The Travelers Clinic

This coming weekend is the beginning of Spring Break/Easter Break here in South Africa, so beginning Thursday night, we have 12 days to do whatever we want!  A group of eight other people and myself have decided to travel to Victoria Falls on the border of Zambia and Zimbabwe!  Although I dont want to give away too much about the trip before it happens (mostly so my parents arnt worried sick about me-sorry mom and dad ;) Victoria Falls is one of the natural 7 wonders on the world, and it looks beyond amazing from what I have seen in videos and pictures.
Anyways, back to the point of this post, today, myself and six others going on the trip needed to take a short adventure to get our Yellow Fever vaccinations and malaria pills because for the places we are going, they are necessary.  We all piled into a little Volkswagen hatch back one of my German friends, Eugen, rented for the semester, and went across town to a travel clinic that was recommended to us.  The very first thing I thought when I walked into the clinic was, alright, this is not like America! haha It was more like a pharmacy with one little office where they gave vaccinations.  There were no doctors, just nurses, but not even what we picture when we think of nurses.  In South Africa, nurses dont wear scrubs, they wear almost  military looking shirts, with stripes on them and puffed out shoulder pads.  Its kind of hard to explain, but I literally thought of a sort of laid back military shirt when I saw them.  The lady, who I am thinking was Afrikaans, that helped us was so extremely nice and also very interested in us.  As usual here in South Africa, it is very clear we are not from this continent, so she instantly had lots of questions for us.  While she was giving me my yellow fever shot, she asked my what my major was.  I obviously answered with Political Science and Law and she proceeded to ask me what the South African reaction to that was.  At first I didnt know quite what she meant.  When she elaborated, she told me that not only is it not common to have women study political science, but that in South Africa, political science was a "frowned upon" major.  This was strange to me, but I think maybe she meant being involved in government is very unfavorable here and that women are not as involved here as other parts of the world.  She then asked me what it was like to be that type of major in America, and I said not only was it pretty popular, but that a very large majority of women were getting more and more into politics.  She found this interesting.  She then asked me what I though of President Obama (we get that a lot here) and I gave her my opinion.  She then expressed her frustration about the government of South Africa, stating that she dislike the Apartheid, but that she also felt the current government is also failing.  She told me that she was so annoyed because people hate the way things are currently going but they wont vote for anyone different, and thus, nothing ever changes!  Overall, it was very interesting to meet such an interesting person and see what a foreign clinic is like.  Just an interesting experience!  

Stellenbosh Wine Tasting

On Saturday night, we trekked a short distance outside of Cape Town to an small city called Stellenbosh.  It is world renounced for wine tasting and its vineyards.  We visited two winery's, Neil Ellis and Camberely, both of which were extremely nice, hospitable, beautiful, and reasonable.  To taste 8 wines at each, it was R25, so about $3!  We also ordered a meat and cheese tray at Neil Ellis, and it was so DELICIOUS! The wine was defiantly good, and it was interesting to try all of the different types as well as learn about how the wines were made, how long they were aged and the history behind the different wines.  Overall, we had a really good time, just laughing, tasting wine and hanging out with each other!

The Cape of Good Hope

On our last night in Cape Town, we visited The Cape of Good Hope near sunset.  We hadn't planned on visiting at sunset, but I am sure glad it turned out that way!  The Cape of Good Hope had always been a place I wanted to visit, and it truly was an amazing place.  The beach was beautiful, the sunset was perfect and just being in such a cool location was amazing.

Boulder Bay Penguin Colony

Nesting!

Just outside of Cape Town, in a tiny little town, there is an established colony of South African Penguins, or Jackass Penguins as they are sometimes called because of their absurd braying like donkeys.  The colony we viewed is not just the only one, there are colonies all down the coast from Cape Town to the Cape of Good Hope, but this one is set up for viewing through a national park.  They were such cute, but also strange animals and we had a good time  just watching them play, make strange noises and dig their nests as well.

 

Cape Town!

Bruce!

There are so many amazing things to talk about that I dont even know where to begin!  This weekend was a four day weekend off school, so on Wednesday night at about 7 myself and 7 other friend took off for Cape Town!  We rented an awesome Volkswagen Micro bus that we named Bruce!  Overall, the bus idea was great, because not only did it have plenty of room, but it was such a fun time driving it around!  Since it was already dark when we left, and several people in the group wanted to bungy jump off the worlds highest bungy jump, located in Tsitsikamma Falls, we drove just two and half hours and spent the night at a nice little backpacker there.  The hostel was nice, but right away the owner warned us about Baboons in the early morning, and that they WOULD try to get inside the hostel, and that we needed to keep all the windows and doors locked.  Thus far, I have not had a great experience with monkeys here in South Africa, so, to be honest, Baboons scare me.  They are NOT little animals!  All night, I felt uneasy, like for some reason, something wasnt right.  Sure enough, at about 6:45 in the morning I was laying away, uneasy, when I heard something moving outside the window and suddenly all the glass shattered!  I screamed, woke up Elizabeth, who shared a room with me, and we got the heck out!  A Baboon had tried to crack open our window and get inside and in the process not only scared every one in the hostel half to death but also broke the entire window.  I dont think I will ever forget this experience, but I have to say, I am not surprised in the least.  After "the Baboon incident" we all were too wide awake and shocked to get back to sleep, so we stayed up, and watched and listened to the Baboons.  They were on the roof, the deck, attempting to get back in the broken window and all over outside.  We also decided that "blame it on the Babs" was an appropriate saying for the weekend.
After about half the group bungy jumped, we were finally headed to Cape Town!  The highway that runs from Port Elizabeth to Cape Town is referred to as "The Garden Route" and its just winding, beautiful scenery all the way there, so even though it was a long car ride, I was completely occupied the entire time.  I even drove for a few hours, and I have to say, Im pretty proud.  Its strange driving on the opposite side of the car, on the opposite side of the road, with crazy driving conditions AND driving a stick shift.  Pretty cool experience though.
As we were first entering the outskirts of Cape Town, the scenery was beautiful but I was mostly distracted by  the miles and miles of townships.  From the time we began to enter Cape Town, until we actually reached the downtown part of the city, all we were passing were makeshift colored tin shacks with homemade electricity poles sticking up out of the shacks everywhere.  This went on for miles and I was honestly beginning to wonder if it was ever going to end.  As excited as I was to be in Cape Town, this was a sad way to begin.
We staying in a pretty big hostel on what is known to be the "party" street of Cape Town, Long Street.  This is a bustling , busy, bar filled, touristy street that stretches on for quite a long ways.  Everything was extremely loud on the street and inside our hostel as well, since there was a live jazz band playing downstairs until nearly 4am each night.  We were all so tired from traveling though, that it didnt even matter how loud it was, we were out right away!
The very first full day we were in Cape Town, about half of us woke up at the crack on dawn, literally, to climb Table Mountain.  Just as we started to climb, the sun was rising, so it was the perfect temperature, and the scenery was of course, beautiful.  The climb was pretty intense!  There were a lot of winding, vertical rock staircases that were defiantly a challenge.  The climb was defiantly a work out!  It took the four of us about an hour and a half to make the climb, and when we got to the top, the view was absolutely breathtaking.

 We spent about 45 minutes at the top, just taking in the view, meeting other international travelers, look around, taking pictures and eating a much needed breakfast.  We then decided, due to a time crunch, that we would take the cable car down the mountain.  At first, the cable car kind of freaked me out, because we were so high, there was no glass barrier, and the floor rotated to get a 360 view!  It was a cool way to see the mountain though, and it was much faster!

The view from the bottom of the mtn in the cable car

The cable car from the outside

The view from the top in the cable car

As soon as we got down the mountain and to the bus, we were in a rush to get back to the backpacker, grab the rest of our group and head to Robbin Island.  We were doing perfect for timing, but...only in Africa does the van not start at the top of Table Mountain and not only do the Police stop to help, but we had to PUSH the van to get it going.  I cant even imagine what people thought as the police and four American tourists were pushing their Volkswagen micro bus from the 1970's down the mountain.  Unfortunately, as hard as we tried, we missed the ferry to Robbin Island and were unable to tour.  Upsetting, yes, but life goes on.  Instead, we did a little shopping and exploring the city.  We roamed the streets and kind of got off the beaten path to find some pretty cool houses and people!

Parliament Building!

Overall, Cape Town was pretty cool to visit.  I will be back for sure to go see Robbin Island and do other things we didnt have time for.  Its one of the most unique big cities I have ever been to, but at the same time, it so big, crowded and loud that it was nice to be back in Port Elizabeth.  I enjoyed my time, especially at Table Mountain, and overall, it was a fun, interesting experience!  

Dont Let the Bed Bugs Bite....LITERALLY.

The highest bungy jump in the world!

Sarah & Anna before their jump!
Brave Souls!

This past weekend, A few girls and I decided to take a short road trip to Plettenburg Bay, which is about three hours west of P.E on the garden route, towards Cape Town.  We rented a car, booked a hostel and we were just getting away for the weekend. About an hour outside P.E, is a town, known as one of the coastal "surf hubs" called Jeffery's Bay.  We stopped here for a late breakfast/early lunch at a little restaurant called Nina's.  They had some excellent coffee, omelets and other breakfast food!   On the way to Plettenburg, there is the world highest bungy jump, and two of my friends, Sarah and Anna did it!  It was very interesting to watch their videos after word, and see their expression before they actually made the jump.  I did not jump, because I am saving my money for cage diving with great white sharks in Gans Bay, by Dyer Island or Seal Island as its sometimes called.  Its one of the best places in the world to see great white sharks, so I am pretty excited for that.

Anyway- we got to our hostel in Plettenburg Bay after bungy jumping, and our hostel had one of the best views in the city of the ocean, and of the rest of the city!  Thus far, the trip was great! We went out for dinner, and then went back to our hostel to enjoy some wine and visit with other vacationers who were also staying at the hostel.  At about 3am, we headed to bed.  At about 3:30am, I woke every one in the flat up, because for the past half hour, I could feel things crawling on me, and biting me, but I just thought I was losing my mind!  Nope! When we woke up, turned the lights on and looked in our beds, there were bed bugs EVERYWHERE.  I think there were more bed bugs than fabric.  HORRIBLE.  So at, 3:30 in the morning, we packed up, got our money back and had no choice other than to drive all the way home to Port Elizabeth.  Driving at night on South African roads, especially as young woman, who are driving a brand new car, is not the best choice, but we felt we really had no other option.  We were all so tired/sad/frustrated/mad that the car ride was actually kind of fun, because every thing was funny, we told interesting stories and got to know each other even better.  When we got home however, we had to sanitize our clothes.  In South Africa, there is no personal laundry mat.  There is no place to take your clothes and wash them yourself, so we resorted to whatever we could find.  The shower, with steaming hot water.  Everything, and I mean EVERYTHING that had been in our suitcases or on our bodies at that hostel went in the shower.  For a long time.
This was one of the most ridiculous weekends I have ever had.  At first, we were all infuriated, because our fun weekend had been ruined, and the hostel owner had let us book knowing there were bed bugs!  At one point, I was literally reduced to tears I was so frustrated/mad/grossed out.  BUT, looking back it was all an adventure, just like everything else here in Africa.  After talking about this experience to other South Africans, it had become apparent that bed bugs are not known here like they are in the U.S.  Several people have even told me that they had no idea what a bed bug was until we showed them a picture on Google.  It just so happened to got unlucky and had to roll with the punches.  I now know to check out my bed before I sleep in it at any hostel here in South Africa! 

Senior Thesis & Learning about the Apartheid Regime

Although I have only lived in this country for a little over a month, I already feel sickened by what I have learned about the Apartheid.  I am currently doing my senior thesis on the economical affects the Apartheid Regime had on South Africa's internal economy but also its affect on South Africa's ability to compete in the International economy.  That sounds really boring, I'm sure, but what interesting and what I wanted to share, is what I have learned about the Apartheid.
The Apartheid isnt just something a bunch of white Afrikaans people made up and decided to enforce.  It all began with the Dutch and English settlers who basically wanted to use the newly colonized land the same way they used the rest of Africa: cheap slave labor, improved shipping routes, new colonies to expand their nation and whatever resources they could strip from the land and profit off of.  Typical colonization.  Along the way, they basically instilled racism and segregation into the culture they were creating while colonizing South Africa and this is where the idea of the Apartheid comes from.  Interestingly enough, "Apartheid" literally means to separate based on race in Afrikaans..
Some of the laws that the Apartheid created here just literally make me cringe.  It reminds me a lot of the Civil Rights Era in America, but even more blatant.  For example, during the Apartheid Regime, social and racial classes were broken into three main groups and were enforced BY LAW.  Literally, citizens would have to go to a government building, where an official would do three things:  1)  hold color swatches up to your skin, and there were certain lines for where you were white (Dutch or English heritage), Black or Coloured (mix of black and white).  2) They would run a pencil through your hair.  If it got stuck, which could imply you had thinker, courser or curly hair, you were black or coloured.  3)  They looked at your family lineage and from this, decided what category you "belonged" in.
Once you were in a category, you were told where you could attend school, where you could work and where you could have a home.  There were countless laws that made it so the best jobs, homes and schools were urban and white, while making sure to push the Black and Coloured to the rural areas, where there were very poor housing, education and jobs.  Thus, creating townships.  It was also illegal to have interracial marriages or relationships.
The list of horrible legislation and laws goes on and on- I literally havent even gotten five pages into my senior thesis and already I am just lost for words at what a destructive government the Apartheid was.  What is also  so different, is that in the States we talk about the Civil Rights movement like it was so long ago, and so to me, things like equality were just a given, where as here the Apartheid Government ended in 1994! 1994!!  I cant even believe that.  Things are still so fresh here, there is so much progress to still be made and it is interesting and a little difficult to witness what needs to change.  Every day I feel like I learn something new about the history here and it is always so interesting because I get to hear it from people who come from all different walks of life.  Although my senior thesis is twenty pages long and sure to be a lot of work, I think it will be interesting because all of the information will all be so new and different!