Trying to get on the Garden Route

February 1, 2010

Before school starts on Friday, February 5, we had about 4 days to do whatever we wanted. So for this 4 day vacation, most of my roommates and Rodrigo, Brooks, and our girl friend Lauren decided to drive up the Garden Route, which is a road trip that you can make that goes from Cape Town to Jeffery’s Bay (which is about 7 hours away) and there are a bunch of activities and beaches that you can check out along the way. We pretty much decided to do this last second, and we didn’t have any type of itinerary to follow. We had a couple of guide books and pamphlets and that’s about it.
Before we could leave however, we needed to find a place to rent cars. So the day that we wanted to leave for the Garden Route, we woke up at 9am planning on picking up the cars from downtown Cape Town at 9:30, sign up for school clubs/activities at 10:30, and then be on the road by 12:00. This obviously did not happen. Rodrigo, Nathan, Slaughterhouse, and I first went to Hertz because we had made reservations to rent a couple of cars. But as we were filling out our paperwork, we realized that the Hertz policy was that you needed to be 23 years old to rent a car. Mistake number 1. We then continued to seek out Budget and Avis to see if they had the same policy, and of course they did. We then found this place called Daddy Long Legs, which was a bar/hotel/spa, but you could also rent cars from them. So we hung out in their lobby for half an hour, drinking free coffee and biscote, until they let us know that they had no cars available. It did not look like we had any chance of making it on the Garden Route, considering we had no car, we ran out of airtime minutes so we really couldn’t contact others to let them know what was happening, and it was getting a little late considering we needed to drive 5 hours to get to our first spot on the trip.

As we were walking to the bus stop to get back to campus, I decided to call this guy who had one day been waiting outside our house with a “party bus” which was decorated with a bunch of licensed plates, a disco ball in the middle of van, and surf boards on top to see if he could take 12 of us on the Garden Route for the week. As I was talking to him however, I realized that this was a little shady because first of all, the guy had been waiting outside of our house looking for someone to talk to….he also gave us a pamphlet that he had drawn and written describing how the party bus was “simply amazing” and how it is “a musical transportation and its a FUN disco on board.”

And the guy looked like an African version of Dog the Bounty Hunter. He described his haircut as the “half bread loaf.” So that obviously didn’t pan out.
Fortunately, when we arrived at the club fair at school, we ran into some of our roommates who had found the number of a local car rental company that would rent their cars out to 21 year olds.

This was at 3:00pm. So after signing up for Yoga, Soccer, Mountain & Hiking Club, and Shawco (a student-run community service organization), we all made it back to the house, packed our bags, took two taxis to the car rental place in Sea Point, and got the cars. I was the one who decided to put the car on my credit card, and it definitely felt like I was signing my life away. Bye life. Anyway, since I can’t drive stick, Rodrigo had to drive the whole way there and the whole way back.
Our first destination was Mossel Bay.

After we drove over the mountains that surround Cape Town, it was open and expansive landscapes for the rest of the trip. It was gorgeous. We saw farmland, vineyards, forests and beach towns. When we arrived in Mossel Bay, we drove to our hostel that was located in Santos Beach. The hostel was literally a train parked on train tracks, but it was located right on the beach. It was definitely a very cool set up.

We fit 3 in each little compartment (I lost Rock, Paper, Shoot…so I had to sleep on the top bunk with the ceiling 8 inches from my head. After we checked in, some of us went for a night walk on the beach and walked through the way warmer water of the Indian Ocean.

Had I known that Mossel Bay was a haven for sharks, I wouldn’t have even got near the water. Anyway, it was very relaxing to watch the waves come in on this little cove…the only word to describe the moment is EPOCH (I use the word EPOCH instead of the word EPIC because the word Epoch is way more epic...).

More to come from this trip on my next post…

Garden Route (Part Dos)

February 2, 2010

This morning we woke up extra early because we wanted to drive to 3 more hours to spend the day at Jeffery’s Bay (a.k.a JBay). Since South African radio is basically non-existent, it was vital that we stopped at an electronic store in order to buy a couple of CDs. The selection was limited, so I ended up buy “This Is It” by Michael Jackson, Jimmy Cliff (reggae), and Now That's What I Call music 53 (NOW 53!!!!- I remember Now 6…way too many Nows…also, I think a better name for those ablums is WOW that what I call music…whatever though). In order to get to JBay, we went through Plattenburgh Bay, Knysa, and Tsitsikama National Park.

Once again, the landscapes were ridiculously gorgeous, and it was very green (lots and lots of pine trees).

JBay is known for the surfing that goes on there. The waves continuously role one after another, which seemed perfect for surfers (I’m guessing because what do I know about surfing?- very little). Anyway, we spent most of our time hanging out on Dolphin beach and playing in the Indian Ocean. We also rented some surf boards just to say that we had been surfing in JBay…no big deal. I got up the first two times I tried, which I was really impressed with, but then I didn’t get up for the next hour and a half. I also wasn’t catching the good waves either because I was too scared to go farther out from shore because I thought that the farther out I was, the higher chance that I’d be attacked by a shark (that's just a fact!). My own version of survival of the fittest…as long as there is someone farther out than me, I’ll be fine—that person is gonna get eaten and not me.

While chilling on the beach, we watched these little kids play fighting for about an hour, so I had to take some photos of them. They were super funny and very entertaining. Being on the beach and playing in the waves is soooooo much fun. Way better than playing in the Vermont snow!

We then went to this surf spot called Super Tubes, where there are much bigger waves, and way better surfers. So we watched the surfers for a while on top of a deck on the beach that was a prime viewing area.

We also saw this pretty funny sign just outside the viewing deck area at Super Tubes...made me giggle. Silly peguins.

At JBay we stayed at a hostel called JBay Backpackers. The hostel was basically empty, all 12 of us were able to stay in the one room with 13 beds in it.

That night, we ended up going to another hostel where some of our other friends were staying. This hostel was located right on the beach, and had its own big bar area with pool, foosball, and couches.

I actually ended up running into my friend Louis, who is really good friends with my roommate Carson back at Middlebury. I played pool with him against some South Africans, and once again I made no balls and we were slaughtered and embarrassed.

The next post will describe an unbelievable day, so definitely check soon to find out what I did the following day. EPOCHNESS! (this word is gonna catch on... you'll see).

Bungee Jumping and Hiking on Garden Route (part III)

February 3, 2010

I woke up this morning with butterflies in my stomach. Today we were planned to go bungee jump off the largest bungee jump bridge in the whole entire world.

Holy fuck! The sight of the jump is called FACE ADRENALIN….that is an understatement. It’s more like FACE YOUR DEATH and TRY NOT TO SOIL YOUR PANTS! On the side of the bridge, there was an area where you could watch other people jump off the bridge and a bar with a TV in it so you could have drinks and watch other people’s live emotions and fears before they jump, and then you can watch the jump as well.

It’s such a trip watching people in the most vulnerable state…jumping off a large bridge and free falling for 216 meters is NOT NORMAL. People are not supposed to jump off bridges that high and live to talk about it.

After we registered and put on our safety harnesses, we walked down a path to one base of the bridge. Along side the bridge, there was a metal grate rickety bridge that you have to walk on in order to get to the center of the bridge, which is the jumping spot. The thing about a grate bridge is that the floor of the bridge has holes in it, so you are able to look through the ground and see how far below the earth is from your feet.

And every time you stepped on the grate, it would give in to the weight of your body and the floor would sink a bit. Damn it damn it damn it. As I walked about a good 130 yards across the bridge, I didn’t look down once….not never…no way no how. I literally kept my head up and my eyes focused on the nets to the side of me. I knew that if I looked down, I would flip a shit and run away. The walk across felt like an eternity. It was very hard for me to control the volume of my voice too because my heart was racing so fast and adrenaline was already pumping.

When we got to the middle of the bridge, there was a whole team of workers hanging out, laughing, and welcoming us. I bet the workers have the most tiring job because they have to make sure that the energy level is high all the time. So in order to do this, they bump the loudest techno music that I have heard, which not only took my mind of what I was about to do, but it also allowed me to have a dance party on top of a bridge…word, because I love dance parties. I think it is also important to make the music as loud as possible because it prevents people from hearing the deathly screams coming from bungee jumpers. It would be a miserable experience if the environment was quiet, which would freak the shit out of everyone.

I had to watch about 8 people go before me, and every single time I saw a person jump my heart stopped,

and it made me think how stupid I was to do what I was about to do. Anyway, when they called my name to go I was in the middle of a practicing some dance moves because I decided that I would dance all the way to the bottom of the jump. They strapped my ankle together, told me how SAFE it was, and then slowly but surely made me hop to edge of the plank. Before I jumped I did a little bit of a thizz face dance move just to prepare myself for the worst. As I got to the edge I looked down…my smile immediately turned into a blank stare of death.

One of the scariest moments apart from the jump was when the workers through the bungee cord off the side of the bridge and the weight of the cord tightened against my ankles. Before I knew it, I heard the workers, who were holding my back, say “5-4-3-2-1- BUNGEE!!!!!” I think just for a little help they push you off the edge, but I took a leap of faith and did a nice swan dive down towards the earth.

The feeling is nothing like I’ve ever felt before. For a long 5 seconds, I thought I was going to die. I screamed so much that I was physically unable to scream anymore….my body rushed to the ground cruising through the wind at 150 km/hr. NOT NORMAL.

Right as I thought my life was done, the bungee cord caught, and it was literally the best feeling of my life. But then I bounced half way to the top of the bridge again, and went for another free fall of about 2.5 seconds. As the bouncing stopped I just hung there spinning around and yelling “YAHHHHH BUDDDDDY!!!!!”….nobody could here me except for me.

It was so peaceful to be hanging up side down, and looking at an amazing view of the valley and the ocean. Since I was spinning, the all of these images were mixed together, and the earth turned into an EPOCH surrealist painting. When I got back up to the top, I gave all of my buddies a big HUG, and jumped up and down for a while. I walked back across the rickety bridge with no fear of looking down anymore, got back to land, went to the company bar, and drank the tastiest, most satisfying beer of my life. YAH BUDDY!

The rest of the day can’t really compare to the emotions of the morning,

but we went on a really beautiful hike along the sea coast in Tsitsikama National Park to a natural waterfall and a fresh water swimming hole. We had a picnic consisting of cheese and crackers, nuts, and ostrich jerky.

What a day, South Africa is amazing. Should I come back to the States? By the way, Rodrigo bought a safari hat, and he has been wearing it everywhere....he's the first mexican crocodile dundee.