Week 2 of Holiday--The Week of the Dives

Alright, let me try to quickly pick up where I left off!

To start off our second week of Holiday, we took off from Tsitsikamma National Park and headed to Mossel Bay, a nice tourist town right on the Indian Ocean. On the way to, we stopped at the world's tallest bungee jumping bridge: Bloukrans Bridge! No, I did not partake in the jumping myself, however 4 of my classmates here did. A bunch of us paid to walk out on the bridge with them while they jumped for moral support. Unfortunately, I was unaware of the lack of basically anything underneath my feet (thin metal and completely able to see everything beneath me!) and the crazy length of the bridge itself. I had to turn around and head back not even half way down. Oops! Those who did jump absolutely loved it! When we got back from holiday, I even found out that one of my host sisters, Raiatea, did the same jump just after we left—and she's only 15!! Inspirational...

We stayed at another backpackers place in Mossel Bay. We were only about 2 blocks away from the ocean. Our first day there was jam-packed. We first headed to an ostrich farm! We took a tour around and learned all about them. Thankfully, after taking a class all about birds at GV, I was kind of a pro ;) I even impressed the tour guide with the ostrich mating call (ok, that is thanks to 'Dirty Jobs' and not school...but still). At the end of the tour, a few of us were able to take a ride around a pen ON an ostrich. Luckily, I was one of them :) It was crazy! You hardly have anything to hold on to, the run very fast and out of control, AND you are forced to lean back the entire time, therefore, the feeling of falling off is very apparent! After the farm, we headed to Canga Caves. We got to go spelunking! We were forced to climb, crawl, slide, and duck through the caves. It was very neat to see all the wonders done by water. Right after the caves, we all headed to the Oudtshorn Fine Arts Festival. It was fun for me to compare it with THE Monroe County Fair. Julie and I headed around looking for the most interesting foods to try. We decided to split a 'Pizza Cone', that it, a pizza rolled up into a cone like and ice cream cone. Delicious! Also, we had a 'Chocolate Pancake.' Picture a crepe with ice cream, chocolate sauce and kit-kat bars :) yum! It was fun to see all the crafts and people, as well as listen to the music everyone seemed to love all in Afrikaans. Fun night!

Our next day at Mossel Bay was a complete Free Day! Jody, Kayla, Kala, and I decided to make up for our lack of bungee jumping and (drum roll, please): SKY DIVE! I couldn't believe how incredibly pumped up for the whole thing I was. In fact, I volunteered to jump first! With that task, I was forced to sit on the floor of the tiny plane next to the open door for the entire trip. Very much unlike me but so worth it! After the jump, a few of us took the rest of the day to relax on the beach. For dinner, we headed to Pierre and Antoinette's house (our tour guides whose house is very close to the bay). We got to meet their 50 sheep and grandkids :)

On our way from Mossel Bay to Cape Agulhas we stopped in Gaansbai to go shark cage diving! At first, I don't think I knew what I was getting into. I was the first one to hop in the cage. Those first few moments by myself (5 people can go in at a time) went a little like this: “Ooo! This cage is deeper than I thought! I wonder what it really looks like under water. Wow, this water isn't as clear as I had hoped...and it is incredibly silent under here...too quiet actually...what is that dark shadow moving?...OMG I'M SHARK CAGE DIVING!! WHY AM I DOING THIS!?!?!?” Then, I popped up from the water and realized I was no longer in there alone. A few other classmates of mine had joined me and I could tell they were feeling the same fear I was :S Luckily, after the first time the guide told us to look under, everything changed. It was so incredible sweet to see these massive Great White Sharks swimming past! At one point, a shark's mouth opened up and exposed his teeth RIGHT by the cage! So scary, but I'm so glad I did it :)

Our first day at Cape Agulhas, we headed to the monument on the coast right where the Atlantic and Indian Oceans meet. We all got to go up to the top of the lighthouse that's right there as well. On the long trip up to the top, there are pictures of lighthouses from around the world. Not even kidding you, Grand Haven's lighthouse is one of them. There's even a plaque saying it's true!

The next day we headed to Montagu where we legitimately slept in a barn. Julie and myself slept more specifically in the stall that once held a horse named Lilly. We felt honored. In all honesty though, I really liked this backpackers place. All of us were in one barn in stalls with walls that barely went up past my neck. It was fun having all of us together after spending the past few weeks really getting to know each other. We spent a day there at the natural springs where we relaxed and took advantage of them in the heat. We also took a tractor ride up to the top of a mountain. The day before at the springs had been incredibly hot so for this trip, we all had on shorts and tank tops and brought a light jacket, just in case of the mountain top being breezy. Unfortunately, that entire ride felt like Michigan winters! In fact, it started pouring on us on the way down! Luckily, the tour guide had some blankets to spare. Julie, Katie, Kayla and I never even looked around on the way down because we were hiding under the blankets! Even though we were basically miserable, we all could not stop laughing at how random it all was.

We got back to Stellenbosch on Sunday (4/8) and had a nice relaxing night at the house. The next day was another school holiday so we all took a trip back to Cape Town. We drove around the World Cup stadium and had a good look at that. Then we took a longer drive over to the Cape of Good Hope and Point Cape. There are absolutely beautiful views here. We had some great hiking opportunities and really took advantage of them! After here, we traveled over to Boulder Nation Park. The main thing about this park is the abundance of penguins living here. They are so cute! I could really not get over them. We saw some with eggs underneath them and even some babies not long after hatching. It was weird to see them in such a natural habitat!

Well, that concludes my 2 weeks of holiday. I'm going to post this and continue writing about my first week back to school and our weekend trip to Pringle Bay that just finished. I hope all is well back in the states! I miss you all!!


More Later!


AB