had made some sort of mistake Colleen, shut the door and we got back into the car. As we sat in the driveway sort of confused about what just happened, we started laughing hysterically at the fact that we just barged into some random family's home and when we realized we were wrong, we didn't even apologize, we just shut the door and left, no explanation or anything. A good note to start our time in Cape Town on. Realizing that we must have just entered in the wrong address we put in Ivy Street into our GPS and headed even further out of town. As we started driving through townships I started getting concerned, Tracie seemed to think that these neighborhoods looked right, but the glances I was getting from Colleen in the front seat suggested to me that she also was worried. We soon pulled up to 12 Ivy Street in what we would later realize was the extremely dangerous township of Philippi. As we approached the gate a dog started barking and we decided, you know what I can't imagine the house came with a dog. Feeling like we were never going to find our house and realizing that we probably shouldn't be in this neighborhood we got back into the car and finally got a hold of our professor who was only really able to tell us that our house was tan. Helpful. We tried entering the address in the GPS again and were taken through the heart of Philippi which was startling and intense to say the least. Finally on the third try we were successful in finding 12 Ivy Road and were able to drop off our bags and settle in, excited to finally be 'home', nervous to start the next two months and a bit sad that our adventure of road tripping throughout South Africa had come to an end.

The drive from Knysna to Montagu

The town of Montagu

Our 'natural' spring pools 

Our wake up call on the pecan farm 

Cheeky, the resident farm pup 

Just a few peacocks on the roof 

The mountains in Montagu 

Hermanus 

The views of Hermanus were beautiful 

Again 

On a cliff overlooking Hermanus 

The South African 'ocean gopher' 

Franschhoek 

The view from our hotel Fransvliet 

The fireplace in our room 

Our bathtub 

Our incredible dinner in Franschhoek, a caesar salad 

The main of pork chops 

We had a lemon tree right outside of our hotel room 

Tracie, Colleen and I wine tasting in Stellenbosch

Photo Post

So I'm leaving for the airport in a few hours but I just went through some photos that an incredibly talented friend of mine (Brennan Full) took on our trip up to Table Mountain and I have to post them. Mostly I'm just jazzed because the scenery is incredible but also she makes me look like a million bucks, I'm seriously considering asking her to photograph every important event I have for the rest of...forever.

Also I realize they're mostly of me, but as someone who never takes photos of themselves when they travel places, I can't tell you how much I appreciate having these...

Lion's head 

Colleen and I on the beach in Camp's Bay

While I can give the photo credit to Brennan, I have to give the lipstick credit to MAC.

Just hanging out on the top of Table Mountain

Trying to get all of the beauty into photos 

Colleen and I enjoying the view 

Taking every last bit of it in 

All of the photo credit goes to Brennan Full (she's the best)

Ending thoughts...

   I'm sitting here on my last night in Cape Town, watching the sunset from the balcony of the hostel that a couple of us are staying in tonight (we had to be out of our house by today), and I can't help but to reflect on a number of things. I've only lived abroad once before, but in that 3 month period that I resided in Geneva, Switzerland I was never ready to go home, the day I actually left the city I felt my heart breaking and still feel the pangs of sadness when I see certain photos, talk to people who I lived with there, or listen to one of the many songs I had on repeat during that fall of 2009. Living in Cape Town was different, I'm not sure if it was because I'm at a different point in my life, or going home to a different place in the United States, but a few weeks ago I felt ready to head home. It definitely could be that in the last 15 years I have always gone home to Oregon for part of the summer, and this year I'm not...it could be that my excitement of getting back to New York was just overwhelming...I'm not sure. It was really strange to recognize the adventure I was having but to also be okay with it coming to an end. Fast forward to the present, when I have to actually leave South Africa tomorrow and there's that heart break happening again.

   There are so many incredible things about South Africa, so many adventures I've had here, things I've learned and seen for the first time. It is absolutely without a doubt the most beautiful place I've ever been to. It also has without a doubt the biggest wealth-poverty gap I've ever seen, but those who suffer from the immense poverty are also some of the most resilient people I've ever known. I had the opportunity to not only experience the city of Cape Town, which is incredibly rich of culture and diversity but I was lucky enough to road trip along the coast and see parts of the country that I had never even heard about. In the past two months I've learned a lot about humanity and I owe that to South Africa. I can only hope that I'm leaving the country having made a small positive impact on the people, whether that be through the friendships I made, conversations I had or the work I did at my internship.

   As I sit here trying to eloquently put my emotions into words (which I'm having trouble doing if you haven't noticed already...) I feel like the best way to sum up my feelings on this beautiful country is to recount perhaps my most cherished night of the past two months. Colleen, Brennan and I stopped to get a bite to eat at a local restaurant in our neighborhood and haphazardly decided to drive up to Signal Hill. Signal Hill is the hill at the base of Lion's head and has an incredible view of the entire city. We drove up the winding road in the pitch dark, parked the car and stared at the beauty of the city lighting up before our eyes. While the city below was quite chilly, for some reason up on the hill we felt warm so we decided to lay down in the grass next to each other staring up at the stars. Suddenly a bright shooting star crossed the sky, all of us had seen it so naturally we held hands and made a wish. In that moment I felt the world was perfect. I didn't want to be anywhere other than holding Brennan and Colleen's hands, staring at the stars on a hill overlooking Cape Town. I can't explain in words the immense peace that rushed over me, which was only disturbed by rustling of nearby bushes which we assumed to be baboons, naturally we took off running and got back into the car.

   The rest of the night was spent enjoying things that maybe only we could really enjoy, like watching Brennan laugh so hard that her drink came out of her nose or screaming 'WYNBERG' out the window of the car gaining adoration from locals who couldn't believe it was three white girls in a Chico yelling like the mini-van taxis do, or laughing so hard that all of us were in tears and nearly piddling.

   While I'll miss the mountains and the sea, I'm reminded that it's not the place that you go that makes your experience, it's the people you spend those experiences with that make it truly worthwhile. Cape Town, South Africa is a lovely town and would be great to visit, but without the group of these women by my side it wouldn't have touched me as deeply as it did. I leave feeling inspired by the work each of them did in their time here, motivated by their interests and intellect, moved by their passion, sore from all of the belly aching laughter and forever engrained with the memories of a wonderful two months spent with a group of remarkable women in the beautiful and complex country of South Africa.

Adventures before Cape Town Part Three: Nature's Valley, Plettenburg Bay and Knysna

When we left Jeffrey's Bay the sun was starting to set so our drive into Nature's Valley was mostly in the dark, and while we couldn't see much we realized that we were headed into some beautiful mountains. Much of the drive was spent giggling about the 'don't feed the baboons' signs and anticipating arriving at the hostel that Colleen had found for us. As the drive continued, things became more and more rural and we ended up on a dirt road in the pitch black trying to find where we'd be staying for the evening. Anyone who knows me knows that I have an irrational fear of a number of things, so when we headed down a dirt road and into the darkness I was sure that this would end just like the plot of some horror movie, probably like hostel. After shortly debating giving up and turning around, we decided to meet our fate, and thank God we did because we ended up in one of the most magical places I've ever been. Wild Spirit is the most welcoming backpackers that I have ever been to. We pulled up, checked in at reception and unloaded our bags into our huge cabin room before heading back down to the reception area for dinner. By reception I mean an outdoor bar and dining area with a few fire pits and a massive deck, because of the pitch black night we couldn't see what was beyond the deck but had an inkling that was magnificent. Dinner is made by the owners every night because there isn't a town close enough to drive to go get a meal, the veggies and fruit came from their own garden (that you could work in for a few hours to get a free dinner) and the long wooden dining table was painted in illustrations from 'Where the Wild Things Are'. Essentially, I found the Portland of South Africa. The night was spent drinking wine by the fire and making friends with people who were visiting South Africa from around the world.

The next morning we woke up, went out on the deck and realized that it looked over a beautiful mountain range. We were only supposed to spend one night, but it became clear from the start of that first morning that a second night was needed. Wild Spirit also provided breakfast so we filled up and decided to head down the road to stop at a local farm stall we had passed on our way in. The field out front was filled with cows (who looked a bit hungry to be honest) and inside there were a number of local goodies to buy. We decided to have lunch and sample the cheese plate, and naturally ended up getting milkshakes as well. As we ate lunch we took notice of a particularly ambitious cow who kept trying to step over the fence, but was making little progress. Before I knew it the cow had backed up, had a running start and literally jumped over the fence, a feat of epic proportions. The farmer was stunned and then quickly ran after the cow who took off down the road, ten minutes later they both returned. After all of that excitement we decided to head into Plettenburg Bay to check out the sites and see what there was to do. Plettenburg bay was certainly beautiful, but was almost like being in a costal town in Florida, filled with touristy shops and ice cream parlors, after exploring a bit we left and headed back towards Nature's Valley and stopped at a local craft market. Eventually we made our way back to the hostel for a second enjoyable night filled with good food and new friends, a drumming circle and even some fire dancing (seriously, I thought I was in Portland).

We woke up and I decided to take advantage of the wifi and skyped with my mom and sister for the first time since getting to South Africa. Much to their surprise, and to fulfill stereotypes that everyone has about anywhere in Africa, they saw me sitting with a beautiful African 4 year old on my lap. This little girl (her name was Bunga) had known me for less than 3 minutes before deciding she wanted to meet my mom and sister and began asking them questions. Perhaps the most adorable moment was when she asked why they were getting ready for bed when it was the morning time...my mom explained that they lived far away and where they were it was night, to which Bunga asked me if they were past the mountains that were in our view, I told her much further than that, and she was thoroughly impressed. After my skype session Colleen, Tracie and I decided to take advantage of the many hiking trails around the hostel and hike to a nearby waterfall. It was certainly beautiful and was one of the highlights of the few days spent at Nature's Valley. Sadly we had to continue our drive, so with heavy hearts and promises of one day returning, we left Wild Spirit and headed towards Knysna.

Knysna is a big tourist destination and is known as THE place to get oysters in South Africa. Naturally we didn't get oysters because, that's just how life works. We did however go down into the Knysna lagoon which was beautiful and to another craft market before stopping and getting a yummy seafood lunch. Knysna was certainly beautiful but didn't end up taking the whole day to explore. While Knysna and Plettenburg Bay didn't end up being the destinations we thought they would be, Nature's Valley was by far the highlight of the road trip for me. I feel so lucky that I not only got to see South Africa from the city perspective of living in Cape Town, but I also got to spend time in rural areas giving me a more rounded experience and idea of the people and the country.

Many times during this road trip we tried to make some spur of the moment decisions in efforts to have some adventures, the end of our afternoon in Knysna was one of those times. We pulled out my guide book and decided to head off the N2 (the garden route) and over to a town in the mountains towards Oudtshoorn called Montague. The guide book boasted of natural spring pools and we found a farm hostel that had room so we decided a trip off the beaten path was the next step to take...

Wild Spirit 

The outdoor bar and dining area 

Just the most INCREDIBLE view 

South African Cows

A farm stall lunch 

A traffic jam in Nature's Valley

The waterfall right by Wild Spirit 

Plettenburg Bay

Knysna Lagoon 

Knysna 

Knysna Lagoon again

Next up...Montague, Hermanus, Franschhoke and finally our arrival to Cape Town

Adventures before Cape Town Part Two: Addo Elephant Park & Jeffrey's Bay

    After four days of relaxation and acclimation in Durban it was time to start the rest of our adventures on our way to Cape Town and that meant flying from Durban to Port Elizabeth and picking up our rent a car for our road trip. Our flight out of durban left at 6am which meant we got to Port Elizabeth nice and early around 8am, picked up our trusty rent a car (later named Bunga) and headed north towards Addo Elephant Park. When Tracie, Colleen and I were originally starting to plan our travels we quickly nixed going to other countries and decided the best thing to do would be to rent a car and drive along the famous 'Garden Route' to Cape Town, giving us the opportunity to stop in rural areas, be near the ocean and drive through the wine valley. The first day of our road trip started off quite eventfully, I was driving down the highway on our way to Addo when I saw something far ahead cross the road, I slowed down thinking it was a cat or maybe a squirrel and as we approached I realized it was a monkey. This was the first real culture shock (or environment shock?) I had since being in Africa and I was so surprised that I ended up yelling 'There's a f*cking monkey on the road!!' (sorry mom and dad). With this being the starting point of our road trip, we knew only good things could come.

    Addo Elephant Park was an hour detour from the Garden Route but we knew this would likely be our only opportunity to experience a safari so we decided it was worth the extra drive. Addo is a massive nature reserve of over 630 square miles of rolling hills filled with a number of animals (including the big 5: elephants, lions, rhinos, buffalo and leopards) and has one of the largest populations of elephants on the continent. I was unsure of what to expect when we arrived but realized that besides the dirt roads we were able to drive on, the land was virtually untouched and the animals were roaming free. There were a number of moments that were surreal during our few hours spent driving around the park, but one in particular was when we sighted our second elephant, it was literally not more than 5 feet away from our car, snacking on some vegetation from the trees and otherwise ignoring us. I couldn't help but feel like crying sitting so close to such a massive animal and looking in its big eyes seeing how intelligent and beautiful it was. After driving around for a few hours we went to  the lodge to get a bite to eat and ended up meeting a very kind man and his wife who lived in the suburbs of Cape Town, his name is Schalk (which I took as a good sign seeing as Schalk is the last name of one of my best friends), Colleen got his contact information in hopes of getting together at a later point during our few months in Cape Town (we did end up spending a day with he and his family but that's for another blog post). Addo was truly incredible and something that I'm so thankful that we did, it was also a perfect gateway into our time in South Africa, up until that point we had only been in a city, this road trip would give us the opportunity to get to experience South Africa in a way that many don't.

  Our drive from Addo to our first stop at Jeffrey's Bay was a quick two hour long trip. It was on this leg of the journey that we had our first encounters with townships and the poverty of South Africa, while Tracie and Colleen had both been to places where they had encountered serious poverty, this was a new experience for me as I had only traveled around Europe. Seeing homes made of tin, tarps and left over wood was startling and something that I'll never forget. It was in this moment that I realized that part of being in South Africa would not only be processing the incredible wealth and poverty gap, but also would be processing the visions of these homes, of children defecating along the highway and of people carrying on with life as normal while being subjected to the worst poverty I had ever witnessed.

On a lighter note, on to Jeffrey's Bay, or as locals call it J Bay, is one of the most famous surfing sites in the world and is often the host of a number of competitions throughout the year. We had initially hoped to stay at a lovely little hostel that Colleen had found in a guide book but when we arrived there wasn't room for us, so we backtracked a couple of blocks up the road and found a room at Cristal Cove hostel. Because it was the off season the hostel was pretty empty, we were offered a lovely room with a shared kitchen and living room that we had to ourselves. After resting a bit and taking advantage of the wifi we headed out to get dinner and were disappointed that nearly all the restaurants we had wanted to try were closed for the season, we ended up grabbing food at a mexican restaurant and heading back to the hostel early still exhausted from our travels. The next morning we got up, got breakfast at a lovely spot in town and decided that horseback riding on the beach was the must do activity for the day. We stopped at a couple of surf shops first and check out the beach before heading back to the hostel to book our horseback riding. We showed up at the farm unsure of what to expect and a bit nervous, especially when we realized our guide would be a 17 year old kid. Our ride started through green lush hills and then quickly turned to climbing sand dunes and riding along the wind whipped, empty beaches. Besides a couple of unruly moments (my horse had taken to kicking Tracie's and Colleen's horse was simply not wanting to move at a reasonable speed), horseback riding on the beach was incredible and something I'm so glad we did. Once again we were in one of those moments where not only did we have to remind ourselves that this wasn't real life (i.e. we'll have to end this adventure one day), but we were once again faced with the incredible beauty of South Africa, standard.

Just as the sun was starting to set our ride came to an end. We packed up and were back on the road before we knew it, this time headed to Nature's Valley, not knowing what to expect and not realizing that we would end up at the most magical hostel that's ever existed in the most beautiful valley I've ever seen.

The drive from Port Elizabeth to Addo Elephant Park 

Addo Elephant Park 

Our first animal sighting, a warthog 

African Buffalo 

Ostriches 

Our first up close experience with an elephant 

So beautiful 

A whole family of elephants 

Little baby and its mom 

Our drive from Addo to Jeffrey's Bay

Jeffrey's Bay 

A surf town 

Colleen, Tracie and I on our horses 

A horse riding on the beach selfie 

Next Up: Nature's Vally, Plettenburgs Bay and Knysna