“I’m Just Waiting For A Velociraptor To Jump Out”

I apologize in advance for the upcoming lack of pictures in the future posts. If it didn’t take so goddamn long for the pictures to upload, I’d post a lot more on here, but I’ll end up putting all of them on Facebook once I’m home and bored out of my mind. 

The plan for the day was to go to Kirstenbosch Botanical Gardens. I had no idea what to expect from the gardens, so I kinda half-expected it to be just a really big collection of random plants while we walked along one of those paths with all the little stones. I was half-wrong, but boy was I happy I was. Apparently Kirstenbosch is one of the seven best botanical gardens in the world (with two of the others in NYC and St. Louis, which really surprised me) and is considered by many to be the best of those seven. After seeing the location of it, I’m not surprised at all, considering the backdrop for the entire gardens is Table Mountain, which is even prettier the closer you get. Even only a few days in, I realized that this is onea those trips where so much of these experiences are so unbelievably mind-blowing that pictures just don’t do them justice, so the pictures I'll eventually post are just a small snapshot (shitty pun very much intended) of the gardens. And to explain the post title, many of us noticed how similar the landscape (especially Table Mountain in the background) was to Hawaii and Jurassic Park (don’t know if it was shot there or not, probably was). But yea.

After finishing the walking part of the tour we ate lunch then sat underneath a huge tree on this super-nice grass and had one of our “sessions” to discuss everything we saw today. A couple times we were interrupted by some ducks and these scary birds that were a little too people-friendly for my liking.

For dinner we drove to the waterfront area of Cape Town (which is super nice, kinda European but with noticeable African themes) and ate at this Thai restaurant. I’m not one to group all Asian food together (actually I am), but I was pretty nervous because I pretty much just like rice. I was also poised to not make the same mistake I made at the other restaurant and inadvertently order something gross (which is pretty tough when you think you’re getting something you like, but I digress). I ended up getting the roasted duck for payback from earlier since the mother duck kinda scared me when she got close. That’s what happens in Africa I guess, if I’m afraid of it I’ll conquer it by eating it. I don’t see me eating snakes though.

That night about half of us went across the street to this really cool little bar with some good outdoor seating. I’m not really a beer person to begin with, but I know for a fact that duck was kicking back in my stomach so I didn’t drink that much. It was nice to just sit and talk with some people outside of the context of the trip, “real life shit” as I called it.

The next day was something I was anxiously awaiting the whole trip: the township tour. Quick history lesson for those who need it: during apartheid, the blacks got driven into these “townships” outside of many major urban centers that were/are riddled with poverty and crime. I had a rough idea of what I was going to see, so I chose not to take any pictures; I actually didn’t even take my camera at all to resist taking them. I just knew I would’ve felt weird taking pictures and gawking at people who aren’t just really poor, but all they’re doing is living. I just got the museum vibe from the whole picture-taking idea. I wrote in an email to my mom that it’d be like Bill Gates walking through our house and gasping at how comparatively “poor” we are. So yea, no pictures.

The first township we went to was Langa, which according to our tour guide has a population of 200,000 people. I had a pre-conceived notion that the entire place would be full of really really really poor people living in smaller-than-shacks. Don’t get me wrong: there were people in situations like that. But there were also three distinct social classes, with their “middle” class kind of equivalent-looking to our inner city ghettos. The lowest class, though, consisted partly of people living in halved shipping containers, all of which were lined up in rows so that we could walk through. Most of the rest of the lowest of the low lived in what you and I would expect the townships to look like (super-poor African shantytowns), and what Google Images would probably show you. Overall, there was just a lot of trash, dirt, and stank. What made it very foreign to me was that despite all that nastiness, there were a lot of people that were so pleasant towards us and made us feel welcome. The kids there were also really happy; some little girl legit scared the ish outta me when she jumped our form behind a wall. Little did she know Hailey was about to abduct her. Anyways, it was pretty awkward when our guide kept telling us we were allowed to take pictures, even when we’d be crowding into someone’s home, which were the about the size of a small American bathroom. Something that grossly stuck with me was when she said that nine year olds were having sex and trying to circumcise themselves to make them feel more like an adult. Camp people: just imagine the third- or fourth-graders doing that; it’s just scary gross. After the tour (which lasted forever because our guide loved to talk) we went to an awesome gift shop full of locally made jewelry and pottery where I bought a new bracelet to make up for the ones I left at home. Beth: I got you’re piece of jewelry here too, so just know you’re helping poor people in Africa by getting me to purchase it.

On the way home we drove through another township (“Nyanga” or something like that) and got to see/smell another township which was definitely interesting. We stopped for lunch on the side of the road in the little city place and got some lamb. I admittedly didn’t like seeing the sheep across the street in their little corral, all soft and cute. But…I ate it and it was good. Like real good.

Once we got back to the hotel we sat and talked about what we saw, which was super helpful especially in a place like that where there’s so much to see that you can’t just see it all. We went simple for dinner and just got pizza, which was real good because they don’t pile on the cheese, sauce, and grease like they do back home. Four slices of Hawaiian pizza was sufficient for me. Smelling like pizza > smelling like burning tires.