Cape Town, baby!

Last Friday, A and I took off for Cape Town, our LAST big trip of the year. We met up with A's friends J and B, who were still on their marathon adventure through Zambia, Zimbabwe, Botswana, Namibia and South Africa!

We also met up with their friends J and C, who were wonderful hosts during our week in Cape Town. The very first thing we did Saturday morning was climb Table Mountain, which we kind of underestimated as being no big deal.

Actually, it was so hard that I was forced to wear this extremely dorky visor to protect myself from the sun. I can't believe I wore this visor for any amount of time. It might look good on someone lithe and athletic but it made me look like a soccer mom.

The views from the top were nice. Above you can see Lion's Head in the distance and closer, some people rappelling. And there was a really well-air-conditioned restaurant at the top, too. It was nice to look at Table Mountain all week and be like, I have conquered you.

Sunday was wine day! We headed out to Stellenbosch, one of the wine towns. On the way out, we passed a lot of townships. It was a really strange contrast--the city, which is sort of glitzy and LA-like and these third-world remnants. Not to mention us, zipping along in a private bus on our way to spend an entire day drinking wine.

Luckily, nothing wipes away white guilt like drinking at 10am!

(Don't I look romantic?)

We visited four vineyards throughout the day, plus a fifth one where we had lunch. The scenery was beautiful, and the wine was delicious. We had a lot of fun hanging out with friends of friends and seeing all the different styles of wineries. My favorite was the really old one covered in cobwebs and spiders. Now I want to do this again in Northern California! Of course, the difference is that these tastings were either $3.50 or free, whereas in NorCal they'd probably be a lot more.

(He cut off the top of the champagne bottle with a sword. Whatevs.)

By the third winery, A and I were wine-d out. So we did a chocolate and brandy pairing at the third place, and then skipped the tasting at the fourth place and went for a romantic walk under the trees. Who would have thought wineries are so romantic?

That night, we headed out for a kosher dinner, as we hadn't had any meat since November. I have to say, those chicken kebabs were the most succulent, perfectly seasoned, amazing things I have ever eaten in my entire life. Omigoodness, my mouth is watering. When did I turn into such a carnivore?

The following day we paid penance for our luxurious wine day by visiting Robben Island, where Nelson Mandela and other members of the resistance movement were held during apartheid.

(Leaving Cape Town's charming waterfront)

The trip to Robben Island required an especially nauseating ferry ride. As we sped away from Cape Town, it disappeared into the fog, until you could just barely make out the top of Table Mountain. I conquered you, I thought, trying not to vomit.

Once we had our land legs back, we made our way onto a tour bus. The first part of the trip is a narrated bus tour of the island, and we had an awesome tour guide. While he was never held at Robben Island, like most tour guides there, he was a big player in the anti-apartheid movement and he was also a really dramatic and funny host and performer. (I can't remember if he was IKP or PAC. Does anyone who was there remember?)

(Adam looked great on Robben Island.)

After touring the island, which has been used variously as a leper colony, military base, and prison, we headed back to the 20th century prison that was used for political prisoners under apartheid. But not before passing a revolting rotting whale carcass on the beach. This evoked by far the most dramatic response from the passengers on our bus, who all jumped up to take photos of it.

Our guide at the prison was a former prisoner who spent five years living there. I could not get over how new all the buildings were, like wait a minute, you guys JUST did this? You're kidding me.

(I think if I was ever imprisoned I'd be really claustrophobic, because I was claustrophobic just touring this prison, even though we were allowed to leave.)

As we were frequently reminded, the reason so many former prisoners work as tour guides is Not because they want to hang out there more, but because it's a steady job at a time when South Africa is experiencing high unemployment.

This sign was in the bathroom on the ferry. Don't ask me why they felt the need to specifically warn against flushing g-strings. Perhaps the intense emotional impact of a visit to Robben Island causes people to want to rip off their clothing and make love to the next person--white, black, or coloured--that they see, in a orgiastic celebration of racial diversity?

I don't know why they can't just take their g-strings with them afterward, though.

After our morning at Robben Island, we headed to downtown Cape Town, where we experienced the wood-oven-baked pizza and ethnic market offerings of the city. Then some of J and C's South African friends hosted a braai (a barbeque) and we got to have more. kosher. meat.

Tuesday was our last full day in Cape Town and we decided to head down to the Cape of Good Hope. This is not the furthermost southern point on the continent, but it is the farthest south I've ever been.

I wore that pink shirt I always wear in photos for the occasion.

We hiked up to Cape Point, which was just okay, and then took a dramatic and beautiful hike from Cape Point to the Cape of Good Hope itself (no I have no idea what the difference is). On the way, we passed this gorgeous small stretch of beach, where I took dramatic and beautiful photos of cliffs and waves.

In a surprising turn of events, after going down many, many stairs to get to the beach, we then had to climb all the same stairs to get back to the path.

(A and J. BFF. I made A carry my purse.)

On the way back from Cape of Good Hope, we stopped at Boulders Beach, where there is a colony of penguins that you can hang out with! They were really, really silly.

And that was our trip to Cape Town! Now we're back in Gabs (for another 32 days) and just chilling and enjoying being in one place for a while.

Madikwe photo dump

Okay, we're still catching up from February...

After Okavango with the in-laws, the four of us headed for a weekend in beautiful Madikwe, a luxury game reserve just over the border in South Africa. We spent our first night at Thakadu, which was really fancy, and then our second night at Jaci's Treehouse, which was even fancier.

(He's not even thirsty. He's just flirting with her.)

Some of the lions like to hang out on the airstrip, where there weren't any bugs. It was some guy's job to shoo them away when a plane needed to land.

We went on a lot of game drives, and I think we were all burnt out by the end of the weekend, but I have to say I've gained a bit of an appreciation for game drives. It's sort of exciting not knowing what you will see, and I think lions/elephants/rhinos/giraffes/hippos are not boring.

We saw a good number of lions. They were getting ready to mate, which I thought was a little weird. But everyone else wanted to see them mate. I guess it's funny or something.

The places we stayed had really nice bathtubs. Now I want a fancy bathtub, too.

Thanks, parents-in-law, for a great trip!

Halfway point

Can you believe we're halfway through this blog? And also our time in Botswana? We've been here for almost four months now, and we'll be here for about another four. Here's the top five moments from my sister and her fiance's visit to Southern Africa in late December:

1) Learning to throw a spear from some Kua (aka "San," aka "Bushmen," which is considered offensive even though the New York Times uses it) folks that we met in Kaudwane, a remote village where B has a friend doing Peace Corps. I posted about them a bit already, but displacement of the Kua and other San is one of the biggest problems with Botswana's otherwise pretty good government. You won't see a lot of people staging protests about it in the capital, but international dissatisfaction has gotten the Kua some concessions (i.e. some may be able to return to live on some parts of the Central Kalahari Game Reserve). In the background, you can see an "O.G." (their term, meaning "original" or "authentic") Kua hut. Not like some of the "fakey" houses in the village.

(Yes, I am wearing a trashbag. It was raining and freezing cold.)

(L and I spent the rest of the evening under a blanket with tea. To the left of us are the two awesome Kua guys who we spent the day with. In addition to speaking Kua, they spoke fluent Setswana AND English.)

2) Driving up the Sani Pass and meeting some Basotho people in Lesotho. The drive was full of spectacular views and "hairpin turns" as the guidebook promised. Lesotho has basically managed to stay independent because it is so freaking hard to get there. They also have one of the highest rates of HIV infection in the world, in part because of an economic system that relies on men leaving home for months at a time to work in mines, urban areas in South Africa, etc. These guys were really friendly and we had a good time joking around with them. Their language Sesotho is basically the same as Setswana--we enjoyed showing off our few phrases. The men carry a big stick once they are circumcised and enter adulthood.

(Either I'm tall or those mountains are far away.)

(A got to hold the big stick. Not sure what that means.)

3) The views at Bulungula. We had hoped to find Bulungula, a small Xhosa village on the Wild Coast of South Africa, perfectly enchanting. Instead, we found it pretty mixed. The shared pit bathrooms were trying, the food sucked, the lack of locks on doors suggested all was safe, but both L and I had money stolen, and the offered activities were mostly lame. But the views, with green hills, colorful huts, and the beach, were decidedly awesome.

(Omg I was so out of breath from climbing these hills.)

(It was a nice ocean.)

4) Canoeing at Bulungula. We may have gotten the worst sunburns of our lives, but we also looked really goofy.

(The floppy hat is what sends us over the edge.)

( L and B are much better canoers than us.)

5) Getting a flat tire 20 minutes from the airport. After driving down a 4WD road to Bulungula for two hours in each direction in a Honda Civic, we were relieved to finally get off that road with our tires and car still intact. The irony of getting a flat on the highway in Durban was not lost on us.

Recovery

You really don't need to see this, but just to offer by way of explanation for my lack of blogging over the past two weeks--in addition to traveling, not having internet, and being generally exhausted from traveling and not having internet, I got one of the worst sunburns of my life while canoeing on the Wild Coast of South Africa. My legs went from bright red to purple, and after a day of driving and a day of flying, my ankles had swollen up from a combination of travel stagnancy/sunburn inflammation/


Yeah, like I said. You really don't need to see this. Sometimes I think I post this stuff just to prevent A from ever having a chance at a political career. ("My opponent's wife posted obscene photographs of her swollen ankles on a public blog--not to mention her views on Israel...")

I really should post photos of our trip to Kaudwane, a remote village of forcefully relocated San people (they are the "Bushmen" who live as hunter-gatherers in the Kalahari Desert), our day in Sani Pass and Lesotho and then our trip to Bulungula on the Wild Coast. I have so many things to complain about and also photographs of mountains! But the internet is too slow at this cafe to post photos and who wants to READ? At least my ankles are back to normal. I willl post photos and descriptions when we get back from Namibia.

Speaking of which, it's time to get packed for our trip to Namibia tomorrow--we're driving to Windhoek at 6am.

Foreign places are foreign

There's something weird about the way that all foreign places feel similar in certain ways. Maybe I just haven't been anywhere interesting yet, but the places I have been have a lot in common, like European brands, UHT milk, separate hot and cold taps, electric kettles, American brands with weird/wrong logos, etc.

Of course, Gaborone is unique and special in its own ways. For example, you can get apple/orange juice blend:


But I'm getting laughably ahead of myself. Long before we had even considered the possibility that apple juice and orange juice could be mixed together, we had to say our goodbyes:


and get our stuff (4 big suitcases, one carry on, one backpack, and one purse + Paul's stuff!) to JFK:


take one 15 hour flight and one 1 hour flight, split up by a miserable 5 hour layover in Johannesburg:

and suddenly we were here!


(That is Botswana out the plane window. Actually, it is probably South Africa.)

My first impression of Botswana was that it is a lot like Texas. It is full of red dirt, and it is pretty much flat. The air is hot and still. There are cacti. I felt right at home, and overall, it feels quite natural to be here. More to come but for now I am posting because the internet is slow here during the day (we share bandwith with the UPenn offices).