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.
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