I’m a believer - PART 1

PART 1 - celebrating all that South Africa shared with us:

 “I’m a believer”, Neil Diamond, blares out of the speakers as Rob and I drive down the N2 off on our own adventure for a week of exploring the Western Cape in South Africa. We’ll be exploring a specific part called the Garden Route, where the Indian & Atlantic Ocean meet. 

I’m laughing to myself, as there were a few discussions on Neil Diamond throughout this adventure. Extreme opinions; Rob is a champion of Neil and believes most people love him and, well in the words of Luc, “not so much” and “it’s old lady music”.

Cape Town was a bit of an extreme experience for me too. No doubt we loved Cape Town, it is a great city with much to do. Bike tours, wine tours, boat tours, walking tours, gondola tours…did I mention the wine and food tours??

The ‘extreme’ feeling for me was a theme I experienced when I was in Africa my first time in 1996. While in Tanzania for those 3 months I’d volunteer with street kids during the day and then go back to my friend’s family house or the yacht club for Friday night dinner. Extreme environments.

Cape Town is a city very much in transition. The history barely separate from the present day. 

The street art speaks to this throughout the city. More about that in Part 2.

The 5 of us rented a house in an amazing neighbourhood, De Waterkant, and we spent the first couple of days exploring it.

Just 15 minutes walk from our place is the Waterfront Market; great food, local artists, tourists with cameras!

Bob, Robby and I enjoyed lunch in the park -The Company's Garden

Post lunch nap in a cool "tree-house" (sorry again kid for kicking you out but it was my turn!)

And of course South Africa offers some fantastic wine - spent a day doing some tours.

Robby and I were almost recruited to help 'stomp' the grapes for the wine...I thought it would be fun but Rob looked at me like I was Lucille Balle - of course I love Lucy! but we decided to just have a glass of wine instead - good choice!

Gondola Tour of Table Mountain

 

Dancing through the 'table cloth' (clouds) of Table Mountain

The bike tour! 

Found some special benches along the way...yes the end date below reads 1991 which is the year I graduated from high school.

The Population Registration Act of 1950 required that each inhabitant of South Africa be classified and registered in accordance with their racial characteristics as part of the system of apartheid 

The FIFA World Cup stadium

Loved Cape Town!

Decided to do a Part 1 and Part 2 because it was just too long a blog to be honest - wanted to blog just on all we learned about President Mandela. 

People are funny...and I don't mean "ha ha!"

April 19, 2015

It’s true. People are funny!

We’ve just spent the last day traveling for 13 hours to get from Arusha, Tanzania to Cape Town, South Africa. We were up at 3:30 am to drive to the airport and get our 4am flight to Nairobi, Kenya, then from there to Johannesburg, South Africa AND finally to Cape Town, South Africa.

Along the way Rob and I couldn’t help but laugh at how we travelers interact at times.

“Please remain seated until the airplane comes to a complete stop and the seatbelt sign is turned off…DING!”

What I think most people actually hear is reminiscent of my high-school track and field days with the Starter standing at the start line, pistol in hand;

“Runners…take your mark…get set…BANG!!!”

Followed immediately by the scratchy sounds system bellowing the Track Announcer’s voice from the top of the bleachers:

“AND THEY ARE OFF! What a great start by lanes 2 and 4, they are rounding the first turn…and clearly leaving lane 3 behind…what an exciting race!”

The result is comical:

“DING!”  followed by my inner AllieMacBeal (late 90’s TV show) voice and visual “AND THEY ARE OFF! What an amazing start by isles 25 and 27, they’ve successfully jumped up and squeezed out isle 26! They’re pulling down their carry-on luggage and starting to press forward…”

This is where I start to mix sport metaphors:

“The travelers in the 20-plus isles are poised and pressing hard on the lead isles BUT WAIT, a successful BLOCK by Robby Hastings in Isle 26 as the travelers in the forward isles exit the plane. The lead traveler from Isle 27 is leaning hard on Robby Hastings who seems to be holding his ground, pulling down carry-on luggage politely for every one of the travelers in his Isle and letting them exit in front of him! What a team player!”

We were laughing at the similar “me first!” patterns we saw at times through our adventure. One of the funniest was our last day on the Serengeti and we were focused on seeing a leopard. So too were 5-6 other groups apparently. Our group laughed at ourselves and the other groups as we participated in what looked to me to be some adult version of kids playing leapfrog but with safari vehicles and the point system were the number and quality of leopard pictures apparently! Most of the travelers would politely smile to each other and offer a “jambo” (hello) as we pulled up to them but there were a couple of travelers who would scowl in competition for that perfect shot! Barking at their driver if we moved forward to “get ahead!” as all 5 of the Land Rovers continued in this odd game of leap frog while the mother leopard tried to continue her hunt.

Of course, most of the time we are fortunate and meet fantastic fellow travelers! The sunrise balloon ride over the Serengeti held the 5 of us on one side and another group of 5 fellow travelers from South Africa on the other side of the basket. We immediately hit it off and by the end of post-balloon-ride breakfast; we agreed to meet up for a cocktail in Cape Town.

 

People are funny and most of the time we are more alike than we are different (see loo with a view!) 

We really are more alike than we are different. Along our journey we visited the Olduvai Gorge Museum that celebrates the “journey through 3.6 million years of human evolution” and Mary Leakey's discovery of the hominid trackway at Laetoli.

Dr Yoshiharu Sekino decided to trace the route of this great journey in reverse - wanting to face the same extremes of heat and cold that faced the ancient peoples.

I think its just about remembering that we are more alike than we are different, taking the time to say "jambo" (hello) and stop thinking we’re in a race to be first!