home today

Heading home today. still have two trips to write about but I guess I'll have to do it in the states! for now it is goodbye..

Looking for Hobbits

Our second to last trip was to a tiny place called Hogsback. Named after the three mountains or “hogs” that surround it, the little village is probably not what someone pictures when they think of South Africa. Thought to have possibly been the inspiration for the settings Tolkien describes in the Lord of the Rings, it was a place of rolling hills and dense forests. Everything was incredibly green and incredibly blue. It was the usual warm and sunny during the day but at night we felt how cold Africa could really get. Apparently during the colder months it actually snows much of the time. Everywhere was beautiful and I didn’t have trouble imagining this as the inspiration for Middle Earth. And whether it really was or not, the locals have certainly decided to capitalize on the story. Everywhere were places named after Lord of the Rings- like Hobbiton, and even The Ring Hardware Store!



The first day we went on a hike through the very old, very beautiful, indigenous forest. We first made our way up a high cliff to see the forest laid out below us enclosed by the three mountains. We also found a random bathtub, perched on the side of the cliff. It would definitely be a nice place for a bath, but a little odd all the same… We then headed down, into the forest we had looked at from above, to a tree marked off with a little gate around it. Ashwin, who had been coming to Hogsback since he was very young, told us the tree was eight hundred years old. After resting for a while in the shade of the ancient tree we moved on through the forest to the Madonna and Child Waterfall. The waterfall was lovely the water spilling from a high cliff to water pools at our feet. It had not rained that much, it hasn’t rained much in all of South Africa, but the misty downpour, steaming in the sun, was still impressive.



The way back was almost straight up, to the road at the top off the cliff. We ate lunch in a little restaurant, than separated, some heading back to the hotel, and the rest of us driving the forty five minutes to the place where we would go horse back riding. We rode across green, rolling hills for two exhilarating hours, watching the sun set over the mountains. Occasionally we let them run, and I felt the wind in my face as I tried to remember my long ago riding lessons.



The next day was quiet. The rest of the group took their turn at horseback riding and I walked around and enjoyed the remoteness. I also watched TV on an actual television for the first time in weeks. Our last day we stopped at a spot at the top of a cliff called, appropriately, the Edge. The view was amazing, you could see almost all the way to the ocean. At the Edge was also a series of outdoor sculptures, called the eco-shrine, created by a woman who lived there. The sculptures were lovely stone and mosaic abstract shapes, some of them forming frames for the view they overlooked. On some of the sculptures were set vibrantly coloured paintings meant to symbolize a connection between humans and nature. We stood and looked at the beauty around us, and as we walked back through the woods to the van, a group of monkeys started jumping from tree to tree above us.

Capetown (part 2: Dancing and Wine)

I meant to get this second part of this Capetown two-parter up so much earlier but sadly actual school work has started to catch up with me.

Sunday evening after a nap we had a quick dinner at a Chinese/sushi place and walked down the block to a bar named Jo’burg. Some of Katie’s friends from Rhodes along with their friends from UCT (University of Cape Town) were there. So we all sat down at a long table with our drinks and talked. The bar was relaxing, with lots of wood and dark reds. Large comfortable booths rested along the walls under colourful pieces of art depicting old Johannesburg. The soft light from funky shaped wire lamps made the lit up the colors of the large murals, and the rest of the bar just enough. We sat and talked, getting to know each other, as a Rasta band played Bob Marley on the small stage in the corner.

Monday we all slept late. As we eventually all got of bed, sitting on the balcony drinking instant coffee we saw a large film crew setting up directly under us, outside our building. This apparently happens a lot in Capetown- the other day another crew had been filming up the street. We found out later this was for some sort of commercial. As all of us were fast running out of clean clothes we decided to take this day to go do laundry. Making a large circle around the wires and lights in the middle of the street, we lugged our clothes a block and left them with the nice ladies who said they could do it all for us. South Africa, we’ve found, is not a self service country. There are people who pump your gas, wash your clothes, someone even came in a couple of days ago to wash the windows in my dorm room! All this service can be a bit unsettling in its convenience, especially since it almost a black person doing the work. But it was, in fact, convenient and we left happy to have some time to explore Long Street.

The next day we had arranged for a visit to the US consulate in Capetown. We took a cab around the mountains through wealthy tree-lined suburbs, far into the outskirts of the city. Our cab driver pointed out Pollsmoor Maximim security prison, which is known for holding some of South Africa’s most dangerous criminals, and at one time Nelson Mandela. The sun was burning hot as we stepped out of the cab, people standing in line for visas looked tired and uncomfortable, holding up papers and hats to attempt to manufacture some shade. Turning we could still see the tops of the barbed wire fences of the prison. The consulate certainly didn’t seem lacking in security, after handing our passports in to the guard in front we walked through a metal detector and left all our possessions, bags, cellphones cameras, with them before crossing the courtyard to the main building. A diplomat met us, showing us into a sparse room with chairs lined up lecture hall style. He told us about South Africa, some warnings about safety (pretty much too late since we had already been there 3 months) and about what the consulate did. The most interesting was when he talked about himself. The life of a diplomat in South Africa seems very isolated. He pointed out the distance the building was from the city center, telling us the consulate had been located in the city until after 9/11 security concerns moved them far away. His house was in a designated area where he lived surrounded by other Americans. His children went to special schools specialized for international students and the children of diplomats.

When we got back we scheduled a tour of the townships as or guide at the embassy had recommended and we were picked up at 8:30 the next morning. Our first stop was at the District Six Museum. Our guide explained that District Six of Capetown had been a pretty successful interracial community, many of the people benefiting from their close location to the city centre. In 1966 under the Group Areas Act, more than 60,000 people living there were forcibly moved from the city to the Cape Flats- where most of the townships are located today. Almost the entire district was bulldozed but pieces were saved by former residents. Eventually they started a museum. On the outside wall next to the door a plaque reads “All who pass by remember with shame the many thousands of people who lived for generations in District Six and other parts of this city, and were forced by law to leave their homes because of the colour of their skins. Father, forgive us…”

We left the city and headed for the townships. Our guide at the consulate had been right, compared to Capetown the townships around Grahamstown were almost nice. At least most of the people had real (though tiny) houses. Many of the buildings we saw as we drove away from the wealthy city centre were shacks, their walls leaning in on each other. Our second stop was in the township of Langa, at a shebeen - or a bar- formerly places that sold alcohol illegally in the townships during apartheid. The tiny, one-room shack was furnished only with a few benches and a large barrel, where a woman was mixing the home made beer we had come to taste. Our guide told us that during apartheid the men from the townships would gather and drink this beer. It was now drunk mostly in traditional ceremonies. A bucket was filled of the white, foamy drink. It was passed around to each person, and we each took a sip. The drink tasted less like beer and more like fermented milk- definitely an acquired taste.

We were handed off for a while to another man who lived in the township for a short walking tour. We walked down narrow streets, lined with colourful shards of broken bottles. As we walked next to sand filled back lots enclosing broken down cars and lines of drying wash, I again didn’t feel comfortable. There’s a line between concerned interest and gawking tourism but I’m not sure where it is and I’m never sure if I’ve crossed it here. I brought my camera with me this time but was still hesitant to use it. I was glad our guide let us know us we were welcome to take pictures of children but to please ask first if we wanted a picture of an adult.

But no one seemed to be especially troubled by us stumbling around their neighbourhood like bewildered alien invaders. Not even when we walked into a home, led by our guide. Everyplace we visited was cramped, mattresses shoved next to beds, bags stored on top of each other in the rafters of the low ceilings.

Our guide took us up some steps to one apartment. Inside, the tiny front room, consisting of a sofa and a TV, merged with the kitchen, making one, almost as tiny, room. The floor was all bare tile. In the kitchen a woman was preparing something, and on the sofa, lay a man, all elbows and ribs, a thin blanket covering him. He was dying, I was sure. Anyone that thin would have to be dying. We thanked the couple and left, a little quieter than when we had come in.

Our next stop was at a traditional healer. The room, where the healer received people was itself fascinating, animal bones, pieces of plants, and even numerous lottery tickets were hanging from a web of strings tied to the low ceiling rafters. Shelves in the back held rows and rows of stoppered jars. Lit by only the light streaming in from the open doorway and a couple of candles, the whole place had an eerie quality. Despite that I got the feeling from healer and the place that it was more for the benefit of tourists. Jerica did buy a small jar filled with herbs that were supposed to ward off bad dreams..

Our last stop on our tour was in the township of Guguletu. The township is known best for Amy Biehl, the American Fulbright scholar, who had been working in the townships when she was killed by a mob in Guguletu in 1993. This would not be what we remembered most about Guguletu, however. We stopped in front of a small school, its outside walls covered in colourful tile. Inside a group of children, all no more than six years old, stood expectantly. They began to sing in Xhosa as we walked in. We watched, smiling at the unexpected adorableness, and as the song ended the children looked at their teacher, who nodded, giving the signal for them to all rush us, arms open for hugs. This was for tourists too of course, but we were all willing to take some pleasure in it. As we each picked up a child, with three more tugging to our sleeves, and made or way outside we were all laughing at the sheer enjoyment of dancing in the sun on a township street, with crowds of little kids.

After many waves goodbye, we left the school and the townships and headed back to the Victoria and Albert Waterfront to catch the ferry to Robben Island. The island is a beautiful place for a prison, with long beaches filled with penguins. The island seemed to have gotten a bit commercialized with buses filled with people and tour guides with a standard spiel. The tour guide in the prison, though, was a former inmate at the prison, there at the same time as Nelson Mandela. I didn’t get to find out why he had been there. We saw Mandela’s tiny cell, remarkable from the rest of the tiny cells going down the hall, only in that it had once been his, home for eighteen of twenty-seven years in prison.

We got up early again the next day, this time for a day of slightly guilty pleasure. We were picked up, along with a few others, at 8am for our tour of the winelands around Capetown. A beautiful drive through the district of Paarl led us to or first stop, the Fairview Estates. A beautiful mansion, set among rolling green hills, with the high grey mountains as backdrop, the estate was very much a contrast to where we had been the day before. There was even a small pen where goats were climbing and munching grass comfortably, in keeping with one of the brands of wine sold at the estate- Goats do Roam. After a brief look at the winery we were handed a list of wines and told we could pick any six to try. None of us knew much about wine, but it was fun to try and pick out the flavours on the descriptions and compare one to the other. We stood at a long wooden bar staffed by many knowledgeable bartenders who filled or small wine glasses and answered or questions. Remembering our guide’s instructions to us, we carefully swirled the glass each time we ordered something different. As we sipped we snacked on the row of cheese samples in the other room, also made at Fairview.

Relaxed and happy already with three more estates still to visit we headed to Franschhoek for our second estate. We sat outside this time, under the shade of the trees with the mountains behind us. A woman brought out a six wine bottles and explained each one as she poured us a series of small glassfuls. We made our way through our second six and got back in the van for the short drive to our next estate. At this estate, which apparently specialized in pinotages, we sat at a sleek black bar as our guide poured us each wine himself. A few wines through, he stopped us, telling us this wine was to be drunk at lunch and leading us out to the patio. After lunch, we finished tasting the wines and left for our last stop, an estate in Stellenbosch. We took a tour of the winery, where we saw how what were grapes move from wood barrels through giant stainless steel equipment. Then we sat down on a long bench for our last wines of the day. We drove back with the late afternoon sun, a day well spent.

On Friday we split up a bit, each going to spend our last day in Capetown how we wanted. Scott and Katie had rented a car and took a few people with them to drive down the coast to Cape Point. Other people walked around or did last minute packing. I decided to see the Kirstenbosch Botanical Gardens. The fifteen minute cab ride alone was beautiful, as we made our way around the mountain and through twisting tree-lined streets. Leaving my cab to pick me up in two hours, I walked through the small courtyard entrance to a breath taking view. The gardens are placed right at the foot of Table Mountain, with paths winding through brilliant green grass and strange, vivid flowers. I walked up, from the cacti, to the shade loving flowers, to the trees that had existed in prehistoric times, to finally a large grassy lawn where I sat down and enjoyed where I was. On one side I was enclosed by the mountain, the bright sun making it just a grey silhouette. And on another side I could look out and see the city, and the ocean, spread out and glinting behind it.

I got back just in time for happy hour across the street and for our last night in Capetown.