Travel Week

I finally made it to Cape Town!! Our last three weeks will be spent here finishing our last class, living at the Bed & Breakfast, and staying with our home-stay families.  We had five days of travel before we got here, which was so much fun!! It was like spring break for us.  One of the best weeks here in South Africa!

Last Saturday we left AE, which was really sad because it has been my home for the past three months. It was hard to leave all of that behind. We all prayed together and then got onto our buses for the longest leg of our travel- a 9 hr. bus ride! I love car rides so it was great for me! On the bus we watched movies, listen to music, and attempted to play a game of Monopoly Deal. We finally got to our beachfront hotel around dinnertime.  After dinner we walked down to the beach and it was so beautiful! The tide would go our so far you could run out towards the water forever until you actually hit it.  Also, there was a lightening storm and a strong but hot wind! It felt like a heater was blowing on you. It was a great first day, just hanging out with friends walking long the beach.  In the morning before we left it was Easter and so we also went to a sunrise service right on the beach! It was a great experience!

The second day we drove 5 more hours to Port Elizabeth and stayed at another hotel, again right on the beach! I seriously felt like I was on a really nice vacation- and I get to spend it with all of my friends.  Port Elizabeth is such a cute little town! We went out for lunch and dinner to some cute restaurants by the shore and had amazing food! The rest fo the day we walked around the shore and the pier. It was just a fun and carefree day!

The third day of travel week was bungee jump day!!  It was such a great experience! I felt like I was flying! I have never felt so free…..

HAHA just kidding mom and dad!

I actually didn’t go because I couldn’t risk it with the screws in my hips. Bummer. But it was so much fun to watch all my friends go! They all had so much fun! It looked like a blast!

That day we drove to Carmel, the last place we would stay during travel week.  We stayed at a Christian Conference Center that was on a beautiful campus.  It was located up on a cliff/mountain and you could see the ocean from my chalet. I had four other roommates and we put all of our beds together to make one big marriage bed.  It was lots of fun! The first thing we did when we got there was hike down to the beach.  The hike was about 25 minutes down and 45 minutes up. We got to the beach and it was this gorgeous little cove.  It was unbelievable! That night we all bonded over watching TV in the lounge room. It was so much fun! We haven’t watched TV since January! There was also a yellow lab staying on the campus named Zack that reminded me of Boomer! I was so excited and gave him lots of lovings!

The next day was possibly one of the best days of the whole semester! Two of my roommates and I decided to wake up early and go on a hike down to the beach for sunrise. We left at 5:30 and when we arrived at the cove, we were the only ones at the beach.  It was breath taking! The sunrise was so spectacular! It was amazing to watch it rise over the ocean and it lit up the sky pink. My friend Ashlyn and I also decided to get in the water. It was the most thrilling and exhilarating experiences swimming in this beautiful cove that we had all to ourselves! I was on cloud 9!!! I cannot begin to explain how happy I was at that moment. It was so surreal. And to top it all of, we ended up getting a ride back with the speaker who was staying at the conference center for Easter weekend, so we didn’t even have to hike back up.  It was truly the best morning ever. The rest of the day I never even got tired and was just pumped up and ready to take on the day.  That day we also went on the Cango Caves tour. I went on the adventure tour where there were some really tight spaces we had to fit through.  One was called The Devil’s Chimney where we had to climb straight up through a small tunnel. Another one is called the Post Box and the opening we had to crawl through was only 27 cm tall! After the cave tours we went to a small zoo where we had the chance to do animal encounters.  I chose to pet and play with the 3 month old baby white tigers!! It was so much fun and one even sucked on our fingers! It was an amazing experience and I am so glad I was able to do it! We drove back to Carmel that evening where we stayed for one more night.

The next day we arrived in Cape Town!! Driving in was so beautiful!! We are staying in a small little town outside of the city called Fish Hoek.  The Bed and Breakfast we are at is only a five-minute walk from the beach! It’s heaven! WE are here for the next three weeks but half the time we are doing home stays, which is where I am now. Our first day in Cape Town we did a walking tour of the city.  The architecture of some of the buildings were beautiful and most people said it reminded them of San Francisco. We also walked down to the waterfront and that was really fun. Our second day we had all free so I went to the beach in the morning and then about 20 of us went to go see the premiere of the Hunger Games (well, South Africa’s premiere)! As I said before a lot of our group had read the books together this semester so it was so much fun to see it all together!

Now I am staying with my home stay family, which is great, and I will fill you on more later!  My mom is named Althea and her husband Rueben.  They have three wonderful kids named Simone, 14, Joshua, 9, and Hannah, 2.  I am also staying with my friend Yvette. We live in a township called Ocean’s View that is about 10 minutes away from our B&B and is all coloured people.  They are so welcoming and I really feel at home with them!

Sorry this post is so long! It has been a big week! Our internet is not very good here either so I will try to keep this updated as much as possible. This means that I also might not be able to post pictures until I get home!