Go Straight to Jail - Do NOT Collect R200

One Sunday, I went on a tour of Robben’s Island with the other American students that came to South Africa with the same study abroad program I did.  The tour itself consisted of a bus ride around the island and then a tour through the actual prison.

The island itself has mostly been used as a prison since the Dutch settled in the area in the second half of the 1600s.  In addition to this, during the 1800s and early 1900s it was used as a hospital and settlement for people with leprosy or were chronically ill.  The island is most famous for being the place that Nelson Mandela spent 18 of his 27 years in prison.  It was also home to many other political prisoners during apartheid including Walter Sisulu, Robert Sobukwe and Jacob Zuma - the current president.  The bus brought us past the limestone quarry where many of the political prisoners were forced to do labor.  One of the fascinating parts of the quarry was the cave that was in one of the walls.  The cave was used as a kind of school where prisoners continued their education and where many of the prisoners began writing many aspects of South Africa's current constitution.  Our tour of the prison buildings was given by an ex-prisoner.  Our tour guide, who had been a student during the 1970s was imprisoned for protesting during the Soweto Uprisings of the 1970s.

Some other facts:

Political prisoners were allowed one visit every six months and visitors had to speak in English or Afrikaans so guards could understand.

There is a graveyard where around 1,500 lepers are buried.

All political prisoners on Robben Island were either black, colored or of Indian descent.  Depending on race, severity of crime and length of time spent in the prison, food, bedding, free time etc. was determined.

The tour itself was actually not that informative, but it was interesting enough.  What was really nice was the boat ride out.  On the way to the island we took a catamaran.  I sat on the trampolines in between the hulls.  It was great, until I realized that my shorts were soaking wet from the spray.  Also, we saw some penguins swimming in front of the boat which was really cool to see.

Some of the prison buildings.

The quarry and cave.  The pile of rocks is a memorial made by the prisoners.

This room is where prisoners would have slept.

The island from a distance.

Leaving Cape Town harbor.

It's a bummer that Mandela and the other prisoners didn't have one of these!!

Good Morning Stellenbosch!

I camped for a night on Stellenbosch Mountain with my friend Neil from Alaska.  After deciding to camp literally at the last minute, we started walking at around 11:00pm.  This sounds crazy, but it was a pretty full moon and we hiked to the first peak without any assistance from our headlamps.  After watching the sunrise (Neil needed photos for a class), we hiked back down after only a few hours.  Stellenbosch Mountain has a great view of the city and it was beautiful to watch the sunrise and hit the buildings.  It also was a great excuse for me to use my tent again.

The city!  It was so cool to watch the city wake up!

Good morning Katie!  Nice hair!!

Mountains in the Jonkershoek Nature Reserve.

This is a zoomed in picture of the area I lived in.

Crash and Burn

After an exciting day of hunting for animals, we spent the morning at a vineyard tasting their wine and their famous brandy.  I learned two things.  1.  In order to get the real smell of brandy you put a drop on your skin and the alcohol evaporates and leaves a fragrance other than that of ethanol.  Also it smells differently on each persons skin.  I smelled a sweet kind of woody smell and a hunt of cigars but other people smelled something totally different.  2.  Brandy is disgusting (I knew this before, but this trip reaffirmed my knowledge).  We also tried some kind of alcohol (I can’t remember if it was wine or brandy) that was infused with chili peppers.  It was created as something to cook with, but it turned into a kind of dare to take a shot of the spicy liquid.  I only took a small sip while other people took the whole shot - but it was quite spicy (and that’s actually an understatement).

After that we spent even more time in our bus driving to Augrabies Falls.  We stayed at a campground and were a short walk from the falls.  We spent one night there and I got to walk around by myself for a while, watch the sunset and lay on some rocks and watch the stars (and the bats) come out.  This was a really nice way to spend the last night.  I had been with the same people in very close proximity for a week and it was nice to just spend some quality time with me.

The following day, we left after breakfast (after a minor attack from some vervet monkeys with only one causality - a loaf of bread), we got back on the bus to start the long drive home.  We were told that we would be home sometime in the evening, but it turned into the early hours of the morning.  After a few hours of driving, something happened to our gear box (I think) and we had to make a stop at a mechanic.  After driving a little ways more, we broke down for good.  Some calls were made and we were told that some buses were on their way, but it may be a little while.  5 hours later, I had finished all the homework I had brought, practiced my gymnastic skills on the guardrails, gone for a short run up the huge hill that we had stopped at the bottom of, read 70 pages of Harry Potter, hopped a barbed wire fence, climbed some nearby rocks (by myself because Zaas wasn’t there) and watched as the rest of my group finished the rest of the alcohol they had brought on the trip.  Finally, once we had watched the sunset, the buses finally showed up.  We drove for a while in those before stopping at a gas station where we had to wait for another bus and to sort out the payment situation.  Then there was some construction, but we finally made it home at around 2am.  I’ll admit, getting up to go to Lynedoch the next day was quite a challenge, but all in all it was a great trip.  I saw totally new and different parts of South Africa and experienced some of the native culture as well as the quaint coastal towns and tourist traps along the Garden Route.  After thus trip, I was even more excited for the semester to end so I could go on another.

I Spy with my Little Eye

The next day we got up really early so that we could get to the park gates early for our safari.  I was so excited for this part of the trip.  Africa is known for its animals and all the  animals I had seen thus far had been enclosed.  I really wanted to have to look for the animals.  Although many of the parks are fenced, the size of them makes it seem like the animals are in the wild.  For the whole day we drove and looked for animals.  We drove along a dry river bed which meant there was slightly more vegetation in the bed but there were also banks on either side which obstructed views.  We didn’t see any lions or cheetahs, but we did follow some fresh lion tracks for long time and some people in front of us had seen cheetahs, but by the time we got there, they were gone.  It was really fun looking for the animals.  It was like a giant game of I Spy but no one knew what we were looking for.  So - here's what we spied.

The landscape that we were dealing with.  Luckily there actually wasn't that much shrubbery so it was a little bit easier to spot the animals.

Gemsbok (also known as the oryx)

I almost thought I was in an elephant graveyard (minus the elephant bones).

Cape cobra

Martial Eagle (they're pretty rare and are a vulnerable species)

Springbok - they're everywhere.  We saw hundreds of these animals!

Blue Wildebeest (also known as Mufasa's murderers)

Spotted Hyaena - if look close in between them there is a leg of an animal they had just killed.

The circle in the dirt on the left is the tracks the hyaena's made when they were encircling their prey before they killed it.

I'm pretty sure this is a Kalahari Tent Tortoise

The river bed

Giraffes!!

Black-backed Jackal

Secretary Bird - it's kind of hard to see but these birds have a funny mohawk type hair-do.

On the left of the road there are lion tracks.  We followed them for a while, but missed the lions.

Giraffe sitting down!

Common Ostrich

Vacation - Part 2

After seeing so many animals enclosed, I was so excited for the second part of the break.  After returning to Stellenbosch for an afternoon, we were picked up my an overland bus (essentially a huge all terrain bus) at 9pm.  We drove through the night so that my the next morning we were close to the Namibia and Bostwana borders.  We were heading towards the Kalahari Desert and the Kgalagadi Trans-Frontier Park (in other words the park was South Africa, Botswana and Namibia).

After driving for a really long time (something like 12+ hours) we finally made it to the camp site.  We were told to partner up and pitch our tents.  Then we got to spend a few hours sprawling around after having spent so long sitting scrunched up in the bus.  In the afternoon we went for a walk in the surrounding land guided by a San man who called himself Elvis (they are also known as the bushman, but the San people is more proper).  The San people are a native tribe of South Africa who have been living in the area for thousands of years.  They had been living in the area that we were in for 40,000 or more years.  Some of the San people still live in traditional ways, but many have assimilated into modern society.  It was really fascinating to walk around with people that knew the land so well.  Although the walk was nice after such a long bus ride, learning about the traditional uses of some of the plants and the spirituality of the San people was fascinating.  I made a connection between the San people and the Native Americans in the US in terms of their political standing as well as some of the social problems they face such as poverty, alcoholism, loss of culture and language and a growing gap between the old and the young.

Some photos of our walk:

Hospital Bush - women used to (and some still do) lie in its shade when about to give birth and a stew of the leaved (into a kind of tea) is supposed to ease the pain.

These horses were allowed to roam free and mostly used for transportation.

Millipede - these were everywhere and were huge.  This one is probably 5 or 6 inches long.  There were also a lot of dead ones around.  After they die, they turn white (calcify) and when mixed with spit is believed to help heal wounds and sort out eye problems.

Our guide leaning of against the spiritual tree of the San people.  Things attached to the tree are herbs wrapped in ribbon.  The elders of the tribe can take these herbs and use them.

The tree is also used as a place to hold meetings and healers will go there for meditation and to get wisdom.  The rocks that are around the base make points in each direction (north, east, south and west) and only children and elders are allow to cross the rock barrier to get closer to the tree.

This tree (I'm not sure what it was called) was used to make bows and arrows.  It's kind of hard to tell but Elvis is using my Swiss Army knife to make an arrow.