Photos!

Selected photos from the trip are located here because Facebook is annoying:
http://picasaweb.google.com/sharon.r.weeks/AfricaEdited?authkey=Gv1sRgCJ70qOuTndn-DQ#

The continent is perpetually backlit, so we apologize in advance.

Enjoy!

End of the Road

Day 50 - Wednesday July 14th, Atlantic, Atlanta, DC

We survived our 16.5 hour flight, direct from Joburg to Atlanta, and landed back in the land of humidity and Southern accents around 8am. Both felt like the nectar of the gods. We hurried through immigration and customs just as fast as we could and rushed across the 63528 terminals at ATL in an attempt to make our 9:35 connection to Dulles. We arrived at the gate around 9:27 to find the door closed and no Delta attendant at the gate. There was a rebooking area nearby where we were informed to rebook our flight. Having expected them to hold the plane for us and the several other passengers on our flight trying to make the same connection, and exhausted by having traveled for about 24 hours at this point, I got on the rebooking phone very prepared to give some poor hourly employee a piece of my mind.

I was informed, as if I should be really excited by Delta efficiency, that we'd already been rebooked to the 1:33pm flight to Dulles. That's all well and good, but I was curious as to why I paid a ridiculous amount of money for two tickets (we'll decline saying just how much out of modesty and the fact that the memory might just cause me to regurgitate my lunch all over the keyboard. But let's just say we were certainly victims of extreme price increases for the World Cup) and they were incapable of holding the plane for 5 minutes. The kind lady informed me that ATC will cancel the flight if the gate door isn't closed 15 minutes before departure time. Now I'm no expert on the matter, and perhaps ATL, as busy as it is, has different policies, but I've certainly been on other flights where the connection comes in late and they hold the plane for 10 minutes or so...or longer. Not to mention the random other delays we've all experienced that have resulted in temporary delaying of the closing of the gate door....none of which has ever resulted in flight cancellation. I informed not-so-kind lady of these previous experiences and politely inquired as to why Delta's policies were so much more idiotic. She simply repeated her pack of lies as I became increasingly agitated. Luckily I at least got the satisfaction of ending the conversation with "well thank you for you help; this will most certainly be my last flight on Delta. Goodbye."

With a ton of time to kill, we eased ourselves back into America by promptly hitting Ben & Jerry's, Starbucks, and the Sports Scene where we had chili nachos and chili burgers. I think we both lost some weight in the past two months and it's important that we don't return home looking thin. That's just un-American. Everyone knows this.

The final flight back was uneventful, although we were entertained by a guy who'd just spent a few months in Ghana and told us all about West Africa. And oil spills.

Brian's mom and brother met us at the airport and even brought America-themed leis for us, which did a lot to ameliorate my distress at missing the Fourth of July. 

It's great to be back -- we're glad to get to catch the second half of summer, and shower with hot water and use a towel afterwards, and use our smartphones when we get lost (I know, so spoiled), and have conversations in English that are not hindered by very heavy accents or limited vocabulary. In short, it's good to be home.

We also loaded all the pictures we took (754 of them) onto my computer and hopefully I'll get organized soon to edit and post the interesting ones either here or somewhere else. (I'll post a link here if I decide on elsewhere).

Thanks for following along! (if there's anyone actually out there...my mother says there is, but I'm pretty sure she has to say that because she's my mother -- hi Ma!)

Coming to America

Day 49 - Tuesday July 13th, Joburg and the Atlantic Ocean

We got up today, packed up our stuff, said goodbye to our middle-aged (and adorable) Venezuelan roommates, and checked out of the Ball n Kicka hostel for the third and final time.

We had to carry our stuff around all day and wanted to pick up a few more things, so didn't have a lot planned. We headed to what turned out to be the rich people mall in the northern suburb of Sandton. I don't think I've ever seen so many high end jewelry stores in one place. We picked up a couple gifts and tried to get our VAT refund. After close to 2 hours in line, we decided we weren't going to get seen before the place closed and so just headed to the airport early, arriving five hours before our plane was to depart. After dinner, we figured we might as well check in since we had nothing better to do. It was a good thing we did since between two hours in line to check in and another two in the VAT refund line (we better buy the sweetest thing available with those 20 bucks), we just had a few minutes to kill before boarding (and only then because the flight got delayed almost an hour). We decided we'd basically been in line from 1-9pm. An exciting way to end the trip, to be sure. Especially since these were lines South African style, which means every rule you thought applied to lines was wrong.

I don't know that we're excited to leave as we've had a great time, but I think we've both reached a level of frustration with some African-isms that we'll be happy to be leaving behind. One of the top  two is certainly the feeling of being hassled all the time - I think Brian mentioned in a previous post about feeling like people viewed him as a walking dollar sign and I feel like that kind of experience has only become more common. The second is the whole culture of negotiation that just doesn't fit well with an American's sensibilities about how monetary transactions should work. While some people relish bargaining at the market, it gets annoying when every time you take a cab you have to have a confrontation as you attempt to figure out just how high a white person price the cab driver has quoted you. (An aside - a white South African before the game in PE angrily, and profanely, demanded the "African price" for a pack of cigarettes at a convenience store). Coming to the airport today, the cabbie was insisting on 450 rand (about 60 USD). The fact that he settled for 300 Rand (about 40 USD) after a few minutes of arguing (and presumably was still profiting at that price) really underscored how ridiculous his first offer was. When you have experiences like that at least daily, you start to feel like everyone's out to rip you off, which isn't an awesome way to go through life. There's other small cultural differences that just begin to wear you down after a while.

On the plus side for South Africa, the World Cup really was well done and I think went a long way to dispelling fears that an African host country couldn't pull it off. I think there's rightfully a lot of pride in all of Africa about how well it went. (A counter argument to that is that given SA's limited infrastructure and remote location, the tournament was inaccessible to the masses of the world because of the relative high expenses compared to other Cups. Obviously there's no real stats on this, but anecdotal evidence has suggested that a lot less foreigners came to this Cup without tickets in hand, thus cutting down on untamed crowds outside stadiums, etc.. on the flip side, it was also a Cup that was very accessible to a lot of South Africans, who had special, cheaper, tickets exclusively available to them. Not sure where I'm going here; pretty sure I've just entered rambling territory. Exiting now.)

I've had a great time experiencing the World Cup; it's easy to see how people get addicted and go to Cup after Cup. We've spoken with people from Canada, Mexico, Venezuela, Brazil, Argentina, Chile, Paraguay, Ghana, Nigeria, Portugal, Spain, England, Sweden, Norway, Russia, France, Germany, Slovenia, Algeria, Tunisia, Bangladesh, Korea, Australia, Tazmania, and I'm sure others I'm forgetting right now. We've had meals in Spanish and taxi rides in French. We got to cheer on America not once, but twice, in very very exciting games. We've cursed referees, opposing players, and the fashion sense of the Dutch with the best of them. We saw close to every game live and eight in person (okay, seven for me, but it's the thought that counts). We've taken Greyhound SA more times than we care to remember, tested out the Cape Town matatus and Joburg buses, and gone to games in five different stadiums. We saw two oceans as well as springboks, zebras, baboons, ostriches, penguins, dassies, and all kinds of birds (ask Brian, he loves the birds). So despite any difficulties and annoyances we might have run into, I think South Africa treated us to a pretty good time.

Table Mountain fotografia

This is how exciting waiting in line for the Table Mountain cablecar is. From left to right: Martin, us, Trish, and some random Dutch guy who wanted to be in all our pictures.

http://www.beenthere.tv/ViewImage.aspx?SiteID=28&Date=2010-7-6-4-11-9-PM&ImageID=173889

World Cup final: the morning after

End of a soccer era

Day 46-48, Sat-Mon July 10-12, Johannesburg

Our bus ride back to Joburg was a record-setting 20+ hours long for both of us. It was less painful than our other rides, either because the seats were more comfortable or because we're just getting better at this, but I think we're both quite content to have ended our relationship with Greyhound South Africa. Thanks guys, it hasn't been that fun.

Saturday we got back to Joburg late afternoon and walked back to the hostel, threw our stuff down, and raced off to make our tour at the SAB World of Beer. This tour explained the history OD beer starting from ancient times and was filled with an unbelievable number of comically narrated videos and over-the-top scenary. We tasted traditional African beer made from sorgham, pellets of hops, various malts (yes, those last two were are odd and gross as they sound), and finally two SAB beers. It was well worth the 3 dollar entrance fee, if only for how epically silly it was at times (and two beers helped as well).

Exhausted from the ride, we called it an early night to ensure we would be prepared for the final the next day. 

Sunday, the day of the final, was another beautiful one
After failing to find the local Catholic church (It wasn't where Google maps said it was), and failing to find a spot to eat that was open and wasn't McDonald's, we settled into the courtyard sun of the hostel to get our read on.

The Argentinians had other plans an were grilling, drinking, and dancing up a storm. We were lucky enough to be invited to join and had an incredibly awesome afternoon of Argentine asada  and fellowship. I made the comment that my favorite thing about South Africa was the Argentinians and I think I might stand by that remark. We've had the great opportunity to meet quite a number of great people from our very first day in SA and it's definitely been one of the best parts of being in a host country for the World Cup.

We took a taxi with an American and some French folks to a viewing area to watch the final (the Argentines were headed to the stadium to try to sneak in to the match). There were thousands and thousands of people there and it was crazy..and really fun.

We ended up coming back to the hostel before the end of the game and watched the end there. It was pretty exciting and Iniesta was my favorite Spanish player, so I was happy he got the winning goal.

Monday we had a leisurely day reading, eating, and doing laundry (very exciting). Watching the post World Cup press conference was a good chance to reflect on the tournament. It's hard to overstate, I think, how proud Africans, and specifically South Africans, are to be hosts to this tournament. Nelson Mandela is worshipped here and this Cup is considered by many part of his legacy. The FIFA secretary noted that Desmond Tutu was dancing for joy during the opening SA game and had only seen him dancing previously when voting for the first time in 1994. Yesterday was the 47th anniversary of the arrests of the Rivonia trialists (the trial where Mandela was sent to prison) and the day of the first  World Cup final on African soil. Whether these parallels and comparisons of landmarks are appropriate or not is up for debate, but they give you an idea of how this tournament is viewed here.

Wining and Dining

Day 45 - Friday July 9th, Stellenbosch

Today we made a booking for a tour of a winery out in wine country, east of Cape Town. We had some trouble missing the first train and had to wait an hour for the next one, but other than that, made it to the town of Stellenbosch uneventfully.

The winery was within walking distance of the train station and when we arrived, realized we'd be the only people on the tour. Our private VIP tour began, cleverly, with a wine tasting of five different wines (included in our $3.50 tour price). The tasting took place in their wine cellar, which is the only one in the Southern Hemisphere that is built into a mountain. We had an unfiltered Sauvignon Blanc, which was delicious, and even Brian, who doesn't really like white wine, enjoyed. We had a second white wine, Chenin Blanc, which was also very good. It was a little weird being on our little private tour, because we had to tell our guide whether or not we enjoyed the wine and make small talk about it, which was a little difficult given my limited vocabulary on the subject. We then moved to two reds, one of which was a pinotage, a grape that is a hybrid grown only in South Africa and developed just down the road at the University of Stellenbosch. We finished with a dessert wine and were now ready for the tour itself.

We saw all the distilling and cooling tanks as well as bottling, labeling, and packing machinery. We also got to see all the barrels that the wine IA aged in. It was a cool tour and sadly we had to run out to catch our train back to Cape Town so we could be on time for our overnight bus back to Johannesburg.

**edited to correct wine names -- the Droid auto-correct isn't always helpful

Robben Island

Day 44 - Thursday July 8th, Cape Town

Today we went to Robben Island, the prison off the coast where political prisoners were held during the apartheid era. We took a 30 minute ferry out there and then had about an hour bus tour around the island. We saw all the main non-prison sights at that point, including the church and cemetery from when the island served as a leper colony as well as the limestone quarry where Nelson Mandela worked. Our bus tour guide, Kent, was quite the colorful character and we enjoyed his narration.

After the bus tour, we got a tour of the prison from a former prisoner. I realized that he hadn't even been born when Mandela was first imprisoned, which did more than anything to underscore the absurd amount of time Mandela was in prison an highlight how long Mama arduous the struggle against apartheid was. We saw the larger communal cells (including the cell of our guide), the courtyard where they played games and where Mandela buried the manuscript of his autobiography which I'm currently reading, and the building with single cells used for those considered to be dangerous among the leadership. There we saw the cell where Mandela spent 18 of his 30 years in prison.

It was a very interesting experience especially to be led around by a former prisoner. Our guide had left South Africa to get military training in Angola to resist the apartheid regime and was arrested when he returned to the country. He was imprisoned and tortured for 6 months in Johannesburg before being tried and sentenced to seven years (I think...) on Robben Island.

The ferry was delayed coming back, so we didn't have time to do much else before returning to the hostel. We did make a quick walk up to see the stadium, but weren't allowed to get very close, so didn't see that much.

Imma climb that there mountain

Day 42, Tuesday July 6th, Cape Town

Our internet dealings the day before had told us it would almost certainly rain on Tuesday, so we sadly pushed hiking back another day. As we slowly got moving late morning, Martin found us to say they were going to the mountain today and we could hitch a ride. Considering we could have spent quite a bit of money just getting there and back, we quickly agreed. Plus those kids really are a ton of fun.

The rain held off all day and we convinced Martin and Trish to climb the mountain with us instead of taking the cable car up. Martin agreed and Trish said nothing, so off we went. She grew to regret her silence.

I'm not going to lie, the hike was pretty difficult. Although I guess I haven't done anything more strenuous than walking for six weeks, so maybe I'm not the best source. It's about 1000 meters increase in elevation and the hike is more or less straight up the freaking mountain. I think Trish immediately regretted agreeing to such a strenuous time, made easier, for us at least, by the fact that Martin kept giving her an incredibly hard time about everything. And the two of us as well, when the moment struck him. Luckily we still found it all hilarious and there's no better person to have with you on a tough hike than someone who just talks non-stop.

It took about two hours to get to the top, and we were going along at a pretty good clip. It was freezing and windy at the top, but the views really were fantastic. And we saw some weird weird animal called a dassie. Very odd. And by very odd, I mean very ugly.

We got some hot drinks and, with it getting colder and the sun going down (and our legs aching), we made a group decision that it was okay to take the cable car down instead of hiking. It took about one minute to get down. It was so fast it was almost depressing. But the views were great and we took a bunch of funny photos for free while in line with two crazy Dutchmen (find them at beenthere.tv. I haven't been able to get to the site myself yet, so if they're as bad as I remember them, just tell me you couldn't find them).

We headed to the store to get more food and returned to the hostel for more domestic living. We caught the semi between Uruguay and the Netherlands at the hostel - the game was in Cape Town and we'd thought about going to the fan fest downtown for the atmosphere. Unfortunately, the ticket station was closed at our station and we headed back to the hostel. There we learned that you simply buy a ticket at the end of your trip...which is weird. By that point though, we'd already walked back to the hostel and resigned ourselves to being warm for the rest of the night so decided not to venture out. It was a fun game to watch, but I was pulling for Uruguay (okay mainly just Diego Forlan, my favorite non-US player from the very beginning of the tourney), so I was a little disappointed.

We were planning on hrading down the Cape peninsula the next day, with its charming fishing towns, penguin colony (seriously), and the Cape of Good Hope. We were probably going to have to pay a fortune in cabs since both the penguins and Cape are inaccessible by train, so were pretty excited when Martin and Trish invited us to tag along with them again.

Pics from V&A Waterfront

History and beaches

Day 41 - Monday July 5th, Cape Town

We had grand plans to hike up and down Table Mountain (about 5 hours roundtrip...rather than take the cablecar up for the views), but awoke to a very grey sky. Other hostel guests said it would probably rain, so we nixed that idea. Other than the downside of getting wet, the entire (or at least most of) the motivation for hiking the mountain were the incredible views from the summit - getting there to find the sights obstructed by clouds/fog didn't sound that awesome.

We decided to postpone the hike by a day and instead took the train downtown (about 1 USD one way per person...transport troubles solved. As long as we traveled between 7am and 6pm when the train was considered safe). We headed to the District 6 museum, located in, believe it or not, the historic District 6 in Johannesburg. This was one of the more famous areas affected by government legislation during the apartheid era that would classify sections of land (good sections, obviously) as "white only," forcing any non-whites (in District 6, that was virtually everyone) to move to black or coloured areas..."townships", usually located outside the city, even if they owned their house or had lived in the area for generations. District 6 was an exceptionally vibrant community and, being in downtown Joburg, was an area in which the govt strictly inforced the law and removal of families, followed by the bulldozing of their homes. Over some 15 years, over 60,000 residents were re-located. The museum is dedicated to preserving the memory of that community and explaining the history of the apartheid era and was really interesting as it drew on many firsthand accounts from former residents.

The day turned out to be another beautiful one and we bemoaned the fact that the summit of Table Mountain looked incredibly clear. We grabbed lunch, hit the internet cafe for updates and more planning for the week, and explored downtown some more. Given how nice a day it was and how crowded the week's schedule was getting with the postponement of hiking, we decided to take a quick jaunt out to Camps Bay for the afternoon.

We got there by rikki, or shared taxi, and picked up (and dropped off) and elderly gentleman and an even more elderly lady along the way. They were a riot; the woman showed us a picture of her husband and a lion he'd killed from about 100 years ago, the old man made almost inappropriate jokes (you get to do that when you're old, I've learned) and counseled us to not ever have children because then you are tied down and can't enjoy life. A riot, like I'd said. We got to Camps Bay, a beautiful wealthy suburb just south of Cape Town and hit the beach, Atlantic style. Not two days before, we'd been at the Indian Ocean, so we fancied ourselves quite the travelers. We took the difficult route to boulder onto some huge rocks in the sea and admired the views of being at the beach with a huge mountain looming overhead. We got a drink and tried to find a more economical way back to town and the train station than calling a cab, even a shared one. The bus didn't seem to come, ever, but I spotted a mutation driver yelling "Cape Town" and we jumped in. I figured if we could handle mutatus in Kenya and Uganda, we could surely pass muster here.

We did and it was about 1/10 the price of a shared taxi. We headed to the grocery store to get some goods for dinner and took the train back to the hostel to cook ourselves dinner and get laundry done. All very domestic. It was weird having no soccer to watch, but we caught up with Martin and Trish, my first introduction to them, and spent the evening recounting our travels and comparing notes on Africa, the Cup, and traveling in general. They've been traveling for about six months now, having gone all through Asia before coming to South Africa, so they certainly had some stories to tell. That and they are both just fantastically hilarious people who have funny accents and love to talk - the perfect recipe for an entertaining time.

Arrival in Cape Town

Day 40 - Sunday July 4th, Cape Town

We arrived in Cape Town this morning - another very long bus ride - around 10am. I woke up on the bus not incredibly well rested, but excited. The Fourth of July is maybe my favorite holiday and though we were far from the land of freedom and fireworks, I was determined to still have a great one...find some beers, maybe a hot dog, and hopefully some stuff to blow up. We were renting a whole (very simple) house/flat from a local through airbnb.com, so I was pretty confident some grilling and sitting in the backyard sun like true Americans would actually take place. Unfortunately, we got word from the owner that she had assumed we weren't coming for some reason and had rented it to someone else. She said she had somewhere else we could stay though and said we could talk around 4pm. We texted back asking for the address, got some food and headed down to the waterfront.

It was a beautiful day and the Cape Town V&A Waterfront (Victoria and Albert after the queen and her son, but no one ever calls it that) is pretty spectacular. We lucked out weather-wise - the Cape is normally rainy and cool in the winter, but we got a wonderful sunny warm day to hang out on the water. As Brian said, it sure was nice of them to turn on summer for the 4th. We appreciate that, South Africa. The huge private yachts around the marina were a testament to the wealth of the Cape and probably is part of the reason people rave about the Cape - the wealth and appearance of CT make it feel very Western. Other than the schoolchildren in native dress singing for donations, it would be easy to forget you were in Africa. We also made reservations to go see Robben Island, the prison where many political prisoners, including Nelson Mandela, were held during the apartheid era. I'd picked up "A Long Walk to Freedom" in Nairobi, so it was a sight I really wanted to make sure we got to.

Around 1 or 2, I started to get worried because we still hadn't heard from the flat owner, Liezel. We called, sent texts, and called again and left a voicemail. No response. We waited and waited and the anxiety was killing me (and probably Brian by extension since he was stuck with me) - I had just wanted a shower and some Independence Day wonderfulness and it was beginning to look like we didn't even have beds for the night. A semifinal was being held in Cape Town in two days time, so the city was flooded with visitors and the thought of finding somewhere for a week at this late stage was downright nauseating in how impossible it would be. We started calling hostels I'd written down (from when we thought we might come earlier than our booking was)...they were all full. We asked for recommendations for other places and called them...all full. We continued calling, getting turned down, and asking for recs. The 8th or 9th place we called had availability at low rates (just a bit above what we would have spent on the apt) and we took it immediately. Unfortunately, the place was a 10-15 dollar cab ride from the city center (a little in the boonies, to be honest) and in addition to looking like that would cramp our style the rest of the week (or cost us a ton of money in transport), when we finally ended up there, emotionally exhausted (or maybe that was just me. Yeah, probably just me), any chance of Independence Day wonderful-ness was out the window. I probably took this harder than I should have, but after 6 weeks of traveling in the third world and yet another restless night on a bus criss-crossing the country, I'd just about had it. All I could think about was how great a time my friends in America were having without me on my favorite holiday. I was so distraught I couldn't even finish my free drink.

Brian, saint that he is for putting up with me while I was unhappy, did the best to cheer me up and I was heartened by the fact that the hostel we ended up at was very nice and the people running it seemed great. Growing boy that he is, he went for second dinner in the hostel kitchen while I busied myself with trying to figure out how to fit all the Cape's attractions into the next few days we had available. I decided we'd climb Table Mountain on Monday if the weather was good and Brian met Martin and Trish, a hilarious Australian couple with whom we would end up spending a lot of time. So the day at least ended on a positive note.

Back to PE

The rest of time you're missing via flashback can be summed up as follows: we got back to Nairobi, I was still really sick, we got to go experience the Kenyan medical system, I got diagnosed with swine flu, we had a really interesting plane ride to Jburg via Ethiopia, and we saw an Argentina game and the US-Slovenia game, which were both INCREDIBLE. You'll have to get all those stories live.

This week we returned to PE by another 17 hour bus ride and are staying in our buddy Bright's hostel again. The weather has been phenomenal and we've been enjoying the coastal town. It's incredibly cheap -- food is cheap, taxis are cheap, so that's been a nice change from Joburg.

We hit the local casino, which was my first ever casino adventure. It was also incredibly cheap (roulette table minimum bets were like 60 cents, blackjack was like a dollar, beers were two dollars), so that was great. I didn't imagine that I was going to have such a good time, but it was actually really really fun. And for a couple of hours of entertainment, I think we were down a total of about $5 (hit a nice run on the blackjack tables). We got yelled at for taking pictures (oops? We didn't realize it was a real casino), but other than that, made it out unscathed.

We spent the next day walking around, admiring the beach. We ended up striking up conversation with a South African at a bar who was the driver for a bunch of UK sports reporters. He invited us along to hang out for the rest of the night, so we did, which was an absolute riot. Brian and I have a long running joke this trip of how exhausting it must be to talk with a British accent the entire time and I maybe shared that with the ol' blokes. I'm pretty sure they thought it was mostly funny and only a little insulting.

Yesterday we had tickets to the Brazil-Netherlands game that we tried in vain to sell (we weren't able to move our bus to get to Cape Town in time for the Argentina game today, but were hoping to make some money back to have to spend on semis tickets). Unfortunately, seeing two of the greatest soccer teams in the world wasn't that exciting for most residents of Port Elizabeth and we decided to go to the game ourselves instead of take the measly $10 we were offered for tickets ($200 a piece was face value -- some Mexican told us that if this game was played anywhere else in the world, even on the friendlies level, we'd be able to make $1000 a piece on those tickets. Not so in Africa...). It turned out to be a great decision because it was a really exciting game.

Last night we went to the Fan Fast to watch the Uruguay-Ghana game, Africa's last chance in this Cup. There were thousands of people there, all enthusiastically cheering for Ghana, so it was a pretty wild atmosphere. The game was absolutely INSANE -- if you didn't see it, you should probably catch the replay today. Where probably = definitely.

We're gonna head back to the Fan Fest this afternoon for the Argentina-Germany game (should be another good one), and then we get on the bus headed to Cape Town tonight, arriving tomorrow morning to savor a full day of celebrating American Independence. I'm just hoping we can find some firecrackers somewhere....