Spring break: Best or Bestest ever?

There are very few things in my life that I have described as epic. This spring break trip is one of those things. This past week was a mixture of everything adventurous, educational, and exciting about South Africa. The forces above combined to make my road trip a complete and utter success.

First, I must give props to my partner on the road, Sean. He was a perfect road trip partner. Always up for anything, good conversationalist, and always willing to take the wheel when needed. He made the trip.

Sunday : Stellenbosch
Sean and I headed out from Mountain Manor backpackers at 8:00 am and we got a head start from everyone else. I love my group dearly, but we were both ready for a break. Everything is gravy when we get the car, a Nissan Tiida. (very nice car). We have a few mix CD’s, a map and a pioneering spirit.

We drive about 45 minutes to the town of Stellenbosch. It is town built on the vineyards industry. Absolutely gorgeous, the Cape Dutch architecture was fascinating (that’s for you Paul). We went on an Easy Rider Wine Tour. There were about 12 of us on the tour and at first we didn’t really talk. But after a few wine tastings, friendships started to form.
We met a couple from London, two girls from Australia, another couple from Italy, and two girls from Brazil and Germany who were traveling together. By the end of the day we were enjoying each others company and we all fancied ourselves as Wine connoisseurs. The wineries had spectacular views and if the stock market goes the way it is going, I may pull my money out and put it into a South African Winery…

After the tour our new friends and I went to a pub and talked about anything and everything for the next few hours. I felt so mature talking with people who were at least 10 years older than us.

Monday and Tuesday: CederbergOn Monday we decided to walk around the town for a bit before we made the two hour drive to the Cederberg. We also checked out the campus of the U of Stellenbosch and picked up a few applications…they do have an environmental planning graduate degree…

We headed out at about noon. The drive was beautiful as it changed from wine country to the Karoo (desert). We drove for about two hours before we turned on a dirt road into the Cederberg area. It was beautiful scenery. We arrived in the late afternoon after driving sixty k on the dirt road (where we also lost a hubcap). The backpacker we stayed at was a little place in the middle of nowhere run by an Afrikanns couple. We also met a group of four people from Belgium who were a few years older than us. We were doing the same hike as them the next day, so we decided to do it together. One of the owners, Garrit drew us a map of the route we were to take. Seriously, this guy was thurough.

We woke up at 6:15 the next morning and headed out at about 7. It was to be an eight hour hike, so we were pretty pumped at the thought of a full day hike. The first few k was a nice easy uphill climb, but then we got to a point where we had to climb up a wall about 10 feet up and inch along a sheer face with about 2 feet of leg room. We basically went though a jungle gym for the next two hours. We had to follow the map and crawl over and under boulders and climb up rocks. It was sweet. We got to the top and hiked another hour to get to the arch. We had lunch there and looking out, you couldn’t see a single other sign of human life. It was beautiful. We made our way back to the lodge and got there around six. Sean and I didn’t feel like cooking, so we ordered they lodge’s specialty…T bone steak. It was the best steak I’ve ever had. We sat a conversed with our new friends for the next few hours under the stars. Amazing

Wednesday and Thursday: Augrabies Falls
We left the Cederberg early and headed out north on the N7 towards Augrabies Falls. There was nothing there. Seriously. It was beautiful. We were literally the only car on the road for hours at a time. We got to our backpacker around 5 and we were greeted by a herd of English sheep dogs. The owner was Andrew, an English South African bachelor. The only other people there were Maggie and Allison, two women who were self-proclaimed “women of leisure”. Maggie was from Ireland and Allison was from Zimbabwe. Allison had a really interesting story, she lived in Zim on her fathers farm and ended up running the place, but it was taken over in the farm raids of Robert Mugabe. Crazy.

We all ended up chatting and we decided to go rafting down the Orange River the next day. You needed four to go, so us four decided to go together. Being the nice gentleman that Sean and I are we drove Maggie and Allison to the park the next day. We walked around for the day and went rafting at two. Strangely enough, we met up with our Belgium friends. The rafting wasn’t too intense, but Sean and I took a swim on one of them (he was the one who steered us into a rock). It was a beautiful was to see the area with great company. We came back to the backpacker and there were a few other people there. There was a couple who were traveling around Africa for like two years and a Frenchman who was also traveling. Andrew said it was the first time Americans outnumbered all other nationalities there. I felt strangely patriotic.

Friday: Kimberly
We left around nine and said bye to our friends. We spent most of the day on the road and got to Kimberly around 2. Except the backpacker we stayed at was full, so we got the number of a guesthouse. We literally drove around the town for an hour looking for the road to it. It ended up being on the outskirts of town in the midst of an industrial area. We got there and saw the sign that said “Pro-Chirsto Missions”. Now I know most of you know my religious convictions, but I am not a huge fan of the religious right. The guy who owned the place gave us weird vibes and we were going to be the only ones there for the night. The whole thing screamed of the movie Jesus Camp. We literally got our key and then headed back into town.

Except, everything was closed. Good Friday is a national holiday, so every place we tried to visit was closed. We really didn’t want to head back to bible camp, so we ended up going to the mall. The only thing that was open was the movie theater. Except Sean and I couldn’t agree on a movie, so he saw She’s Just not that into you and I saw Monsters vs. Aliens. I made the better choice. Seriously, if you haven’t seen the movie go. It is hilarious. We got some grub and went back to the place. I sat in my room reading for the next few hours. That’s all I wanted to do.

Saturday: Pretoria
We got out of Kim as soon as possible. We were going to go see “The Big Hole”, which is the largest hand dug mine in the world, but it was seventy rand and it smelled of a tourist trap and Sean and I made a solemn pact to avoid those at all costs. We decided to go straight towards Pretoria. On our way we tried to see The Cradle of Humankind, a world heritage site where the first Austrolopithicus fossil was found (or some human type fossil) except we couldn’t find the museum. We drove for about 40 k before we realized we were low on gas and we had to get petrol ASAP. We had a few hours to kill, so we went into the city. We tried to go the Voortrekker monument, except it was closed as well. We walked around church square. It had cool buildings, but not much else.

After our foray into the town we went to Marie Mcleod’s house (sister of the infamous Conserve teacher, Paul). We had a great meal and chatted about everything South Africa. Great accommodations and laundry! It was a nice change from the normal backpacker fare.

Sunday: Joburg
Our rental car was due at four, so we really only had time for either a Soweto tour or the Apartheid museum. We decided on Soweto because we found a cool company that does bike tours of the township.

If you don’t know anything about Soweto, its basically the Harlem of South Africa. It is the largest township in SA and it is the only place that shares two Nobel Peace Prize winners on the same block (Mandela and Desmond Tutu). It has an extremely rich history.

The tour left from the Soweto backpacker at ten and we headed out on our bikes. It was myself, Sean, three other people and our guide. It was cool because the guide was our age and did a really good job. It was really cool because we were really in the middle of everything. We saw some pretty impoverished areas, but I didn’t feel like we were treating them like they were in a zoo (which is how I felt on our township tour in Red Locations in PE on our double decker bus). Everyone I met was extremely friendly and tons of kids came out and said hi to us. I was also glad to see that no one was begging or asking for candy. It painted a much different perspective of township life.

But the highlight of the day (and possibly the trip) came at lunch. We went to a little café for a Koto burger, which was basically a big slice of bread with fries and a type of relish on it. It was really good. But we were there for about five minutes when a large SUV pulled up. A bunch of guys in black suits got out and there were a few people in church clothes who got out as well, one was an older woman. They went in and sat down at the table next to us, which was set with nice silverware and wine glasses. There was also a huge spread of food set out. Sean and I kind of looked at each other confused. And then our guide said “That’s Winnie Mandela”. It was crazy. No, I didn’t get my picture taken with her because she was eating her lunch with her family and her guards had really big pistols on them. It was cool, but I didn’t think I needed a pic. The tour was cool because you really experienced the culture for the day. Top three in things I’ve done so far in SA.

We headed to the airport to return our rental car. Sean and I didn’t feel like staying another night, so we checked if we could get on an earlier flight. Suprinsingly, we did. It only cost 100rand to change our flight, which it what we would have paid for a backpacker anyway, so we made it back around 8 and here I am now typing this….
Epic.

It’s nice to be back, but I will miss the road a bit. I am proud to say that we avoided the tourist traps and that we did something different with different people every single day. We also didn’t run into any Americans. We experienced the natural beauty as well as the cultural. I need to travel more. Every person we met was traveling for an extended period of time. Like 2 to 24 months…The world is much bigger than central Minnesota and I need to experience it….

But I am going to enjoy this last stretch…..
Life is good.