I Laugh in the Face of Bad Weather

We are now back in the US, but we have a few more posts on South Africa before we can wrap up the trip.  I may even badger Magge into contributing one last time.

One of our last stops in South Africa was in the Drakensberg region.  The country's highest mountain range, it has been designated a UNESCO World Heritage Site for both its natural value and its cultural value as home to San rock paintings.  I took in some of both, doing the Sentinel Peak hike and seeing some rock paintings in Lesotho.  Thanks to Marcus from Stuttgart, I have pictures of the hike, so that's what I'm posting today.  If Sarah from Ireland sends me pictures of our Lesotho day trip as promised, a post of those pictures will be forthcoming.

Two Wild Coasts

From the Bulungula Lodge website

Magge and I had never heard of South Africa's Wild Coast before coming to this country, but after reading about it we were eager to visit.  Located on the southeast in a section formerly known as the Transkei, this rural and poor area receives far fewer tourists and backpackers than the more famed Garden Route.  This lack of British and German 19 year olds was actually a drawing card.  After a little research, we decided to stay in two places: Bulungula Lodge in the small village of Nqileni, and the Coffee Shack in Coffee Bay.  They ended up providing very different experiences.

Like Oregon, but with Baboons

Note: Due to a boating mishap, our camera and memory card are no longer working, so we will no longer be able to post any of our pictures for the remainder of this trip.  Hopefully, we'll be able to guilt other travelers into sharing their pictures with us so we have some to post.  This picture was taken from Wikipedia.

Storms River mouth / courtesy of Wikipedia

We stopped in Tsisikamma National Park because it was a convenient resting point on the way to the Wild Coast, not because we had any real particular interest in seeing it.  It is located in South Africa's "Garden Route", a heavily promoted and popular stretch of coastline east of Cape Town.  Although the Garden Route is part of the standard backpacker circuit in South Africa, we decided to largely skip it because the guidebooks make it sound like merely a collection of upscale, vacation beach towns.  We figured we could do that scene back in the US in places where the water is actually warm.  Driving past Knysna and Plettenberg Bay, two of the most popular stops on the route, we felt confident that we made the right decision.  Sure, the environs were pretty, but the areas were overdeveloped.  However, as we neared Tsisikamma, we could see what drew visitors to the Garden Route in the first place.

Nature's Vibrant Colors

"My profession is always to be alert, to find God in nature, to know God's lurking places, to attend to all the oratorios and the operas in nature." Henry David Thoreau

Picture taken on St. James beach, on Cape Town's False Bay. This picture was a team effort: Jeff, knowing my love of taking macro pictures of animals, spotted this bug and pointed it out to me as we were walking on the beach.

Goodbye, Cape Town

Cape Town's weather the last few days we were in the city was the worst it had been the entire six weeks we spent there, with Table Mountain constantly wrapped in thick, low-lying clouds.  On our last day, just as we were about to leave for our township tour, the clouds lifted just long enough for us to get one last glimpse of the mountain.

Township Tour, or Human Safari?

Walking through one of the poorer parts of Langa

If you've been reading our posts since we've been in South Africa, you know that we have been volunteering in the township of Khayelitsha.  However, due to safety concerns, we had to stay within the Baphumelele complex for the duration of our three day shifts, so we were not able to see much of Khayelitsha.  We signed up for a township tour to get closer, even though I was somewhat apprehensive about taking a tour that whisks tourists around to see how the less fortunate live.  That uneasy feeling didn't abate throughout the tour and I left with mixed emotions.

"Try Not To Get Too Attached" . . . Easier Said Than Done

Leaving a volunteer project is never easy for me. Perhaps it is the masochist in me, but I rarely leave with a feeling of upliftment or satisfaction in "a job well done". Instead, I generally leave in a state of frustration, knowing that there is so much more to be done. This project has been no exception. Only this time I am leaving with a huge hole in my heart as well.

After six weeks at the Baphamulele Children's Home, we have become very close to many of the children with whom we have been working. After days spent feeding, bathing, singing, dancing, and playing, you would have to have a heart of stone not to fall in love with all our kids. Yes, there were days when we were all ready to retreat up to our flat after listening to Nikita and Zam whine all day (all day) or after struggling with Lithemba to feed him his food, but most of the time I had a hard time leaving at the end of a shift.

While each child has earned a special place in my heart (even Nikita and Zam), one child has completely stolen it. His name is Litha, and even as I sit here typing his name my eyes are welling up with tears. I could go on and on for pages describing how special Litha is: how much I love his curiosity, his love of singing, his original dance moves, his intelligence (he is so bright), his kisses, and just the feeling of snuggling with him in my lap as we watched Barney at night, but I don't think that's necessary, and to be honest, I can't write too much about him without totally breaking down in tears.

Though both Jeff and I have agreed for some time (much to my mother's chagrin) that children are still a few years off for us, I would take Litha home with us in a heartbeat if I could. Unfortunately, South Africa's misguided adoption laws make it next to impossible for people from other countries to adopt any of the many, many children here that need homes. To even be considered, a person must be a resident of South Africa for at least two years. From what I have been told, this law was created with a desire to keep South African children "South African". While I have no problem with the spirit of this law, I find it to be incredibly unrealistic and downright irresponsible given the number of children that are parentless in this country. I wonder what these children would say if given a choice.

We are not permitted to publish pictures of the children in a public forum, such as a blog. We are, however, permitted to put them up in private areas, such as Facebook, so I am putting up a few of the many pictures that I have taken on Facebook, in case anyone is interested in seeing them.

False Bay

Here are some pictures from our recent day trip to the False Bay side (east side) of the Cape Peninsula.  We took the commuter train, which hugs the water's edge once it reaches the bay, down to Kalk Bay.  After I indulged Magge in browsing a few of the small town's boutiques, we walked two miles up the coast to Muizenberg to catch the train back to our house.  Just another beautiful side of Cape Town.

Views from the train

False Bay

The colorful changing houses of St. James beach

Boring Game, Great Time

I don't like soccer - it ranks somewhere between curling and the lumberjack games on my list of favorite sports to watch.  Every four years, I try to get into the World Cup, but my interest is spurred by patriotism rather than the game itself.  Given how much effort it takes to watch games that actually matter, I never thought I'd care to go to a game that doesn't matter, called "friendlies" by soccer fans.  However, when we found out that the USA squad was coming to Cape Town to face South Africa, we couldn't turn it down.  How many chances are we going to get to support our country (yeah, I'm actually Canadian, whatever) in a sporting event nearly 8,000 miles from home?

Nearly all the volunteers we live with also got tickets to the game, and we got into the mood by painting our faces.  Most of the other volunteers (who are from Canada, the UK or Norway) painted their faces with the South African flag, but the 3.5 Americans plus an Australian painted their faces with stars and stripes.  There would be no hiding from opposing fans.  We immediately mixed it up with the South Africans, chanting "USA! USA!" and getting booed off the shuttle bus to the stadium for singing the "Star-Spangled Banner".  Their fans were great, taking everything in stride and throwing it right back at us.  Many of them took our picture and we even got interviewed by the press (if you happen to see a clip of a late 20s male with the American flag painted on his face saying he thinks the US will win by one or two touchdowns, that's me).  Just outside the stadium, I heard everyone around us laughing, and I turned to see Magge engaged in a bizarre dance with a South African fan, where the two ladies were bumping butts.  I turned to the person next to me and said, "Yeah, that's my wife".

Yeah, that's my wife

Us with Will, one of the two other Americans, prior to the game

As usual in this sport, nothing happened for most of the game.  Once in a while the crowd would break out in huge cheers just because the ball entered the general vicinity of the American net, but other than that it was a long, real life game of Pong with a vuvuzela soundtrack.  When the US finally scored late in the game, I was more relieved that something had actually happened than excited that we took the lead.  The Americans hung on to win 1-0 (also known as the "standard soccer result"), but the South African fans were still great to us afterwards.  The game itself was boring, but the experience was fantastic and it was one of the most fun nights we've had over the past year.

Surrounded by the enemy

The ubiquitous and terrible vuvuzelas

Action (or inaction?) on the field

South African Roadtrip

We finished up our work at Baphumelele Children's Home this morning (with lots of tears from Magge) and have a few more days in Cape Town before we tackle more of this country.  We will rent a car and drive roughly 4,000km over twenty days.  As opposed to our blitzkrieg style roadtrips in New Zealand and Australia, where we slept in a new location every other night, we decided to stay in fewer spots for longer periods of time.  Here's our tentative schedule, mostly for the benefit of our mothers since we'll often be without internet over the next three weeks.

November 22: Leave Cape Town, drive to Stormsriver in Tsitsikamma National Park.  We're stopping here mainly to break up a long drive, but there should be some nice hikes.
November 24: Nqileni village, Wild Coast.  A very rural area off the beaten trail.
November 29: Coffee Bay, Wild Coast.  More spectacular South African coastline.
December 2: Somewhere in the Drakensberg Mountains.  We haven't decided where we'll stay yet, but we know that we want to spend a few days in the mountains.
December 5: Graskop.  A small town that will make for a convenient base for a quick trip to the Blyde River Canyon before we head to Kruger.
December 6: Kruger National Park.  South Africa's best known game reserve.
December 11: Pretoria.  Probably just a bed for the night before our flight - I doubt we'll explore this city at all.
December 12: Fly to London.

Spain and London Wrap-Up

We are way behind on this wrap-up - as I wrote earlier, Spain didn't really inspire us.  Due to that and the length of time that has passed since we left Spain, we won't be doing rankings.  Just the facts.

Facts and Figures
Length of Stay: 15 Days
Miles Traveled to Enter: 515 by plane from Paris to Barcelona
Miles Traveled: 950 by train + 790 by plane =  1,740 (41,870 since landing in Quito)
Places Visited: Barcelona, Sevilla, Granada, Madrid, Toledo, London
Intercity Trains Taken: 5
Flights Taken: 1 (Madrid to London)
Major Strikes Encountered: 2 (a national strike in Spain that ruined our plans to visit the Alhambra, and an underground/subway strike in London that didn't affect us)

Lunch at the Saturday Market

One of the great parts about our volunteer schedule (three days at Bapaphumele, three days in Obs) is that we really get a chance to experience Cape Town. This includes getting to visit the chic Neighbourgoods Markets at the Old Biscuit Mill, held every Saturday and a popular day out for the locals (or the white locals, anyway).  This morning we went with some of our friends and had lunch. I enjoyed a gyro while Jeff, the meat-eating adventurer that he is, tried a kudu burger. For those wondering what in the world a kudu is, it's a close relative to the antelope... delicious! (or at least that's what Jeff would say.) We bought some double chocolate cookies for dessert with the intention of having some for lunch and then the rest for dinner, but of course none of them made it out of the market.

One of the best things about Cape Town, is that no matter where you go, there will always be a beautiful mountain view

It probably goes without saying that the entire time we were there I was thinking about how much fun it would be to bring Litha. I think I'm going to need counseling when we get home.

Touring the Cape Peninsula

On the Cape of Good Hope with Cape Point behind us

Another post, more Cape scenery.  We took a tour of the Cape Peninsula yesterday, from Cape Town all the way down to the Cape of Good Hope, and we liked it even more than the Winelands tour.  The weather did not cooperate at first, obscuring the mountains but by lunch it had cleared up and was a gorgeous day.

The Not-So-Beautiful Side of Cape Town

The last few posts focused on the visually stunning setting of the Cape Town area.  However, the city is not without its blemishes, and at least one book has stated that it is perhaps the most economically unequal city in the world.  We see this first hand every time we go on shift at the orphanage.  Our drive from the comfortable Cape Town suburb of Observatory to the Baphumelele Children's home takes us past miles and miles of the ramshackle shanties of the township of Khayelitsha.  The main road we take into the township is completely littered with trash; we've been told that this is the residents' way of protesting their living conditions to the government.  If you think this cutting-off-one's-nose behavior is drastic, you should see the road on its worst days.  In a more extreme form of protest, some Khalyelitsha residents will take to burning vehicles.  On our last shift, we drove past a city bus that had been stormed by protesters and then destroyed.

Driving through Khayelitsha

More Table Mountain

Here's the view of Table Mountain driving into Cape Town from the northern suburbs.  Magge took this on our way back from the Winelands tour.  Don't be surprised if pictures of Table Mountain become recurring feature here for the next few weeks.

Wine, Chocolate, Cheese and Cheetahs

I just tweeted that I wouldn't be writing a post on our tour of the Cape Winelands today due to an early-onset hangover, but if I don't do it now it may not get done, and the area is just too beautiful to not show off.  So here is a quick post with some pictures.

We took the tour thanks to an anniversary gift from Marcia and Lee.  South Africa has the world's oldest wine industry outside of Europe, but what I loved about the tour was the scenery.  That's not to say I didn't drink any wine - we went to three different tastings and had a total of fourteen glasses.  Each tasting had a spittoon at the table, but after a year backpacking on a budget, we're conditioned to not waste, which explains my current headache.  One tasting had pairings with chocolate, while another included cheeses.  I'm not a cheese person, but I can throw down some chocolate.  The tour even squeezed in visit to a cheetah sanctuary, which made Magge giddy.

Enjoy the pictures and see why Magge and I are falling in love with the Cape Town area.

The first wine estate on the tour

Chocolate pairings

Give Magge an animal and she can't be happier

New Zealand, you have competition

Table Mountain: Not a Good Place to Forget Your Camera

The dominating feature of Cape Town is Table Mountain, a flat-topped massif that wraps around the city center.  It is a big reason why I think Cape Town is one of the most, if not the most, beautifully situated cities in the world, but it is more than eye candy.  With multiple trails to the summit and a modern cable car, Table Mountain's tabletop makes for an accessible day out.

Today, Magge, three fellow volunteers and I tackled the main trail to the top through the Platteklip Gorge.  As soon as we began the ascent, Magge realized she forgot the memory card for her camera.  The weather could not have been any more beautiful for taking pictures, so this was a big disappointment.  Luckily, someone in our group had a camera, but she only remembered to take pictures once we reached the top.  The hike up took a strenuous two hours and made us painfully aware that we've gotten out of shape since our days in the Andes.  It was well worth it, though, with stunning views 360 degrees around.  You can see Cape Town, the Atlantic beaches, False Bay, the Cape Flats (home to many of the city's townships) and the Cape Peninsula leading to the Cape of Good Hope.  Next week I'll be sending Magge up again, this time with camera and memory card in tow, so we can have more pictures.

On top of Table Mountain, with the Cape Peninsula stretching out behind us

More pictures in the full post.

Great White

Does any creature on earth induce more fear than the great white shark?  Thirty years after Jaws and swimmers can still hear a tuba in the back of their minds when swimming in the ocean, despite the best efforts of scientists to de-demonize the big fish.  So of course it's natural that sitting in a cage in the ocean face to face with great white has become a very popular activity over the past few years, and is something that I have wanted to do.  There is no better place in the world to see these sharks than South Africa, so I immediately penciled in cage diving when I knew we'd be spending time in Cape Town.

How Do You Say Peekaboo in Xhosa?

We've spent a month each in Trujillo, Peru and Paris, but Cape Town will end up as our longest stay on this trip.  Why did we decide to stay here for so long?  In addition to being ridiculously beautiful (we'll have pictures up at some point), the city is also home to our second volunteering project.

For six weeks, we are volunteering at Baphumelele Children's Home, a sanctuary for orphaned, abandoned or neglected children.  The home is located in Khayelitsha, the largest township (in South Africa, a term referring to Apartheid holdover non-white settlements on the periphery of urban centers) in the Cape Town area with 1.5 million people people living in shanties.  The residents here face poverty, some of the highest crime rates in the developed world, and frighteningly high HIV infection rates.  In fact, HIV/AIDS is the reason many of the children are orphans, and a number of them are infected themselves.

Baphumelele looks after over 200 kids of varying ages, but Magge and I focus on the "Baby House", a group of nearly thirty three month to three year olds.  We, and four other volunteers on our shift, assist four full time caregivers in this task.  The primary chores are helping to prepare bottles and food, feeding, brushing teeth, bathing, but most of all we play with them.  We're supposed to "attempt to carry out at least one activity" per play session, but anyone who has dealt with kids that age knows a structured activity is an unlikely event.  Thirty kids that age that barely speak or understand English (their first language is Xhosa) running around a room makes it extra unlikely.  If I can get a kid to play catch or sing a song with me, I chalk one up in the success column.

Even though the ratio of adults to children seems good, being in the Baby House can still be overwhelming.  The kids are all craving adult attention, and they swarm anyone that walks through the door.  If I sit down, there are immediately three rugrats squirming their way into my lap.  There are always a few kids crying, and they don't listen to the volunteers very well (probably due to a combination of the language barrier and the itinerant nature of the volunteers).  Some of them have behavioral or even neurological issues, and dealing with them can be taxing.  One child, whom Magge guesses suffers from fetal alcohol syndrome, lacks coordination and has to wear a helmet as he stumbles around the room, knocking others down to the floor.  He's taken a liking to Magge, and she does a fantastic job of showing him attention when some of the other volunteers prefer to ignore him.

Thankfully, the long, intense days are balanced by a schedule that allows us to recharge and explore the Cape Town area.  We work in three day shifts; when we're on shift, we stay in the Baphumelele complex, and our off shift time is spent in a house just outside of Cape Town.  Aviva, the organization that administers the volunteer program at Baphumelele along with various other programs across the country, organizes activities for its volunteers and provides plenty of resources.  Both Magge and I have been impressed with how well the operation is run and it is definitely a nice change from our disorganized time with Bruce Peru in Trujillo.  We've already been here for one week and are very much looking forward to the next five.

Happy Birthday, Daddy!

Though my dad generally does not like to acknowledge his birthday (Peter Pan!), I couldn't possibly let him think that I had forgotten him on his special day. OK, yes this is a day late, but I cannot be blamed for shoddy internet in South Africa.

Five Cities across Three Countries in 1,000 Words or Less

We are back after an unplanned lengthy absence.  Since our last post on Barcelona, we have visited Sevilla, Granada, Madrid, London and Johannesburg without a post to show for it.  We do have excuses, though: Spain just did not inspire us to write, and internet access afterwards was expensive or inconsistent.  To catch you up, here's a quick rundown of what we have been doing for the last couple of weeks.

Some Awesome Modernist Architecture, But Not Much Else for Us in Barcelona

After saying "goodbye" to Lee in France, Jeff and I set off for Barcelona, Spain. We had both been excited to go to Barcelona to see the architectural creations of Antoni Gaudi, whom we had learned about from one of the many travel shows we enjoyed watching prior to the trip. Many people gushed over how fantastic Barcelona is when we told them we would be going to Spain, but Jeff and found that aside from the terrific Modernist architecture, there wasn't much else of interest for us in Barcelona. Probably because we're not big into going out and partying until the wee hours and we don't have the money to enjoy meals at nice restaurants.

We spent our first day in Barcelona much as we do in most cities we visit, just wandering around (and getting some laundry done!).

France Wrap-Up

Facts and Figures
Length of Stay: 35 Days
Miles Traveled to Enter: 525 by train from Venice
Miles Traveled: 400 by car (39,615 since landing in Quito)
Places Visited: Paris, Normandy
Intercity Trains Taken: 0
Buses Taken: 0
Fried Pig Snouts Eaten: 1

Bayeux Stopover

In addition to Juno Beach, we also made a pit stop in Bayeux on our way back to Paris.  It has the distinction of being the first French town liberated from Nazi occupation following D-Day, and since the Germans abandoned it to shore up the defenses in nearby Caen, Bayeux was spared the destruction that many other towns and cities in Normandy suffered.  As a result, it has maintained its very quaint character, with a mix of stone and half-timber buildings and a picturesque river running right through town.

The town is charming for sure, but its real claim to fame is the Bayeux Tapestry.  The tapestry, which apparently isn't actually a tapestry but an embroidered cloth (I wonder how many boring arguments historians/interior designers have had on this subject?), recounts the 1066 Norman conquest of England, led by William the Conqueror.  It was commissioned soon after the conquest and is in amzing shape for a 950 year old piece of cloth.  At nearly seventy meters long, the tapestry is like a huge comic book (or graphic novel, to use the modern euphemism) detailing the events leading to the invasion, the preparation of William's armies and the Battle of Hastings itself.  The museum containing the tapestry gives out audio guides that walk through the story frame by frame.  To give you an idea of how much information is on the cloth, the audio tour takes about twenty minutes.  All three of us really enjoyed the museum, as I think most people would, whether or not they're into the history of this period.

Scenes from a photographic copy of the Bayeux Tapestry (you aren't allowed to take pictures of the real thing)