Waka Waka...South Africa!

        Hello again. I have gotten behind on my writing, but I will hopefully have everything through Mauritius up by the time I reach India on Friday. Enjoy!

First of all, South Africa is beautiful. Rolling into the Cape Town Waterfront during sunrise was amazing. Seeing the skyline with Table Mountain in the background…so cool. We were all amazed with South Africa right away. South Africa is very deceiving though. We walked off the ship and it seemed like we landed right in the US or Europe. It was very developed, had a huge mall, and there were tons of nice cars and buildings around. Drive for about 15 minutes and you are in a township. Small, broken down huts all over the place. It was pretty interesting to see the difference.

        Well, the first day in SA, Amanda, Bri, and I decided to hike Table Mountain…along with half the rest of the boat. It was really fun. We didn’t feel like taking a taxi, so we walked from the ship to the top of the mountain. It took us from about 10am to 6pm to get there and back. It was definitely the most strenuous hike I have ever done. We started at sea level, and ended at around 2,700 ft…I believe. The hike up the actual mountain seems just straight up. It was pretty much like climbing stairs the entire time. It took us a good 2 hours to get to the top. We hung out at the top and got lunch before heading back down. There is a really nice restaurant at the top. We contemplated taking the cable car back down because it was getting cold, windy, and late, but we toughened up and hiked down. It was much easier getting down. On the way back to the ship, I took off the bandana I had been wearing. It didn’t cross my mind to actually put sunscreen on my head because I have always had hair. Everyone I was with laughed hysterically at the fact that I now had a perfect red stripe on the top of my forehead. It is now a lovely tan stripe. By the time we finally got back to the ship, we were exhausted.

        We all ate some and debated on whether or not we wanted to do anything else. We had planned to go out for awhile, but we didn’t know if we could anymore. We did end up going out. Everyone told us that Long Street was the place to go at night, so we headed down there. We ended up at a place called the Dubliner. It was a pretty cool place. It was packed with Europeans, but eventually a bunch of SAS kids packed in there later. I only planned to stay for a little bit because I had to be at the bus for my trip the next day at 5:30am. I stayed around and talked for awhile longer, and before I knew it, it was 3:45. We all headed back, but I decided I would just stay up the whole night so I didn’t miss the bus.

        That plan didn’t work out so well for me. I went back to my room to make sure I had everything ready, and I instantly passed out when I sat down on my bed. If it wasn’t for my roommate being on the same trip, I would have missed it. He woke me up at 5:40am…only 10 minutes after I was supposed to be there. There were a bunch of us that were late, so I made it on the bus. We then headed out to the Bloukrans Bridge for the World’s Highest Bungee Jump. Yeah, I didn’t tell my parents about this one beforehand. It was about a 6 hour drive, so I slept the entire way. I got up once to go buy chips and water at a gas station, but other than that I was sound asleep. It worked perfectly. I was completely rested by the time we got there. It was probably a good thing, so I didn’t freak out about the jump all the way there.

        When we arrived at the bridge, everyone was going crazy. We drove over it slowly and just gazed in awe at how far down it was. I couldn’t believe that I was about to jump off of it. We first checked into our rooms. They have a bunch of cabins around the bridge that we stayed at for the night. Once we got that done, we headed over to be weighed and signed up for the jump. They then put on our harnesses. We had about 30 minutes before the jump, so we just stood there and stared at the bridge…all freaking out.

        We finally got called to head to the bridge. We walked through some trees and came out at the side of the bridge. Then you have to go up into the catwalk type thing. It is essentially this walkway that is bolted to the underside of the bridge…with a mesh wire bottom. Yeah, if that isn’t scary enough looking straight down over 700 ft. That seemed like the longest walk of my life. We made it to the middle of the bridge and it became real. We were really going to jump off the bridge. When we got there, they welcomed us and explained it all to us. Then they started blasting music to get us all pumped and excited. We all were ready, and then the electricity went out. Hmm…that didn’t make me feel so safe, but what was I going to do? I was already on the bridge in a harness. When their generator started again, they blasted the music and called off the first name. They said they were going to go by weight, so I figured I would be somewhat close to the beginning. They kept on calling names and calling names and I still wasn’t going. I had been so stoked to jump, but this waiting while everyone else was going was killing me. I finally got called and I didn’t know what to feel. I had no idea how to act. They kind of just grab you and you don’t really have a choice anymore, so I just went with it. They strapped on a cord to my feet, walked me out, told me to wave to the camera, and shoved me off. HOLY CRAP. That’s all I can say. That was the biggest rush of my life. It was a 216m fall. Freefall of about 5 seconds. I was going about 70-80 km/hr as I fell. It was crazy looking and seeing the floor of this gorge come closer and closer. Then all of a sudden it pulls you back up and you see the bottom of the bridge. Then back down again…and up and down for awhile. Then a guy gets lowered down, connects himself to you, and pulls you back up to the top. I think I was more scared during that then the actually fall. All I can really say about it is, WOW. I would definitely do it again though.

        After everyone jumped, we all checked out our videos and pictures (which I will be posting to Facebook as soon as I can) then headed to the Cliffhanger Bar for dinner. They made us delicious pizzas. We all got one to ourselves. After we ate we had a huge dance party for the rest of the night. We got the whole kitchen crew and everyone out dancing with us. We all crashed relatively early compared to other nights…so probably around 2am…so we could be back on the bus at 5am to go shark diving.

        Once we got back on the bus, I fell right back asleep. We had about a 3 hour ride to Gansbaai to shark dive. I woke up to grab some food at a gas station again, but that was it. When we got to Gansbaai, we checked in and had some breakfast. We had to wait a little while for the group before us to get back with the boat. Once they were back, we headed out and got on. It was a small white boat. It only took about 10 minutes to get to the diving spot. When we got there we anchored the boat and we all struggled into our wetsuits. Our leader then gave us the briefing and safety information about the dive. Before he could even finish, a huge great white shark was already circling our boat. We all freaked out and our leader just quit trying to give us information. He instead just told the first group to get in the cage. The sharks weren’t being that cooperative that day so we didn’t want to miss out on a shark being around. We didn’t know at this point that we would get as lucky as we did. We had several sharks circling us the entire time we were out there. It was so insane. The sharks would go for the bait then swim right next to the cage and just stare at us. We were literally less than a foot from these sharks. The only thing that was saving us was some metal wire. I was in the last group to go. We all got to go twice though because the sharks were so good. On the last time, the guy threw out the bait and the shark actually bit on to it. Normally they pull the bait away so they don’t get it. This time the shark got a hold of the entire thing. The guy was pulling the shark back…which was directly at me on the edge of the cage. When the shark got next to the cage it looked over at me and the girl next to me. The shark immediately started attacking the cage right in front of my face. We were flailing around like crazy. The sharks nose and teeth were about 5 inches from my face. That had to have been one of the most frightening things I have ever done. It was so cool though. I have it on video as well.

        If that wasn’t enough of an adrenaline rush those two days, I don’t know what would be. After the shark dive I was pretty worn out. We only had about a 2 hour drive back to Cape Town. When I got back I immediately cleaned up and got ready for dinner. A bunch of us went out to dinner at a restaurant called Belthazar. It was right on the waterfront and it was delicious. I had a salmon filet with potatoes. It was the best cooked salmon I have ever had. After dinner Amanda and I went to Mitchell’s and found some other people to hang out with. We hung out there for awhile then a huge group of us decided to go to a club outside of Cape Town. It was called Tiger Tiger. We all got there and found out that you have to be really dressy in order to get in, so we scratched that idea. We decided to go to a club not too far away instead. I have no idea what it was called haha. Only Amanda, Jourdy, Ed, me, and 2 locals we were with got in. The rest didn’t have their IDs and you had to be 21 to get in. Hmm, I guess they don’t know how to read US drivers’ licenses since I’m definitely not 21. Oh well, we had a great time dancing around for the night.

        The next morning was another early one. We had to be a Café Eco at 830am to meet our guides for our Bikes ‘n Wines tour. I was woken up at about 805am and hadn’t started getting ready. We eventually made it down to the café on time though. Once we all made it we headed out. We had to take a train to the winelands. Once we got there we all got situated with a bike and a helmet. We then headed off to our first vineyard. It was called Spier, one of the most famous in the world. It was a very cool property to walk around. We then got to start tasting some wine. When we heard wine tasting, we took that literally. Apparently in South Africa, wine tasting means you have a glass of each wine. We tried five different wines at Stellenbosch. My favorite was the rosé. After that we knew it was going to be a long day. We luckily got to go to a small game reserve before we went to the next winery. We got to check out some cheetahs and this one dog that is now saving livestock in South Africa from cheetahs. After the game reserve we headed to our second winery. We ate lunch at the second place. It was so good. I had a bacon, avocado, and blue cheese pizza. I definitely recommend it. After we ate, we had round two of “wine tasting”. We had another 5 glasses at this place. My favorite here was definitely the white wine or the rosé again. We did get to try a wine at this place that only had 3,300 bottles ever made. It was a red wine which I’m not a huge fan of, but it was cool to get to try such an exclusive wine. 

        After the second winery, we headed to Van Ryn’s Brandy distillery. Van Ryn’s has been voted #1 in the world several times. That didn’t mean much to me, however, because brandy was disgusting. The only thing I liked there was fresh apricot and peach nectar with brandy in it. We got to try the 10 year and 12 year brandy. Supposedly the 12 year was much better than the 10. I wanted to die trying both. Anything you drink that doesn’t allow you to breathe in at the same time shouldn’t be allowed to drink. I wasn’t aware that you aren’t supposed to breathe in through your nose at the same time and now I think my nostrils are burned. I think brandy is just classy rubbing alcohol. Ok, maybe not that harsh, but I’m not a fan.
        Now that we had 10 glasses of wine and some brandy in us, what else to do than get back on our bikes and trek back to where we started! Haha. No, it really wasn’t bad. We only had to go about a mile or two back. Once we got back, we put away the bikes and headed back to the train. Once we got back to Cape Town we hung out for awhile with our guides then headed back to the ship. We were all pretty exhausted so we called it an early night.

        The last two days in Cape Town were more relaxing. On the second to last day Annie, Ellie, Damien and I headed to the Cape Town Stadium in the morning. We got to take a tour of the whole stadium. It was really cool to see where a lot of the teams played in the World Cup. We got to see all the private club levels along with the jail, locker rooms, and walk on the actual field. When we got done there we stopped for our ritual meal at Mcdonald’s before heading to the Greenmarket Square. We shopped around the market for a few hours before heading back to the ship. I lounged around for several hours and then decided to go out for a late dinner around 8pm. Chris, Bri, Amanda, Jon, and I went out to a restaurant called Primi Piatti. It was delicious as well. I had a salmon pasta along with this really delicious watermelon tea drink. We sat around and had a few drinks for awhile and headed back to the ship around 10pm. The people I was going out with for the night were still flying back from Johannesburg from a safari, so I had a few hours before we went out. I just layed around again and ended up going out around 1230am. We went to Mitchell’s to meet up with other people and headed to a club called Fez. It was a very dressy club. I didn’t meet dress code or the age limit to get in, but I got in anyways. We stayed there until about 430am before heading back.

        The last day I went around with Amanda and Chris to the market again. We walked around the whole waterfront area and down to the market. It took about the entire day. I again didn’t buy much, but it was cool to walk around the whole city one last time. We also did find a hole-in-the-wall market. It just looked like a store front, but when you walked in there was an endless market. It just kept going and going. We were all mad that we found it so late because we had spent all our money already. It was much better than the Greenmarket Square that everyone had talked about. This place had a lot more authentic stuff. Oh well, some place to go to when I go back. Before we got on the ship for the last time, we stopped at Pick ‘n Pay. It is a fairly large grocery store inside the mall that was next to the ship. I stocked up on some snack foods to keep me sane on the way to Mauritius.

        Well I think that about wraps it up for South Africa. It was one heck of a time. I will be writing soon about Mauritius. Till then, see ya.