Day 08 Spring Break

“Happy Birthday”
Saturday September 7^th 2013

Our last day in Plett went kind of like our last day in Cape Town. We all got up kind of haphazardly and started packing and making breakfast. Midway through the breakfast preparations, Becca and I snuck, ever so stealthily (aka not stealthily at all) out of the hostel to go on a cupcake mission. Today was Mary’s birthday, and earlier in the week she had expressed a very clear desire for a cupcake (and mimosas) on her special day.

Becca and I would make terrible secret agents, detectives, cupcake retrieval artists… We tried Pick n’ Pay (where we found some sad Giant/ACME brand-like cupcakes), and a random coffee chain. A cashier directed us to a bakery across the parking lot that we happily ran to. It was a Jewish bakery, and the sign on the door thanked us kindly for allowing them to be closed on the Sabbath. Back up the hill we went where we blissfully discovered a place called Clare’s Cakes. The cupcake display that awaited us inside was to die for! We were so relieved and we bought cupcakes for everyone to celebrate (as well as some coffee for ourselves).

We returned triumphantly to Amakaya, where scrambled eggs and toast were already on the table. As we opened our mouths to sing “Happy Birthday”, Nora flashed us a warning look and we fell silent. Apparently, the bank in Plett had given Mary trouble that morning when she went to try and retrieve some money her mom had sent her. Still without her bank card, this posed quite a problem. She had been told to go to a bank that was about an hour away that incidentally would close in about an hour and a half. She and Caitie took the car and left ASAP, but not before we gave Mary her red velvet birthday cupcake.

Those of us left behind ate, cleaned up breakfast, and loaded up the car while we waited for Caite and Mary to come back. We waited a long time, but eventually, Mary came back with the money she needed and we drove off to Port Alfred for BOAT RACES!

Boat Races is an inter-university regatta. Everyone gets dressed up in their overalls (glorified and decorated painters coveralls) to show their school spirit and then there is a huge party. Because of our morning set back we got there after all the races, but there were DJs going all night long. We ran into a bunch of our friends from Rhodes and met some new people from other universities. It was a fantastic last night of vacation.

Most people who come to boat races pay to camp on the grounds, but because we had gotten there late and we were very broke we slept in our cars. We are very classy. But if you can’t sleep in your car when you are 20….when can you?

Day 07 Spring Break

“Free Falling” – Tom Petty
Friday September 6^th 2013

Friday was probably our most laid back day of the entire vacation. The only thing on our list of things to do was TsiTsikamma Ziplining tours, which we were all pumped for! After we had all sufficiently woken up, showered, and such we drove into the town. Naturally, Caitie, Gillian and I forced everyone to go the little French place we’d gone to with Jes before bungee jumping. We apparently like to eat French food before playing with gravity. It was exactly what we wanted, and for Caitie Gillian and me, it was kind of like coming home.

After we finished our meal, we shopped for in the surrounding stores. We stopped in at a bookstore where we met some wonderful older women who were happy to just talk. I am positive that Plett is one of the sweetest most magical places on earth.

Before the day slipped away from us too much we decided to head towards the ziplining place. It was about half an hour away (but also on the other side of the toll bridge…poor planning on our part)

Ziplining was really pretty cool! It was a beautiful day and the area was just as gorgeous (of course, it’s magical). After having been bungee jumping, I was a teensy bit underwhelmed, but since I’d never been ziplining before, it was a nifty experience all the same. There were a bunch of quick zips from landing pad to landing pad. My favorite was set at a steep incline and ran between two cliffs over a stream. Though our protective equipment made us all look like absolute dorks, we felt pretty badass….that is….until our guides showed us to the hiking path for the return trip. 

repeat of our bungee pose

Hot and tired, running on adrenaline, we piled back into the cars for a lazy afternoon on the beach back in Plett.

The owner of the hostel had offered to braai for us that night (he was very “I am man. I make you fire.” But we were eager for the opportunity to have a genuine braai). We shopped at the local Checkers and got some chicken, steak, and sausages, as well as some supplies for breakfast the next day. The rest of the afternoon was spent on the beach, until we got a bit hungry and went to KFC like true proud Americans.

The braai that night was up in the bar portion of the main house. Our rooms were in a converted garage like structure down next to the reception office. Of all our hostels, I really liked the layout of this one. Again, we were some of the few people actually staying there. We weren’t totally alone, but we felt comfortable kind of doing whatever we wanted.

I helped our hostel guy (I think his name was Jared) prepare some of the sandwiches. I got to hear some cool hostel stories and a bit about Afrikaans culture. The rest of the girls joined us a bit later while the meat was cooking.

braai-ing with the best of em

The food was absolutely delicious (which was good because by the time it was ready, we were all starving). It was everything I’d hoped it would be and I was filled with a sort of prideful feeling for having such a South African experience.

A bit later, Jes, our wonderful gorgeous sweet Plett friend, came and joined us. I was sad she couldn’t stay longer, but it was great to catch up with her. After dinner was over and Jes had left we all went back to our garage room and vegged out on WiFi and snuggled into our beds.

Day 06 Spring Break

“Shark in the Water” - V V Brown
Thursday September 5^th 2013

6 AM the alarm goes off and Caite, Gillian, and I are out of our beds at the Stumble Inn. We stumble in (see what I did?) and out of our room and the bathroom down the hall preparing for our Shark Diving venture ahead. My mind still hasn’t processed the fact that today I will be in the water with Great White Sharks. This is something I’ve been looking forward to since I knew it existed.

A year ago, when I was trying to decide where I wanted to study abroad, I was reading the surly and jaded blog of a girl from Washington College who had gone to Rhodes. Gently put, I got a general sense of displeasure from her entire experience, but, if I’m really honest, I also got the sense that if we met in person we wouldn’t be friends. I was about to start looking at another blog when I got to her post about shark diving. THAT’S A THING?!?! Boom! DONE! Going to South Africa.

Our hostel that morning was freezing. I put on a couple thousand layers of clothing, anticipating the boat to be even colder. We won’t be coming back to this hostel so we pack up everything, and by 6:45 we are out the door. I say goodbye to Jungle Cat, who, bless his heart, has brought us a dead rat this morning. Good omen? Definitely.

Welcome to the 2 hour car ride to Kleinbaai. I will be your driver today. We made pretty good time until we got to a strange little town made of roundabouts. Our directions seemed a bit out of date and we kept questioning where we were still with 30 minutes of driving to go. We back tracked a lot and retraced our steps (tire marks?) not wanting to drive half an hour in the wrong direction. It was stressful and awful, BUT We. Figured. It. out.

Travel tip: When lost…remind yourself hundreds of people do this every day and you have to be smarter than at least one of those people. When you are lost in a car, your whole car is lost. Don’t yell at your car DJ or passenger about which way to go. When no one knows. No one knows. It’s okay to ask for directions. Once you pick a direction to go, find ways to keep reaffirming you are going the right way. You will feel a bit dumb later. Just laugh.

As we reached the next, less confusing town, Gillian blasted some good ol’ One Direction and we car danced like the adolescent boy band crazed girls we are. Into the town we saw a giant GREAT WHITE SHARK adventures mural on the side of a building and drove through a town full of stop signs before driving down into a seaside residential like area. There were shark diving tour companies everywhere along this strip, but I’m pretty convinced we got the best one.

Despite our worrisome directional failure earlier that morning, we were the first divers to arrive at the company. We walked into a building that was kind of like a North Carolina beach house converted into a bed and breakfast. We took a seat and looked around at all the impressive pictures of sharks. I got some (awful) coffee while other divers gradually arrived. We were served an impressive breakfast spread which we were all grateful for. They had grapes! A fruit I’d almost forgotten existed.

After a sufficient stuffing of our faces we received a briefing on the day’s activities. We were told to use the restrooms on land over the one on the boat and to change into our swimming costumes and have them under our clothes.

Brian Macfarlane, the face of the sharking operation, talked to us outside on the patio about how to properly dive. He demonstrated on a model piece of the cage we’d be using. He also told us that we had a horrible day for shark diving ahead, and that sorry, there was nothing he could really do about it. The seas were really rough, and recent rainstorms meant that the water was really turbid. With one meter of visibility, our chances of seeing a shark really well in the water were not good. But damnit if I wasn’t still excited. I practically skipped all the way down to the boat.

model of the cage. practicing!

The boat took off from the dock very quickly and we cruised across the water. The waves were huge but we were on a mission. Gillian and I both love being on boats and we were having a great time up on the top deck. We got tossed from our seats a couple times as we went over some ridiculous waves. Caitie, poor thing, was below, trying not to get too sea sick. (She was hilarious in the car after putting on her sea sickness patch. We think she got a little high)

Suddenly the boat slowed down and we started to feel the full force of how rough the ocean would be that day. We floated around a bit until Brian was satisfied with our coordinates. They released the cage and attached it to the port side of the boat. For some reason I had imagined it as a being more separate from the boat, but in this choppy water I was glad to see that stability of the set up. Brian climbed up on a structure of the boat right next to us and told us we had the best seats on the whole boat. The chum (chopped up fish to lure sharks) was released from a giant trashcan at the bow of the boat just behind us. Most of the sharks would be appearing near us and Brian. He showed us a silhouette cut out of a seal, that he had named Gladys. Someone else below us attached a giant fish head to a large bob and lobbed it into the water next to Gladys. Fishing for sharks. WEEEEE!

Just to give you an idea of how prime my seat was. That's the cage below my feet.

We waited for about 20 minutes. A whale watching boat came by and tried to see our sharks, but they got impatient. Just as they were cruising away, Brian shouted out “Oy oy oy!!” And there was our first shark!!!! He ripped the fish head right off of the line and disappeared. It was amazing! I love sharks so much and here I was watching the in real life, not on TV, not at an aquarium, here! In the Indian Ocean. Shark Week is filmed here! Aaaaaaaaasdghoetjgsitrjpogdhsjgopjte

This went on for a long time. We waited and waited, then Brian would get excited, and the other workers on the boat would try and tease the bait just so, so that the sharks would breach the water for us. A couple did and It. Was. AWESOME!

I can't...I can't even... I just....look at him!!

After a long long while, the wetsuit guy announced again how bad the conditions were, but that if we were really really keen we could still go in the cage. He basically guaranteed we wouldn’t see anything. Gillian and I looked at each other, silently agreed we didn’t care, and raised our hands to suit up!

(Mere moments after we climbed down the ladder to the lower deck for our suits, someone on the top level got seasick and chundered over everything. It was awful!! So glad I wasn’t up there to witness it)

The wet suit was comfy and super flattering (heavy, awkward, and awful). The fabric was really hard to tug on especially not knowing if I was doing it properly whilst being bucked and buffeted by the boat. It took me a while and I felt stupid and cold trying to make it happen, but I was so determined. I was given a belt of weights and some goggles, and then I was helped down into the frigid water in the cage next to Gillian. I’d be lying if I said we were totally composed and chilled about the whole thing. We may or may not have freaked out like school girls in homeroom/ Miss America pageant contestants.

In the cage you are meant to stand on a little bar, hold onto another little bar about waist height, and just stand with your head and a bit of your shoulders above the water. When someone on the boat shouts “Now! Now! Now! Go down Go down Go down Go down Go down!” you take a big gulp of air and plunge your head under the water to look through a cut out of the cage at (hopefully) the shark passing by.

After what felt like hours of waiting, there were a few adrenaline pumping false alarms before they told us to climb out and sit on the cage above the surface of the water. Normally, you only get about 20 minutes in the cage, to ensure everyone gets a fair chance to see sharks, but because today 1) the visibility was horrendous 2) not many people really wanted to go we could stay in the cage as long as we wanted/ could stand the cold.

We eventually started seeing sharks one after the other. Some of them crashed up against the cage. Others were at the very edge of our visibility. I saw one breach the water for the bait just before I sank below the surface to see him again. They were magnificent! Not for one minute was I scared. I was just so full of awe for these amazing creatures in their natural environment. I felt so small and insignificant (and chewy) in the cage just witnessing the power and grace and enormity of these sharks. Just seeing the sharks from the top level of the boat was well worth the money. THIS was priceless. I stayed in the cage probably much longer than was advisable, but I just couldn’t make myself leave. I kept saying to myself “One more. One more and then I’ll get out.” Gillian got out a bit earlier than I did, to avoid popsiclization. I saw about five more sharks and called a day too. Those last five were so incredible though. One of them actually swam straight towards me, completely level with the hole in the cage. And when I say straight at me, I don’t mean straight at me the way people say it after a 3-D movie experience. It was right in front of ME. My section of the cage. One of the luckiest most amazing moments of my life. Another one gently glided alongside the cage gazing at each of us individually for a brief moment with its giant unblinking eye.

Back on the boat, my wetsuit was unceremoniously yanked off me, exposing me to the full force of the cold wind. I wobbled around the boat willing the feeling back into my legs so I could get dressed. Gillian and I grabbed some chips and drinks and went back up to the top level for the boat ride back to shore.

Back on land we were served soup and more tea and biscuits. Note: Shark diving makes you ravenous. They showed us a kind of homemade video of the whole trip. It was cool to see the overhead view of a lot of the sharks I had only kind of glimpsed whilst in the water. We stayed for a really long time, eating and warming up.

Post diving. We are freezing and wet but golly we are happy

Brian MacFarlane himself came over to our table and apologized for the poor conditions of the day. Gillian and I had just been talking about how incredible the whole thing had been, and we were taken aback by house disappointed he seemed. Thankfully we kept our mouths shut, because the next thing we knew he was offering us free vouchers to come again on a better day. KA-CHING!!! Best day ever. Best freaking shark filled day ever.

A little while later we were back in the car for a 4-5 car ride to our next hostel in Plettenberg Bay. I assumed my position as car DJ and off we went. The view of the countryside was just as amazing as ever. We joked that we were inside a Pinterest board. None of this is real!!!

While we were driving along some winding back roads, we kept coming across couples of guinea hens trying to cross the road. They always got out of our way...well…most of them. We rounded a curve and about 30 meters straight ahead of us were two guinea hens. One of them got out of the way, but the other ran back and forth and back and forth in the road, heading straight for the car no matter which way Gillian tried to swerve. At the last second it took flight and kind of rolled up the windshield and continued to fly off. The damn bird was fine, but to say it was a bit traumatizing is putting it nicely. It became hilarious a second later when Gillian screamed, “I’ve never seen a bird do THE. MOST. WRONG. THING!!!” The rest of the drive was uneventful.

About an hour after the sun set we arrived at Amakaya Backpackers.

This was taken the next day. It was dark when we arrived. 

 Mary, Nora, and Becca were still traveling our way, but hadn’t arrived yet. We were greeted by an enormous man and his giant puppy, Sky. We checked in and then rushed off to find food before all the restaurants closed.

To our surprise we were just down the road for the strip of shops in Plettenberg where we had had breakfast with Jess a few weeks before! It was such a cool feeling to recognize the town from our magical women’s weekend. We had a quick bite to eat then returned to the hostel to recuperate. It was a long, very long, very amazing day.

Day 05 Spring Break

“Send Me On My Way” – Rusted Root
Wednesday September 4^th 2013

Our last day in Cape Town L I was really sad to have to leave. We had grown so comfortable our little strip of the city. I’d grown familiar with some of the street names and shops. There were so many restaurants we’d passed but not tried. I guess I’ll just have to come back some day then. It’s weird not having any idea when I might return to this part of the world. So often we assume we’ll get another chance to go someplace, which often is true. Growing up in a suburb of Philadelphia, chances are good I’ll get to visit pretty often. 4 days out of 5 months in a distant country… I’ll consider myself extremely fortunate to return someday.

What’s more, is our hostel started feeling like home. True there were tons of random internationals and creepy drunk guys also living in our home, but I felt like more than a guest. It’s strange that I’ve never stayed in a hostel before coming to South Africa. I quite enjoy them, actually. It’s kind of a half step between dorm and apartment living.

On the morning of our last day in Cape Town, we decided to make use of the hostel’s kitchen and make some eggs for breakfast – further proof of our comfort with the place (and our awareness of our dwindling funds). We made a hearty breakfast of eggs and toast and packed some PB&Js for later with the remainder of our bread.

Sadly, the day before, Mary’s card was eaten by an ATM machine. Nora and Mary spent a good portion of the morning trying to sort out the situation. Consequently, it was afternoon by the time we finally checked out of the hostel. It was an unforeseen misfortune that Mary handled much more gracefully than I would have ever expected myself to. We stopped by “Yours Truly” again so Mary and Nora could get some food. Becca and I gave into our coffee cravings again, as well.

Our final moments in Cape Town were spent atop its most defining feature, Table Mountain. We took the cable car up (AGAIN: Tickets are cheaper online. Save them as a PDF to your computer then print out as you please) to a gorgeous viewing area where we took ALL OF THE PICTURES! We pretty much had a photo shoot. It was so much fun! I don’t know what it is, but I absolutely love gallivanting across rocks and boulders. I’ve always been that way. I just love the adventurous feeling of it, and Table Mountain was no exception. I thought back to all the family trips I’ve taken to Ringing Rocks Boulder Field and Hawk Mountain. Pretty sure I smiled like a dork the entire time. By golly I was giddy.

the gang on the cable car

view from the top. A bit cloudy but still stunning

to prove I was actually there

alpine beauty

photo shoot!

I'm a model. whatever

I could have spent all day on Table Mountain, but we needed to head on to Stellenbosch (wine country). After an obligatory stop at the gift shop and café we took the cable car back down, doled out PB &J sandwiches and headed on our way.

We hit a bit of traffic along the way (Mary followed like a champ) so we arrived in the picturesque wine land town even later that I would have hoped. Along the way though we passed some beautiful vineyards as well as (I believe it was called) Cape Film Studios. It was early evening and the sun was going down as we arrived at our second hostel of the vac, The Stumble Inn. The owner had no record of our reservation, which was panic inducing, but fortunately for us, no one else was staying at the hostel. We had the entire place to ourselves! We basically had a wing off the kitchen. The owner was a bit gruff, but I wish we could have stayed longer.

For some reason I was really hyper when we first arrived. Everyone else was ready for a nap,

 but I was not about to let my only day in Stellenbosch slip past me. I ran around checking out the hostel’s facilities and got a town map from the owner. I met the hostel cat, who looked suspiciously a lot like Happy Cat from Longstreet Backpackers. This cat was more adventurous though, and liked to spend his time hanging from trees outside the lounge area. I thusly dubbed him Jungle Cat. After I’d seen everything in the hostel, I convinced everyone to walk down the street to get groceries for dinner and just take a peek at the town while there was still sunlight left.

welcome to wine country

I really regret how little time we had in Stellenbosch, but our night at the Stumble Inn was probably one of my favorite nights of the trip. We were limited by the fact that Caitie, Gillian and I had to be gone by 7 the next morning in order to get to Shark Diving, but we had an amazing girl’s night in. I built a fire in the fire pit out in the yard, talking with Nora, while the others prepared dinner in the kitchen. 

Our feast! I'm so proud

After an emergency crash course of how not to blow up the hostel when using a gas stove, we made a glorious feast of spaghetti, French bread, and salad. We sampled some Stellenbosch wines (we bought a bottle of white and red that featured names of vineyards we had passed on the way into town. The red was really spicy.) We spent forever just laughing and talking around the table at our perfect family dinner. Behind me on the windowsill was a giant book of MadLibs, that we thoroughly enjoyed, cracking ourselves up late into the night. Six girls with an entire hostel to themselves, and we play Madlibs all night long? You bet we do! And it was AWESOME. Be jealous.

Day 04 Spring Break

“Paved Paradise (Big Yellow Taxi)” – Joni Mitchell and thousands of cover artists
Tuesday September 3^rd 2013

Tuesday started with a charming trip to “Yours Truly”, a café on, you guessed it, Longstreet.

The gang at Yours Truly

Yours Truly

After satisfying our appetites and our caffeine addictions we walked through Cape Town to the District Six Museum. District Six was once a fantastic cultural hub of Cape Town, often likened to Bourbon Street in New Orleans. The neighborhood was a civilization all on its own, made up of very close families and an incredible sense of diverse community. Sadly, in the 1970’s, as part of the apartheid regime, the 60,000+ inhabitants of the District Six were forcibly relocated in order to make room for a Whites Only community.

The museum is a gorgeously curated collection of photographs and artifacts from before residential area was demolished. There are a lot of first person narratives of what life was like in District Six, and many of the people who work at the museum actually lived there. Even after the destruction of the community, the former residents of District Six have maintained a strong bond. Walking through the museum, I desperately wished I could have seen the neighborhood in its heyday. The black and white photos on the walls gave me a tiny glimpse at what a fascinating and vibrant place it must have been. The unfortunate history of the place affected me very deeply while walking through the exhibits. I never get used to gazing at the horrors committed against one race by another.

After District Six we walked over to Green Market Square – a large tented bazaar of crafts and souvenirs and extremely aggressive sales people. I spent a lot of money and got a lot of souvenirs. Christmas shopping = done!! It wasn’t as much fun as I had hoped it would be though. The sales people really stressed me out and I was horrible at haggling for prices.

Next to the market was a food court type place that we hit up for a cheap lunch while we showed each other our souvenirs. We also commiserated with one another over our empty wallets.

That night, my friend Brittany had invited us to a braai/ party at her house in Cape Town. I’ve been so blessed to meet so many welcoming people at Rhodes. In talking about our respective vacation plans, anyone who said they were going to Cape Town offered some kind of invitation to hang out or feed us or give us directions or company. We were really excited to be invited to the home of someone we hadn’t known two months before. Thanks Britt!!

My directions took us straight to Brittany’s house no problem, a beautiful home protected by an impressive wall and an automated gate security system. We hesitantly parked on the street suddenly nervous that we were in the wrong place or we weren’t actually invited. The neighborhood had no street lights and we felt like we were just sneaking around in the dark. I called Brittany to let her know we had arrived at last, but she didn’t answer her phone. After about the 5^th phone call we all just started laughing at how ridiculous we looked and felt, standing on the drive-way in front of a security gate, listening to the thump of the music inside the house. Derp.

At last, Brittany came out of her house and led us in to the party, where we were greeted by a bunch of strangers. We felt super awkward, but everyone was really nice. We spent the night talking and playing games and dancing to the music. It was a definitely an experience I won’t forget.