Mauritius

Hey All,

I just got back from Mauritius, which is an island off the coast of South Africa. If you hold up your left hand with your palm faced toward you that is the shape of Mauritius and so you can always find it on a map–or so my cab driver told me. Have any of you ever been in the MAC store and seen the screen savers of the white beaches with the perfect umbrella and endless turquoise water? Well, that is EXACTLY what Mauritius looks like. The first day that we got here, a group of us just threw a dart at the map and picked a beach to go to. For those of you that know me well, you know I am not fond of swimsuits and so you all would have been so surprised to actually see me in the ocean—even I couldn’t resist passing up the warm water and white sand! At one point I was chasing after a vollyball and actually fell into the water and got soaked from head to toe. However, I did end up talking about how much I miss cold Cannon Beach, warm chai, big bonfires in the rain and sweaters and boots (as I re-applied sunscreen).The rest of the day we just relaxed and had time to catch up with each other because we had all been so busy on various trips in South Africa and had midterms on the ship. We went to this really good Indian restaurant for dinner.

The next day I went on an SAS trip to see the volcano and the largest waterfall in Africa. We stopped at the Ghandi Center and learned about the do-do bird that went extinct a trillion years ago and all about the flora and fauna. We went and saw the 7 sands, which are the 7 sands of the world and they are all different colors. Then we got some free time at the beach before heading back to the ship. This was a short stop because we were only stopping for fuel. It was like a tiny spring break.  Now I am back on the ship and we are heading to India. I have a lot of presentations and tests coming up and so there is lots going on! I want to send a special thank you out to mom, Emma, Eli, and Julie for sending me “REAL” mail! You are the best! You made my day and all of your notes are up on my wall! I am half way to home! More to come soon! Love to everyone!

African Art!

Today was our last day in Cape Town! I am so sad! I absolutely love it here! First we went to this place called African Allsorts, based in Salt River. Brothers Jason and David Rosenstein established this bead and wire art company in March of 2004. Their primary goal is to create jobs in Africa! They employ local artists who are super talented bead workers and they make these absolutely AMAZING bead sculptures of animals, people, plants and bowls. We got a chance to meet all the artists and they taught us how to make beaded hearts. It was really cool! They are super talented and taught us some cool bead skills! Some of the animal sculptures were just insane! They had a life size zebra made entirely of beads! It was SO COOL! And the beads are small; like tiny beads that you make jewelry with. This one guy was making a beaded ladybug and so I told him, “I like your lady bug” and he said, “What is a lady bug?” and I pointed to the beaded sculpture in his hand and he said, “this is not a lady bug, this is a lady bird. “ I loved that! A ladybird! You can see pictures of these amazing pieces at www.africanallsorts.com. Then we went and visited Montebello Design Centre. It is such a cool place that reminded me so much of the Oregon College of Art and Craft. This place sits in the original farm buildings of the historic Montebello, in the middle of the greenbelt of Newlands, and is a development project for previously disadvantaged artists. They rent space to the artists and help them become independent self-employed artists. They had jewelry studios, pottery studios, a hand weavers studio (that mom would have LOVED!) a woodworking studio, a printing studio, and a greenhouse. They had a great café and we got hot chocolate and ate cranberry apple muffins. It was such a cool place. Then we went to Kirstenbosch National Botanical Garden (that is on the slope of Devils peak). It is one of the world’s most famous botanical gardens! It has over 8,500 species of indigenous plant species! It is also home to one of the 6 floral kingdoms of the world! Mom and George would have gone nuts! This place was really, really incredible. We got to walk all around and have lunch. I love you Cape Town! Oh and a VERY HAPPY 80th BIRTHDAY to Arch Bishop Desmond Tutu!

Inverdoorn Game Reserve

We drove out to the Karoo, past the wine region of Paarl and Tulbagh Valley to Ceres. This game reserve had 10,000 hectares dedicated to conservation, 1,2000 wild animals representing 28 different species. When we got there we had pineapple juice and hung out for a bit, then we got into our jeeps and headed out. We saw giraffes (which we got out of the jeep and got to walk on land with!), zebra, waterbuck, Oryx, sable antelope, kudu, impala and springbok. We also saw Cheetah and lions (Karl, the lions were so cool!)!!! Fun Fact time! Fun fact #1: The cheetah is an endangered species and one of the things we learned was that they have a hard time regulating their body temperature and the male cheetahs get hot when they run and they get so hot that their body heat kills their sperm and so that is one reason the number of cheetah cubs is so low. Fact #2: A zebra has different stripes on its left side then on its right side. Fact #3: A giraffe runs with its front right foot and back right foot and then runs with its front left foot that follows with its left back foot and a horse runs with its front two feet and its back to feet. Fact #4: A giraffes tongue can be up to a foot long!

Cape of Good Hope

I had a free day today and so I tagged along on a trip with a few friends. We got a driver to take us to Cape of Good Hope, which was a really pretty drive. Parts of South Africa remind me so much of Napa or Monterey Bay. We stopped at some lookouts and got amazing pictures of beaches. On our way to the Cape, my friend Jen (who is a world class horse back rider in the masters at home) looked out at the view and saw a house with horses and so we had our driver drive us to this house and she went and introduced herself and they ended up taking us on a 2 hour horse back riding trip down long beach and back. White beaches and the sunset and we were the only ones on the beach!!! I am not a horse rider and to be honest, not a big fan of horses, but this trip was SO much fun and it was so cool that we got to ride on the beach! The Cape was clear and the weather lucked out and so it was really fun to be at the southern most point of Africa!!! We had a low-key night of Calamari and Cider (I missed you Shep! They have amazing cider here!).

Wine lands!

Today I went to Stellenbosch (wine country) and we rented mountain bikes and biked the wine lands. We got to a vineyard and had a wine tasting and lunch! The wine was so good and they had certain foods out to try with certain wine, which was really neat. White wine and fish/shellfish/cheeses. Red wine and red meat.  It was really fun! I loved Stellenbosch. The university of Stellenbosch is right there and so it is a cool little college town with neat galleries, coffee shops, restaurants etc. I want to go to school there! The town reminded me a lot of the campus in Boulder CO! Logan, Julie, Spencer, Sam---you guys would have loved town! Emma, I wished you had been there for all tasting!

Table Mountain!

This morning we got up and went out to this amazing breakfast place that was just like St. Honore at home! I missed my mom and Alison so much because they would have LOVED this place so much! They had such good coffee! Then we went and packed a picnic lunch and took the hike up to Table Mountain! This hike was AMAZING! I LOVED IT! I wish that CJ, BJ, JFro, Dana, and Tony (and Trish and Dean to, although they hiked it like the day before I did☺) had been there to hike it with me because they would have loved it! The hike was a climb, very rocky and straight up! It took about 2 hours but it felt so good to get a good work out! The views were SPECTACULAR! We met lots of awesome travelers along the way from all over (the Netherlands, England, Iceland). I was so happy that we hiked it on such a clear and sunny day because sometimes, the clouds cover everything and so it was so great to get to the top and be able to see for miles and miles! We took the cable car down and it was this really cool egg shaped car that spun as it descended down the mountain so you get a 360-degree view! We did some shopping in the afternoon and then we went out to dinner and I tried Ostrich (Guy would have been so impressed!)—Tastes like steak if anyone was wondering!

From South Africa!

Wow! Wow! WOW! It has been such an amazing time in Cape Town South Africa! Whew, let me start from the beginning. We arrived on the 3rd of October. The port is BEAUTIFUL and reminds me so, so much of Mystic Sea Port. It is very touristy with lots of shops and ships and fish and chips. There was a small mall next door, which had a grocery store and so we took the morning to do some shopping. I love grocery shopping abroad! The foods and brands and things to taste and try are so yummy that we went a little crazy and bought a ton of cookies, crackers, granola, soymilk and Nutella to get us the rest of the way around the world. We had cheese and tomatoes crepes for lunch and then we headed out to the Khayelitsha Township.
This is one of South Africa’s fastest growing townships of about 2 million people. During our time in the township we got to visit the Philani Development Centre and Craft Shop that was started by the women in the town ship (with the help of Arch Bishop Desmond Tutu) to provide child health and nutrition to the children in the community. The women work in weaving, silk screen printing, bead work and fresco painting to create these amazing works of art and the proceeds from all the sales go directly to Philani Center! To learn more you can visit philani.org.za. The women were so gracious and showed us around the facility. It was really a special place. I could have stayed and talked and made art for days and days.
Our next stop was to the Kopanong B&B, which was started by women from Cape Town who lives in the township. She wanted visitors to see first hand what it was like to stay in a township and become a part of the neighborhood while visiting Cape Town. The room and board costs all get fed back into the community. I was bummed that I didn’t have more days in South Africa or I would have stayed here longer! The townships are shack after shack after shack and no words can describe the amount of poverty that these people live in. But, once you set foot in a township, you are welcomed into their communities, homes, and families. I found that the shacks are all quite beautiful. They have so much unique character in each scrap of metal, broken doorframe, shutter, wire, fencing, and windowpane. They are incredibly small and hold very little, but they are neat and tidy and well kept. We stopped in a park in the middle of the township and played with the kids at the playground. We sang songs and asked about school, family and music. The kids were so great and it was so good to spend time with them. Everyone was so incredibly friendly. We were sitting talking to some boys who were about 6 and 9 and the mom came over and we started to get up (because we were worried she was going to be upset for these strangers (us) to be talking to her kids) but as she came closer her arms were open wide and she grabbed me into a huge hug and squeezed me tight. I miss my mom so much so it was so nice to have a hug. Then she explained a bit about the neighborhood and the township.
That night we headed out to dinner and I was missing my uncle Guy and wishing that I could tell him all of my stories and so in honor of him I ordered a HUGE bowl of mussels! Cool fact: South Africans call traffic lights “robots”! So they would say, “go straight and turn right at the next robot.”