spring break road trip! part one (tsitsikamma national park)

Jim has already had his first school holiday! For "spring break" last week, we took a road trip up the eastern coast of South Africa to a region called the Garden Route. I tried a little spontaneity, and only planned out the first half of the trip. We had a great time exploring, hiking, camping, whale-watching, and even spent a couple of nights on a houseboat.

Here's the first leg of the trip: the Tsitsikamma (pronounced "tit - see - comma") National Forest. We camped in a national park campsite, and spent our days hiking and seeing the ocean and views. On the first day, we did a hike through the jungle at Nature's Valley. It was a pretty trail, but didn't seem to get a lot of use (we only saw one other person, and it was in the last 30 minutes or so). We felt a little spooked walking under thick canopy of trees, and got especially scared by some eyes we saw under a bush, reflecting out at us. We've been googling "eye shine" to try and figure out what it was - Jim's vote is jaguar, which makes me very glad I didn't let him go poke around and try and take a picture of it.

After a safe end to our hike, we had a happy hour on the beach. The next day we drove over to the other side of the park, to see the Storm's River Mouth, where a big river goes into the ocean.

Then we took a beautiful morning walk on the beach at Nature's Valley before driving on to our houseboat at Knysna, on a big estuary.

Me displaying a leaf from a giant yellowwood tree (I think)

Forest canopy

Top of the hike! Beautiful views. We could see whales spouting from here.

Looking away from the water, back into the Tsitsikamma Mountains. The gorges in the area were incredible - really steep and deep.

A bright and sunny beach for sunset

Jim had a few good finds in the tide pools. This one is a sea anemone (I think)

A tiny starfish!

Next morning, we drove up the mountain pass from the beach and along the road for about 40 minutes to get to Storm's River Mouth.

View over the lagoon at Nature's Valley. Our campsite was just beyond where the small river meets the larger estuary on the right. We enjoyed having coffee on the riverbank each morning.

The rocks at Storm's River Mouth.

Me looking down at the dark river flowing out into the ocean. The river has cut an enormous gorge through the hills. This area has two types of stone: very hard Table Mountain Quartzite, and softer sandstone. The rivers cut through the sandstone sections and create these beautiful gorges that define the landscape.

Looking up the gorge.

The suspension bridge! I felt great about walking on it until I saw the sign giving its history: it had been rebuilt 4 times, and could only support 25 people at once. But we made it across and back with no problems!

A wide-angle lens view up the river gorge.

We took a hike along the coast to a waterfall. Much of the hike was a beautiful ocean view.

We made it to the waterfall! What a beautiful spot, with a waterfall in front of you and the ocean behind.

Drying a few items in the parking lot after a post-hike swim :)

So many great pictures to share!! Back to Nature's Valley; the next morning, we took our coffees down to the water and walked between the lagoon and the ocean. Beautiful!

Jim enjoys his biscuits and coffee. It wasn't til the second morning that we discovered the kitchen, complete with fridge, hotplate, and sink, at the campsite. We had been building fires to cook our dinners and heat our water for coffee!

Jim always manages to get his shorts wet.

happy honeymoon to adam and lindsey

We were honored to have Adam and Lindsey spend a few days of their honeymoon with us in Cape Town and we tried to make the place look as presentable as possible with minimal good weather.  Though, Cape Town can still impress in the rain.

Here are a few pictures from our day spent driving around Cape Point, which was probably the best-weather day.  We learned from Lindsey that the lighter colored ostriches are the females.   This tidbit of information has helped us out a lot with ostrich viewing--we saw a mother with her seven chicks on our spring break trip.

Cheers to our happy honeymooners!!

This is the view from our lunch bench.

The crew eating a little lunch with a beautiful view.

A troop of baboons that was frolicking around at high tide.

This is a sea-pool that holds water during low-tide, but allows new water to come in during high tide.  It is a really cool concept and allows for many easily-maintainable swimming pools to be built in the Cape Town area.  It is interesting that we haven't seen this concept used anywhere else.

Also note, Jim wins the contest of first to jump into the 55 degree ocean water.  

The fight was a draw.

Yet Jim claims victory.  The backdrop for our pool wrestling match was pretty amazing.

Male ostrich with stunning black feathers.

Female ostrich with a serene, light-grey, mono-chromatic look.

This is the picture that makes me think of Cape Point as stormy and forbidding.

More evidence of the storminess with Jennifer and Adam donning full hoods.

Here is the whole crew out at the point.

robben island (cape town)

When our friends Adam and Lindsey were in town a few weeks ago, I went out to Robben Island with them for a tour. Unfortunately, I got a little seasick on the ride out!! (No vomiting, thank goodness). I was a little too shaky to take the bus portion of the tour around the island, but we did enjoy being led through the part of the prison where political prisoners were held, including Nelson Mandela for much of his 27-year imprisonment.

Our guide had been a political prisoner himself in the 1980s. He was arrested in Limpopo when he was a young man after getting involved with the African National Congress (ANC) while a college student. He was held at Robben Island for about four years. He returned to work as a guide only after losing his job in the northern part of the country.  He spoke a little about how difficult it was to return to the place where he had been a prisoner, but that after a year or so of leading tours he started to enjoy teaching foreigners (like us) about what had happened at the prison. He had a lot of positive things to tell us about the way the political prisoners supported one another - they had schools, political classes and meetings, and reading clubs within the prison.

On the ride back to Cape Town, we got seats on the top of the ferry instead of down below and it was a much more pleasant ride with beautiful views.

The entrance to the prison on the island. The prison is now a museum.

A prison yard.

A yard in the prison. It was incredibly bleak on the island - no trees whatsoever.

A group cell, where up to 40 men would sleep on the floor (see the mat and blanket) in rows. Later, in the 1980s, they got bunkbeds in the cell. The men would be taken out to work in the mornings, and brought back again around 4 in the afternoon for the night. They would hold classes for reading, math, and politics to make sure everyone held there was educated. They'd bribe guards or criminal prisoners for newspapers so they could keep up with political happenings, and would share clippings amongst all the political prisoners, reading aloud and analyzing what the news meant (political prisoners were not allowed newspapers).

A private prisoner's cell, fully furnished as it would have been during the time Nelson Mandela was imprisoned. More important or risky political prisoners were kept in their own cells, instead of in group cells.

A guard tower

I found the most interesting part of the tour was spending time in a block of prisoner's cells. The museum has posted words written by various prisoners about their time at Robben Island, along with artifacts from some prisoners, in the cells they stayed in. I liked this one, because of the positive messages in it about compassion, critical thinking and the value in asking questions.

The political prisoners advocated for greater rights in prison - the right to educate themselves, to learn trades, and to play sports. According to our guide, things were getting better by the 1980s, and they had proper sports leagues. I liked this hand-drawn certificate for a table-tennis champion.

The harbor at Robben Island with a view back toward Table Mountain.

It was pretty interesting passing these giant ships on the small ferry!

Lindsey and Adam, enjoying the ride!

hier kom die bokke! (newlands stadium, cape town)

No, we haven't learned any Afrikaans, we just picked up a cardboard sign :)

This past Saturday, Jim, our roommate Patrick and I all bought standing-room tickets to the national rugby team, The Springboks, home game against the Australian team (the Wallabies, appropriately!). We enjoyed the energy in the stadium (although Jim and I agreed that Michigan football gives it a run for the money) and the beer garden before the game.

Jim and Patrick got to see the national anthem played, which was apparently really beautiful and emotional for the stadium. I was in the bathroom! We'll have to go again.

The Springboks won the game handily. The final score was something like 28 to 7. We're starting to learn the rules of rugby, although we had a lot of questions for the South African college students standing in front of us. One of them had studied abroad at the University of Kansas! Jim was excited to say "As they say in Lawrenceville, Rock Chalk Jayhawks" to him.

Speaking of languages, Jim is learning some Xhosa from Ntombe, the woman who cleans his classroom. He can greet people, ask if they speak Xhosa, and ask how they are doing. He is getting better at the back-of-the-throat "clicking" noise that is (I think) unique to this language and comes up in a lot of words, including the word "Xhosa." Pronounce it by making a click in the back of your throat while trying to say "kho-sa."  Ntombe is proud of his progress; he's trying to teach me as he goes, but I haven't improved much.

Enjoying a brew with Table Mountain behind us. The stadium sits at the foot of the back side of Table Mountain, so the views are beautiful.

Jim and Patrick both proudly wear their "Boks" gear

The stadium! We think it seats around 40,000.

Action shot! I think the Springboks have just scored a "try," worth 5 points.