jo'burger with fries
back in good ol' jo'burg after a beautiful 5 days in capetown. our first day, shaul took us hiking up this hard route including rock climbing up table mountain (huge flat mountain smackbang in the middle of the city - gorgeous, often covered by fog and clouds). all this with a broken finger, no less. we took it slow so my raised heart rate didn't make it throb too much (plus then there was time to eat biscuits and crackers with gruyere and date balls...) and we all helped eachother up the sheer rock bits. it was really great. i could hardly walk for 3 days afterwards (finally starting to loosen up today), but felt really good. who's shaul, you ask? oh yeah. so my belgian cousin jordan's aunt's son (SORRY ELAINE! fixed it) .
anyway, he and his wife eilat were kind enough to take us in in capetown. their house is in a suburb just 20 min outside of town, and while all the surrounding houses have huge unfriendly gates with big "ADT ALARM SYSTEMS" signs, theirs has a big shady tree and a chinese medicine sign. beautiful. he practices acupuncture and massage and lectures at the university, she studies clinical psychology and practices reiki. so they're great. fun, funny, warm.. good times. most nights we spent there included curling up on the squishy couch with a cup of roibos tea (it's THE drink here) and pecan pie with chocolate ice cream or a nibble of chocolate from the sweets box after a stir fry and watching will & grace or the gilmore girls or swapping music. just my speed. it was great and i wasn't ready to leave them.
luckily, we'll be back in capetown and we will see them again for sure. :) hi shaul and eilat if you're reading! welcome.
other things we did in capetown were a tour to the wineries just outside in stellenbosch and paarl. no, i didn't try it, though i really thought i might when we drove out there. i psyched myself up and everything. convinced myself it was NOT a big deal. i didn't even have to swallow at the wine tasting. there's a whole bucket just for the spitting. but little things make the difference and in the end i
wasn't brave enough to ask for my own glass. s'ok. it'll happen eventually. still, it was a lovely day with the two of them, nice drives, nice food...
day three we rented a little aqua blue vw citigolf with Rachel and Richard from England who we'd met back a few towns and seen again on the baz bus. they've been travelling for 9 months themselves, to south america, the us, and australia too... sounds gorgeous. we all drove down the cape peninsula, stopping along the way to see African penguins (formerly jackass penguins) crowd the beach at Boulders, eat
some truly greasy fish 'n' chips, and then making our way to Cape Point and the Cape of Good Hope. the most southwesterly point of africa. cool. also, we saw a HUGE baboon. it was a fun day. good times all around. nice display of driving skill from nabia.
next day (two days ago) we did errands on the trendy Long street and ate our way through the day. out for nice dinner with shaul, eilat, and their friend tina, and more good times.
then it was the day we were to leave. already. there's much more to see and do there, but alas the festival called. so we flew off into the blue skied day (only our second in capetown - the first was table mountain) and got here to jo'burg, where we are staying at the same place as when we arrived. last night we went to our first Arts Alive event and it was great. the tent was virtually empty for the first act or two, but it filled up pretty well for the next several acts. two from south africa, one from nigeria, one from cameroon (the former bassist for Zap Mama, in fact - kicked BUTT), and we left during the guy from Angola and didn't even get to see the guy from Zimbabwe, but it was getting late. I'll be coming home with some good music in my ears. :)
tonight we go to a free festival day and then a dance performance tonight. tomorrow's free jazz on the lake. sounds good, no? i think so. the weather's really warmed up here, too, with blue skies and no need for hot water bottles, so it's quite pleasant.
our plans for namibia (after madagascar) are shaping up to possibly include our favorite couple from canada, tammy and kelly. kelly's committed herself and tammy's taking some convincing, but it's going to be a fantastic road trip and i'm really excited. in other news, due to my MOM's recommendation, we're going to go to swaziland this week as we drive around the KwaZulu-Natal province. thanks mom. sadly, we missed the king's wife-choosing ceremony by just a couple of weeks.
but it'll still be excellent.
oh, and 10 points for someone who comes up with a good story of how i broke my finger. cuz the real story's lame.
some pictures (though not too many yet).
love, me
email me
anyway, he and his wife eilat were kind enough to take us in in capetown. their house is in a suburb just 20 min outside of town, and while all the surrounding houses have huge unfriendly gates with big "ADT ALARM SYSTEMS" signs, theirs has a big shady tree and a chinese medicine sign. beautiful. he practices acupuncture and massage and lectures at the university, she studies clinical psychology and practices reiki. so they're great. fun, funny, warm.. good times. most nights we spent there included curling up on the squishy couch with a cup of roibos tea (it's THE drink here) and pecan pie with chocolate ice cream or a nibble of chocolate from the sweets box after a stir fry and watching will & grace or the gilmore girls or swapping music. just my speed. it was great and i wasn't ready to leave them.
luckily, we'll be back in capetown and we will see them again for sure. :) hi shaul and eilat if you're reading! welcome.
other things we did in capetown were a tour to the wineries just outside in stellenbosch and paarl. no, i didn't try it, though i really thought i might when we drove out there. i psyched myself up and everything. convinced myself it was NOT a big deal. i didn't even have to swallow at the wine tasting. there's a whole bucket just for the spitting. but little things make the difference and in the end i
wasn't brave enough to ask for my own glass. s'ok. it'll happen eventually. still, it was a lovely day with the two of them, nice drives, nice food...
day three we rented a little aqua blue vw citigolf with Rachel and Richard from England who we'd met back a few towns and seen again on the baz bus. they've been travelling for 9 months themselves, to south america, the us, and australia too... sounds gorgeous. we all drove down the cape peninsula, stopping along the way to see African penguins (formerly jackass penguins) crowd the beach at Boulders, eat
some truly greasy fish 'n' chips, and then making our way to Cape Point and the Cape of Good Hope. the most southwesterly point of africa. cool. also, we saw a HUGE baboon. it was a fun day. good times all around. nice display of driving skill from nabia.
next day (two days ago) we did errands on the trendy Long street and ate our way through the day. out for nice dinner with shaul, eilat, and their friend tina, and more good times.
then it was the day we were to leave. already. there's much more to see and do there, but alas the festival called. so we flew off into the blue skied day (only our second in capetown - the first was table mountain) and got here to jo'burg, where we are staying at the same place as when we arrived. last night we went to our first Arts Alive event and it was great. the tent was virtually empty for the first act or two, but it filled up pretty well for the next several acts. two from south africa, one from nigeria, one from cameroon (the former bassist for Zap Mama, in fact - kicked BUTT), and we left during the guy from Angola and didn't even get to see the guy from Zimbabwe, but it was getting late. I'll be coming home with some good music in my ears. :)
tonight we go to a free festival day and then a dance performance tonight. tomorrow's free jazz on the lake. sounds good, no? i think so. the weather's really warmed up here, too, with blue skies and no need for hot water bottles, so it's quite pleasant.
our plans for namibia (after madagascar) are shaping up to possibly include our favorite couple from canada, tammy and kelly. kelly's committed herself and tammy's taking some convincing, but it's going to be a fantastic road trip and i'm really excited. in other news, due to my MOM's recommendation, we're going to go to swaziland this week as we drive around the KwaZulu-Natal province. thanks mom. sadly, we missed the king's wife-choosing ceremony by just a couple of weeks.
but it'll still be excellent.
oh, and 10 points for someone who comes up with a good story of how i broke my finger. cuz the real story's lame.
some pictures (though not too many yet).
love, me
email me
posted by theonetheycallamy at 9/03/2005 06:59:00 AM
4 comments
