Vacation Part Uno

***So this is super late and most have probably already read Lauren’s posts, so feel free to skip, but I thought I’d still post it as I’d written a while ago, just got bogged down.***

Well well, I must say, it was good to get away for a couple weeks, see a little of South Africa, and hopefully recharge. As you will see the recharging was probably less than I had hoped since we were constantly on the go, and well… we were still in South Africa, struggling with the frustrations of South Africa. But here goes a brief rundown for you…

First stop: Cape Town. Lauren, Palmer and I flew out of Durban early March 4th and landed in Cape Town mid-day. The trip started out with a couple of good signs. First, due to huge cost differences, we rented the smallest car we thought we could get away with, but I guess we underestimated all our stuff… right away when we walked into Hertz, the lady at the counter looked at our bags and Palmer’s wheel chair and said there was no way we were going to fit into the car we rented, but proceeded to give us a free upgrade to one of their biggest cars, a 4x4 truck. The thing was a gas guzzler, but it definitely made it easy for us to load up our gear and also enabled us to go on some additional adventures later in the trip, so that was awesome. Secondly, I struck up a conversation with a guy on the plane near us who was reading a book on prayer in the early church. This guy proceeded to lead us the 20 minute drive into the V&A Waterfront area from the airport and then treat us to lunch as well as buying us all a souvenir gift. He was a cool Christian man and it was a nice way to start off our time in Cape Town.

Cape Town was definitely a refreshing change from Durban. It was great to be in a cleaner, safer city where there was plenty to do. The first afternoon we lounged on the beach and then Lauren and I had one of the best dinners ever at a game restaurant where Lauren got a mix of Kudu, Eland and Springbok and I ordered warthog… delicious, I want to go back to Cape Town just to eat at that restaurant (Khaya Nyama on Long St). The next day Palmer continued to hang with some friends from home that were also on a trip to Cape Town, so Lauren and I split off to explore all day. This was a very full day, started by walking around the waterfront, then taking the boat over to Robben Island where Nelson Mandela was imprisoned, and capped off by a brutal hike to the top of Table Mountain to picnic while watching the sunset. Unfortunately, we underestimated the hike a little, and the heat, humidity and steepness took its toll on our already exhausted bodies, so a late start meant only getting to enjoy 20 minutes on the top before having to catch the last cable car down! Boo for that, but it was still awesome and beautiful up top. The next day all 3 of us hopped in the car for the long drive down to Cape Point. We stopped at Boulder Beach on the way down for a chance to hang out with some penguins. Lauren used the opportunity to take about 500 facebook profile pics, all of which she didn’t really like in the end and will probably not use… but we were really close to some funny looking penguins, so that was cool. We then continued our drive down to Cape Point which was absolutely gorgeous… the drive, the point, the short hike we did, everything about it. You can read Lauren’s blog for the funny story that occurred at the Cape of Good Hope. Our last full day in Cape Town was Saturday and being completely exhausted we went for a more chilled out itinerary… I suffered through some morning shopping then we enjoyed strolling through the botanical gardens before picking up Palmer’s sister at the airport.

From Cape Town we headed out to the Stellenbosch area on Sunday to check out the winelands. It was fun to do a little wine tasting, and the first place we stopped at was great; the lady gave us 9 tastings, talked us through every wine and then gave us a quick tour of the wine cave. We were short on time, so we only stopped at one more place before finding a place to stay for the night. The area was beautiful and has lots of wineries to choose from, but I’d still take Napa over it hands down. It was fun to compare though. From their we had a long day of driving Monday, choosing to see the Southern Most point of Africa where the Indian and Atlantic Oceans meet, Cape Alguhas, not content to settle with the lame “Most South-Western Point” that the Cape of Good Hope claims. I then enjoyed running down and jumping off huge sand dunes right on the coast at De Hoop NP. We crashed in a nice hostel in Mossel Bay that night before heading to Knysna the following day, which wasn’t all that exciting. Then on Wednesday we drove to my favorite part of the trip, Tsitsikamma National Park on the Storms River Mouth. This was cool because that night we stayed in a little cottage right on the coast and I watched the waves crash against the rocks from my bed, as well as taking a nice boat trip up the river and going on one of the most beautiful coastal hikes I’ve ever done. This was followed the next morning be going on a zipline canopy tour in the neighboring forest, which was good fun. Thursday we headed out of the Garden Route and towards Addo Elephant Park. I’m still kicking myself for not doing the Great White Shark cage diving… I talked about that so much back in September before I came out here and I didn’t even end up doing it, the schedule was too packed.

Anyway, Friday morning we drove into Addo Elephant Park early and let’s just say that it was appropriately named… we had front row seats from our car to observe elephants splashing themselves at a watering hole, baby elephants wrestling and even a stampede of elephants coming out of the trees and marching right past our car. It was awesome, and I think Lauren got about 1 million pictures of it, so hopefully there will be some good ones. That afternoon we drove off to East London where Palmer and her sister were catching an early flight back to Lily. As for Lauren and I, the trip continued… (onto part two). Oh, and I guess that wasn’t too brief… but like I said, we did a lot!