Baboons, Buzzed Bicycling, and Bums

Our final days in South Africa were a whirlwind of equal parts fun and craziness. Sarah, Mac, and I road tripped down the garden route, with Sarah driving. Thank god she was willing to drive, because I never would have had the nerve. I hear that Maxine is the race car driver of the Cechvala family, but Sarah definitely could have given her a run for her money at times! After the first day we stopped getting confused about which side of the road we were supposed to be on, and things went pretty smoothly. Our first day we drove along the coast, stopping for beaches and pretty views as we saw fit. We spent the night in Hermanus, with enough time to watch both football games that night. In the morning we got a bit of a late start because we decided to stop at a travel clinic to get Mac her Yellow Fever shot before we left S.A. On our second day, we drove down to the southern most tip of Africa, which has a very end-of-the-world sort of feel, with huge waves crashing against jagged rocks and little tide pools hiding in the nooks and crannies. We took a very ecua-reminiscent photo of us standing on a plaque with one foot each on the Indian Ocean and the Atlantic Ocean. We also made a couple pit stops off the side of the road- one to a cheese shop and one to a winery for a free wine tasting. Our last day on the road entailed a lot of time in the car, but it was an eventful day nonetheless. We got to stop and enjoy the beach at Harold's Bay, and made some friends along the way. There was a car full of boys driving along the same stretch of highway for a while, and after driving parallel to us for a while, they decided to moon us! Those were some of the whitest, hairiest bums I've ever been unlucky enough to see. After Harold's Bay, we hauled back to Cape Town, but not before we almost hit a baboon hanging out in the middle of the highway! There were five or six of them, just sitting around. You know you're in Africa when...

Our penultimate day in Cape Town, we went on a bicycling wine tour. We stopped at three wineries, and one brandy distillery. The wine was delicious! I got to learn a little about wine making as well, so I can pretend to be a wine snob, as long as people don't question my knowledge too carefully. Sarah and I split up, because she and a couple Brits we were with wanted to get back early to watch the football matches that afternoon. Sarah, to the surprise of absolutely no one, managed to flip over her bike and land on some train tracks. To be fair, it wasn't entirely her fault; she was scared by a friend, but how she managed to fly over her handlebars is still a little bit of a mystery to me. :)

We spent our final day in Cape Town preparing for our journey, and I finally met up with Peter! We met at the train station, and I immediately kidnapped him and told him he was going to Table Mountain with me. We bought some food and when we got to the top of the mountain had a nice picnic. The views we incredible! Cape Town really is a beautiful city. That night Sarah and I went to our second World Cup match, Cameroon v. Netherlands. The stadium was a sea of orange. Although the game wasn't important to determine who progressed to the next level, it was still an entertaining game. I was afraid that by going to two games, some of the magic would be lost the second time, but that wasn't the case at all! The energy in the stadium is indescribable. I don't think watching football with 40,000 avid fans will ever get boring.

The next morning, we caught a flight from Cape Town to Jo'burg, and started the next leg of our adventure: one week in Botswana! Stay tuned: Sarah should be writing about that leg of our journey soon.

Katie