SPRING BREAK! :)

Ok, so I know there is only spring break in spring semester but im going to call it that anyway. Mauritius WAS spring break. And it was amazing! The first night a group of us got a villa. My roommate Kristen booked it and me and my friends tagged a long – worked out perfectly! It was right on the beach and the villa was so nice! We spent most of the day in the water and hanging out at the beach and having a great time. It was so nice just having a break and relaxing and enjoying everything! :)

That night we went out to a bar called Banana bar .. or Banana. It was really fun there were a lot of SASers there and we all just danced and enjoyed the night. The rest of the night we spent hanging out at the villa and ended up running into Lax. Who actually got kicked off of SAS… so unfair!! Anyway we chilled basically for the rest of the night and a few of us all stayed up all night for the sunrise. It was so beautiful .. we were singing and dancing .. living in the moment. :)
The next day we had a catamaran booked. OMG best idea ever!!! If you do SAS get a catamaran. It was crazy and so much fun!! we went to Gabriel Island and then to a different area for snorkeling .. and there was an open bar! So needless to say we all got pretty tipsy, soaked up the sun and danced the day away. It was great. :)

We only had 2 days in Mauritius so that basically sums up what I did there. It was a great time and I loved unwinding and enjoying myself.

On the way to Mauritius…

The time between South Africa and Mauritius was mid terms time! Eeek. Luckily I only had one midterm which wasn’t bad at all! But other than that there wasn’t much going on between South Africa and Mauritius.

10/07 Farmfari continued!

That morning we cooked breakfast.. We had bacon, eggs and toast. After breakfast and cleaning up we headed to the pigs to get a quick briefing of how to feed the pigs and clean out the pens. All I could think is this should be interesting! Loryn and I got the pleasure of cleaning out the pig pens and the 2 of us tackled it like pros! Haha.

The pig pens draining system was broken so the clean up was more work than it was supposed to be but to be honest it really isn’t that gross cleaning out pig pens. There were 5 different pens to clean out and the only one I was scared of was the new mother because she had a little attitude problem and would start freaking out whenever someone got close. After cleaning out the pens you take all the manure and spread it on the trees that are planted. It’s funny because the whole time you are doing this the chickens are following you around thinking that it’s food. Some other things we did around the farm that day was plant trees, Evan has a lot of pomegranate trees on his farm. And we searched for more eggs around the farm.

That evening we decided to head out for dinner. We first stopped at Ronnies Sex Shop for a drink and to hang out with the bartender for a few. It’s a really cool place to hang out! After hanging out there and taking pictures of the tractor and sunset we decided to head into Barrydale for what Evan told us was the BEST STAKE EVER. Barrydale is a really small town so when we walked into the restaurant almost everyone there was someone we saw around the town on the first day. We had so much fun that night!! The stake was good and it was really fun hanging out with the locals! We met Jason, Matthew and Andrew. Jason was our waiter and he was so nice.. and Matthew had the same birthday as me!! And Andrew was into climbing. .. they all remind me of some of my friends back home :P If you’re reading this guys I had so much fun meeting you and wish we could of hung out longer!

Ok I’m gonna cut the blog short of SA.. I’m actually arriving to India in 2 days :D So I need to write a blurb on Mauritius before then! To sum up the rest of the time in SA .. the next morning we headed back to Cape Town and spent the last few hours out wandering the waterfront.

10/6 – Farmfari!!!

Ok so the adventure begins!! Evan picked us up at the water front and we were on our way!! Damien decided to stay behind so it was Loryn, Ariel and I. Evans farm was about 3 hours from Cape Town and it was in Sanbona Wildlife Reserve. Along the way we stopped in a town called Barrydale and got our dinner for the night at the butcher shop which was some yummy lamb and sausage. South African LOVE there meat!! After stopping there we stopped up the street at the grocery store for a few things and at a black smiths shop just so we could see what it looks like.

We headed towards Sanbona and stopped at a place called Ronnies Sex Shop which is a restaurant/bar that by the looks of it is in the middle of nowhere!! But it was really cool the inside has bars and underwear hanging everywhere that had been left behind by tourists over the years. We grabbed lunch there before headed to the farm. On the sign at the front gate it said “Danger: Wild Animals - Entry at OWN risk.” When I saw that I got so excited!! I didn’t expect it to be actually INSIDE the game reserve!! Evan was telling us that there are only about 3 private properties in the reserve, his being one of them.

When we first arrived we took a little detour and Evan showed us a dead giraffe in the middle of one of the roads .. we all were about to get out of the truck to check it out and Evan said “wait. If you see a lion don’t move. OK lets go!” haha. We all got a laugh out of that! After taking a look at it we headed to Evans house. His house is surrounded by 2 gates and 1 is an electrical gate to keep everything out.

When we got to his house we all cleaned his house. After sweeping and mopping we headed out on a safari!! The roads were all bumpy dirt roads. I wasn’t really sure what to expect. We drove around for a while, all of us with our eyes wide open ready to spot anything! After a short time Evan stopped his truck and hopped out. He noticed some elephant footprints on the road and there were fresh droppings along the road too. The elephants were close by! We drove in the direction of the foot prints and stopped at a lookout post to see what we could see. We were all really quite just looking into the trees in the distance and all of the sudden we saw movement! We all hopped back in his truck and made out way in that direction. And there they were! ELEPHANTS :) there were a few of them, 1 adult and 2 younger ones and they were so close to the truck. We sat there and watched them eat for a while. It was so cool!

While we were on our way on the search for the next animals, Evan pointed out places where things happened to him. Like there was this one spot where he had a standoff with a lion when he was on horseback. It was only a short time before we stumbled across our next sight. There was a big family of giraffes all eating from a tree a short distance away from the car. Giraffes are very skittish and can be pretty aggressive so we had to be very quite while we were watching them even though they could hear us and would look straight at us when we weren’t making a sound! There were 6 giraffes total, 1 adult male, 2 adult females and 3 younger giraffes. The adult male was SO huge we didn’t see him at first then his head just popped up behind a tree as he began to walk to the other side of it. They are such beautiful animals! As we drove back toward Evans farm we saw a lot of antelope and some rhinos in the far distance.

When we arrived back to the farm Evan showed us around some more. We met all the piggies and saw where the chickens stayed at night. On his farm he has free range chickens that spend the day outside and then at night they know to go back into the coop and the gates locked to protect from animals that could break in. We also had a little egg scavenger hunt and tried to find all the chicken nests and the eggs for breakfast the next morning. :) that night we had braai which is the Afrikaans word for barbecue.. we had our lambs and sausages which were so yummy! After dinner we all went out and sat under the stars for a long time. It was so dark and you could see so many stars! You could even see the milky way! There were a lot of satellites too and shooting stars. While we were out looking at the stars you could hear animals walking around in the distance outside of the fence.

Heyy..

I'll finish the rest of my update for South Africa and my farmfari adventures after Mauritius. We dock in 6 hours!!! yayyy :)

10/05 Township School & Kids :)

The next morning Loryn, Arial and I got up bright and early to head on a service project with our friend Sarah. She set up a project with a local agency to help at a school in a nearby township. We headed out around 830 to the office which was actually right near where the poetry meeting was last night. Our project was to paint the school yard walls. They were a very boring white color and we painted them a bright yellow to help liven it up a bit. It looked so much better afterwards! It took about 2 hours for us to paint all of the walls.

Our reward was to spend time with the kids! :) We got to play with them and they were so excited to see us – all bright eyed!!! When you greet the children, if they are shy or hesitant you are supposed to hold out your thumb (like a thumbs up) which shows that it’s alright, and they will touch your thumb with theirs. Once you do this to one kid all of them want to touch your thumb so it’s really cute! We spent about an hour with the kids and we took pictures with them and they sang, prayed and counted for us.

The ride home from the agency was pretty interesting. We went on a bus that goes back and forth from certain spots. I’m not too sure what it was called but it was BLASTING (to the point my ears were ringing) music and they would yell out the windows to try to get people to come on. It only cost 5 rand and it was really entertaining for the time being. But omg they needed to lower that music!!

The first thing we had on our mind was FOOOD when we go back since we all missed breakfast. We stopped at a place and grabbed some pizza then attempted to go shopping in Green Market Square. We were all so fed up with haggling though and we only lasted a few shops then all agreed to head back to the ship.

That night we headed out again and stopped at Mitchells which was right at the water front and started the night off with some fish bowls. To sum up the rest of the night it was a long cab ride to a club that had a dress code and half the people weren’t dressed nice enough to get in. so the group got separated between a few different clubs. The one I was at was a dud.. we had to beg the guy to let us in because none of us had a valid ID on us to show we were older then 18. UGHHH it was so stupid. But anyway he let us in and then we were the ONLY ones in the club haha. It was an early night but still really fun besides all the confusions with the clubs.

10-04 / Observatory!

That night we headed to Observatory which is a city right near Cape Town. Loryn heard about a place called A Touch of Madness where they had poetry readings and it sounded really nice so we decided to stop in. We caught a cab and he headed that way, then got lost so we hopped out and asked from some direction and after a few wrong turns we found it. It was still early (about 630) so we decided to get something to drink before hand and headed to a place called Obz Cafe. We all split a bottle of wine (Loryn, Ariel, Damian & I) and chatted with each other and made friend with the waiter. Who was a stand up comedian and wicked funny! Around 8 we headed back to catch the readings. So many of them were amazing! There were some duds but I can’t really judge seeing as I don’t have the talent, or the guts to get up and read in from of a crowd. After the readings we headed to the bar across the hall and we started talking to one of the people who read their poetry. His name was Evan and we ended up learning he actually knew someone on the ship! He knew the nurse Stephanie and she originally had plans to go work on his farm (which is IN a wild game reserve) for a few days and volunteer there but unfortunately she was the lucky one how had to be on call for Cape Town. Well one thing led to another and (I think it was Ariel) asked if we could come instead and Evan said yeah we could! Woohooo

The rest of the night was spent bar hopping. We went to a bar called Dubliners and it was really fun! We met some cool locals and some fellow SASers and danced the night away! Then we went to this sketchy bar called Mercury were the floors were sticky and they were playing like death metal techno .. WEIRDD. And there was a stage with a couch on it.. so me and Ariel went to go dance on the stage.. then we found a guy PASSED OUT on the couch and there were huge speakers blaring right next to him.. needless to say we weren’t there long.

10-04 / Table Mountain woooO!!

OH MAN!!!! What did I get myself into. AHHH. The whole way up I was thinking this to myself. The route we took was supposed to be one of the easy routes. Well according to “Yellow Man” down at the bottom. Haaaa it so was not!!! It took us about 2 hours to climb the mountain and honestly, the view makes up for the hell I put myself through to get up there lmao. The excuse would be – “Oh look! I need to take a picture!” so we could stop. It was Ariel, Loryn, Shannon & I who all climbed together at one point Loryn and I got a little ahead but in the end we ALL MADE IT! :) I was so proud of myself!! Haha and the day could not have been more gorgeous – you could see SO FAR!! And we spotted to ship. Which looked oh so tiny in the little miniature city below. We spent about a half hour walking around gathering ourselves and headed down the easy way, on a cable car. Best idea ever!! It took 2 hours to get up and 3 minutes, maybe even less, to get down!

Township Homestay 10/03-10/04

Around 3 the evening I had SAS trip to a nearby township. It was only about 20 minutes from Cape Town. When we arrived there weren’t a lot of shacks which is what I expected. But instead there were houses that lined the streets you could tell it was a poor community though. The children were waiting for us and immediately the playing began! We played a version of ring around the rosie that they played and other childhood games that I remember playing growing up – just in a different language. We also gave TONS of piggy back rides which was the highlight of the activities.. every kid wanted one hahah. They were so cute!!

My “mama” for the night came and picked me up after about an hour of playing and we headed to her home. It was right down the street and it was a 2 bedroom, 1 bath cozy home and they had 2 extra bedrooms built outside of the house for their other children. My “mamas” name was Mama Pinky and she was so kind. Jules spent the night with me there. We hung out with her and chatted for a while before we met everyone.

Later on Yoli, her oldest daughter stopped by and we went for a short walk with her and one of her friends around the township. We ran into a random guy – who seemed like he was drunk – he was claiming to be a police officer and that he knew all the street names around and would show us around anytime. Lol it was amusing. Anyway we walked her friend home and then headed back, her friend’s house was a lot different from hers. It was actually a home made out of scrap metal.

Shortly after getting back to Mama Pinky’s home her son Siya got back from playing with friends. Siya is a ten year old boy and he is the sweetest little boy you’ll ever meet!! Jules and I spent most of the evening, well basically all of it, playing and hanging out with Siya. I brought a big box of crayons and some colored construction paper and we all drew for hours! Siya is such a good drawer he drew me a picture for his 2 little puppies and his big dog named Blacky and I drew him a picture of our ship. When I gave him the picture he said “my friends will not believe this! Will you write you name!?” It was so cute. I also had my portable printer and printed out a bunch of pictures from the night for him – he loved them and he even drew a picture of him holding his dogs based of one of the pictures. It came out so good, he’s really talented.

Siya definitely made the experience so great at our homestay. He was so great full of everything and always had a smile. I wish we could have stayed longer to get to know everyone more. The father, Waitlord, didn’t talk much until later on into the night when he saw us all drawing. But when he saw us drawing her said “oh, I can draw too!” and he grabbed some of his blue print drawings from work to show us. Waitlord is in construction – I think he is an electrician. He was explaining to us that the whites were usually the ones who got the education and now his work know that he’s the one in charge and they are paying for him to get the certifications to show he has the skills that he knows. It was really nice that he opened up to us and was able to talk to us, he seemed really reserved at first.

I had a great time on my homestay. It was my first Semester at Sea trip. My only complaint is that it was too short. It went from 4pm to 10 AM the next day. Which is not that long at all. I loved getting to know the family though they were all so kind. And Mama Pinky said “I have never met people like you, so kind and so talkative” to me and Jules. That was so nice of her. I wish we could have spent more time with her.

South Africa!!! Cape Town 10/03

10-03

We pulled into port around 5 AM. It was still dark and all you could see was the city lights with the back drop of Table Mountain – the view was amazing! After the ship docked I jumped back into bed for a while until we had to meet with customs to get our passports stamped. In South Africa they have to meet with each person to stamp their passports. Which I think is pretty pointless because they didn’t even look at my picture.

The ship was docked in the V&A Waterfront which honestly is the most touristy thing I have ever seen. South Africa has SOOO much history and the V&A Waterfront is full of expensive hotels and restaurants with a HUGE mall and is basically a safe haven for all the rich tourists that travel around the city on huge tour buses. Needless to say I did not spend much time in that area. It was so fake, not the real South Africa at all.

That day we spent the morning exploring the surrounding area. We found a sign pointing to various cities around the world and the distance. There was one pointing to Boston – I was 12421 Km from home! There were also a lot of things still up from the world cup. Like there was a big feris wheel anda giant red sculpture of a man made out of coca-cola crates. We all got lunch at a restaurant called Paninaro where we all stuffed ourselves on pizza and drank a lot of wine! Yumm yumm! There was a really cool street group performing right near us and they were so great!