South Africa: Capetown

Howzit! (That is South African for "How are you doing?")

Part two of the South Africa trip! Capetown was a very bizarre and beautiful way to start the trip. I am not quite sure what I expected, but I know it wasn't Capetown. In many ways it feels very much like California - almost an African twist on the SF bay and Napa. I think I was hoping for a bit more of a jolt into South African culture, but Capetown felt very familiar to places I have traveled to before. After that initial surprise I realized I could spend a LOT of time here. It is a truly lovely city with plenty to do and see. I mean really - look at this place:

View of Table Mountain from the Capetown Waterfront

Even the wildlife is happy in Capetown.

Seal at the Waterfront

We had planned to go to Robben Island, the island prison where Nelson Mandela was held from 1964 to 1982. You have to book tickets far in advance so we were lucky that Lawson was able to get them for us. However that morning was incredibly windy so the boat ride and tour were canceled. We were able to spend some time in the Robben Island Museum which was fascinating. It provided a good history of the Dutch colonization of South Africa, Afrikaans history, the apartheid movement, and actions that eventually led to the overturning of apartheid.

The wind also prevented us from going on the cable car ride to the top of Table Mountain the highest peak overlooking Capetown. So what do you do when your carefully planned day gets hijacked by the wind. Clearly you go on a double decker bus tour!

Lawson and Lyndsey on the bus

Now we have this exact bus tour company in DC. I have spent many days laughing out loud at the tourist that would choose to go on one of the City Sightseeing Tour Bus. Perhaps it was karma working in mysterious way, but let me just tell you I am a convert! I loved every minute of it. Nothing is cooler then sitting in the top decker, its the ultimate one-up to cool kids on the back of the bus. We had a helpful guide and listened on headphones to very interesting tour. We saw tons of the city and learned a lot about other placesto visit while in Capetown. All I can say is get on that bus! It was awesome!

Capetown Beaches

On the opposite side of Table Mountain are these incredible beaches. Gorgeous houses, white sand, and crystal blue water. It was breathtaking!

One of the early lessons I learned about South Africa is that you can go from some of the most beautiful things you have ever seen to some of the worst in almost the blink of an eye...
District 6

This area is in the middle of Capetown and is called District 6. This area was declared "whites only" in the late 60's as part of apartheid. The government then spent the next few years forcibly relocating black families to townships and bulldozing their homes. Almost 60,000 people were forced to relocate - and the area had never been redeveloped, except for a very small grouping of houses. You can simply find huge fields of grass like this in the middle of the city where homes used to stand.

Lions Head

One of the other huge peaks surrounding Capetown is Lions Head. Lawson, Andrew and Nick hiked it the day before I arrived. The view from the top is supposed to be amazing!

Capetown from the base of Table Mountain

Sort of like this view over looking Capetown - but much, much higher! After our bus tour was over we headed outside of Capetown and into Stellenbosch (wine country)! As we were driving out to the vineyards you could see informal settlements like this one lining the interstate.

Informal Settlements

In Stellenbosch we stopped for lunch at Moyo. It was a huge restaurants with tables in tree house platforms. There were musicians, face painters, and a huge buffet of South African cuisine. We had a great time, but were fairly confident we just ate lunch at the Cracker Barrel of South Africa. Anytime your meal starts with a walk through the huge gift shop you have reason to be suspicious. However we had a fun and enjoyed the food. Below is the platter of South African breads (I guess the Cracker Barrel equivalent of biscuits and apple butter)

Lunch at Moyo

We then headed to Waterford for a wine tasting.

Its amazing how wine country looks the same all over the world. Is this South Africa or California?

Waterford Estate

They had a beautiful seated tasting room and are know for the chocolate/wine pairing. We tried chai, salted, and rose chocolate that they had developed to enhance the flavors of the wines.

Lawson and Andrew wine tasting

I was halfway through the chai dark chocolate and the Kevin Arnold Shiraz before I remembered to take a picture.

We then headed back to Capetown for an amazing dinner at Salt, the restaurant in the Ambassador Hotel.

Its hard to appreciate how fantastic the view was based on these pictures. Just trust me, it was FANTASTIC!

Looking at these pictures just makes me want to go back to Capetown. My short time there was just a tease. I could happily go back for another week.

View from Salt

If you happen to be part of the elite few that know Lawson and have the chance to go visit him please do. However, if you know Lawson then you should also know the months of planning he does for your visit doesn't come without a price. He will happily send you a 15 page itinerary with every hour planned - but you had better be ready to work for it. Traveling across South Africa with Lawson's new lampshades was just the beginning...In the next chapter we will start to explore the joys of Johannesburg and the most amazing Halloween party ever!

Andrew looks cool - even carrying lampshades through the airport.

Hope you are all having a lovely week. Anders is closing on the house this Thursday and we are so excited! Cross your fingers that everything goes smoothly for us! Also - forgive the lack of posts from Drew. He is finishing up this little project called a dissertation. Countdown to Dec. 11th!

South Africa: Cage Diving

I have been feeling a little overwhelmed since returning from South Africa. Life has been moving in such huge ways since returning to the states. It has made the whole trip seem so surreal and so difficult to explain. It was an adventure, luxurious, heartbreaking, unexpected, wild, and a little overwhelming. All I can say is that if you are lucky enough to know Lawson and Nick you should stop reading immediately and book your flight. They showed us South Africa in a way that very few people will get to experience. They were incredible hosts - literally every minute was planned for us! It was a truly amazing experience. That being said I am going to have to break up the trip into a few blogs posts since there is a lot to share. Here we go...



This was the sunrise on my flight over. I flew from DC to Atlanta - Atlanta to Johannesburg - Johannesburg to Capetown. I really distinctly remember taking this picture and feeling like I was on such an adventure. Traveling internationally on my own for the first time. It was over 26 hours of travel headed to a country half way around the world. There something particulalry exciting about leaving at night knowing that the airplane was barreling toward the sunrise. After 7 hours of sleeping on the plane I woke up to this view.

After a slight mishap with my plane ticket in Johannesburg (Someone bought a ticket to Capetown for the 23rd but I landed the 24th. Time changes are really hard to understand.) I made it to Capetown around 11pm local time and headed for bed.


It seemed only appropriate to start our my time in South Africa with a bang so why not get up at the crack of dawn my first day and go cage diving with great white sharks!



South Africa is know for "The Big Five" the lion, leopard, buffalo, elephant, and rhino. This summer that term was upgraded to "The Big Seven" to include whales (a few kinds) and the great white shark.


Sharks leap overhead while Andrew mentally prepares to face the great white shark! With a banana!


It is just starting to be spring in South Africa. While it is beautiful weather out, the water is cold and it is getting windy. We wet-suited up, including covers for our head and booties. As you can see Andrew is officially pumped.





There were a few holes in Lawson's wetsuit so he isn't quite as excited...yet! Note the large hole near the neck. It only sort of looks like a shark bite. Did I mention the extensive liability waiver we signed?












Once we have our wetsuits on they packed five of us into the cage. The first challenge is not letting your hands or feet float between the bars of the cage. I would be bobbing along enjoying being the water. Then it would occur to me "My foot is hanging outside of the cage. Oopsy!" Just a tasty treat dangling out in the open for a passing shark to nibble on.

(Lyndsey -far left, Lawson -right, surrounded by a CAGE)






There were sharks all around but we could only see them if they came within 4-5 meters. We didn't have any snorkel gear or any coaching on how to keep from hyperventilating when face to face with a shark. Just eye masks. The skipper would yell "Get Down!" and we would all dive under and hold our breath. Andrew got this great picture of me and Lawson as the shark came by. We saw this one close up and with its mouth WIDE open!








It might look like I am being held up in a robbery. Actually I am just really excited about cage diving with great white sharks!
















This may be my favorite picture of Andrew from the whole trip. Its a perfect mix of "I really am an old man trapped in a young mans body/why the heck am I getting into this cage with sharks/golly this water is chilly/wait -someone is taking a picture of me?/whaawhoo I am really excited!"



It wasn't the best day for diving. The weather became quite windy and choppy. You might note that I am missing pictures of Nick. Being out at sea with a tiny bit of food poisoning is a bad combo - so I wont go there.





Also the sharks became shy. While they continued circling the boat it became harder to get them to come close to the cage. However out in this very blue water we saw something almost cooler then the sharks!




AHHHH! That is right! Whales leaping up from the ocean! Surrounded by beautiful rainbows!!!


Ok. So perhaps the whales were not actually surrounded by beautiful rainbows. And maybe I didn't actually take this photograph (thank you very much animal planet). However we did see whales leaping into the air around 40-50 yards from our boat. It was absolutely breathtaking. It was also so surprising that I forgot to take pictures both times we saw it. Sometimes you just have to enjoy the moment.
























I intended for this post to be all of Capetown, but it is getting long and this is only the first 12 hours I was in South Africa. I promise that will work on my editing skills between now and the next post.


I hope you all have a lovely weekend! I am looking forward to having nothing planned but watching college football!

From the East Coast!
Lyndsey

PS: Dear JMU Alumni Office,
I will be submitting the picture above of three incredibly brave alumni showing their JMU pride after escaping certain death in a shark cage. Please put it in the monthly Alumni Magazine. Pretty pretty please. We toted the flag all over South Africa to prove our undying love for the James Madison University. GO DUKES!

South Africa - The preview

Well it has been a busy week since returning. Work has been moving along at a clip. Also after many months of waiting things are finally moving forward with buying the house. If all things go right Anders will be closing exactly one week from today! After it is finalized we are hoping to spring into action and move into the house before heading to Kansas for Thanksgiving! Who knows if it will really happen that way - we are trying to strike a perfect balance of not stressing ourselves out, while moving as fast as week can. It all still seems a little surreal after almost 5 months of waiting, but that is also mixed with a huge amount of excitement. Cross your fingers that everything goes well.

Unfortunately I have not had a chance to go through my pictures yet or write the very long and detailed blog post I am planning. I would do it this weekend except Anders, Huxley and I are headed down to Chapel Hill this evening. We will be visiting Anders parents and go to the UNC/Duke football game with friends. I am really looking forward to it.

So basically South Africa will have to wait until next week. To keep you hanging on I will leave you with a pretty cool tidbit. This is on the game drive and is the only video I shot while there. You will see two baby lion cubs and an adolescent male lion. You will also hear some really inspirational narration from yours truly as well as a little play by play from our South African guide Doug.

Unfortunately my camera died before the mama lion came into view. Doug was right though - only moments later she came over and let the bigger male know who was boss.

Hope you have a great weekend!