An Epic Christmas Vacation

Happy New Years friends! May you all have a prosperous and happy 2013.

For the holidays this year, I decided to take advantage of the time off of work and I went on a lengthy, adventurous, and enlightening 17-day holiday. I joined several other PCV’s and it was a trip that I will never forget. We are so lucky to have the chance to travel such a beautiful country and meet so many amazing people along the way.

We started in Durban, which is the largest city in Kwa-Zulu Natal and has the busiest (sea) port in South Africa.

It is known for its delicious bunny chows and boy they’re yummy! Bunny Chows are a part of a hollowed out loaf of bread filled with curry; and for those of you wondering, no its not real bunny! Like a lot of South African food, you eat it without silverware. Some of the main things places we visited in Durban were- The KwaMuhle Museum, The Bat an art gallery, the Victoria Market (huge tourist market), saw The Port of Durban and the botanical gardens. The botanical gardens were beautiful and by far the most memorable thing we saw in Durban. Maybe we are a bit immature, but we found a nativity scene at the gardens to be absolutely hilarious. When looking closely, we discovered that all wise men were actually wise women. To make them look male, fake weave hair was used to make facial hair. We couldn’t take it seriously to begin with and then it got better…we saw the angle had a fro and a vuvuzela that was painted gold. Check out the eye shadow on one of the wise (wo)men. Hope you get as much of a kick out of it as we did!

After Durban we headed down the Wild Coast and spent a few days in Coffee Bay. We stayed at backpackers called the Coffee Shack and it was by far as the neatest and chillest backpacker I have ever been to. From our dorm, we had a beautiful view of the ocean. We hired a local tour guide to take us to Hole in the Wall about 9k away from the backpackers. Eric (our tour guide) knew a lot about the land and he was really good at spotting dolphins and a even a whale along our hike. The hike was along the coastline and it was an incredible view. When we got there Dan and I swam to the hole and I jumped into the side of it.

Later that night we got back to the backpacker and they had prepared an amazing Christmas Eve dinner. It was not easy to be away from home for the holidays, but I am glad I was able to at least spend Christmas Eve with fellow PCV’s and people from all over the world. Coffee Bay ended up being my favorite part of the overall trip.

As hard as it was to say goodbye to Coffee Bay, off we went to Chinsta. Once again, we had another amazing view of the ocean from the deck outside our dorm room. Chinsta had a lot of cool things to offer- such as cannoning in a lagoon, a beautiful beach to chill on, a pizza shop, and a pool. What I thought was the coolest thing was cheap surfboard rentals! How hard can surfing be right? Wrong! I decided that I would give it a whirl. Well after about 45 minutes of unsuccessful attempts of "riding a wave" and literally getting the snot beaten out of me, I considered my surfing an epic fail. I did the walk of shame back to the beach and offered my friends the board, after watching my attempts they politely declined!

At last, after 17 long and dreaded hours on the bus, we arrived ready to see one of the most beautiful cities in the world, Cape Town. We started the trip off by taking a boat out to Robben Island. Robben Island was originally a training and defense station in WWII and a hospital for people with leprosy, mental and chronic illness. From 1961-1991 Robben Island was a maximum-security prison for political prisoners. Nelson Mandela served 18 of his 27 years behind bars at Robben Island. A former political prisoner at Robben Island conducted part of our tour.

Hearing stories of his first hand experience was very touching and interesting. He took us around the prison and showed us numerous cells, including Mandel's cell. To date, approximately 150 individuals live on the island, most being former political prisoners and their families.

Table Mountain was next on our list. We decided that we would hike up and ride the cable car down. It was an amazing hike with the most gorgeous views of Cape Town. Table Mountain is a flat-topped mountain and is the oldest mountain in the world. A cloud called “the table cloth” often covers the flattop; this makes it difficult to have a nice view. We were lucky to have perfectly clear skies and it could not have been a nicer day to do our hike.

We did an incredible Cape Peninsula Tour with the hop-on hop-off bus we used to get to Cape Town. The bus picked us up directly from our backpackers and we headed towards Hout Bay Harbor to check out the Twelve Apostles Mountains.

When we arrived in Hout Bay we took a small boat ride to the Cape Fur Seal colony on Duiker Island to see some seals. They were everywhere and it was a beautiful boat ride. After seeing all of the seals we jumped back in the bus and drove along Chapman’s Peak. We made a stop at Boulders Beach in Simons Town to see some Jackass Penguins. They are called Jackass because of their donkey-like loud call. An interesting fact I learned is the black and white coloring of a penguin is an important form of camouflage-white for underwater predators that are looking upward and black for predators looking down into the water. I could have sat and watched the penguins all day but it was time for us to head to the Cape Point Nature Reserve. Prior to getting all the way into the nature reserve, we were able to get on bikes and ride into the park. It was a great way to get out some energy from the bus ride and an incredible view. We then traveled to the Cape of Good Hope. This is the most southwestern point of Africa. It ended up being a phenomenal day!

The last big thing we did in Cape Town was the Cape Town Minstrels Festival, aka Kaapse klopse. This event takes place every 2nd of January. Over ten thousand costumed musicians, singers, and dancers march through the streets. Most participants are carrying a musical instrument or an umbrella and are covered in sparkling face paint. This festival started in Cape Town during the times of slavery when the original citizens of District Six were allowed their one-day off on January 1st. It marks the “celebration of life and new year” rather then a reflection on the days of slavery. We saw the first klopse (group) come through around noon and we heard the last klopse around midnight. Luckily we could see the festival from the rooftop of our backpacker so we didn’t have to be in the crowd the whole time.

Besides all of these awesome adventures in Cape Town, we also went to the District Six Museum, V&A Waterfront, Company Gardens, and Cape Medical Museum, hung with other PCV’s, ate Subway and half decent wanna-be Mexican food.

All in all, I consider this vacation a GIANT success.