th I’m down to my last 1 1/2 hours in Capetown and don’t have anything to do until I catch my shuttle to the airport, so I figured I’d do my last African blog. I’m sad to be leaving, but it feels like the end now. All of my friends took off earlier today and yesterday, so it feels like time to go home.

On Sunday, I did the city sightseeing bus instead of going to Table Mountain. It was really nice to see more of Capetown and get a better feel for it. The first place I got off the bus at was the township. It is insane to see the differences between classes here. Most of Capetown feels like Miami or LA. Everyone is tanned, wearing designer clothes, driving fancy cars, and living in multi-million dollar homes. Than there’s the township where 25,000 people live in shacks that they have made out of garbage and any scraps they could gather together. They have no access to clean water or sewage facilities, most don’t have jobs or go to school. The man leading the tour told me that the S.A. government hasn’t built a single house in the last 14 years, and they have promised to have them all completed by 2010 (like that’s going to happen). It appears that the only ones actually building houses are an independent contractor who has made it his mission and Habitat for Humanity. It was a real eye opener, and I think it was a vital thing to see while in South Africa!

My next stop on the bus was much calmer. I went to to warf and walked around the piers looking at all the fishing boats in Hoat’s Bay. It was very beautiful. The rest of the bus ride was a scenic drive around the coast line passing Camp’s Bay (where Brad Pitt and supermodels supposedly hang out) and Sea Point (where I’m staying). It was a really nice day!

On Monday, Clare, Sue, and I did a hiking and biking day trip tour down to Cape Point and the Cape of Good Hope. It was very fun! We only got to bike ride for about 7 kms, so that was really easy and we hardly got any excerise. But the hike around Cape Point was a bit more challenging. We walked up to a lighthouse on the Cape and then went all the way out to the edge of the Cape of Good Hope. The rocky cliffs were awesome to see! South Africa is definetly a pretty country.

After the hike we drove out to Boulder Beach and saw the African (aka Jackass) Peguins. (They’re called jackass penguins because they make a noise that sounds just like a donkey, and nothing like a bird. Very bizarre!) They were my first wild peguins, so it was cool to see. But they didn’t seem to fit in with the white sandy beaches and warm weather. (I only imagine peguins being in the ice and snow.)

That evening we did a final meal with our group (Katherine, Matt, Shirley, and Alec had already left). We went to an amazing Thai place on Main Street and Avril and I were so excited. (We both adore Thai food and had been craving it for a while!) I would say it was thebest Thai food I’ve had outside of Thailand. It was sad saying goodbye again to everyone.

We all packed our bags up this morning, and my roommates all set off for the Garden Route. I got my hair cut (it’s much more stylish and cute now, plus I sort of have bangs which I haven’t had since I was 12 so it’s quite different from my normal style). Then I walked down to the VA Waterfront and took the ferry out to Robben Island. (Robben Island was an island prison where Nelson Mandela and other political prisoners were held during Apartheid.) The boat ride out was very beautiful.

The first thing we did on Robben Island was take a bus ride around, where we could see significant buildings and see the lime quary where Mandela and other prisoners had to carve out stone. The guide was very informative and had tons of stories to tell. We then got off the bus and had a new guide. Our 2nd guide had been a political prisoner on Robben Island for 17 years. It was so moving to hear him talk about apartheid and the way they segregated the races, even in prison. (Blacks got fed less and had to wear different clothes than the other races imprisoned there.) We saw the maximum security buildings and got to see the cell where Nelson Mandela was kept. It was very interesting! It was definetly another must see in Capetown!

Sue and I had dinner at an Indian place near our hostel and now I have to head off to the airport. See everybody soon!

The main activity in Stellenbosch was the wine tour and that was fantastic! I know nothing about wine, so getting a tour of the wine making area was very informative. We went to 4 vineyards, 3 of which were family owned and really cool and the last one was a big government one where they just seemed to want to get us in and out of there as quickly as possible.

We started doing tastings at about 11:00am, and you can basically just go up to the bar and choose any wine you want to try. We started off doing very good, swirling it around and sniffing it etc., but after about 20+ tastings it sort of turned into a backpackers booze cruise. (One place did have some amazing cheeses to sample, so that helped to soak up the alcohol a bit. I never knew I loved goats cheese so much! It was delicious!)

After the tastings finished at 5:00pm we hung out at the hostel and of course had to sample some of the wines we had purchased. This obviously led to a trip to the bars and clubs. Let’s just say it was a killer of a day! My liver is very happen I don’t do wine tastings much!

We had to leave Stellenbosch at 9:00am the next day, and everyone was feeling a bit rough. But we made it to our new “home” Aardvarks hostel. It is a fantastic place! The 6 single girls are basically sharing a studio apartment, with a full kitchen and bathroom. After we arrived we booked all of our activites for the next few days and then I had a nice long walk around town.

I’ve fallen in love with Capetown! It doesn’t really feel like “Africa”, but the city has such an awesome vibe. I would love to live here for a while! (I’ve noticed a bunch of English schools, maybe a new career change?!) Capetown is right on the ocean and it has a bunch of cool cafes and shops. It’s really clean and pretty and it’s pretty funky with lots of street performers etc.

I walked around the VA Waterfront area and did a bit of shopping. Than I met up with my group for our final meal together. (I’ll be seeing most people, but Alec has already had to fly back to England so the group is slowly disbanding. It’s quite sad! We had such a nice bunch of people.) We ate dinner at a nice little Mexican restraunt on the water front. Clare G wrote a cute poem summerizing our memories of the trip, so that was a great way of ending dinner.

Today, I’m going to Table Mountain. (I was going to do a surfing lesson, but it was cancelled because there weren’t enough people signed up.) Than tomorrow Clare and I are going on a hiking and biking tour of the Cape of Good Hope and Boulder Beach. On Tuesday, it will be Robben Island, and then I leave that night. I can’t believe my trip is coming to an end!

After leaving Swakomund, we set out for the Namib desert. The temperature changed drastically, because Swako is on the ocean so it gets a nice cool breeze but obviously the desert is insanely hot. It was 115+ degrees one day! The drive was very nice, because the scenary was fantastic. I think that Namibia and Uganda are the 2 most beautiful countries I’ve been to!

We made it to our campsite in the late afternoon and basically ran to the pool to cool off. (Our campsite was still in the desert, so we got to sleep on nice soft sand but it sure made everything get really dirty!) Clare asked me to show her some synchro moves, so we had fun playing around in the pool for the whole afternoon.

The next day we set off extremely early! Our truck pulled out of the gates at 5:15 in the morning, so we had to wake up at about 4:30am. But the early morning was worth it. We went out to Dune 45 and climbed the massive dune to watch the sunrise over the desert and surrounding dunes. It was so beautiful! At one point the moon was still out plus the sun was rising and changing the dunes into a whole bunch of different colors. (Probably the best sunrise ever, except for all of the sand blowing in my face and camera.)

We ate breakfast at the dune, and then had another long and hot driving day.

The next major stop was the Fish River Canyon, which is the 2nd biggest Canyon in the world (after the Grand Canyon in the US). It was very pretty, and not commercialized at all so we basically had the whole canyon to ourselves. We walked for about 3 kns around the rim, and then ate lunch at a lookout point.

In the afternoon, we drove down into the canyon and set up camp at a nice place right in the canyon. It was beautiful and we basically had the whole campsite to ourselves, the only problem was that it was about 115 degrees so we were all dying and just wanted to lay in the shade. (They even had a beautiful pool but the water came from a hot spring, so it was even hotter than the air making it unbareable to go in the pool.)

The next day we set off for South Africa. My 10th and final country of this trip. We stayed right on the bank of the Orange River, so everything was much more lush and green as soon as we crossed the border. Me and Avril went for a breif swim in the river, and then just relaxed all afternoon. (The heat was turning us into lazy bums!)

It was my final night to cook dinner, and we were stuck with all of the random canned vegtables and some butternut squash. We were able to make a really yummy veg curry out of it, and Sue made some awesome naan bread to go with it. I did have one major problem while cooking, I cut up the chilis for the curry and touched my face without thinking. It was immediately on fire from the spice. I had to spray my face with a hose, stick my whole head in a bucket of water, and run the bathroom tap over it for about 10 minutes until it stopped burning. Not to smart!

That was our final night camping, so from now on we are staying in hostels. South Africa is so westernized I feel like I’m already going through culture shock. It’s very beautiful, but it doesn’t feel like “real” Africa. We are spending the next 2 nights in Stellenbosh, which is full of vineyards and we’ll be going on a wine tasting tour tomorrow. Then it’s off to Cape Town for my final few days in Africa.

It’s only been 1 day since my last post, but there’s semi-fast Internet everywhere around town so I thought I’d give another update. Swakopmund is a very bizarre town. It is super touristy and also very German. Everyone in town speaks German and all of the stores and houses look fake (like I’m on a movie set or something). It is very un-African like, and it also happens to be the town that Brad Pitt and Angelina came to to have their baby (so prices have increased alot since it has been in the press so much).

Yesterday, Clare and I wandered around town and checked everything out. There wasn’t much to see. People only come here to do adreneline activities. We ate dinner at the Atlantic Bistro with Avril and Alec (Avril’s brother who joined us in Vic Falls). It’s really nice to have a break from the group and do what you want to do when you want to do it.

This morning, most of our group went sandboarding in the dunes near town. It was awesome! The company we went with was very professional and they give you actual snowboards (with slightly different bottoms) and snowboard boots. It’s a lot like snowboarding, but when you fall it doesn’t hurt. (Thanks to the nice soft sand.) I really loved it, and was able to remember most of my snowboarding skills. (I still fell down a ton, but that was part of the fun.) The worst bit was actually walking up the dune. It was a moving dune, so the sand blows around a lot and is very soft. Try walking up a soft mountain of sand in huge snowboarding boots, it’s a real challenge. I made it up and down about 6 or 7 times, but I was exhausted by the end. We were all coated in sand and made a huge mess in the hostel’s bathroom. But it was great fun!

(Don’t worry Mom, I’m not going to do paragliding. The guy running it isn’t licensed to do tandem flights, and I’m not to keen to go flying off of a dune by myself. So I had to give it a pass.)

The cheetah sanctuary was very cool. It was started because a lot of farmers in the area had been shotting cheetahs, so a family decided to save them. They have about 30+ cheetahs there and 3 of them are domesticated and live in their front yard. (It was a bit freaky walking up the house with cheetahs running around.) We started our tour of the place by going to the house and hanging out with the 3 cheetahs there. We got to pet them and get pretty close to them. Then we watched the guy feed them pieces of a donkey, which was a bit disgusting. (The family had 3 little dogs that sat watching the cheetahs eat. 1 of them was very brave or stupid and decided to bark at the cats and try to steal their food. Luckily, he only annoyed the cheetahs and he didn’t become the dessert!)

After our visit with the domestic cheetahs it was time to see the “wild” cats. (The guy has them fenced in on his farm, so they of course aren’t really wild.) We drove around the area in the back of the a pickup truck. Luckily, we had brought more donkey meat with us, so we didn’t become dinner. It was a pretty cool expereince!

We had some nice kebabs for dinner, then most people headed to the bar. I decided to stay at the campsite and get to bed early. At one point I was there all by myself. (Our tent was about 3 feet away from the fence of the cheetah territory, so it was a bit freaky.) I decide to walk up to the showers, and was shining my flashlight around to see when I noticed that a cheetah was sitting right in the corner of the fenced in area, about 15 feet away from me. All of a sudden something ran towards me, right from the same area that the cheetah had been sitting in. Of course I screamed bloody murder and started to run away. That’s when the mysterious animal started barking. It turned out that my “cheetah attacker” was actually a tiny dog. It seems the dog wanted to play a Halloween trick on me. (It took about an hour before my heart rate returned to normal.)

The next day we were all set to bush camp in the Namibian desert. (Bush camping is just stopping the truck in some remote spot and just setting up the tents. No bathrooms etc.) We stopped in a really beautiful place and got the tents and tarp set up. (It looked like it was going to rain.) That’s when our bad luck caught up to us. The driver side window of the truck just shattered for no aparent reason. Then the truck got stuck in the deep sand of the desert. The last straw was the crazy bees. (We were camped in a place that hasn’t had a drop of rain for over 8 months, so the bees were obsessed with the water tanks.) There must have been at least 200+ bees trying to find a way to get to our water. We set out some honey and sweet things to lurer them away from the truck, but they only wanted the water. (One of the girls on my trip is allergic to them, so she was really freaking out.)

After about 2 hours of trying to get rid of the bees, Matt and Katherine (our leaders) decided that we would have to leave and sleep somewhere else. So we packed up all of our stuff (again, 2 times in 1 day! Augh!). We were super lucky though and ended up staying at a really nice place, in a little duplex type thing. We had 2 kitchens 4 bathrooms and 6 bedrooms for the 12 of us. Talk about luxury! I was on cooking duty and we decide to be alittle too ambitious, since we had ovens. Nicola, Ruth, and me ended up cooking for 3 ½ hours and basically made enough food to feed an army.

Today, we went to Cape Cross Seal Colony and saw a bunch of seals in the wild. It was pretty cool, but extremely smelly. Now we are in Swakomund and we will be staying here for 3 nights. (I’ll be doing some sandboarding and paragliding. Paragliding is basically jumping off of a big sanddune with a parachute on your back and then floating around of the thermals. I’m really pumped!)

See you all (in MN) in 2 weeks.