Rhonanai South Africa

Well, folks....the adventure of a lifetime had to come to an end eventually, and now the end is here. The past two days have been full of a ton of laughs and a lot of reminiscing. Being the big sap that I am, I shed a few tears. The biggest concern on many of our minds is how we're going to explain this experience to our students, our family, our friends, and our colleagues when we get home. It is so hard to put into words all that I saw, felt, and experienced over these past 6 weeks. It has been, without a doubt, some of the best 6 weeks of my life. It has changed me as a person; it's impossible to continue to live my life the way I did prior to this expereince. I can't keep the tunnel vision on any longer.

Ok, on to some fun. We had our final group dinner on Monday night at Africa Cafe. One word: gorgefest. It was a set menu of about 13 dishes from all over the continent. Some awesome eats and a lot of laughs. We presented gifts to our awesome driver, Richard, our favorite South African, Xolani, and Rich and Kay for guiding us on this magnificent journey.

Our last "full" day in Cape Town included a day trip to Paarl and Tulbaugh to visit the Afrikaans Language Monument and the 18-19c Colonial Town. The monument looked like a skate park, so we made our own fun by taking some goofy pictures.

This mound represents the influence of one of the African Language (Sotho, Xhosa or Zulu) on Afrikaans language. We decided it would be more fun just to stand atop the mound and link arms. :)

An added attraction after our lunch in Tulbaugh was a visit to a chocolate shop which include CHOCOLATE TASTING! I had a chili pinotage chocolate, amarula, and almond/pistacio nouget. It was DELISH. I stocked up on some for some special people :)

For our last night in Cape Town, a group of us decided to go to dinner at Mama Africa Cafe for a traditional South African meal of lots of meat: crocodile, kudu, springbok, and ostrich. It was delicious, and the company and friends were even better.

We ended the night by going to the 360 degree bar above the Ritz to get one last breathtaking view of Cape Town.

Today it is pouring rain and it's our last day to run around the city...Not sure what's on the agenda just yet...but I am looking forward to being home. The flight ahead is daunting, but I guess that's just a price I have to pay for this entire experience. So, on that note: Rhonanai South Africa. I hope to see you again one day.

"Cage goes in the water. You go in the water. Shark's in the water!"

"Cage goes in the water. You go in the water. Shark's in the water!" -JawsI am far too tired to blog after my AMAZING, EXHILARATING, AWESOME day. For once in my life, I am at a loss for words. There really are no words to explain the awesomeness and insanity of being in a cage an arm's length away from a 15 foot great white shark. Our day was perfect: 65 and sunny, clearest visibility the crew has seen in YEARS, warmish water, and LOTS OF SHARKS. We saw 8 great whites - ranging from a "baby" of 3 meters to the monster 4.5 meter shark.

Don't worry, I still have all my fingers and toes. :)


The fearless foursome from the NEH group...Me, Deb, Chris and Jake!

That's us in the cage!!! I was in the cage for about 30-45 minutes; it's kind of hard to keep track of time when our guides - Rosie and Brian - are yelling, SHARK ON THE RIGHT! DOWN DOWN!!! The highlight was seeing the 4.5 behemouth swimming right at me with his mouth open. Surprisingly, I really wasn't scared during the entire experience. There was a lot of nervous anticipation, but once I got in the cage, it was just so beautiful to watch a bunch of "volkswagon busses" float by!

HOLY MOLY THE SHARKS WERE CLOSE!! This is taken from the boat...crazy!!!

Close encounter with the shark, the chum, and the cage.The day was just...awesome. A great way to kick off Shark Week!!!Oh - and my tour operator - Brian Mcfarlane does stuff with NatGeo and Discovery all the time! He even ran a shark tour for Jude Law and Maroon 5. The best part of it: he's been doing it for 13 years and STILL gets giddy EVERYTIME he sees a shark!Definitely one of the best days of my 27 years of life...:) Not sure how to top this one...

Kirstenbosch Botanical Gardens!!

AFter last night's public transport taxi fiasco, I was more than excited to see Richard and our bus to chauffer us around the city! We spent the morning visiting the Green Point Market which is a pan-Africa market selling anything and everything one could ever want when it comes to African crafts. I swear I'm done shopping after today...but I think I've said that about 5490584903485 times already... Oh well, when will I ever be back in AFrica? Atleast I'm supporting the local economy. Just a hint at what I purchased: it's a really big animal and it requires me to carry it on to the plane. Can't wait!!!

After the market we headed to the Kirstenbosch Botanical Gardens. They are the largest botanical gardens in all of Africa and some of the top gardens in the world...I can't even begin to explain how beautiful it was. Now mind you, I'm here in the WINTER and it's some of the most beautiful fauna and flora I've ever seen. The best part about it is that it's set on a hill beside the mountains just out of Cape Town. At the top of the gardens, we got a view of Cape Town. Totally gorgeous...and I think I took 109080234023932948 pictures! I just couldn't get enough of the proteas!

It was a bit overcast today, so the pic doesn't even do it justice. We are at the very top of the gardens overlooking the greens (felt like I was on a golf course!) and Cape Town off in the distance.

The views were beautiful...just like the people on this trip: Heather from AZ, Chris from DC, me and Erika from Portland. I will miss these guys dearly in just 4 days!

Here are some of the flowers that were interdispersed everywhere!! These are in the protea family - which is the national flower of South Africa. Totally awesome!

And finally, a view of the mountains with the misty cloud cover. I just loved the bright flowers to offset the mountains.

After walking around the gardens and grabbing lunch (mmmmm spinach and feta quiche and small greek salad), and hitting the gift shop, of course, we headed off to the Groot Contstania Vineyards for a tour of the winery and an obilgatory taste or two.

It was a very relaxing, enjoyable day full of beauty and great moments with great people. The overall sentiment here is that we're all trying to suck in every moment we have here together. Our flights leave later Wednesday night, and by the magic of jet lag, I'll be stepping off the plane in Detroit on Thursday afternoon, despite being in the air for 20 hours....

South African Rugby Experience!

Whew...yesterday was our "endurance session" at UWC as Rich put it: 3 lectures and then a panel discussion with teachers. After all that sitting, we needed to get out on the town, so we bought some tickets to a Western Province vs the Leopards Rugby Match. Rugby is huge in South Africa, and I became really interested after I finished reading "Playing the Enemy" about the 1995 Rugby World Cup which united South Africa when the Springboks (SA National Team) beat the All Blacks (New Zealand). The books a great read if you interested in the end of the Apartheid negotiations between Botha and Mandela, as well as Mandela's presidency and his quest to unite the new South Africa... Speaking of the Springboks, our bus company is the same company that shuttles around the team, so yesterday we got to drive around in this sweet bus. Everywhere we stopped people tried to look through the windows to see if we were ACTUALLY the Springboks...



Prior to heading to the Newlands Stadium (Oldest Rugby Stadium in South Africa!), we went to a local sushi restaurant for all you can eat sushi for about $10...it was great. We took cabs to the stadium and had a great driver who even walked us to the entrance. On the way, we stopped at a stand to pick up some Western Province gear to fit in with the locals. I got a sweet beanie hat that is reminiscent of Where's Waldo?

We got into the stadium to find in practically empty because it was only a small province game, and the Leopards weren't a particularly good team...but it was really fun and cool to say that I've been to a rugby game in SA. The game of Rugby is a little confusing...and holy wow is it rough! I have no idea how these guys play without helmets or without sufficient padding! The constant scrumming and tackling is brutal...but I loved it! I really enjoyed that is a fast paced game: two, 40 minutes halves with no penalties or stopping the clock. We cheered a lot and had a great time.

Here is our group right next to the field: Kori, Heather, Matt, Me, Chris, Jake, and Jason (some of us in our awesome W.P. gear!)

On our way out of the game, we tried to get the big Rugby store to open for us...we played the "We're Americans...with money!" card, but alas, they didn't open. While walking to the taxi que, we ran into the Leopards bus, so we took some pictures with them....what a bunch of cuties...holy wow are they buff!

Things then got interesting when we got in a cab to head home. We didn't have access to a phone to call our favorite cab company, so we ended up hailing a cab on the street. We piled in and took off. Our driver was from Zimbabwe, so we instatly talked about Mugabe, of course. About 5 minutes into our cab ride, our driver looked in the rear view mirror and said "The cops are on me!" At that instant, our cab was pulled over by 3 cop cars. The driver got out and the 4 of us sat there: scared and confused. Then we heard the cops say, "You've been in my area too many times. We're going to search this cab inside and out...do you have any drugs or weapons?" They searched the trunk, and finally the police officer let us out and explained that we got into an illegal cab and that if anything were to happen we would not be insured etc. The driver's car would be impounded and auctioned off because this has happened multiple times. They were more than accomodating and nice and offered to call us another cab...but it was at that point that we were in the middle of an area of Cape Town that we did not know, and didn't want to wait 20 minutes on a random street corner for the cab to show up. The officer found us a registered cab on the street and we jumped in heading back to the Check Inn.

About 5 minutes away from our hotel, we got pulled over AGAIN...I swear, the cops must have been doing a cab sweep last night! We all groaned, "oh no, not again!" Our driver got out, opened his trunk, and then jumped right back in. We were all relieved we didn't have to go through that fiasco again! But hey, it was an interesting expereince, and a great story to tell for time to come!!!

And to end with a laugh...here's me and the boys in our AWESOME Western Province attire. I know you're all jealous! :)