Frontier Weekend

Farm hands houses

Sheering merino wool by hand

The incredible view from the top of the mountain

This past weekend we took our first full group excursion since our safari at Addo National Park a month ago. Turns out traveling with adults and guides makes vacation much less stressful. All thirty of us packed our bags and drove three and a half hours inland, to the highlands outside of Grahamstown. We were hosted by two extremely well off Afrikaaner farmers, known commonly as Boers (more a derogative term for farmers by non-whites). Manus and Winnie hosted our first evening at their lovely farm home, offering us each a few beers, a pleasant social environment, and an excellent late dinner, with traditional Boer food. We took a late night drive about 15 minutes to the Francois farm, and crashed for the evening. We wok ein the morning to coffee and tea, and an african version of the egg mcmuffin (The best things seem to cross cultures). We spent the day swimming in an epic FRESHWATER (I miss this even though the ocean is wonderful) waterfall, and driving to / climbing up the third highest peak in South Africa. The view was spectacular, and getting into a natural setting like the mountains helped quench my craving for the outdoors. This was definitely one of my favorite things we have done in Africa. We came down the mountain and spent some time learning about the actual workings of the farm (not terribly different from Minnesotan farms if you ask me) and eventually had some free time. We swam in their pool, played tennis on their court, got a tour of Francois' game trophy room (He has a mounted giraffe among 25 other species of big game) and again spent the evening socializing while waiting for the braai. Dinner was excellent and most of us passed out early after the long day. Sunday we packed up, and headed down to Manus' second farm, where we got to enjoy the coolest waterfall swimming hole I have ever been to. We had to swim inbetween cliffs just to get to the waterfall, and when we got there we were pleasantly surprised to find a deep and warm swimming hole. No pictures of the waterfall because of the whole swimming to get there thing, but trust me it was beautiful. We had a quick lunch and headed home after the waterfall. The weekend was incredibly fun and relaxing, I wish I could have shared it with so many people back home! The only challenge of the trip was trying to grasp the farmer, farm worker relationship. With the farmers so well off it was rather frustrating to see the poverty the farm hands suffer through. Many of the black farm hands live on the farm, and live in the same kind of informal housing as people in the townships of PE. Manus told me he has had the same farm hands for 25 years and has a very good working relationship with them, but almost no personal relationship with them. He even claims to pay them well compared to all of his neighbors. I don't understand how you can have the same workers for 25 years and have no personal relationship develop. This is another example of white South African's dehumanizing black South Africans, whether they do it consciously or not. The paradigm is frustrating, with no simple solution. It's just another challenge facing South Africa, and good food for thought. We leave for Cape Town and most likely the most epic spring break of all time. We have plans for seeing one of my favorite bands at the international jazz festival, shark cage diving, bungee jumping, wine touring, visiting Robben island, climbing table mountain, and so much more! Wish me luck.

Andrew

Skydiving? Too bad.

To those loyal followers I apologize, I have been having so much fun I forgot about everyone back home... Just kidding! I have simply been busy and took one weekend away from blogging. Anywho, last weekend my friends and I were anxious to take our first opportunity to travel away from the big group. We were planning all week on going to a nice hostel in Jeffrey's bay to go surfing; until we found out on Wednesday that everyone else on the trip was going, and we were on the outside looking in.  On the bright side, we have met lots of cool people here in PE who are from East London (3 hours in the other direction). One of them (Cuan) needed a lift back anyways, so we rented a car and drove him home in return from some good Eastern Cape hospitality and a few beds to crash on. The drive to East London was spectacular.

Not only was I with these three lovely people (roommates Ryan and Pat, and good friend Michelle) but the view was spectacular. The big rolling hills were very fun to drive, even with the added challenge of driving on the wrong side of the road (I was very safe I promise). We arrived in E.L. to Cuan's parents greeting us with bright smiles and big plans for a traditional South African Braai (bbq). We had lamb chops and rolls for supper, followed by a dip in the pool. Eventually Cuan's high school buds came over for a few drinks, and we were lucky enough to make new friends. In the morning we got up and drove home. Boring, but the car ride was fun again, and we had to return the car by 2:00 pm anyways.

This weekend I took a trip with my flat, and our neighbors flat 7. We once again rented cars and drove 2 hours to Plettenberg Bay. The drive took us right past where we had bush camp a month ago, and thus all the stunning mountains and pine forests previously mentioned.  

It really does look like Minnesota in some places!

The bridge that is home to the world's highest bungee jump, that I will be doing in a few weeks!

We arrived early on Friday afternoon and settled into our beautiful hostel. We left for lunch shortly after and stumbled upon the best cafe I have ever been to in my life. The sandwich below is a wonderful improvement on the standard chicken and mayo sandwich that is so popular here. The cafe adds spinach, avacado, a slice of parmesan cheese, and their homemade ciabatta bread. I would give an arm and a leg to have this at St. John's for lunch.

Saturday the women all woke up and went snorkeling with a seal colony. I thought it sounded cool, but it was very expensive and I guess I didn't want to do it if I wasn't all in. I spent the day shopping until our sea kayaking adventure in the afternoon. We hired (they call renting hiring here) tandem sea kayaks and two guides to take us out in the bay. I loved being out on the water once again, however, it's not the same as paddling a seliga (canoe), that's for sure. 

We paddled out a ways and were lucky enough to find a pod of dolphins fishing. Two dolphins swam in a tight circle holding the fish together, while the other dolphins jumped and flipped, catching fish midair right in front of us. Apparently this only happens once in every 100 or so trips (or so they say). I didn't catch any good photos, but you can see below that we had quite a view of the peninsula ahead of us. 

This is the yard of the Hostel we stayed in, plenty of hammocks--just the way I like it!

The only bummer of the weekend was that we were planning on skydiving on Sunday morning the whole time. In fact I wasn't even planning on it until everyone persuaded me it was worthwhile. But when we woke up on Sunday morning, alas, the wind had picked up and the company called and cancelled on us. We left this morning happy and healthy, got back to Langerry in time to blog and work on some homework. We have lots of papers due in the near future! Pray for us all :)

Love from dreamland,

Andrew