South Africa

We pulled up to Cape Town at about 8am. After getting through immigration, Amanda, Jessica, and I decided to get a taxi to Table Mountain. On our way there, a guy ran a red light and hit our taxi. Our taxi driver saw him so he slammed on the breaks and turned away. Amanda and Jessica got a little whiplash but otherwise we were all fine. Not a great way to start the trip, but it could have been a lot worse than it was. We got another taxi and headed the rest of the way to Table Mountain. We took the cable car up to the top of the mountain. Unsurprisingly, the top of the mountain is super flat, and it has an incredible view of the city against the ocean. We saw a little booth advertisement and again, unsurprisingly, decided to go abseiling down the side of the mountain. Abseiling is like repelling, where you are in a harness connected to a rope that you kind of control but mostly the guides make sure you don't die. It was a ton of fun. After we hiked back up the 112 meters we abseiled down, we got a snack and headed back down to the bottom in a cable car. Another taxi ride later, we explored the Green Market and to the V&A Waterfront. The Waterfront has a bunch of shops, a food market, a mall, restaurants, a Ferris wheel, and pretty much anything you could need. For dinner we went to a a place called Zenzero's in Camp's Bay. The next morning I had my Social Change field class. We went to St. Joseph's Home, which is a care place for children. Most of the children have been involved in some type of trauma or have HIV so St. Joseph's takes care of them after they get out of the hospital in order to give their parents the ability to work as the unemployment rate is 27% and the majority are women. Most kids stay for about 6-8 weeks, but some, who need more therapy, stay for 6+ months. The goal is to give easy access to quality care. We learned how the home works and how the employees liked working there and giving back to the community. It was interesting and fun to see how much positive energy the kids had even when they were sick or injured. We spent the whole day with Rhoda Kadalie, who was arguably the most important female during the abolition of the apartheid. She ensured that the end of apartheid didn't mean the start of black male rule. She has inspirational in the most raw and wonderful manner. That night, a group of us went to a restaurant called Meloncino on the Waterfront. Even though it took a long time to get our food, it was delicious with great company. The third day, We left the ship at 8am to get on a plane going north to a resort near Kruger National Park. After we landed, we saw a beautiful landscape that reminded me a little bit of northern New Zealand, but it had more trees and no snow capped mountains in the backdrop. You'd never be able to guess who my parents are as I said, "wow those trees are planted really nicely." And as I carry on conversations about overgrazing and the different types of trees that they have here. 

We had an evening game drive(safari) and a 9 hour safari the next day as well. We saw zebras, lions, giraffes, elephants, Cape buffalo, rhinos, a jackal, impalas, kudus, owls, squirrels, bunnies, a chameleon, birds, hippos, ants, wildebeests, and quite possibly the eyes of a leopard. It was an amazing 2 days and so much fun. Our guide, Gavin, was awesome and knew everything there was to know. We spent our 2 evenings with delicious meals at the resort and were all sad to leave the morning of the 5th day. We flew back to Cape Town and headed back out around the waterfront. There was a bar rented out for SAS students so we decided to dance the night away...well kinda. Amanda, Jessica, and I were scheduled to be picked up to go shark cage diving at 4:30am so we got about 2 hours of sleep and headed out! After a little breakfast, we boarded our boat and went to find the sharks. They were actually pretty easy to find so we got to face our fears pretty quickly. It was insane and so much fun. We're about to ship out now, and I'm shocked I have this written. If it doesn't make sense, you can blame my lack of sleep.  6 days to Ghana!