I don’t know where to start…. I have seen and done and experienced so much the last three weeks in South Africa and I am full of impressions. And my diary is full of them too, never written that much in a diary before… So be prepared, although I will try to make it shorter than in my writing book, it might be quite long….
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| Beach close to Muizenberg |
Late on a Sunday I arrived Cape Town, and was driven to a volunteer house in Muizenberg. That was the place where I would stay and work for the next two weeks. It lies on the other side of Table Mountain for Cape Town, has a beautiful, long beach, many surfers, and mountains rising up from the beach and ocean. Quite nice:-) And finally, some salt water again! Indian Ocean on when side, atlantic ocean on the other.
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| Luckily, I didn't meat any sharks... |
I lived in a house with a lot of other volunteers, mostly younger people, and most of them from US, Canada and Australia, and some from Europe. A bit challenging and special to in a house together with that many people (or maybe I am a bit too old for that now...;-) ) but it worked out well. Nevertheless, after one week I could move too another of the volunteer house, with fewer people, having a little more space, and a bit more quiet. This house, however, was situated in an area where the criminality was slightly higher, so housebreaking was quite common, and I lost my two pair of shoes the first night.... Hopefully the persons who stole them needed them more than me. And I am in Africa, so obviously, barefoot running should not be a problem. And I bought myself a pair of flip-flop shoes, which anyway is a “must” living/traveling in a surfing / beach town...
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| Sunset from Lions Head |
Security and safety here is not what I am used to... If the poorer people get the opportunity to steel something from you, they will! (Although, better they do that, than hurting you...) My VISA card was also stolen, first by the ATM, and then by some criminals when at the time when I tried to call my bank to block the card. And getting out alone in the dark is also something you shouldn´t do here. Very strange and unusual for me used to Norway and Switzerland. And a bit unpractical, you need to plan things different when you know that you can´t be alone outside after 20 o´clock in the evenings... Luckily, the sun rises before 5 o´clock in the morning, so morning runs was not a problem :-)
My volunteering working here was through an organisation that supported schools and children centres. I was in the sport program meaning that I worked in a school where we organized the sport lessons for all the classes. In general a good thing, the problem was that we were quite many volunteers, so I didn´t feel as useful and doing that much as what I had hoped and expected. But the people love playing with you, and that you are there, so hoepfully we still could make a different in the childrens lifes. Quite opposite to what I experienced in Kenya, where the children almost seemed a bit afraid of you, at least they had very much respect, they ran at you and throw themselves at you when you arrived. Also, although you met them for the first time. After coming through the doors in the children centres, you suddenly had 2-3-4 children hanging around your neck asking questions, talking, playing with your hair, etc.. Quite an amazing experience...
I also had three days in the surf programs, which means that we go surfing (or trying to at least) ourselves in the morning, and than afternoons, after school, the children arrive, and we play with them and look after them in the water (where some of them also do surfing), and on the beach. Not too hard working, but still, hopefully, we mean something for the children. The surfing went quite well, or I wouldn´t say that I really surf, that needs a bit more practicing, but at least I am able to catch the waves myself, and stand up on the board. Then it makes fun when I am able to do that. One of the days (due to the wind and weather) there were a lot of fishes jumping around us when we surfed, and also a seal or two. Amazing. One fish actually jumped into the arms of one of the other, and he could carry it back on the beach. Easy way of fishing... :-)
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| Cape Town |
Besides the working, there was a lot of other things to do in this cape region too. Go hiking, running, stay on the beach, visit the small neighbouring towns or cape town....It is really a beatiful place, with great landscape and nature. And the city Cape town is also great; Really cool goods and food markets, the waterfront and the harbour, beaches around the cities, and table mountain behind the city, 1086 metres high – amazing. And it is sooo nice here! Of course I hiked Table Mountain (very special with this huge plateau), Muizenberg (the mountain behind the town I stayed), lions head (sunset walk), and I also went to Cape Point, and did a little bit of hiking around there, where the Indian and Atlantic ocean meet. Beautiful :-) Although getting to Cape Point was not as easy as I thought (Although not that far away). My plan was to take the train to the next town, and then hire a bike. When I got to the next town, it turned out, they didn´t have bikes there, although they had said they had. So then I planned taking the next train to the next town (closer to cape point), of course the next train didn´t arrive (The trains are not as polite as in switzerland...), so I hd to wait for a while. In the next town, I though if Icouldn´t find a bike, maybe I could find a taxi, but there were no taxis going there driving to Cape Point. Cape Point also lies in a national park, with a high fee getting into. But finally I found a travel company organising tours to Cape Point, and I could join another group going there. And although a lot of difficulties getting there, it was worth it:-)
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| Cape Point |
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| Cape of Good hope |
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| The African pinguins |
Else, they have a really funny english dialect here in South Africa (At least the black people here), it is difficult to explain, but I will demonstrate for you when I come back :-) They have a lot of nice citites, and very special is it that outside the cities, there are the townships, where the poorer people live. (Small and many “houses” in a rather small area) So it is very obvious still pretty divided here. And they have very nice weather here (At least at the time I was here), warm, and a lot of sun. I barely had any rain during my stay here. It is quite windy, though, but that is sort of nice too :-) And nothing else to expect located as it is....Talking about weather, it is not only in Switzerland I have been told now that the norwegian yr.no provides the best weather forecast. Also here, one of the guide told me that he used it, because it was the best... :-)
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Sunset from the beach where we
stayed in Sedgefield |
After the two weeks of volunteering working, I went to Garden Route together with 3 other of the volunteers and a great local guide. It actually turned out to be two guides on the way back because of a broken car....And they knew a lot about South Africa and a lot of other things too, and knew a lot of nice places (I think I know two of the best guides in South Africa now, so just tell me if you are going to south africa and need to know) We were 5-6 people travelling together on this tour, and had 11 different “nationalities/origins”, quite amazing. And I have really learned to know so many great people from all over the world during my stay in Africa. A long the Gaden Route we watched great green landscape, and visited sanctuaries with lions, baby lions, elephants (We could walk together with all this animals) and monkeys. Else, we visited some nice, sometimes well-hidden, beaches and towns.
The last week in South Africa was no working, just travelling around. First I visited Stellenbosch. A very, nice, quite old city, with very special and beautiful architecture. They nature around Stellenbosch is also very nice, and great for hiking, running, cycling, and with many natural reserves, and a unique and huge variety of flowers and plants. I went hiking and running the two first days. And the third day I rented a bike (A good way to get used to left side driving..:-) ) Else Stellenbosch is of course known for wine. And I visited a lot of very nice wine farms, and cellars. I learned a lot about wines and grapes, and the natural surroundings here, and how they influence the wines, had guiding in cellars, and on and around the vineyards. Very, very interesting.
And of course I did wine tasting (together with a very nice group with people from Sweden, Germany, and Austria), and also wine and food matching, and wine and chocolate matching. Absolutely great! And they are so friendly and nice here, and can tell you and learn you so may things!! The wine is also very cheap here :-) A glass of wine in a restaurant typical costs about 15 kroner (2-3 CHF), and that´s the price for doing wine tasting too (You then get to taste 5-7 different wines). And the wine is very, very good here too! And it is amazing how you can taste the difference before and after you have a bit of food or chocolate, and how the food and wine matches. And talking about food, South Africa has great food!!! This is the country to visit when you like good food (and wine)! And if you love sea food /fish like m, it is great! :-) And I have also starting to not only eat but also really enjoying potato chips (Yes, taste can change, cheese in Switzerland, tea in Kenya, and now chips...), but the potato chips here are really more potato and less chips, and very good :-)
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| Left side driving...:-) |
After three days in Stellenbosch, I rented a car and went too the west coast. This part of the country consists of small fishing villages, nice long beaches, a very unique bird (and sea) life (with many wildlife reserves, not many people, and not at all many tourists. But it is very very nice, very unique, and wild. I loved it. And of course, great sea food!! And very cold water (12-14 degrees). Although the air temperature was about 30 degrees. The atlantic ocean is cold! Especially in the summer due to the wind from east, that blows the warmer upper layer of water away from land and offshore. Very special. Still, of course I had to go bathing, it was a nice cool down in the warm weather. And because of the wind, you dried up again as soon as you went out of the water. And at the same time got some “sand peeling” from the sand on the beach blowing all over you (No wonder not many people were on the beaches.... :-)).
Left side driving went much better than I had feared.... My largest “problem” was that I turned on the windscreen wiper everytime I wanted to use the flasher for right or left :-) But the last day I got another challenge too, because I somehow managed to stumble in a stone outside the house door my last evening in South Africa....and injured my right arm. But hospitals are also part of a country´s culture, which I at the end then also got to know.... Probably it´s only a muscular injury, and I managed to safely drive to Cape Town, and on the nice roads along the coast, and aroud Table Mountain, and back to the airport.
And then, after 6 weeks in Africa, it was time to fly back to Switzerland. The 6 weeks went incredibly fast, and I wish I could have stayed longer, although it is and will be great to come back to Switzerland and Norway, and meet friends and family again, also some new friends and family members:-)
But I will come back, I think I have fallen in love with Africa :-)
Some more pictures here:
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