Planes, Flames, and Hadedas

I'm sorry, in the chaos that is this semester and life in Africa, I have been completely neglecting my blog. It's not that I don't want to write on it, it's just trying to find the time. My life is going in ten different directions at once. What have I been doing you ask? Well, school (so papers, projects, reports, and the like); field trips (I saw a bush baby!!), climbing; running; baking (finally); and all other shinanigans that are associated with Africa. This afternoon, I am going up to Underburg in the Drakensburgs with a few friends, Iain, Jeninne, Tracy, Haden, and Matt. If the weather holds up, which it doesn't look like it's going to, I'm supposed to fly up with Iain and Jeninne in Iain's father's tri-pacer. If not I'll drive up but I really hope the weather holds up.

Iain took me flying last week as well. It was so much fun to get back into the air! The plane is so cool too because it was made in the 1950s and is as basic as they come. I think it cruises around 100 knots and it flies very similarily to a Cessna 152. However, the cool thing about the tri-pacer is that it is canvas. I sat co-pilot and its a bench seat so in order for me to fly, I had to prop myself up off  the back of the seat. The only problem with the day we flew was that it was really smokey. Because winter is the dry season here, they burn fire breaks during the fall in order to control the fires in the winter. Therefore, the last couple weeks have been super smokey. But C'est le vie! I still was able to fly so I'm happy!

The friends I have made from South Africa, aforementioned above, are all really outdoorsy and into sports such as white water kayaking, climbing, hiking, dirt biking, etc. Plus this is Africa, so everyone seems to own a gun (my favorite right). Anyway, there are these really annoying birds, Hadedas, that used to be protected but are now as common as pigeons and seagulls in the US. But these things are soo annoying! They have the most horrendous call you can imagine! So I'm not a fan. Anyway, the guys were joking around about how I had to shoot a Hadeda before I left. No I didn't shoot one. But Matt brought over his pellet guns and shot empty soda bottles with those for a while. They thought they were really funny too and made me pose with the guns in order to show my dad. I think it's quite ridiculous but  o well.

Anyway, I'm off. Time to start being productive with this day!!

T.I.A. This is Africa

HELLO WORLD!!

It’s been too long.

I know, I know, it’s completely my fault. But to be fair, I’ve been really busy. So I’m just writing on Africa time (see, I eventually knew I would get around to it). The past few weeks have been completely crazy. Weekend Excursions, Midterms, Easter Break, My 21st Birthday. I finally used the internet yesterday for the first time in nearly two weeks and opened my email to 250+ messages in my inbox. I was quite afraid! Oh, and, I hit the half way point for my term in Africa. Actually, that makes me kind of sad, so I won’t talk about that again.

I don’t even know where to start at the moment. I don’t think I’m going to write a lot with the post either. There’s just so so so much to cover. Instead, I’ll just post a bunch of pictures.

The first set of pictures is from a weekend up in the Drakensburg Mountains. My camera battery died half way through the trip so I wasn’t able to take as many as I would have liked. But the mountains were beautiful. We did a canopy tour, I finally saw baboons, we attempted to watch the sunrise (but it was cloudy), and we went on a horseback ride to Sans Bushmen paintings.

And then I had midterms, papers and all that fun stuff intermixed with thunderstorms, climbing, paddling (i.e. unsuccessfully trying to learn to Eskimo roll in a pool), learning to ride a dirt bike, and exploring PMB.

And now, drum roll please…..
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EASTER BREAK! Cape Town and traveling up the N2 through the Eastern Cape, the Garden Route, the Wild Coast, and the Transkei.

The pictures basically speak for themselves but…

We found a delicious farmer’s market where I ate warthog and ostrich,

We went cage diving in Gansbaai with great white sharks,

We went on a wine tour around Paarl and Stellenboch in order to become wine snobs,

We hiked Table Mountain, in a cloud with 30knot winds,

We drove to Mossel Bay, where we split into 2 groups and I went to Addo Elephant Reserve,
We saw elephants, lions, hyenas, tortoises, vervet monkeys (which chased us from our safari tent), and so much more at Addo,

We drove to Chinsta for dune climbing, sundowners, and what we’re calling “Girls Gone Wild on the Wild Coast”,

And finally,


We drove the most horrendous 80km potholed road to Coffee Bay (where we nearly zigzagged our way through potholes while attempting to not get ran off the road by taxis) (I actually started hyperventilated while driving at one point), hiked 12km in rain and wind, over cliffs with goats and cows, to Hole in the Wall, and celebrated my twenty first birthday African style (yes, with war paint).

But just fyi, we are celebrating my twenty-first California style when I get back in June!!