Oh, India. Those campaigns that say “Incredible India” sure did get that first word wrong. It really should be “Indescribable India,” because I can assure you that this is one place that has left me without words.
People from America say they know poverty. They say they know sadness. They say they know dirty. They claim to know and have been thorough hard times. They declare they know overcrowded places, and can name a few instances or locations off the top of their heads. But, no. They do not know. They can’t even start to know; they don’t even understand the beginning. The homeless in the streets of the U.S. may as well be in a three-star hotel that provides a continental breakfast compared to those who are homeless in India. Americans turn their eyes from the beggars holding up signs on the street corners, while their hand quickly locks their car door. Indian beggars are so in need that they come up right to you with tears in their eyes smudging away the dirt from their face. Their hands, layered in dirt and dust with stained fingernails, grip your shirt with a grasp that not only claws at your shirt, but wrenches your heart as well. Their clothes are ripped and scraps of potato bags cover their swollen stomachs. No, you cannot understand pain, poverty, hunger, needs, or sadness until you have looked into a begging six year old Indian child’s eyes, because those big brown marbles give away everything. And it doesn’t go into your mind; it painfully stabs your heart.
India is hard to talk about. And I’ve had several days to discuss and process what I witnessed and experienced in the country, but I am still clouded by it all, and it even affects my mood. For you all, I will do a quick run-down of my five days there so you are in the loop of what I did there.
The first day, I stayed on the ship to watch a yoga demonstration that was required of me for my psychology of stress course. It was barely an hour long and we saw Indian yoga students perform a lot of positions that I couldn’t even dream of contorting my body into. They also did several breathing exercises and taught us some positions to try to feel more rested. Next, I quickly packed and crammed on a bus for a service project. First, they took us to an Engineering College where we were given dots on our foreheads, a free drink and some Indian cookies before heading off with students from the school to go to a local elementary school in the slums. We walked through a gateway and could hear children screaming in joy that we had arrived. They were still in class and weren’t allowed to come out and greet us. While they were in the rooms, we painted the walls in other class rooms with the other students from the Engineering College. We talked to them and asked them questions about India, while they asked us questions about the United States. Indian students are so much more educated than those in the US! They know five languages and learn things that I haven’t even heard of. Soon, the children were released and they bombarded us! We played and laughed with them, and most of the girls brought out their notebooks so for us to sign with our names. I was surrounded by kids shoving scraps of paper and hands out at me for me to sign. They sang an Indian song for us and we left after two hours of spending time with them.
The next day, Caitlin (my room mate) and I got up early and caught the bus to go to Kancheepuram and Mamalapuram. The day was filled with Hindu temple after Hindu temple and intermixed with monuments built by people way before Jesus. It was really a good learning experience, and the religion is such a beautiful one. They believe in one god, named Ohm, and he has several different personalities and those are all known by different names. Ganesh is an elephant deity that represents peace and good luck (obviously my favorite), then Vishnu is the highest and most important deity of preserving and maintaining , and then another is Shiva destroys and transforms. There are tons of them, but those are the three that are most widely represented throughout India. During the day, we went to a silk factory and watched a man make a silk saree (piece of 6 meter long cloth that all Indian women wear) and how difficult and time consuming the process is. It takes 2 weeks to make one saree. We all bought vibrantly colored scarves there and they are currently hanging up in my room.
The next day, I woke myself up at 3:00am and met with some girls (Marisa, Dana, and Jess) and took a flight to Delhi. The plane was nice with comfortable seats and personal TVs for us to watch for the duration of our 2 ½ hour plane ride. I slept almost the entire way. Once there, we looked for a sign and found our names on a piece of paper held by a man in a grey uniform. He asked us to come with him and he drove us to our hotel: The Radison New Delhi. Beautiful place with fountains and nice plush couches and everyone spoke English and it was extremely elegant. We hurried and changed for our day tour of India with our own personal diver for 8 hours (only $20!). After eating some lamb in spicy sauce at one of the hotels restaurants, we headed out and saw the sights of New Delhi. New Delhi and Delhi are the same place, except New Delhi is just a newer part of the city. After seeing the Lotus Temple, a tomb that looked like the Taj (but way smaller), and a few more monuments, we stopped and went shopping at a market. There, I bought two skirts, a purse, a statue of Ganesh, a silk shirt, three silk scarves, and a dress all for less than $50 US. It was definitely a steal! Bartering should be my second major. For dinner we went to a traditional Indian restaurant and got skewered chicken and lamb with lentils and flat bread, and it was SO good! They tied aprons around us before we ate and we drank out of copper goblets. After eating, they brought us finger bowls for us to wash our hands in, and then a tray of three plates. The first had anise seeds, the next had coconut powder, and the third contained rock sugar. The host described that we were to mix them together in our right hand (the left hand is the “unclean” one) and the anise stood for long life, the coconut for health, and the sugar for overall success. It was a sweet way to end our meal, and to clear our palettes from the strong flavors of the meal. Once back to our hotel, we received a free drink and went to sleep.
The next day, we woke ourselves up early, had a delicious continental breakfast made up of freshly squeezed fruits, handmade sugar doughnuts, apple crepes, and decadent pastries. It was the best I’ve ever had! The girls and I paid a driver through our hotel to drive us to Agra to see the Taj, be our chauffeur for the day there, and then drive us back that night. It takes four hours driving from New Delhi to Agra one way, so you can imagine the job. We were also given a government qualified tour guide for the Taj Mahal, all this for only $80 US. Quite the deal and completely worth it, let me tell you! Once arriving in Agra, we had lunch a small restaurant and had some Indian and Chinese food (Chinese food is very popular and delicious in India, so we had our fair share. We then went to some textile stores, handmade paper and tea shops to see the handmade goods and tasted the cloves and spices of Indian tea. It was delicious, and tasted very similar to Moroccan tea. It started to get later so we decided to head to the Taj. Our tour guide was required to take us to a marble shop where we learn about how the Taj Mahal was made. It’s really fascinating! They had to hand carve every little piece of the flowers (if you didn’t know, there are flowers made out of rubies and emeralds and sapphires inlaid in the marble of the Taj) and then lay them into the white marble. We got to see a man working on a table carry out the procedure, and it’s incredible how much patience these people had. Especially with the Taj being a perfectly symmetrical building, can you imagine how much time that took? Well, it took only 8 years actually with 20,000 workers, all of which who got their hands cut off after it was completed so they could not duplicate it. I’m not sure how you would go about cutting off that many people’s hands. I mean did they line up single-file for this? Anyway, I digress. Finally we got to the Taj Mahal at the perfect time. We walked with our heads down like our tour guide told us until we reached a place where we could see it in all of its glory, and take it in all at once. He told us all to open our eyes, and I looked up. There it was; the Taj Mahal. And not only that, but the Taj at sunset. What a spectacular structure! It was enormous, and so bold and prominent but yet the most gentle and stunning thing I have ever seen. Chills ran down my arms – I was there. The orange beams from the sunlight bounced off of the white marble and shone through women’s hair and tanned their faces. It was astounding. We all took off our shoes and walked inside, feeling the cool marble on our bare feet.
After spending plenty of time there, we left after the sun went down and found ourselves bartering with street salesman once more. I bought three pairs of shoes for $6 US. I am getting really good at this bartering thing, let me tell you! Then found our driver and took off to go back to New Delhi and sleep.
The next morning was a blur of waking up too late, rushing around the airport, and barely making it to our flight in time. We were so glad that we were all women because women don’t have to wait in line with men; we can just cut right into the security check and go on our way. “Ladies first” came to life right then and there. Maybe they should implement that in America? We took off and found ourselves back in Chennai and walked through oil that splashed up onto my purse and my skirt and it coated my feet quite nicely. Finally we were back to the port, and decided to call it good. India had been experienced to its fullest extent, and we were all very happy for the experience. However, that is one place that I wouldn’t consider living. :)
Wednesday, March 25, 2009
Wednesday, March 4, 2009
Mauritius!
We started the morning off right by pulling into this heaven of an island right as the sun was coming up over its hills. The greens from the jungles mixed well with the pinkish orange rays that bounced off the clouds and into our eyes. We were all in awe of its undeniable beauty. Unfortunately, my camera was in my cabin, so the images for the entire day are all in my mind. (I will do my best to paint pictures with my words!) I did steal a photo from my room mate though, and you will see it below!
Caitlin, McKendree, Laura, and I all met in shorts and swim suits and disembarked the ship around 9:30am. It was incredibly hot outside, and muggy. We made our way down the scorching asphalt to the end of the dock where water taxis came and went. Paying $2 US, we climbed down an awkward metal ladder and into an old wooden boat that took us across the bay and into the heart of Port Louis, Mauritius. We walked around, searching for an ATM and found one inside of an abandoned shopping center. The city was sleepy still, and not much was going on. White Americans and desperate taxi drivers were the only ones about. We found a map and planned our day. Gran Belle was the beach we would venture to, and found a cab driver that would take us there for a decent price. On the way, the scenery turned into pure sugar cane plants on both sides of us, with the green hills in contrast. After stopping for directions two or three times, we finally made it to the beach. The water was clearer than glass, and pure turquoise in color with sand as white as snow. It was small, and very secluded. We later found out that the beach we came to was a beach only for a local resort, but since there were no tourists around, we got the entire thing to ourselves, including our own day planner! A man from the resort came up to us and asked us what we wanted to do for the day. We told him that we would love to go sea kayaking and snorkeling. He left us and came back ten minutes later with our agenda: sea kayaking first and for however long we wanted to go, and then snorkeling at 3pm.
We all grabbed an oar, and sat in the kayaks ready to go. The men pushed us out in the water, and it was the most peaceful and relaxing kayaking I have ever done! The water was so calm, and the kayaks were very stable. We paddled until our arms were sore, and had a great time with one another. One of the best times I’ve had with these girls since the trip began. Soon, we grew hungry and paddled in. We were told to go to a small stand that served oriental noodles and the locals told us what to order. It was basically chow mein noodles with chicken and sauce. So delicious! Mauritius is a hodge-podge of a country and culture. The island was taken over by several different countries including the Dutch, Portuguese, French, and British as well as some Asian countries.
When we made it back to the beach after eating, it was just time for us to leave for snorkeling. A small boat pulled up and we hopped on and left. The driver stopped, and we got our gear and jumped out. No one else on that boat spoke anything but French, so I was happy that we knew what we were doing! We got into the warm water and were instantly surrounded by hundreds of softball-sized black and white striped fish. They were running into our hands and legs and stomachs, and we were all giggling like little school girls. Then we set off on our own terms to discover the reef. Most of the fishes in that particular area weren’t of radiant colors, but there were several of them that I had never seen before, and discovering the reef on your own is such an awesome feeling. It’s just like spying on a whole different world! We all agreed that we want to go snorkeling in Hawaii to compare. I know it’s going to be so much better there! But regardless, I had an awesome time swimming with the fish.
Our cab driver picked us up at 4:15pm and drove us back to the waterfront. We took our time and had chips (French fries) and a couple of beers before slowly making our way back to the water taxi area and brought back to the ship. Dinner on the ship was a barbeque where people discussed stories of their days, and talked about how much we would like to stay for longer. Mauritius was the perfect vacation from, well, my semester-long vacation!
Caitlin, McKendree, Laura, and I all met in shorts and swim suits and disembarked the ship around 9:30am. It was incredibly hot outside, and muggy. We made our way down the scorching asphalt to the end of the dock where water taxis came and went. Paying $2 US, we climbed down an awkward metal ladder and into an old wooden boat that took us across the bay and into the heart of Port Louis, Mauritius. We walked around, searching for an ATM and found one inside of an abandoned shopping center. The city was sleepy still, and not much was going on. White Americans and desperate taxi drivers were the only ones about. We found a map and planned our day. Gran Belle was the beach we would venture to, and found a cab driver that would take us there for a decent price. On the way, the scenery turned into pure sugar cane plants on both sides of us, with the green hills in contrast. After stopping for directions two or three times, we finally made it to the beach. The water was clearer than glass, and pure turquoise in color with sand as white as snow. It was small, and very secluded. We later found out that the beach we came to was a beach only for a local resort, but since there were no tourists around, we got the entire thing to ourselves, including our own day planner! A man from the resort came up to us and asked us what we wanted to do for the day. We told him that we would love to go sea kayaking and snorkeling. He left us and came back ten minutes later with our agenda: sea kayaking first and for however long we wanted to go, and then snorkeling at 3pm.
We all grabbed an oar, and sat in the kayaks ready to go. The men pushed us out in the water, and it was the most peaceful and relaxing kayaking I have ever done! The water was so calm, and the kayaks were very stable. We paddled until our arms were sore, and had a great time with one another. One of the best times I’ve had with these girls since the trip began. Soon, we grew hungry and paddled in. We were told to go to a small stand that served oriental noodles and the locals told us what to order. It was basically chow mein noodles with chicken and sauce. So delicious! Mauritius is a hodge-podge of a country and culture. The island was taken over by several different countries including the Dutch, Portuguese, French, and British as well as some Asian countries.
When we made it back to the beach after eating, it was just time for us to leave for snorkeling. A small boat pulled up and we hopped on and left. The driver stopped, and we got our gear and jumped out. No one else on that boat spoke anything but French, so I was happy that we knew what we were doing! We got into the warm water and were instantly surrounded by hundreds of softball-sized black and white striped fish. They were running into our hands and legs and stomachs, and we were all giggling like little school girls. Then we set off on our own terms to discover the reef. Most of the fishes in that particular area weren’t of radiant colors, but there were several of them that I had never seen before, and discovering the reef on your own is such an awesome feeling. It’s just like spying on a whole different world! We all agreed that we want to go snorkeling in Hawaii to compare. I know it’s going to be so much better there! But regardless, I had an awesome time swimming with the fish.
Our cab driver picked us up at 4:15pm and drove us back to the waterfront. We took our time and had chips (French fries) and a couple of beers before slowly making our way back to the water taxi area and brought back to the ship. Dinner on the ship was a barbeque where people discussed stories of their days, and talked about how much we would like to stay for longer. Mauritius was the perfect vacation from, well, my semester-long vacation!
South Africa!
We pulled into the port later than expected because of the dense fog, but once we pulled in, all we could see was city. Looking outside of my window, the first thing I noticed was the new soccer stadium under construction for the World Cup. It really is wonderful how passionate everyone is about soccer (excuse me, futbol or football) around the world, and how disconnected we are from it as a country.
I met with a couple, Cara and her new boyfriend Andrew, who I had never hung out with before, as well as two girls that I had hung out with once, Marisa and Dana, to go wine tasting at a small town outside of Cape Town called Stellenbosch. Against all Semester at Sea advice, we took the train there since it only cost us R$25 (or about $2.50 US- $10.10 Rand = $1US) for a round trip. While waiting for the train, we got some sort of hand made Hot Pocket. I got the one labeled Salami and Cheese, and it was very delicious! Once we got on the train, we noticed that it was a little dodgy (South African slang for ‘sketchy’), but we made it there, and back for that matter, very safely. The wine lands were beautiful with vineyards as far as the eye could see and little cottage-like houses where the winemakers lived.
Once getting to Stellenbosch, we walked down the road to the first winery we stumbled upon, which happened to be Bergkelder Wine Centre. We walked down a paved way, under relaxed trees and beside a clear water stream to the entrance of the wine center. The tour had just begun and we were a little late to catch it, so we decided on tasting for awhile and then moving onto the next winery. The tasting was R$15 (again, less than $1.50) and included tastes of three reds, two whites, and a desert. After ordering a cheese platter, we tried Fleur Du Cap’s (that’s the brand name) Merlot, Pinotage, and a Shiraz, and we quickly made friends with the tasting room host and he let us all try a Cabernet as well. The Pinotage was absolutely incredible. It was really fun to discuss wines, and thank you Powers, to ask questions about how the wines were aged and in what type of barrel and all that. I really enjoyed myself and felt so educated! Everyone else really liked it as well. Next was the whites. We were given three of them, instead of the quoted two, and tried the desert wine as well as a South African specialty drink called Amarula. It’s the color and consistency of Baileys Irish Crème, but has an amaretto flavor with a hint of orange. It was way too sweet for me, but everyone else seemed to like it.
Next we took a taxi up the hill to another winery called Spier, because that’s the one that is most famous (apparently). First we had a little something to eat and went in for more tastings. The wines here were definitely not as good as the first place, but it was a fun environment to be in. After the tastings, we went to the small craft fair outside of the winery. There were all kinds of handmade beaded bracelets and shark-tooth necklaces and anklets and pretty much anything you could imagine. At other stands were crafts that are found all over South Africa – wire creations. An artist picks and animal or a person and bends the wire, sometimes beads it, to make it look like what they had in mind. They were very cute, and interesting at the intricateness of each one. I bought myself a wooden bowl there.
Soon after, we found ourselves inside a store/restaurant called Moyo. There were all sorts of African crafts and CD’s and art. And once through the store was a restaurant with South African drums that drew us in. A woman with paint in her hand offered to paint our faces with traditional tribal markings (I doubt traditional, but cute nonetheless!) All the girls except Cara did it, and it was “free” with a tip. So we handed over a few Rands and called it good. We found some couches to enjoy each others company and to waste some time before the train, and I wandered around the interesting area and snapped some photos of the place and of the intricate fountain in the middle. Soon it was time to leave, and we got to walk by all the grapes dangling on their leaves and watch the sun set over the hills.
After an hour of dozing in and out on the train, we were finally back at the station and in desperate desire for a meal. We were told to go to Mama Africa’s on Long Street which is a restaurant bar with live bands playing so we caught a cab there and sat in the bar and watched the band with some more people from SAS. The place was beautiful with the bar painted in a giraffe skin-like design with neon colors, lanterns all over the tables, beautiful chandeliers hanging from the ceilings, and African paintings covering the walls.
After waiting for entirely too long, we were finally seated and I ordered a platter with all the types of meat from South Africa. I tried crocodile, kudu, springbok, Oryx, ostrich, and zebra. Out of them all, I thought that the springbok was the best! I’m sad that I have to go back home to eat cows. After dinner (12:30am), the girls and I headed back to the ship for some sleep since I had to be up and ready for my safari by 4:15am.
Sooner than expected, the dreadful time rolled around and I fumbled to get my things together and met in the Union with other sleepy-eyed students. We piled into the busses and got to the Cape Town Airport within about twenty minutes and received our boarding passes and quickly boarded. The flight to Durban only lasted about two hours, but I only remember about ten minutes of it. I even slept through take off! After making our way out of the terminal, we were all met by a bus and were told we would have three hours to sleep until we got to our campsite at Kwazulu-Natal. I took the opportunity, and woke up once we were at the reserve. Stepping off the bus was miserable. The air was extremely humid and were told that the temperate was already at 39 degrees Celsius (102 degrees Fahrenheit) and it was only 10:30am. Luckily, we were greeted with delicious guava juice to cool down a little, and then rode safari vehicles to our campsite. The wind on our faces felt like heat from a toaster. Once there, it had reached over 40 degrees and let me tell you, I have never been that hot in my life. My whole body was soaked with sweat, and I would bend over to tie my shoe and could feel and see the drops of it pouring off of my face. Taking off my shirt, it felt as though I had just jumped into a pool. So I put my bathing suit on, and some light cotton shorts with a loose fitting tank top, and went to sit in the shade until lunch. I drank four bottles of water in about an hour, and only had to urinate once.
For lunch, they provided us with chicken nuggets with mayo, meatballs with Mrs. Balls Chutney (which is a delicious sauce that tastes like a mix between barbeque sauce, sweet and sour sauce, and salsa), fruit, sandwiches, and soda. We scarfed the food down within five minutes, and were off for our first game drive. Our safari guide’s name was Kaz, and we quickly learned that she was the best leader to go with. She was in love with her job, loved to joke around, and genuinely wanted to know us all. The other guides didn’t even readily share their names with their group.
The clouds rolled overhead and it cooled down to a very comfortable and tolerable temperature. We entered between brick walls and after a metal gate was pushed back for us and passed the guards with guns, and nothing has ever felt more like Jurassic Park than that moment. First, we came upon a family of warthogs right inside the gate. Then, not more than five minutes down the path, we spotted impalas and then zebras and rhinos. After that sparked our animal interest, we were on the search for elephants. Kaz was able to look at trees and the ground and smell the air and tell us if there had been elephants there recently and if so, which way they were headed, and soon enough we can across an elephant that was pretty far away, but still incredible. Soon, Kaz got word on the radio of elephants down in a valley so we headed in that direction, going faster than I thought possible down such narrow roads and swerving around corners like crazy. And just before we knew it, we ran into zabras in the middle of the road. They were so close that I could have reached my hand out and touched the beautiful horses. I got some great photos of them. Then, we came across three rhinos and got several pictures of them before we heard an elephant “distress” call that spooked the rhinos and they went running down the road, which reminded me of Jumanji.
Next we stopped at a park to look at some of the trees and birds. We learned about this one tree that the bark is so poisonous that if you light it on fire and then put it in a basket under water, fish that swim over it will die and float to the top. Apparently, South Africans would do this instead of fishing because it was such a fool-proof way to obtain food. Also, the leaves on that same tree have a paste inside of them that if you touch and touch your eye, it will yield you blind for the rest of your life, and if you eat the leaves, they will make you “run to the bathroom for several days”. Apparently if giraffes are a little irregular, they eat a few leaves off the tree and it makes them feel better. It is pretty incredible how the vegetation can do so much for animals. And that was only one tree!
Soon we came upon the clearing with the elephants where we were allowed to leave the safari vehicle and walk around a bit since the animals were so far away. There were a good thirty elephants in the pack, and we learned that they can have up to 150 in one. After everyone left the area, Kaz told us some of her scariest stories working as a guide for 6 years. One of them was about her walking around a corner and into three female lions and being lurched at three times by an injured one (apparently, if a lion is hurt they are 10x more dangerous because they have to defend their territory and are that much more vulnerable). Another story was about an elephant coming up to her and touching the end of his trunk all over her face with his tusks only a foot and a half away from her eyes. And another one was about an elephant trying to rip her from the car by her shirt so she had to smack its trunk really hard and luckily it ran away. Then we asked her about things that had happened to guests to the park and she told us that in the 1970s, some guy got out of the vehicle after a couple of lions had just made a kill fifty feet away and left his wife and daughter in the car so that he could get them eating the animal on film. Then another lion came up and pounced on the man and ended up being eaten alive by the lions right in front of his family. Another guest videotaped it and now its on youtube. I wouldn’t want to watch something like that.
It was getting darker and so we started heading back and on the way, we saw a dung beetle pushing yes, a piece of dung, with his female mate nestled in the top of it. It was the root of a lot of jokes, and gave us all a good laugh. I’m sure some of you can imagine the nature of them. We saw more zebras, some with babies, on the way back to camp.
Once we were back, we all sat around the fire for a bit and were picked up for a traditional South African barbeque. We were given assortments of cheeses, salads, beans and rice, and salad for starters and then they had all kinds of meat for us to have on South Africa’s version of cous cous (I can’t read Afrikaans or Arabian so my spelling may be wrong) and rice with some kind of spicy tomato sauce. For desert there were all kinds of pastries and cookies with ice cream and chocolate pudding. A lot of people had Crème Brule, but you all know my hatred of that texture, so I chose to pass. Everyone got very tired very quickly since it was such a long day for all of us, and we headed back to camp. As we fell asleep, we were serenaded by the sounds of the African wilderness including monkeys, birds, and grapefruit-sized moths landing on our mosquito net all night.
Waking with the sun, we were taken to the restaurant for a breakfast consisting of yogurt, croissants with jam, cereal, sausage, coffee and tea. We loaded ourselves up with water and met up with Kaz for another day of searching for animals. Not more than a half hour into the drive, we saw elephants on our right coming through the trees and heading straight across the road. We reversed in our vehicle so we could watch them. There were several baby elephants along with more women elephants, the last of which felt extremely threatened by us (Kaz explained elephant body language to us) and even started to charge at us! Kaz threw the Jeep in reverse and quickly got us out of the way, but still in sight. The elephant screamed and began to run into the trees with the other elephants. All of our hearts were pounding, and we were all giddy and laughing about what just happened. After lunch, we set out to find some lions and/or leopards and found a lone male elephant walking straight down the path toward our car. Apparently he was calm and curious about us, but Kaz was still being careful not to upset him or let him get too close to us. It would start running harder toward us and then stop, as if it wasn’t sure if we were worth the effort to go after. We drove in reverse while the animal walked toward us for over 2 kilometers. It was a great day for elephants! We later saw several giraffes, more buffalo, monkeys, a crocodile chilling on a rock, and zebras, but we never saw any wild cats. “The Big 5” is a term that the hunters made up to signify the most dangerous animals to hunt, and they include elephants, buffalo, crocodiles, lions, and leopards. Seeing three of the big five is just fine with me!
Before dinner, we all went and jumped into the pool provided by the campground and then got ready and left to go eat. We had the same food that we had the night before, and I welcomed it since I loved it all so much. Soon, it was time to go back to the campground, or so we thought, so we all piled into an open widow safari vehicle, and the next thing we know is that we are at the pool area! One of the safari drivers thought that we would enjoy going for a swim, which we all welcomed. We jumped in the pool and everyone had a really good time. Later, a lot of people played a game and some of us just sat around the campfire and had a nice time chatting about life.
We left before sun-up the next morning, and made it safely back to the ship by 2:00pm. I was exhausted, so I napped until dinner, and ate on the ship. That night I walked around and found a payphone to call home and talk to my parents for a bit which was much needed. It was great to hear their voices!
I awoke on my last day and got with some girls and made a plan of action. We ate breakfast and then found a cab that would take us to Table Mountain. After waiting in line for ten minutes, we bought our tickets for the cable car up and got in the elevator to take us to the platform. I would have loved to hike the way up, but with so little time in Cape Town, we decided to go the fast way. The cable car was pleasant, with the floor spinning slowly in a circle to give everyone an equal view. Once at the top, we unloaded and saw the majestic beauty of South Africa from the highest point. We could see our ship, as well as Cape Point off to the east. I took several pictures there but they really don’t capture the magnificence (as is most thing). It was incredibly windy and freezing though! We each had a coffee at the top, looked in the store, and headed down. At the bottom of the mountain was a small store where each of us bought a souvenir and I bought some much needed sunglasses. Next we headed to the waterfront to do a little shopping.
First we stopped for lunch at a small outdoor café next to the clock tower. There we had turkey and pineapple wraps and bottled water for under $5 US each. Soon we headed into the craft market and were pleasantly overwhelmed with all of the handmade crafts and trinkets of South Africa. I bought one thing there, and I love it. I’ll show everyone when I get back! (You all love the suspense, right?) After spending a quick two hours there, it was time to head back. I really wanted to purchase a painted and polished ostrich egg in South Africa, but it would have been incredibly hard to get back to the states because of how breakable they are. I walked back to the ship wishing we could have spent another three or four days in Cape Town. There is so much to do there, and so much culture! Musicians play their instruments in the streets and locals come and dance together. That’s something you would rarely see in the states. I loved South Africa, and hope to come back for the World Cup in 2010!
I met with a couple, Cara and her new boyfriend Andrew, who I had never hung out with before, as well as two girls that I had hung out with once, Marisa and Dana, to go wine tasting at a small town outside of Cape Town called Stellenbosch. Against all Semester at Sea advice, we took the train there since it only cost us R$25 (or about $2.50 US- $10.10 Rand = $1US) for a round trip. While waiting for the train, we got some sort of hand made Hot Pocket. I got the one labeled Salami and Cheese, and it was very delicious! Once we got on the train, we noticed that it was a little dodgy (South African slang for ‘sketchy’), but we made it there, and back for that matter, very safely. The wine lands were beautiful with vineyards as far as the eye could see and little cottage-like houses where the winemakers lived.
Once getting to Stellenbosch, we walked down the road to the first winery we stumbled upon, which happened to be Bergkelder Wine Centre. We walked down a paved way, under relaxed trees and beside a clear water stream to the entrance of the wine center. The tour had just begun and we were a little late to catch it, so we decided on tasting for awhile and then moving onto the next winery. The tasting was R$15 (again, less than $1.50) and included tastes of three reds, two whites, and a desert. After ordering a cheese platter, we tried Fleur Du Cap’s (that’s the brand name) Merlot, Pinotage, and a Shiraz, and we quickly made friends with the tasting room host and he let us all try a Cabernet as well. The Pinotage was absolutely incredible. It was really fun to discuss wines, and thank you Powers, to ask questions about how the wines were aged and in what type of barrel and all that. I really enjoyed myself and felt so educated! Everyone else really liked it as well. Next was the whites. We were given three of them, instead of the quoted two, and tried the desert wine as well as a South African specialty drink called Amarula. It’s the color and consistency of Baileys Irish Crème, but has an amaretto flavor with a hint of orange. It was way too sweet for me, but everyone else seemed to like it.
Next we took a taxi up the hill to another winery called Spier, because that’s the one that is most famous (apparently). First we had a little something to eat and went in for more tastings. The wines here were definitely not as good as the first place, but it was a fun environment to be in. After the tastings, we went to the small craft fair outside of the winery. There were all kinds of handmade beaded bracelets and shark-tooth necklaces and anklets and pretty much anything you could imagine. At other stands were crafts that are found all over South Africa – wire creations. An artist picks and animal or a person and bends the wire, sometimes beads it, to make it look like what they had in mind. They were very cute, and interesting at the intricateness of each one. I bought myself a wooden bowl there.
Soon after, we found ourselves inside a store/restaurant called Moyo. There were all sorts of African crafts and CD’s and art. And once through the store was a restaurant with South African drums that drew us in. A woman with paint in her hand offered to paint our faces with traditional tribal markings (I doubt traditional, but cute nonetheless!) All the girls except Cara did it, and it was “free” with a tip. So we handed over a few Rands and called it good. We found some couches to enjoy each others company and to waste some time before the train, and I wandered around the interesting area and snapped some photos of the place and of the intricate fountain in the middle. Soon it was time to leave, and we got to walk by all the grapes dangling on their leaves and watch the sun set over the hills.
After an hour of dozing in and out on the train, we were finally back at the station and in desperate desire for a meal. We were told to go to Mama Africa’s on Long Street which is a restaurant bar with live bands playing so we caught a cab there and sat in the bar and watched the band with some more people from SAS. The place was beautiful with the bar painted in a giraffe skin-like design with neon colors, lanterns all over the tables, beautiful chandeliers hanging from the ceilings, and African paintings covering the walls.
After waiting for entirely too long, we were finally seated and I ordered a platter with all the types of meat from South Africa. I tried crocodile, kudu, springbok, Oryx, ostrich, and zebra. Out of them all, I thought that the springbok was the best! I’m sad that I have to go back home to eat cows. After dinner (12:30am), the girls and I headed back to the ship for some sleep since I had to be up and ready for my safari by 4:15am.
Sooner than expected, the dreadful time rolled around and I fumbled to get my things together and met in the Union with other sleepy-eyed students. We piled into the busses and got to the Cape Town Airport within about twenty minutes and received our boarding passes and quickly boarded. The flight to Durban only lasted about two hours, but I only remember about ten minutes of it. I even slept through take off! After making our way out of the terminal, we were all met by a bus and were told we would have three hours to sleep until we got to our campsite at Kwazulu-Natal. I took the opportunity, and woke up once we were at the reserve. Stepping off the bus was miserable. The air was extremely humid and were told that the temperate was already at 39 degrees Celsius (102 degrees Fahrenheit) and it was only 10:30am. Luckily, we were greeted with delicious guava juice to cool down a little, and then rode safari vehicles to our campsite. The wind on our faces felt like heat from a toaster. Once there, it had reached over 40 degrees and let me tell you, I have never been that hot in my life. My whole body was soaked with sweat, and I would bend over to tie my shoe and could feel and see the drops of it pouring off of my face. Taking off my shirt, it felt as though I had just jumped into a pool. So I put my bathing suit on, and some light cotton shorts with a loose fitting tank top, and went to sit in the shade until lunch. I drank four bottles of water in about an hour, and only had to urinate once.
For lunch, they provided us with chicken nuggets with mayo, meatballs with Mrs. Balls Chutney (which is a delicious sauce that tastes like a mix between barbeque sauce, sweet and sour sauce, and salsa), fruit, sandwiches, and soda. We scarfed the food down within five minutes, and were off for our first game drive. Our safari guide’s name was Kaz, and we quickly learned that she was the best leader to go with. She was in love with her job, loved to joke around, and genuinely wanted to know us all. The other guides didn’t even readily share their names with their group.
The clouds rolled overhead and it cooled down to a very comfortable and tolerable temperature. We entered between brick walls and after a metal gate was pushed back for us and passed the guards with guns, and nothing has ever felt more like Jurassic Park than that moment. First, we came upon a family of warthogs right inside the gate. Then, not more than five minutes down the path, we spotted impalas and then zebras and rhinos. After that sparked our animal interest, we were on the search for elephants. Kaz was able to look at trees and the ground and smell the air and tell us if there had been elephants there recently and if so, which way they were headed, and soon enough we can across an elephant that was pretty far away, but still incredible. Soon, Kaz got word on the radio of elephants down in a valley so we headed in that direction, going faster than I thought possible down such narrow roads and swerving around corners like crazy. And just before we knew it, we ran into zabras in the middle of the road. They were so close that I could have reached my hand out and touched the beautiful horses. I got some great photos of them. Then, we came across three rhinos and got several pictures of them before we heard an elephant “distress” call that spooked the rhinos and they went running down the road, which reminded me of Jumanji.
Next we stopped at a park to look at some of the trees and birds. We learned about this one tree that the bark is so poisonous that if you light it on fire and then put it in a basket under water, fish that swim over it will die and float to the top. Apparently, South Africans would do this instead of fishing because it was such a fool-proof way to obtain food. Also, the leaves on that same tree have a paste inside of them that if you touch and touch your eye, it will yield you blind for the rest of your life, and if you eat the leaves, they will make you “run to the bathroom for several days”. Apparently if giraffes are a little irregular, they eat a few leaves off the tree and it makes them feel better. It is pretty incredible how the vegetation can do so much for animals. And that was only one tree!
Soon we came upon the clearing with the elephants where we were allowed to leave the safari vehicle and walk around a bit since the animals were so far away. There were a good thirty elephants in the pack, and we learned that they can have up to 150 in one. After everyone left the area, Kaz told us some of her scariest stories working as a guide for 6 years. One of them was about her walking around a corner and into three female lions and being lurched at three times by an injured one (apparently, if a lion is hurt they are 10x more dangerous because they have to defend their territory and are that much more vulnerable). Another story was about an elephant coming up to her and touching the end of his trunk all over her face with his tusks only a foot and a half away from her eyes. And another one was about an elephant trying to rip her from the car by her shirt so she had to smack its trunk really hard and luckily it ran away. Then we asked her about things that had happened to guests to the park and she told us that in the 1970s, some guy got out of the vehicle after a couple of lions had just made a kill fifty feet away and left his wife and daughter in the car so that he could get them eating the animal on film. Then another lion came up and pounced on the man and ended up being eaten alive by the lions right in front of his family. Another guest videotaped it and now its on youtube. I wouldn’t want to watch something like that.
It was getting darker and so we started heading back and on the way, we saw a dung beetle pushing yes, a piece of dung, with his female mate nestled in the top of it. It was the root of a lot of jokes, and gave us all a good laugh. I’m sure some of you can imagine the nature of them. We saw more zebras, some with babies, on the way back to camp.
Once we were back, we all sat around the fire for a bit and were picked up for a traditional South African barbeque. We were given assortments of cheeses, salads, beans and rice, and salad for starters and then they had all kinds of meat for us to have on South Africa’s version of cous cous (I can’t read Afrikaans or Arabian so my spelling may be wrong) and rice with some kind of spicy tomato sauce. For desert there were all kinds of pastries and cookies with ice cream and chocolate pudding. A lot of people had Crème Brule, but you all know my hatred of that texture, so I chose to pass. Everyone got very tired very quickly since it was such a long day for all of us, and we headed back to camp. As we fell asleep, we were serenaded by the sounds of the African wilderness including monkeys, birds, and grapefruit-sized moths landing on our mosquito net all night.
Waking with the sun, we were taken to the restaurant for a breakfast consisting of yogurt, croissants with jam, cereal, sausage, coffee and tea. We loaded ourselves up with water and met up with Kaz for another day of searching for animals. Not more than a half hour into the drive, we saw elephants on our right coming through the trees and heading straight across the road. We reversed in our vehicle so we could watch them. There were several baby elephants along with more women elephants, the last of which felt extremely threatened by us (Kaz explained elephant body language to us) and even started to charge at us! Kaz threw the Jeep in reverse and quickly got us out of the way, but still in sight. The elephant screamed and began to run into the trees with the other elephants. All of our hearts were pounding, and we were all giddy and laughing about what just happened. After lunch, we set out to find some lions and/or leopards and found a lone male elephant walking straight down the path toward our car. Apparently he was calm and curious about us, but Kaz was still being careful not to upset him or let him get too close to us. It would start running harder toward us and then stop, as if it wasn’t sure if we were worth the effort to go after. We drove in reverse while the animal walked toward us for over 2 kilometers. It was a great day for elephants! We later saw several giraffes, more buffalo, monkeys, a crocodile chilling on a rock, and zebras, but we never saw any wild cats. “The Big 5” is a term that the hunters made up to signify the most dangerous animals to hunt, and they include elephants, buffalo, crocodiles, lions, and leopards. Seeing three of the big five is just fine with me!
Before dinner, we all went and jumped into the pool provided by the campground and then got ready and left to go eat. We had the same food that we had the night before, and I welcomed it since I loved it all so much. Soon, it was time to go back to the campground, or so we thought, so we all piled into an open widow safari vehicle, and the next thing we know is that we are at the pool area! One of the safari drivers thought that we would enjoy going for a swim, which we all welcomed. We jumped in the pool and everyone had a really good time. Later, a lot of people played a game and some of us just sat around the campfire and had a nice time chatting about life.
We left before sun-up the next morning, and made it safely back to the ship by 2:00pm. I was exhausted, so I napped until dinner, and ate on the ship. That night I walked around and found a payphone to call home and talk to my parents for a bit which was much needed. It was great to hear their voices!
I awoke on my last day and got with some girls and made a plan of action. We ate breakfast and then found a cab that would take us to Table Mountain. After waiting in line for ten minutes, we bought our tickets for the cable car up and got in the elevator to take us to the platform. I would have loved to hike the way up, but with so little time in Cape Town, we decided to go the fast way. The cable car was pleasant, with the floor spinning slowly in a circle to give everyone an equal view. Once at the top, we unloaded and saw the majestic beauty of South Africa from the highest point. We could see our ship, as well as Cape Point off to the east. I took several pictures there but they really don’t capture the magnificence (as is most thing). It was incredibly windy and freezing though! We each had a coffee at the top, looked in the store, and headed down. At the bottom of the mountain was a small store where each of us bought a souvenir and I bought some much needed sunglasses. Next we headed to the waterfront to do a little shopping.
First we stopped for lunch at a small outdoor café next to the clock tower. There we had turkey and pineapple wraps and bottled water for under $5 US each. Soon we headed into the craft market and were pleasantly overwhelmed with all of the handmade crafts and trinkets of South Africa. I bought one thing there, and I love it. I’ll show everyone when I get back! (You all love the suspense, right?) After spending a quick two hours there, it was time to head back. I really wanted to purchase a painted and polished ostrich egg in South Africa, but it would have been incredibly hard to get back to the states because of how breakable they are. I walked back to the ship wishing we could have spent another three or four days in Cape Town. There is so much to do there, and so much culture! Musicians play their instruments in the streets and locals come and dance together. That’s something you would rarely see in the states. I loved South Africa, and hope to come back for the World Cup in 2010!
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