And so begins the tour of Africa

Hello all,

When I left you last we were at the hotel in Cape Town just about to meet our tour group, and tour guide, Colin.

There are 11 of us total. The next morning (Monday) we packed all our stuff into a type of Toyota Landcruiser that I had never seen before. We pile all our gear on the roof, and we climb in the windows (which pivot at the top) to get in the seats. We also tow a trailer that houses a fridge and freezer, as well as the rest of the gear.

Before leaving this part of South Africa, Colin takes us to Table View which is a boardwalk by the water by which we can see the whole city of Cape Town with Table Mountain in the background. It's very beautiful and impressive. Then we go to a mall for a quick break - where Shawna and I bought hoodies, bottled water and candy - all of which end up being very handy.

We stopped at a gas station along our way and had lunch - sandwiches and drinks. Colin told us about the campsite that we'd be arriving at that night. He warned us that a wolf lives there and we should not interact with it. Ummm... huh? Sure enough, after a few hours of driving we arrive at the Gecko Creek Campsite and there's a sign, "Beware of Wolf." He sure doesn't look much like a wolf at first, since he's so plainly happy to have visitors. He is wagging his tail and giving a puppy dog look. But once you get a little closer you see that this thing is HUGE. He kinda looks like a Husky but way more muscular. He's a Husky on stereoids. Anyways, it's hard, but we don't interact with him. Later on, we get a little more information from the manager, who says, "he loves people, and he welcomes everyone into his pack, but his pack has a hierarchy, and you are at the bottom." This is further illustrated by "Wolf Rules" that say things like, "if you drop food on the ground when the wolf is near, do not pick it up - just back away slowly."

We have some time to relax on site which is nice because this Gecko Creek Campsite is really beautiful - way better than I was expecting. There are swings and chairs and hammocks, a pool with a bar, a fire pit, a barbeque, a kitchen area and decent showers. It was way better than any provincial park site I've stayed at, that's for sure. :)

Colin makes us dinner on most nights and that first night he made chicken, rice and mixed veggies. Colin has one heck of a time being our cook because out of 10 people, 5 of them have special dietary requirements. Shawna doesn't have dairy, Yvonne is vegetarian, and the 3 guys in the German family all have Celiac disease. This makes it really hard on Colin and especially since he only gets a certain budget; some of those diets are expensive to support. It also means that the rest of us get what we get!

After dinner we went to the fire pit and relaxed around the fire in, of course, bean bag chairs. We looked up at the stars and I can't believe how many there are. How come we don't have that many stars? The sky is filled with stars here, I can't find any constellations since it's so overwhelming! We are exhausted from our day on the road and head to bed early.

The next morning (Tuesday), we have breakfast, pack up our stuff and leave camp. We have a long day of driving ahead of us - over 500km and we're crossing the border into Namibia. We have to rotate positions in the Landcruiser because there are good and not-so-good spots. We drive and drive and drive. After several hours we pull over at a rest stop (like our rest stops but no washrooms) and have lunch. Colin pulls out a table, enough chairs for everyone and we start making sandwiches. He also made a salad out of last night's rice that, despite my skepticism, was really rather tasty. It had mint peas in it, rice, carrots, mayonnaise, onion and tomato. Sound strange? It actually tasted rather good. I was starting to have faith in Colin's cooking abilities. :)

We stopped in a town called Springbok not long after where we went to a grocery store. What I notice about the landscape leading up to the cities is that there are orange orchards everywhere. Orange vendors, orange trees, and now in Springbok, orange hawkers. They pleasantly harass us on the streets, trying to get us to buy bags of oranges. It's one of the big crops here it seems.

We motor on. Eventually we reach the South African/Namibian border crossing. First we have to get out and get our passports stamped to say we leave S.A., then we drive a little further to get out and get admitted to Namibia. All goes without incident. We marvel at the Orange River which is the natural border between the two countries. And no, it isn't orange - maybe that refers to the local crops?

We head to our campsite which is quite close. Shawna & I are the only two out of the group who are doing the full-camping option. Everyone else either has all cabins or half-and-half. So we set up our tent and try to help Colin out with preparing dinner. Have to say, it wasn't so good this time. Plain polenta (looks like mashed potatoes, fooled us into taking a lot), some kind of very salty BBQd meat, and spinach with peanut butter sauce. The peanut butter sauce wasn't real peanut butter, either. It was "caramel crunch" peanut butter. Not totally hideous, but not good. Not like gomae. Sigh - maybe this food thing is going to be hit-and-miss.

Early to bed. Breakfast this morning (Wednesday) was good (toast, eggs, sauteed veggies), and we headed off for the day's excursion on the Orange River. Yes that's right - we were spending a half day canoeing down the river for 20 kms. Good thing I'm an expert now, huh? Shawna and I were rock stars. :) We did well, and had no problem with the 4 sets of rapids we had to paddle through. We stopped early for lunch on the bank, and the bugs were crazy. The only relief you got from them was paddling, so our break wasn't too long. I thought I was being vigilant with suncreen, but apparently not good enough - I burned nearly everywhere that I had left exposed, which wasn't much: backs of my hands, cheeks, lips, nose. I was probably the most covered of everyone and still... how annoying. This African sun is gonna be tough to manage.

I was glad when the canoeing was done so we could get away from those bugs. We showered, did laundry, and discovered the business center - yay.

Tomorrow we are off on the road again. :)
Hope all is well at home,
xo
E!

Robben Island, High Tea, Wine Tours and Shanty Towns

Hello everyone!

So Shawna arrived late with tales of drunken passengers getting thrown off her flight (no, not while in the air - although THAT would be a story!) and an emergency landing in Paris for a man who had a heart attack. Anyways, it wasn't the peaceful flight that I seemed to have had.

We stayed up late talking and then of course, seeing as how I napped earlier in the day, I couldn't sleep all night long. Thank you jet lag! And we were up n' at 'em pretty early because we had plans for Cape Town. We headed down to the waterfront, which is gorgeous, and took a ferry to Robben Island. Other than the huge waves and fighting off seasickness, it was a nice little ride.

We got to the island and they were a little disorganized and we didn't know where to go. We eventually got sorted and we started our tour with an ex-political prisoner named Jama. He toured us around the prison blocks and spoke about each section, the restrictions, pointed out where Nelson Mandela was kept, etc. He had been at Robben Island himself for 5 years. When I had a chance to ask, he said that he needed to work at the island (now a museum) to make a living, and if he had his choice, he'd never go back there again. Understandable. I can't imagine going back to a prison where my life was taken away, and giving tours like it was some kind of circus show. However, he did a great job, and he was very interesting to listen to. I learned much and I was really appreciative of his role.

The next part of our tour of the island was on a bus and they took us around to see the different buildings and areas. There was a leper cemetery and the limestone quarries where Mandela worked every day. Apparently the limestone dust damaged his tear ducts and he can no longer cry naturally. Maybe I should pursue a future career in limestone? Haha. The lady that was commentating on the bus for us was not an ex-prisoner but she was also very well-spoken and interesting to listen to. I was totally rapt, as was Shawna. They did a very good job. At one point she was naming some ex-prisoners and they had that funny click in the middle of their name which made me think of that Russell Peters sketch and I started giggling. Can't take me anywhere...

So once we're back from our hotel we arrange to have High Tea at the Mount Nelson 5-star hotel which is conveniently located right behind where we are staying. Shawna's idea - and I was totally up for it. Neither of us, however, really have anything suitable to wear since we have packed for a camping trip. Our "nice" clothes are not really all that nice - at least mine, anyways. But we don't let us hold us back and when we walk through the front of the hotet to be seated, we try to ignore how non-hoity-toity we are. We'll never see these people again, right? We'll show them our sophistication with our good Canadian manners, right? Well...

We get seated and given a tea menu. There are like 50 teas, most of which come with a description that makes your mouth water until you remember it's just tea. We order, and then get up to partake in the delicious buffet. There are sweets, there are savouries, and they are ALL fancy-schmancy. Really - it was exciting. They have silver platters and silver tongs to pick everything up with, it was so formal. What is not so formal is having the tongs slip, and the item you were trying to pick up, hit the chef across the buffet table who is talking to a fancy-schmancy guest. You know that scene in Pretty Woman? Yeah, it was like that. Except for the fact that Shawna & I dissolved into giggles. The chef pretty much pretended like it didn't happen, which made it seem even funnier. Leave it to me to throw food at the 5-star buffet.

The best were the cucumber sandwiches. I could have eaten 10 of them.

After that, we could barely move so we came back to the hotel to take a nap, which of course turned into a little longer than it should have been. Jet lag is still winning the battle at this point. :) We rounded out our evening with a late snack/dinner for me, and a movie before bed. It was set in Brazil with Timothy Olyphant where a group of Americans get led stray into the rainforest and then taken hostage to have their organs harvested. Anyone heard of this one? I don't need to tell you how our dreams went...

This morning (Sunday), we embarked on a half-day wine tour. First we were picked up at our hotel and we drove 30 minutes out of Cape Town. Along the way, our driver pointed out the conference centers and hospitals, and schools, and the architecture, and recounted a little bit of the history. He says that in South Africa, there are 80% blacks, 10% whites, 7% coloureds and 3% asian & indians. Coloureds??!! I don't know why, but I was inwardly wincing every time he said that word. A South African couple on the tour with us say that "coloured" is not a derogatory term at all, it is totally neutral like "black" or "white." Still, didn't feel right to me, although I guess that's the way it is here.

What made me feel even worse were the shanty towns we passed along the highway. I had seen something like them in movies of course, and I never thought that they didn't exist, but I didn't think it would be so BAD and I didn't know I would be confronted with so many millions of people barely even living like that. I suddenly felt disgusted that we were going on a wine tour. I felt so helpless and sad, and Shawna was upset by it too. I tried to get photos on the way back but I don't think any turned out since we were moving. I don't know how to describe it. A slum, basically. Metal shacks, garbage everywhere, people defecating beside the road, random cows wandering about (eating garbage), kids playing amidst it all. It went on for kilometers and kilometers, and when the township ended, it wasn't long before we encountered another one. Our driver said there were 4 or 5 shanty towns like that. It made me so depressed.

He also said that education is not free, and that's part of the problem. I am struck over and over again about how lucky I am.

So, back to the life of the privileged. We had a wine & cheese tasting at one winery, and another tasting at another winery. I am not much into wine (even on a Sunday morning at 10am, ha!) but I certainly enjoyed the cheese. Shawna doesn't eat cheese so I had double! :) Then we had a few extra minutes so our driver stopped at a conservation center where they house cheetahs! And you can go inside and pet the cheetahs! Isn't that nuts/totally cool?!! We totally would have done it except we didn't have the time; there was a fairly long lineup of people wanting to have a personal encounter. Too bad, since there will be no petting of cheetahs or any other animal once we start our tour. Ah well.

We then toured Stellenbosch city, South Africa's second oldest city next to Cape Town. Dutch influence everywhere, including the architechture and the language. Afrikaans was on all the street signs, and there was an Afrikaans university there as well. I noticed that this town was mainly full of caucasian people. I think it was actually rich people, who just happen to be mostly white.

When we got back from the half-day tour we were famished. So we headed down the street from our hotel and found a nice little restaurant across the street from the sushi place. Our lunch disappeared rather quickly, I'd say. :) Then we went walking - first inadvertently to the Garden Shopping Center, and then we found our way to The Company's Gardens, which is basically like a huge park and historical buildings all around. Reminded me of Hyde Park in London. Then we walked to the Castle of Good Hope, and the District Six museum, but it was closed. So, we headed back to our hotel. We're rather exhausted.

Tonight we have a meeting with our camping tour guide, and we take off tomorrow in the Land Cruiser on our trip! Sorry for this incredibly long email - but after we're on the road who knows when you'll hear from me...

Hope all is well. Count your blessings today and every day, we are the privileged people in this world, it's true! Nowhere is better than Beautiful British Columbia!!
xo
E!