Thursday, October 11, 2012

A bit old

Cape Town I took Bailey’s Reo Liner down to Cape Town for a few days during the August holiday. It was a pretty miserable ride. The bus was overbooked and I sat next to a fat woman who had three bags with her taking up a lot of my space. Some people sat on the floor so it made stretching out impossible. It got better as people got off but it started out pretty badly. I arrived in Cape Town and checked into Cat and Moose hostel which is located at the far end of a super touristy street. It was a nice place and pretty low-key. I met up with Edward and Quinn and the three of us went to McDonalds. You have no idea how happy that first bite into a McDonald’s burger made me. The following day the three of us went down to the docks and took a boat over to Robben Island, the prison that housed Nelson Mandela and several other political prisoners during apartheid. The tour guide around the island was really good and we apparently had some kind of US statesmen on the tour with us. The tour of the actual prison wasn’t as good. All the tour guides are former inmates of the prison which is cool but the particular person we had wasn’t that good. We went back to Aznac Backpackers which is where Quinn and Edward were staying. After signing up for a wine tour in Stellenbosch the owner gave me a free night. I moved all my stuff over and canceled the rest of my time at Cat and Moose. The owner of Anzac also recommended a place to eat. We went to a Brazilian steakhouse and it was amazing. Early the following day we caught the 6:45am train to Stellenbosch after eating a hearty mega McMuffin at McDonalds. We checked into Stumble Inn backpackers and went on a wine tour with two British people on holiday. They had been traveling Africa for two months and were almost finished. The tour guide was a Namibian Afrikaner living in South Africa. He chain smoked pretty much through the whole tour, he was a bit bitter and jaded, but overall a nice guy. He was very practical in his approach, “it’s just fermented grape juice. Don’t over think it.” I learned several things about wine but I don’t have a sophisticated palette. We went to two wineries in the morning, 9am is a good time to start drinking, had lunch, and then went to two more wineries. We went back to the hostel and had a quick nap. I met a guy named Warren who was traveling because he’s starting a tour company and wanted to get his route down exactly before starting the business. He joined us for dinner at a local burger place and then we all went out for Guiness on tap. It was a pretty fun night. The next day we had more time so we relaxed a bit and then caught a train back to Cape Town. Edward and I hiked Table Mountain and Quinn stayed at the hostel. At Table Mountain Edward stopped to tie his shoe and I went on ahead. I missed the turn to go up the mountain by the easy route. Luckily for me I found the expert route just a few minutes away. The expert route involved some light bouldering at first and then a nearly vertical rock face to climb. I said “screw that”. I’m afraid of heights and not interested in climbing. I went back down and ran into an Afrikaner who told me he got stuck on that same route the day before. He was doing it again but this time he wanted to make it all the way. I just went back down and waited for Edward. Edward didn’t show up and at dark I left. He came back to the hostel about an hour later. He waited for me at the top and I waited for him at the bottom. Quinn, Edward, and I went to a Vietnamese restaurant for dinner. The restaurant had chop sticks. The Vietnamese don’t use chops sticks. The end of the trip had arrived and the following day I headed to the bus station to get on a dirty bus and sit next to a man who was fairly large. Not fat, just a big guy. The seats aren’t even the width of my shoulders so the two of us sitting next to each other was uncomfortable. He spent part of the time leaning on me so he could sleep; 22 hours later I was in Rehoboth and happy to get off that bus. Also it was raining on the last day and the bus leaked. Water was coming in through the air conditioning and windows. It was a pretty bad bus ride. Now on to NaDEET NaDEET stands for Namib Desert Environmental Education Trust. It is located in the middle of nothing. There’s no internet, cell phone service, or running toilets. There are a few bunks, a hall; several pit latrines, and some solar panels for heating water and generating electricity. It was pretty awesome and reminded me a lot of Boy Scout camps. There was a grant from the European Union to send all the grade 7s in Hardap region to NaDEET for a week so each school could learn water conservation and energy conservation. The learners also learned how to cook using solar cookers and solar ovens. I could build a solar oven myself and I might do it before too long. The bread was delicious. We went dune boarding and that was pretty cool. Overall it was a good trip and only one kid got sick.

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