Day 01 Spring Break

“1,000 Miles” – Vanessa Carlton
Saturday August 31^st 2013

Rise and shine! It’s road trip time! Gillian, Becca, and I mosied down to the AVIS in the Peppergrove Mall to pick up our spring break cars. The whole process took longer than expected (you’ll be reading that a lot throughout these posts) but by 10 we had our cars and drove back to campus to load up. 

                Car One: Caitie, Gillian, Rachel.
                Car Two: Becca, Mary, and Nora. 

Becca drove on the wrong side for her very first time! So proud :’)

I officially moved out of my res and put my stuff in the car. Frustrating part of vac: Becca, Nora and I had to completely move out of our rooms. Our res’ are used for housing for people who come for conferences while the students are away. Aren’t we lucky? We had to take down all our posters and repack our lives for just a week. It wasn’t that bad, but it was still more of a pain in the butt than most things.

First stop on the road trip: RED CAFÉ!!! How could we not? We all love it and it was the place we all started hanging out and getting to know one another. Plus it’s DELICIOUS! We were running behind schedule but we took the time to relax and eat and enjoy the prospect of a long well-deserved holiday ahead. We ran into my friend Jes and her boyfriend Geoff. They gave us a ton of mixed CDs of all sorts of music for the trip. Aren't they sweethearts?!

Next thing we knew we were on the road with Grahamstown in our rearview. My directions basically said to stay on the N2 for about 10 hours. No problem. We traveled along what most people refer to as the Garden Route. Pretty much everything you see is scenic South African countryside.

our fearless driver: Gillian <3

the world's best passenger: Caitie <3

Around Port Elizabeth, about an hour or so into the journey, we all had to pee. Classic. We stopped at a gas station, stocked up on snacks and got on our way again. The countryside continued to mesmerize us. We would be talking about whatever and what not and all of a sudden we’d turn a corner and either go silent or shriek “This isn’t real life!!” while pointing at the landscapes that could honestly have been mistaken for Microsoft screensavers.

Around Plettenberg Bay (where we went bungee jumping a few weeks ago) we realized we were very nearly out of gas. We were confused since the last time we took a car trip we had driven to Plett to Tsitsikamma, back to Plett then half way back to PE before needing to fill up. We stopped at a petrol station where we discovered our Honda’s tank was about half the size of Becca’s VW.

Travel suggestion: When road tripping caravan style….DON’T. I mean… have a solid form of communication between cars. Take turns leading (there is nothing more stressful than leading, except perhaps following). Consider getting the same make and model of car if possible.

A few of us had to pee again (curse you tiny woman bladders!) so we asked the workers at the petrol station for the key to the bathroom. Nora went first into the tiny sketchy bathroom around the side of the petrol station shop next to a shady looking pizzeria. She went in and came out without any trouble at all. I went in after her, but of course when I tried to come out…I couldn’t. I was locked INSIDE the bathroom at a petrol station in the middle of nowhere in the middle of South Africa.

I told Caitie to try the key from her side of the door. I asked her to pass it to me under the door so I could try it on my side. I threw my shoulder against the door. I kicked. The owners kicked from the other side. We tried everything, but some mechanism in the lock beyond our control was keeping me from getting out. I only panicked a little…

When I heard/felt people on the outside trying to bust down the door, I climbed on top of the toilet to avoid being maimed by the heavy wooden door should it come suddenly swinging open. Whilst atop my porcelain throne I was suddenly aware of a small square window behind me. That’s right, folks. I climbed out of a tiny, dirt covered window of a filthy bathroom at a remote petrol station in South Africa. You can’t make this stuff up.

I basically threw one leg over the ledge, did a split, wriggled my other leg out and lowered myself to the semi-nearby ground, slightly less graceful James Bond style. Piece of cake. But then I was in a courtyard-like area surrounded by barbed wire. I walked up to a heavily padlocked gate where, through the bars, I could see all my would-be rescuers. Pretty sure my exact words were: “Um…hi…I climbed out the window.”

The station workers exploded with laughter and told me to come around through the shop. I was greeted at a back door by one of the workers who was still laughing hysterically. Head low, I skulked quickly through the shop, out to the car, and off we went.

The rest of the road trip for the day consisted of uneventful stretches of driving punctuated by more bathroom and snack stops. It gradually got darker around us and petrol stations became less and less frequent. We got dinner at a very sketchy eatery in a town that I’m pretty sure only spoke Afrikaans (expect for the delightful old couple that made us our pizzas).

Near the end of our journey we went up and over a mountain on a very dark windy road in the dark in the rain.

Note on South African roads: The roads here are remarkably well paved and looked after. The whole drive was fairly smooth, but there are lots of very sudden and tight turns often located on the edges of mountains over water 100 meters below. There are also very few lights to illuminate the roads. Street lights are common around towns, but don’t count on seeing them any other time. Safe driving!

At the top of the mountain we came around a corner and suddenly could see NOTHING. We were inside a very dense rain cloud and could hardly see the reflectors on the ground. Gillian put on her hazards and gently crept forward hoping Spring Break Car #2 wouldn’t suddenly come barreling into us. In no time at all we burst forth from the cloud onto open road once again. This time, down to our left was a sparkling view of a glowing metropolis. We assumed it was Cape Town and started freaking out! Oh how wrong we were…

Eagerly we started looking for our exit. We found an name that matched our directions and then drove around looking for anything else our directions mentioned. We got so turned around that I had to ask for directions. The two lovely gentlemen outside a 7-11 like store kindly informed me that we were in Somerset West not Cape Town. Laughing, one the of the guys pulled out his phone to show the exact mileage of how dumb we were. Back in the car. Take 2.

About an hour later, we actually reached Cape Town. After nearly 11 hours of highway driving, our lethargic minds were set into motion by the sudden arrival of city traffic on a Saturday night. All the kudos go to Gillian.

We turned onto Longstreet where our hostel, Longstreet Backpackers was located, and ran smack dab into an absolute wall of people. Longstreet is where a lot of the nightlife happens in Cape Town, and we had found it. We had to wind our way in and out of masses of loud happy drunks all the while searching desperately for our hostel and a parking space. Half way down the street we saw a sign for the Longstreet Backpackers. We parked soon after and dragged out grumpy selves back to the hostel to move in.

Someone punched the code for the door, which buzzed open to a flight of steps (exactly what every weary traveler wants to see when he or she finally arrives somewhere). The staircase was lined with a beautiful mosaic of mirrors, which we came to appreciate at a later time. We arrived in a lobby like area that thankfully matched the pictures I’d seen online. To our left was a tiny inhouse pub where music was blasting. We weren’t quite sure where to check in.

From inside the bar area, a young attractive black man with dreads suddenly appeared and greeted us. He introduced himself to us as either “Party” or “Potty”. We still aren’t sure. By now, both cars had arrived and we all had all our luggage sitting next to a picnic table in the lobby. “Party/Potty” gave us a kind of unnecessary tour of the place before showing us to our room. We were in a dorm all the way on the top floor. Apparently this was just a temporary room and we would be moved back downstairs the next day. I room for tonight was semi-shared with a dorm of young guys that “Party/Potty” said were out partying at the moment but they’d be back later. oh good.

Part of me kind of wanted to go out into the crazy nightlife happening on Longstreet, but the other part of me beat the first part into submission with a heavy blunt object. We organized our room (that was one bed short) and negotiated who was getting showers. Gillian and Caitie investigated the Wi-Fi situation. (If you were wondering: we could only get a connection outside our room in the common areas of the hostel. The first night’s password was Mahatmaghandi.)

Nora and I went to the kitchen to make some tea. Off the kitchen was a dining room area that was covered in Sharpie marker graffiti from decades of previous backpackers. A lot of it was either rude or absurdly profound. The illustrations were downright odd. In the kitchen was where we met Happy Cat (yes that’s her actual name). Happy Cat was a sweet little calico cat that only liked to be touched on his terms. I sat criss-cross-apple-sauce on the floor and shamelessly played with him for about an hour. He eventually sat on my knee and purred while I geeked out and started missing home.

Soon after, Nora and I went and got showers. There was a bathroom in our suite with two showers that had glass transparent doors. Two people could shower at once, but it took some polite negotiating. Nora and I bonded. Climbing onto our jerry-rigged bunk at 2 AM, we were the last people to go to bed.

A few hours later we were woken by the group of guys staying in the room next to hours. They turned on the lights, quickly turned them off again when they realized there were people asleep, then quickly turned them on again when they realized the people were in fact 6 20-something girls. One of them had hiccups, which he found very musing. Becca and I laughed silently at each other over the absurdity of 7+ boys trying to decide what to do about us. They eventually settled down and we all slept a few more hours before beginning our first full day in Cape Town.

Highlights of the day: Happy Cat and introducing Gillian to Walk the Moon on my ipod. Add accomplished car DJ to my resume please!

(By the end of the vac, I was sick of all the music on my ipod and conversely in love with all the music on Gillians.)