Tsitsikamma & Plettenberg Bay

Our first free weekend.  What to do?  Time for a girl’s weekend/excursion adventure.  While the boys were off hiking in Hogsback and the flat upstairs drove to Coffee Bay, we headed west along the southern coastline to Tsitsikamma (pronounced Teet-see-comma) National Park and Plettenberg Bay.

My flat and three of the girls next door rented two cars and left around 9 a.m. Friday morning.  Steph and Britney drove, which I’m grateful for, because driving on the left side of the road would be very difficult for me.  The one map we did have was not very detailed and we ending up getting all turned around just in Port Elizabeth.  It took us about an hour to finally get on N2, which was the main road all the way to Cape Town.

Our first stop was Tsitsikamma Falls Adventures.  There we suited up and went zip-lining over trees, waterfalls and beautiful rock formations.  There were 8 zip-lining tracks total.  Each one got faster and faster.  It was one of the most daring things I have ever done and was a good preparation for the bungee jumping if I decide to go.

Along the way to Plettenberg there were a few more touristy stops.  Next was the Storms River Bridge.  As you can see in the picture of our feet, we were extremely high up.  The rocks, rivers and nature scenes along our drive were absolutely breathtaking.  The mountains go on forever and are covered by green bushes and trees.  There was a bit of mist that covered some of them which looked really neat as well.  I have never seen anything like it before.  At the bridge we ran into a tour group from the US.  One of the women had a cabin on Leech Lake, Minnesota.  It’s crazy what connections you can find half way around the world!

Then we stopped at Tsitsikamma National Park.  It was by far the most vast and amazing park I had ever been to.  We drove through a winding road under trees and came upon the Indian Ocean.  The whole coastline was unique and had huge rock formations.  I have never seen waves so big in my entire life.  They splashed up to at least 40 feet high.  Then we went on a hike to a suspension bridge that overlooked the mouth of the Storms River.  On one side we saw a cave that I would have loved to kayak into.  The combination of the vegetation, beach and mountains all together in one scene was indescribable.  It is something you have to see in order to grasp the real beauty.

The rest of the girls wanted to continue hiking to the top of the mountain, but I had a slight headache and decided to go back down by myself.  I was quite alright with that though, because I laid on a rock and fell asleep to the sound of the relaxing waves and distant seagulls.  We ate dinner on the deck with a view of the ocean.  I had hake, the popular fish down here, and a side salad.

We hopped in our cars and finished our drive over to Plettenberg Bay, which is just a couple hours away from Port Elizabeth.  Just passed Main Street, we arrived to our hostel, called Amakaya Backpackers.  Except for one person, it had all been our first time in a hostel.  The worker who checked us in was a middle aged woman named Mary who wore a mini skirt and cursed in every other sentence.  She was absolutely hilarious.  We met people from England and New Zealand that night while huddling around the bonfire Mary made us.  I absolutely loved my first time in a hostel.  In my opinion, hostels are much cooler than hotels because of their uniqueness and the homey feeling you get.

On Saturday morning, we woke up and got ready for the beach.  Our first stop of the day was a cute little French café/bakery on Main Street.  I had French toast with yogurt and apples and a mocha.  We even got to eat outside under an umbrella.  The shops were much too intriguing to pass by, so we took a few hours to go shopping.  I purchased an elephant necklace and my new favorite accessory, a boat hat, which is a style I have been seeing frequently in South Africa.

The Plettenberg Bay beach was unbelievable.  Bri and I walked up and down the coastline and encountered about 15 different jellyfish on the beach.  The biggest ones were up to 1 ½ feet in diameter.  At the end of the beach we climbed some rocks and had a photo shoot.  That was really fun.  We had a very early dinner (around 3 p.m.).  I had a chicken salad at The Lookout, which was a restaurant overlooking the bay.  Then we treated ourselves to some gelato at Ice Palazzo, a small little ice cream shop on Main Street.  I had a peanut butter and banana ice cream cone.  It was a great way to end our amazing weekend. 

The drive home went fast, making some nice conversation and stopping for gas.  We came home to a potluck dinner and braai, made by Bruce and Norma and some of the girls that had stayed back.  They had extra food and we were hungry so it was perfect.  I’m looking forward to the excursions coming up.  Next weekend is Frontiers and after that, Grahamstown.  It should be a really fun time.  Hope you enjoyed and thanks for reading!  

The Circle of Life

Nants ingonyama bagithi baba.  Sithi uhhmm ingonyama.  Yes, those are the exact lyrics to the beginning of the song “The Circle of Life,” from the legendary movie The Lion King.  Last Saturday, I felt like I was experiencing The Lion King first hand.  It was easily my favorite day of South Africa so far. 

The morning began with a very early bus ride to Addo Elephant National Park.  We saw over 100 elephants that morning.  Elephants are some of the most majestic and magnificent animals I have ever seen.  It sounds silly, but they really are graceful.  The reason why elephants are often pictured as ballerinas is because they do not have heel bones and walk on their toes. 

Addo Elephant National Park is the size of 1/3 of the Netherlands.  It consists of rolling green hills, blue skies, waterholes and wild animals.  The first elephant we saw up close was a teenage male.  When male elephants become teenagers they are kicked out of the herd by their mothers in order to prevent inbreeding and are sent off to find a mate.

 

Around the corner we ran into a whole herd.  There were momma elephants and baby elephants galore!  We stopped the bus and everyone took tons of pictures.  The elephants were eating and crossed over from one side of the road to the other.  They got super close to our bus – it was so cool!  Elephants use mud and dust as sun block, so they look more brown than grey.  They also have a gestation period of 22 months – talk about a painful pregnancy.

After lunch, we headed over to Schotia Game Reserve.  This is where the real fun began.  We all split up into groups of 9 or so and hopped in land rovers with our own personal tour guide.  Ours was Nic.  He had been working at Schotia for 3 years now and was an excellent animal expert.  The land rovers were open on top, and we were sitting up pretty high.  It started to feel like a real African safari.  We needed to use a lot of sunscreen, because the sun was beating down and it was going to be a hot day.

The first herd of animals we saw were impala, a type of deer.   The other common animal related to deer is the kudu, which have spiral horns.  Then we got away from the rest of the land rovers and headed down a small path.  Anders got a chance to drive, but not for long, because he accidentally drove over a small tortoise – oops!   The next thing we saw was the zebras.  In South Africa, zebra is pronounced differently – rhyming with “Deborah.”  They were extremely beautiful to watch.  The reason why they are striped is to camouflage from predators, such as lions.  When they all run together, it looks like one giant zebra and is confusing for the lions.

Just around the corner came the real fun – lions!  What we had been looking for all day.  We stopped the rover and watched the lion and lioness for a good 15 minutes or so.  I would estimate we were about 20 feet away from them.  The lioness was on alert, watching the zebras and kudus up the hill.  The lion was super lazy, as they sleep 20 hours out of the 24 hour day.  Animals see the rovers as one unit, so if someone were to jump out, stand up, or stick out a limb very quickly, they would see it as a threat and might attack.  It was very important to sit still as much as possible.

 

We were on our way to the land owner’s house for a coffee break, when Anders suddenly saw two black rhinos on the top of a hill.  We determined that this crucial sighting made up for him killing the tortoise.  We drove up the hill and ran into two more land rovers also watching the rhinos.  For some reason, the male rhino seemed to be in a bad mood that day.  He began to threaten the rover in front of us, by making a little charge and kicking up some dust.  But, Nic, being a brave tour guide, continued to follow the rhinos on through to a waterhole just over the hill.  We watched them drink water while Nic told us that rhinos are poached a lot because of the value of their horns.  It was sad to know that they were the only two in the entire park.  When they were finished, they wanted to get through us and head down the hill.  The male kicked up some dust again and walked slowly towards one of the rovers.  Instead, he changed his course and walked over to ours.  That’s when I got really nervous and scared.  He came right up to our rover, but nothing happened.  They were on their merry way and we proceeded to have our coffee break.

After our break we went up to see the giraffes on the other end of the park.  They were also on the top of a hill.  On our way we looked up at the horizon and saw all of their necks still out of the trees.  It was just about to sunset too.  We saw about 12 giraffes in the park.  They are beautiful animals as well – so grand with their height and gentleness.

Next was something I will be forever thankful for seeing.   We ran into about 6 other land rovers that were all surrounding a mother lion and her 5 baby lion cubs.  Nic said they were about 3 months old.  The mom was just lying down while the cubs ran around everywhere, play fighting with each other and jumping on their mom.  They were all incredibly cute and looked just like Simba.  We must have been 20 feet from them as well.  It was such a neat thing to see!

Some other cool animals that we saw throughout the afternoon included wildebeest (from the stampede in The Lion King), warthogs (Pumba!), ostriches (which Bri and I want to ride), mongoose, elands, dung beetles, red bishop birds and the secretary bird.

After dinner, which was kudu stew, we headed back out for a night safari.  It was cool by then so we all slipped a jacket on.  Nic brought out a giant flood light that we used to see the animals.  The first thing we saw was two hippopotamuses grazing on grass for dinner.  Hippos like it really cool, so they stay in the water during the day and come out at night.  They can hold their breath for up to 7 minutes underwater.  Hippos are also the animal that most people are killed from in South Africa.  This is not because they are the most dangerous, but because people do not think they are dangerous and then proceed to threaten them.  The hippos were huge and fun to watch.

The last thing we saw was pretty crazy.  One of the male lions, aka Mufasa, was eating dinner –chomping down on a bushbuck, which is another deer-like animal.  It was a bloody sight to see.  We didn’t get too close to it which was okay with me - who would want to get close to a lion eating his prey?

 

Throughout the whole safari, the group in my land rover was having a blast.  We were singing a lot of Lion King songs as well as “The Lion Sleeps Tonight.”  I have been to the zoo a number of times, but nothing beats seeing these animals out in the wild in their natural habitat, where they belong.   It was an absolutely unbelievable experience, one that I will never forget.

NMMU

Nelson Mandela Metropolitan University, NMMU, is home to 20,000 students, 10% of which are international.  NMMU is the most culturally diverse university in all of Africa.  It was established in 2005 as a merging of the PE Technikon, the University of Port Elizabeth (UPE) and the Port Elizabeth campus of Vista University (Vista PE).  There are four campuses – North, South, Missionvale and George.  We will only be at South which is the main campus.

Here is a link to the school Web site if you are interested in checking it out: http://www.nmmu.ac.za/

The architecture is pretty neat.  Everything is concrete which is cool because it reminds me of the St. John’s campus.  There are palm trees everywhere and all of the “hallways” are outdoors.  I’m still don’t really know where I’m going most of the time, but recognize most of the buildings that we use.

Because there are 29 CSB/SJU students in our program, we do not direct enroll into the school.  This is also so we can get home in time for our summer internships and jobs.  The actual NMMU semester does not end until the middle of June.  Instead, we have classes set up for us to work around our service work as well.  Here is my class schedule:

Monday: Missionvale 8-11:45, South African Jazz Music 2:45-5:45

Tuesday: Missionvale 8-11:45, Intercultural Seminar 2-5

Wednesday: South African Literature 2-5

Thursday: South African Politics 2-5

Half of us take the politics class and the other half take Marine Biology on Thursday morning from 9-11:30.

Missionvale Care Centre is the place I will be doing service work at for the remainder of the semester.  I will talk about that in my next blog.  We will be getting credit for it by journaling and writing reflection papers.

Our jazz music class is super fun.  On the first day we got a history lecture, sang some songs, did a little clapping and watched videos of traditional tribal music.  The music is very unique and strange to us.  There is no rhythm or counts, which is definitely a challenge for me.  Most of you know how much I love counts in music.  Over the course we will be taking some field trips and writing just three papers.  It should be rather enjoyable, and I like that it is our Monday class.

Intercultural Seminar is taught by our Study Abroad advisers Bruce and Norma.  Bruce used to be an education professor at St. Ben’s/St. John’s, while Norma worked in the library there.  In this class we will take a look at South African culture and its history, along with our own culture and how we react to things.  We start the course by reading “Long Walk to Freedom,” the autobiography of Nelson Mandela.  Fortunately, I read this book in January to get ahead, because it’s so long.  I absolutely loved the book and would recommend it to anyone.  It is really inspiring.

South African Literature is taught by this very funny South African woman named Mary West.  She is about 50 years old, just under 5 feet tall, wears skinny jeans and has long gray hair down to her waist.  Mary has a huge passion for South African literature and poems.  Before class even started we had to read ten different short stories.  They were really long and confusing, but interesting nonetheless. 

My South African Politics class will definitely be the most challenging of them all.  Looking at the syllabus, I was a little overwhelmed.  Politics isn’t exactly my thing and I haven’t taken a politics class since high school.  This one is a 300 level class too!  However, after one class session I feel like I have already learned so much.  The two presidents after Mandela have been through a lot of political scandals and there seems to be much corruption in the government right now.  Job creation is huge and many people say the government hasn’t really delivered.  Unemployment rates are anywhere between 25%-40%.  I’m looking forward to learning a great deal in this class.

My favorite part about NMMU so far has been the varsity rugby games.  Rugby is the huge sport down here, like American football is in the US.  We have been to two of the games so far which are on Monday nights.  The stadium is very large and the benches are made of concrete.  The games remind me so much of Johnnie football.  The only difference is they have beer gardens actually in the stadium.   

Our team is called the NMMU Madibaz, our mascot is a dolphin and the school colors are navy and red.  Madiba is the clan/tribe name of Nelson Mandela.  At the game there is one announcer who walks around on the field and six cheerleaders as well.  Unfortunately, the cheerleaders are not as skilled as we would have expected coming from a school of this size.  I guess it’s okay though, seeing as our rugby team hasn’t won a game in two years.  Nevertheless, the school spirit is alive and well, and it’s so much fun cheering at the games with other students.  We all bought pride shirts for R50 (50 Rand) – that’s just over $7!  What a steal.

It’s nice that classes began, because now we have some sort of a consistent schedule.  Tomorrow we are going to Addo Elephant Park for the entire day.  I can’t wait to show you our safari pictures.  Thanks for reading!