Wednesday, July 16, 2008

Hukuna Matata!



So, I've been delaying updating our blog for a while now because I just don't have time to make it look good! (summer school) I took about 2000 pictures! But, I figure I better start little by little. AFRICA WAS AMAZING! I loved every second, and wish I could go back! The country and it's people are beautiful. I'll start off with where exactly we went... here they are in order:
Capetown
Plettenburg Bay
Port Elizabeth
Joburg
Krugersdorp
Kruger National Park
Lots of Game Ranchs Inbetween
South African Wildlife College (near Orpen)
Ivys Safari's Ranch

Plettenburg Bay

View from the Top
Bloukrans Brigde
Skywalk to the bridge

About to Jump!
5,4,3,2,1 BUNGY!!!!!
Awesome!
Everybody that jumped and the worker dudes!

Pretty Views from the Van!
Check out that Rainbow! We saw a total of 9 on our trip!
After hiking in the rain! We were soaked!
Wildlife Majors! WHOOP!!!





We drove from Capetown to Port Elizabeth and stopped in Plettenburg Bay on the way! Basically it was our free day! Everyone got to decide what they wanted to do... shop, sleep, do laundry, hike, kayake, etc. Aylssa, Sarah, Toby, and I decided to wake up early and go hike Robben Pennisula and then go sea kayaking. This was what I was the most excited about because it is whale season!!!! Southern Right Whales and Humpback whales were all in the bay!!! It was kind of a stormy day, so we didn't see much.. but we did see one southern right whale and two humpbacks (a momma and her calf). It was very very very exciting! I love marine mammals! :) But anyway... it was funny when we got past the shore and we where kayaking around... the guide rowed up to us and I asked him if there were in sharks in bay... he said only little ones come in the bay in the summer... but Great Whites come in for their huge feeding freenzys in the winter. Then he just paddled off really fast. Sarah and I sat there for a minute, staring at the water right next to us thinking.... It's winter in South Africa right now! haha



The next morning on the way out of Plettenburg we stopped at the highest bungy jump in the WORLD!!!! At least that is what they advertized, but I think it's actually the highest bridge jump in the world. Anyway, it was freaking HIGH! 216m to be exact! (which is like 708 feet (taller than the gateway arch in St. Louis!) and I thought I was going to crap myself. Just thinking about it gets me so excited to do it again! I remember sitting there getting all strapped up thinking... Well, one day I'll have kids and I'm sure I'm going to want to jump off a bridge at some point, so at least I'll know what it feels like without actually dieing! haha. It was sooo awesome!






Monday, July 14, 2008

Capetown

There were baboons! And they aren't friendly.
Table Mountain
Where the Indian and Atlantic Oceans Meet!!! At the bottom of the World!
Lots of Stairs
THATS ME!

The beautiful Capetown
It was sooooo windy! Isn't the ocean goregous???
The Cape of Good Hope! Our whole group!


Jackass Penguins!!! (thats their real name! they make donkey sounds!)
Arent they funny?
Dancing in the street!



Capetown was awesome. It was definatly the nicest place we stayed. It is a very big city on the very southern tip of the African continent. It is very unique in that it has it's very own floral kingdom that can't be found any place else in the world. It is also a melting pot of many different cultures/tribes like the Zulu, Swazi, Dutch, English, Portuguese... (their are a bunch of others) We learned a lot about Apartheid (extreme segregation) that ended only in 1994. The country is still suffering from it's affects. We learned about Nelson Mandela and his experiances at Robben Island ( a jail for many political people during Apartheid).




We also saw hundreds of thousands of refugees living in tents and on the streets. All of these people have fled from their homeland because of war,and most of them were from Zimbabwe. This is a big problem in South Africa and it causing a lot of violence because the refugees are taking many of the South Africans jobs. It was a sight to see! All of the newspapers talked about "xenophobia" or fear of forgeiners. South Africa already has a huge violence/crime problem and this certainly is making it much worse.




Their are some very beautiful sites to see in Capetown! The two main ones are Table Mountain and Cape Point! They were gorgeous. I was also really bummed that we didn't get to cage diving with the Great Whites while we were there. The morning a couple of us got all ready to go it stormed!! And the day before people died because the boat tipped over! So, we decided that it probably wasn't such a good idea. haha, I figure thats something I'd want to do with Tyler anyway.