SOUTH AFRICA

South Africa was honestly one of the best times of my whole life. That first morning, most of the “shipboard community” rolled out of bed in time to watch the sun rise over Cape Town as a few wise dolphins guided us into the port. Straight off the ship we took a taxi to the foot of Table Mountain and our driver, Ricky, demonstrated his rave hands in time with Beyonce’s “If I Was A Boy” and honked at any car that dared be driven by anyone but him. Life in the fast lane, I said to him. Only 4 of our original group of 12 dared to take on the 3 hour trail to the summit. It was essentially a vertical ascent and it was the hardest thing I’ve ever done. Since band camp. We took a break halfway up by lying in a waterfall (back sweat insurance) and took subsequent breaks every couple minutes. By the end I had moved from my position at the front of the pack, where I had been impressively bounding off out-of-the-way rocks, to a position 20 feet behind the rest, crawling on all fours, muttering “this too shall pass” under my wheeze. We finally made it and the view was so beautiful, made all the better by the fact that I could share it with my still-beating heart. We (my heart and I) rewarded ourselves with an apple spritzer. Took the cable car back down the mountain, in manner of Willy Wonka elevator.

By this time it was early evening, also known as time for a feast. We found a restaurant and sat there for almost 3 hours, just chain eating. We talked about everything and our little group of four friends (Megan Haley Jade me) has since credited that dinner as ‘the moment we knew.’ One order of nachos, a pizza bread, a greek salad, 2 slices of pizza, and 2 chocolate milkshakes later, I accidentally fell asleep. We took that as a cue to gracefully bow out. That night we met up with 3 of our guy friends and went to an Irish pub where a live band was playing Wonderwall seemingly on repeat. That night took many twists and turns and we ended up dancing until the early hours at a discotheque on top of a building with a backdrop of Cape Town in fairy lights.

The next day we went to the aquarium, a marketplace, and Subway (sorry), and just absorbed the feeling that comes from existing at the bottom of Africa. I’m skipping things in favor of keeping this as brief as possible, which still isn’t brief, so onward and upward. The next day we rose early and headed out into the world to find a driver willing to take us to Stellenbosch, which is South Africa’s answer to Napa Valley if Napa was a huge college town. We checked into our hostel, Stumble Inn, ha, and set out for a full day of touring the region’s winelands and vineyards and cellars. We wended our way through the hills to four wineries, cheese tasting and acting sophisticated and lying in fields all the while. We also had a delicious South African lunch at a restaurant with our guide, who openly and deeply disliked me. I was forced to ask the question “Would you ever hit a woman?” He was not pleased. The rolling green vineyards and misty air made for such a magical day and by the end we’d made a hundred friends and a thousand laughs.

We spent that whole night hanging out with the South African college kids at a place called Terrace and it was exactly exactly exactly how I always wanted college to be. I briefly considered transferring there, it’s just SO FUN. The place was packed and they were blasting Blink 182 and screaming the words and everyone was throwing flour and garlic at each other like in the food fights of my dreams. And everyone was dressed like I wanted them to be, not that that’s important.

Next day we were up early for a SAFARI. We all wore the exact same outfit (except for Jeff, who we subtly excluded the rest of the day). Black pants + black ‘The Goat Father’ shirts we had bought at one of the wineries. The Aquila Game Reserve was 2 hours away, but luckily the guy working the front desk ‘knew a guy’ and hooked us up with a driver the night before, so that morning he showed up just half an hour late, and we threw our backpacks in his hatchback and set off into the mountains. Our driver was the striking leather-clad John Johnson, whose only qualification seemed to be has truck with hatchback. A brief ode to JJ: He used to have hair that he could sit on but he cut it off four years ago to start a new chapter of John. I jokingly asked where the hair was now, and he replied “in my cupboard.” The catch: his ex-fiance recently stole it so she could do voodoo on him. The present location is unknown. Also, he says the F word a lot… why? His mother was struck by lightning while he was in the womb. Lastly, he has a dual obsession with Y2K (9 years man…) and the Mega Volcano of 2012, which will destroy all but 3% of the population. Anyway we had the time of our lives with him; he took us to McDonalds, bought us a mini picture book about shacks (which we thought was a gift, but he later reclaimed), and played Trance music the ENTIRE ride, pumping his fist and flipping his hair with the rhythm, except for a brief intermission during which he put on Michael Buble’s Call Me Irresponsible. At the end of the day we found out he wasn’t a tour guide OR a professional driver… he was just the roommate of the guy who did our winelands tour. Nevertheless, I miss him.

So John went off into the wild to wait for us and we set out into the bush in the Comvee (Wild Thornberries reference)… it was SO AWESOME, we saw everything out there: elephants, zebras, rhinos, hippos, springbok, antelope, lions, ostriches, water buffalo, and a lot of wide open Africa. They gave us blankets and sparkling apple juice and we just sat back as they drove the Comvee unbelievably close up to the animals. The land itself was equally incredible though… there’s more sparkle in the water and the clouds are swirlier…everything looks like Lion King. Anyway, after our hugely successful game drive, we retired to the lodge where they fed us the hugest best buffet lunch of all time and where I ate an entire wheel of brie cheese. On the ride back to Cape Town, John told us that bushmen used to live on the reserve and, up until the early 90s, a white man could obtain a license to hunt them. That’s just sick. It seems so far removed now, but in the span of history we were in South Africa right on the tails of apartheid. It’s only been 15 years for Moses’ sake.

Back in Cape Town, we went out to dinner and headed out to Mitchell’s which was packed out for karaoke. Haley and I performed the most moving Don’t Stop Believin that the world has ever seen. There was disco. There was twirling. There were people standing on tables to get a better view. There was a woman in the front row crying. All those flashbulbs and smiling faces… I’ll never forget it. Then we went to a college disco (bizarrely located in a shopping mall) and rocked out to Blink 182 all over again all night.

Our final day was spent around the wharf, trying to go shark diving. We booked 3 different early morning shark diving trips, all of which were cancelled due to rough seas. Rage. We accepted defeat and that night we dolled up and headed out for a fancy girls night out dinner. I ate ostrich and deep fried cheese. It was a beautiful thing. They had animal print blankets on each chair for you to wrap up in since the tables were out by the water, and at the end of our meal Haley and I surreptitiously didn’t surrender them (if sprinting away from the scene with a large blanket under your dress can be surreptitious). We spent the whole night dancing, wearing the blankets as fur stoles. I’ve never had so much fun in my life… until I fell off a table and jacked up my shin. But the show had to go on and at least I had a zebra fur to add some polish to my tarnished dignity. The sun came up and we got back on the ship just in time for breakfast.

That evening we bid Cape Town farewell from the top deck and I solemnly vowed to return. This is the first port where I can seriously see myself coming to live; I love the people and there’s so much to do and I feel like there’s work there that needs doing. As we set sail and waited for the city lights to fade into the ink, I cried a solitary black tear. “This is not Goodbye, South Africa,” I whispered, “it’s merely TTYL.”

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