you can all just call me mariah from now on.

because everyone in the township of ocean view thinks i bear a striking resemblance to mariah carey. yeah, i don't get it either. but all weekend long it was "ooh mariah, she's hot!" "mariah, these boys want to meet you" soo funny.

So friday evening we landed in ocean view, a mainly colored township outside of simon's town. we all were given tables to sit at with our families and ate a HUGE meal. where they served pastries and desserts first - i could tell this was my kind of town. They also had a youth arts group do performances for us. At the dinner i met my mom, Yvette, and 2 of her daughters, Caryn (20) and Tamia (4). She also has a 21 year old daughter named roxanne who lives with her gran. We met them the next day. after dinner we went back to their 1 bedroom flat. it was in a community of apartment type flats called the "7 sisters." Yvette told us how many of the people who live there are on drugs or in gangs and everyone does a lot of drinking. the flat had a small kitchen, a living room (where caryn and tamia sleep on a trundle bed), a bathroom that has a bathtub, no shower and no sink, and a bedroom for yvette and her husband Timmy. Timmy is a fisherman and was pretty drunk the whole weekend. When we got there he was drinking with his buddy, "Uncle Neil." Neil was a pretty creepy drunk dude, who promptly took a liking to me. He told me that they called him "Neil Sex Appeal" but i think he was lying cuz he had absolutely none. He also kept telling yvette that he wanted a picture of me and that he was going to go home and dream about me all night. Creepy Uncle Neil passed out around 10:30. However, when he left Caryn's friends came over. Her boyfriend Justin is awesome and was laughing so hard all night that at times he was crying. They were also all buying us drinks. Naturally Yvette and timmy were drinking with us. So then Yvette passed out and Caryn left to go talk to a girlfriend or something and me and meg were left to defend ourselves against Timmy's drunk fishermen friends who had no teeth until about 2:30 in the morning. It was a little frightening because we had to flirt with the younger guys to get them to protect us against the more aggressive (and drunker) older men. I was literally hitting men to get them off me. and they weren't doing anything really wrong, it was just that they kept trying to be so touchy and it made me really uncomfortable. But i figured i was safe as long as justin was around. eventually we layed down on our bed (seeing as how it was in the living room, we couldn't go to bed until the party left). i was sooo sick of the attention at this point, and meg wasn't getting any so it was really just me, that i started rather rudely hinting at these guys that they should leave even though it wasn't my house. at this point yvette woke up and kicked them all out.

after that first night i was really sketched out and wasn't sure like how safe i was and if this was going to be ok. but then for breakfast we had eggs, bacon, sausage, toast, cheese, fried tomatoes, mushrooms and tea. and then we left around 11:30 to go to Timmy's mom's house (without TImmy, since he was still drunk and hanging with his buddies). 2 other girls from ciee were being hosted there with Ann (the gran), and roxanne, caryn's sister. We were fed lunch of soup, coke, homemade pizza (that had banana's on it!), grapes, chips. Then we hung out, started watching a bootleg copy of the hillary duff movie "a cinderella story" and they gave us chocolates and more chips. Then at tea time they gave us crackers and cheese and tea and cookies. After that we walked through ocean view back to the 7 sisters where i was staying. After that we walked over to Timmy's brother Keith's house where two other ciee girls were being hosted.

For dinner we had a braai at keith's house and it was sooo much fun. Everyone kept calling me mariah, which had started the previous night. We ate sooo much delicious food. The house was right next store to the shebeen so we went over and got drinks. everyone was eating and drinking and dancing. Keith's car is completely pimped out and has amazing speakers and green lights that flash to the beat so that was our stereo system for dancing. Yvette decided that it was her night so she danced forever. She kept making us all shake it with her and she was definately the funnest mom. justin and few other friends came over as well. These guys stopped by who thought they were so thugged out. the leader of the group "p diddy", who i call that because he kept saying he was like "P diddy, all making the band and shit," was absolutely hysterical. i told him that there was no way he could be a thug and still reference the show "making the band" but he didn't really get it. also since we were next to the shebeen other kids from ciee kept walking by our party to get alcohol. A lot of them stopped in to dance and hang out for a bit. We had quite the central location. also the house was really fancy. There were like 4 bedroom and everyone had their own computer and own tv. These families are all really serious about their technology. Everyone had nice sound systems, phones with mp3 players, crazy digital tv and tons of bootlegged movies. But they didn't spend as much money on clothes or food. anyways, after yvette had passed out and the party was dying down, keith drove us back to the 7 sisters. We went next door and hung out with the girl who lived there, nicknamed by all the guys as "the babymaker." She had 3 kids and a couple of the kids' grandmothers were there as well. One woman, Linda, kept putting her hands on my face and telling me how beautiful i was. she was so sweet.

this morning we woke up, and guess what, we ate some more. We were served "porridge" (really just corn flakes served in hot full cream milk). then toast, cheese, liver spread and tons of homemade coconut donuts. Then we watched this weird australian made for tv movie while attempting to do some school work. After that they served us lunch of wonderful chicken, rice, squash, corn, potatoes, and pineapple soda. It was soo good. and then we watched "date movie" which is like scary movie. it was pretty bad. and after that we met up back at the high school to say our goodbyes and we returned home to cape town.

Basically we ate all weekend. The hospitality was amazing. I've already been invited back to visit the Cloete family next month for Justin's birthday. It was also interesting because my experience was different from some kids who had very religious either christian or muslim families. We had the notorious party family of ocean view. The little girl, Tamia, was just like marina. she danced around the house instead of walking. and they had the same attitude. It was so cute. Also justine, caryn reminds me of you during your prince obsession days. she would have fit right in at rainier beach high. overall, it was so much fun and i absolutely loved. I definately learned a lot about the area as well as about people who lead a completely different lifestyle than i'm used to. It's always good to put your life in perspective like that.

hello! i'm finally back and re-settled in after my crazy spring (fall) break. I was on an 11 day whirlwind overland trip to botswana, zambia and zimbabwe with 50 american students.

The trip started on saturday morning at 4:45 with me in not very good spirits. I was probably the only person in the group to not be excited. I was angry with one particular person, and also depressed because i was assigned to a truck that none of my friends were on. After the early morning flight to Jo'burg and a brief, uneventful ride on a truck where i knew no one, we hit a rest stop for lunch. At this rest stop i discovered that there was a girl on the truck with all my friends (the elephant truck) who didn't know anyone, while all her friends were on my truck (the lion truck). so we made a permanent swap and i got to spend the rest of the trip with my friends. Thank goodness for this since the trucks were very much separated even though we were stopping at the same campgrounds. Also i discovered that i better learn to like tomatoes and cucumbers on my sandwiches because otherwise my plain sandwich of mystery meat, cheese and iceberg lettuce was going to get very boring. That first night on the bus people started drinking and dancing and being crazy. i just observed because i was still in a weird funk from prior to the trip and didn't feel like joining in just yet. That night we reached a very nice campground in Palapye (Botswana) where a delicious dinner of steak and garlic bread was waiting for us.

Each day we'd usually wake up to tea and cookies, take down camp, hit the road then stop on the side of the road somewhere for a breakfast of bread, cereal, yogurt, bananas when we were lucky, and jam. Then we'd keep driving and if we'd reached our destination we'd have lunch there, otherwise on the side of the road. Lunch was always cold sandwiches and we usually didn't know what kind of funky bologna combo we were eating. Then we'd either have activities or more driving. Dinner was always delicious with wonderful meat and pasta or rice and grilled vegetables. On our trucks we had a cook (Benson) and a driver (Jarius). They were awesome and had so many interesting stories to tell us throughout the trip. They were also very good at bribing border officials so that we could get across in only a few hours instead of a few days like it took many poor locals. more on that later. We were sharing 2 person tents and had really comfy roll up mats provided for us. The truck had regular seats as well as 2 tables with 4 seats around each one for playing card games and such. There was also a round seating area in the front of the truck. We had Mike, the guy who organized our trip, on our bus, as well as his friend Ian and a girl who worked for the adventure company named Mandy.

The 2nd day we woke up early and headed out on the road again for another full day's drive. We went all the way to Maun, which is an hour away from the Okavengo Delta (our first real destination). That day was fairly uneventful. The bus ride was extremely long, but i was at least starting to feel more comfortable around the group again. Botswana is really really hot compared to south africa and so much more empty. We would drive for miles without seeing anything but bush and the occasional donkey. Then we'd see a small town with some round huts and lots of little children waving at us. There was usually a small general store and a petrol station and a bar, and that was it. It's weird that Botswana is so empty because it's currency, the Pula, is actually more valuable that the South African Rand. That night we went to the campground bar to hang out and then went to bed reasonably early because we were all so excited for the next morning when we would enter the Delta.

We woke up the third day and took down the campsite. we loaded all of our gear onto open trucks that were going to take us to the edge of the delta. We drove along dirt roads for 1.5 hours until we got to the edge, where the marshes started. There was about 50 locals waiting for us with their makoros. Makoros are hand carved canoes made out of the sausage tree. The polers push them through the marshes with 10 ft sticks that they also carve themselves. There were 2 of us in each boat and we layed down on top of our luggage. I was sharing with my friend Tim and we almost sunk our makoro. i'm the biggest girl and he was the 2nd biggest guy and well it wasn't great for the self esteem. but actually our makoro was poorly made and very shallow. Even later on when tiny little girls rode in it, it still nearly sunk. so that made us feel a little better. Everyone got sunburnt on the trip to our campsite because it was sooo hot out. Our poler, Matthew, gave us a book of local wildlife to look at during the boat ride. Tim decided it would be best to read about all the meanest, scary things like the crocodile, the baboon spider and various pythons. however, we soon found out that the actual meanest animals in the delta are the mosquitos. When we got to camp we all laid out our sleeping mats on a clearing since we weren't going to be using tents in the delta. Someone dug some holes to be used as a latrine and we all went swimming in a natural swimming hole. The water was sooo nice, except we were all a little afraid to venture more than a few yards from the hole because of the risk of crocodiles. We also used all the delta water as our drinking and cooking water over those few days. The delta is a fresh water river that doesn't flow into the ocean. It just sort of stops at the Kalahari desert, but it still has a current. This creates a very marshy land rich with wildlife. To be honest, i don't really understand how it works. The first afternoon, after much swimming and napping, we went on our first game walk. KC was our leader and we didn't see much besides termite mounds, an elephant mud hole and various dung. That night after dinner we hung out around the campfire playing card games with our polers. They taught us a fun game called "Blind" and we taught them games as well. That night while we tried to sleep we all got attacked by mosquitos and ants and were all so lumpy and itchy the next morning that we looked radioactive.

The 2nd day in the delta we woke up early for a long game walk. This time we saw a lot more things. We saw zebra and wildebeest. the wildebeest hang out with the zebras because wildebeest have very poor eyesight. We also saw a couple very large elephants. A warthog ran right past us. It was cool to stomp around as quietly as possible through all the grass. The grass is sharp and often goes up higher than your waist. For the rest of that day we napped, swam and hung out. That night we went on a sunset cruise in the makoros to an area where there were some dried elephant tusks. We all tried to pick them up - they were so heavy. When an elephant dies the rest of the family mourns it. elephants have a very good memory and are very emotional. They often create areas where they bring their dead bodies, like a graveyard. After the cruise we had dinner and then the polers sang and did skits for us around the fire. Since our whole group knew that some of us were taking african dance they encouraged us to perform for the polers. We had them create a beat and then we did some dances for everyone. It was really fun and i think they were impressed by our moves.

During the night i couldn't sleep because i heard a lot of animals. I thought i heard lots of hooves and then at one point all the hooves started running. I thought there was going to be a stampede right into our camp! The next morning on our last game walk my suspicions were confirmed when we saw a large amount of zebra tracks and dung right outside our camp as well as hyena tracks. clearly we almost saw a hyena attack in the middle of the night. After the last walk we packed up camp and had a makoro ride back to the edge of the delta. We said thanks and goodbye to all the polers. They were so friendly and the experience of them teaching us so much about their home was really unique. They all know the delta like the back of their hand and we learned a ton. After that we went back to Maun and showered at the campground (we were completely filthy). From there it was on to Nata, a campground in northern botswana. We had all bought some alcohol and snacks in Maun before we left and so we had a little party on the bus on the way there.

The next day we continued on to Chobe National Park. On the way there were constantly elephants by the side of the road. One giant male tried to charge our truck. It was pretty scary. Also along the way there are lots of veterinary stops to help curb the spread of foot and mouth disease. You all have to get out of the bus and bring all the shoes you have and walk through this disenfectant stuff. It's really disgusting and i'm pretty sure it's completely ineffective. Botswana was very much like our stereotypical image of "africa." So much so that when South Africans leave the country they say they are going to "africa." They consider South Africa to be something completely different. Which it is. For instance the South African border operates with computers and technology. The Botswana, Zambia and Zimbabwe border control all have large notepads and pencils. That night in Chobe we went on a sunset game cruise. We saw an elephant scratch an itch, some fish eagles, a crocodile and a huge family of hippos. We actually saw the hippos fighting! it was awesome! Also we got to hang out and get a little silly.

The next morning we woke up exceptionally early to go on a game drive in Chobe. We saw tons of baboons. A lot of the mothers were carrying their newborn babies around. We also saw kudu, springbok, a giraffe and a bunch of warthogs. At one point our driver said he saw a lion, but i think he was lying. from there we drove to the zambian border. To get to Zambia you have to cross the Zambezi river. They only have 2 small ferries and one is kind of broken. Because of this there is a 2.5 day wait to get into Zambia. However, because we were white and bribed them with cigarettes and other things, we only had to wait in the hot sun for 4 hours to get onto the ferry. Then we got into Zambia and were immediately harassed by people trying to sell us things. It was a pretty stark difference between Botswana and Zambia. Botswana was much mellower and friendlier, Zambia was harsh and intense. There were lots of posters up at the border about women remaining virgins. One said "a real woman waits" and someone had graffittied on it "and then she gets old." The anti-AIDS campaigns around there seem to not really be well received. People kept trying to trick us out of our ballpoint pens, apparently they are extremely valuable around there. Also for some reason a lot of people were crossing the border with bedding sets.

As soon as we got to the Zambezi Waterfront Campground, a very high class place, we went to the falls. The water level is uncommonly high right now, so high that no one is allowed to go rafting (one of the main adventure attractions). However, this means that the spray of the falls is much more powerful and impressive. As soon as we got close to the falls we were drenched by the spray. I had not so smartly chosen to wear a white wifebeater with a dark bra and therefore was declared the ultimate winner of the wet tshirt contest. It was really unbelievable how wet we all got. The spray was so intense and the mist so thick that you could hardly even see the falls. After walking around it got dark, but we were there on a full moon. Every once in awhile, when the water level is high and there is a full moon, a phenomenon called a lunar rainbow is created in the mist above the falls. We actually got to see it and it was so cool. Apparently it only happens once every few years so we were really lucky to be there.

The next day we went skydiving. To do this we had to cross the border into Zimbabwe. Naturally at the border they only take SA Rand and US Dollars. No one takes Zimbabwean dollars and they don't take Zambian kwacha, even though it's the bordering country. Crossing the bridge over the falls between the border posts was beautiful. The border itself was hectic, but we got through pretty easily as tourists. When you go through they give you a cardboard slip that one person carries and it has the number of people in your group on it. This is given to the guard at the gate to prove that you paid. It's sooo third world. Once we got across the border we were met by Gary and Philemon, our skydive guys. Gary was british but had been living in Zimbabwe since he was 6. He's been skydiving since 1989. He was the tandem jumper for all 6 of us. Philemon was the guy who set us up on the ground and who helped us when we landed. When we got to the Zimbabwe Vic Falls airport we started getting all set up. I got to go 2nd. 3 of the girls in our group had been skydiving before. For some reason I was not at all scared, even though i'm still scared of bungee jumping. We were going up in the airplane one at a time. The plane only had one seat, for the pilot (sydney), and was extremely small. Gary had me practice my jump before we took off and he explained how everything was going to work. We then took off and started heading for 9,000 ft. Because it was a really windy day the plane was bumping around a lot. I'd say that being in that tiny scary plane was actually the hardest and scariest part of the whole experience. Well also, once Gary opened the door of the airplane and we started to perch ourselves on the edge, that was pretty scary. But as soon as we jumped it was just awesome! You're just floating in the air. the falls were amazing and the zambezi gorge was huge. The Zimbabwe countryside is really flat and the whole thing was so cool. We freefalled for almost 30 seconds and then floated with the parachute for a couple minutes. Once i landed me and lauren and tim decided to go into the airport to get some lunch. The only place was the bar. Gary and Sydney were also in the bar grabbing a fanta. When Gary realized that we only had rand on us he gave us some Zim dollars and then we sorted out a much better exchange rate with him later. Because Zim dollars are so worthless he had to give us 3.5 million dollars to buy lunch with. a hamburger cost $Z400,000! Also, all the bills have expiration dates on them because at the end of the year the bill will be even more worthless. Zim has one of the least valuable currencies in the world and the people there have to buy their foreign currencies on the black market because the world bank doesn't recognize the zim dollar. It's pretty intense. The people who went craft shopping in Zimbabwe barely had to spend any money. Instead they traded hair elastics, bras, pens, and anything else they had on them. that night we mostly just all hung out around the bar and went to bed pretty early.

The next day 10 of us went on an all day zambezi gorge adventure. We went gorge swinging (terrifying, they basically dump you backwards off a cliff for a ridiculous freefall and then you swing), abseiling (pretty tame), forward rappelling (scary, literally said "i don't like this" as i was going down), and did a flying fox (zip line across the top of the gorge, really fun and easy). Basically though after that day i decided that i'm completely done with adventure sports and death-defying activities for awhile cuz i don't really like them (with the exception of skydiving, which i loved). As soon as we got back from the adventure day we had to change clothes and get on the much-hyped zambezi sunset booze cruise. basically everyone got ridiculous and by the time it was done at 6:45 we were all going insane. There was a crazy dance party in the amphitheater, followed by skinny dipping and "streaking through the quad" a la Old School. The whole night was filled with highly innocent debauchery. we were in bed before 10. The next morning we had to wake up at 4, it was dark, no one was conscious and we took down camp. From there we started our long 2 day trek back into South Africa. We were all so sleepy for the bus rides so they were fairly uneventful.

The last night we were at our original campground in Palapye and we were shown a slideshow of our trip. It was a nice time of reminiscing and our leaders gave us all stupid awards. I'm proud to say that I won the "naked award" largely due to that last night. so yeah.

and that's the end of the trip. i had an amazing time. I learned to appreciate people's quirks instead of letting them piss me off, i got 12 new passport stamps, and i saw a lot of Africa, although now i just feel like i have sooo much more to see!

just an update: i posted pics of my trip on http://photos.yahoo.com/specialk0107 . they are in a new folder called AFRICA: garden route. also i posted pics in the usual africa folder of the shack i've been building and the surrounding neighborhood. so check those out!!

WARNING: exceptionally long (but highly interesting) post

ok wow, the last week and a half has been insane. during the week i had a paper to write, i went out a couple times, had some ridiculous roommate conflicts, and it was all very intense. On wednesday I went out to the shack i've been building and we painted it light blue. It was soo neat and the girl was so excited about. The house looks really nice. Painting out there was wild. All the drunk guys from the shebeen next door kept asking us if we had extra brushes and trying to help and then they'd say "well you guys must be professional painters because it looks great!" so funny. it was exhausting though to stand out in the sun all afternoon painting like that. Then friday i left for a road trip of the garden route with a random group of friends.

The garden route is one of the prized tourist attractions of south africa, as well as a beach destination for wealthier families from jo'burg. we left around noon and drove 5 hours to a town called wilderness. driving out there was beautiful because it's just barren grassland interspersed with farms for hours and hours. rural africa is extremely different from town. also we were trying to find a cd player for our rental car (a white mercedes) and no towns had electronic stores, and the ones that did only sold outdated, used technology. inconvenient. Once we go to wildnerness we had some trouble finding the proper campsites so we stayed in a beautiful hostel called "the beach house." We braaied some burgers and s'mores and then went down to the beach to hang out and play "never have i ever" as a way of getting to know each other. Since our group was such a motley crew we didn't really know each other very well at the beginning, but now... now we know a lot, maybe too much. some kids slept on the beach, but i was freezing and felt that since i was paying for a bed, i would sleep in it.

Saturday morning we woke up and headed to oudtshoorn (stopping at hi-fi warehouse first for a cd player). Oudtshoorn was celebrating day 1 of their famous arts festival so we stopped by that to see some minstrels and some afrikaans teeny boppers. pretty entertaining. after that we headed to an ostrich farm to ride the ostriches. That was hilarious. The jockeys made the boys go first and kris got bucked off his ostrich and then the ostrich fell on top of him. We couldn't stop laughing. For the girls they escorted us around and it was a lot more tame. You sit on the butt of the ostrich and hold on to its wings. and you have to lean back really far so that you feel like you are going to fall off. Then we headed to a wildlife reserve and saw a bunch of crocodiles, cheetahs, flamingos, vultures, etc. a few kids went "diving" with the crocs, but i didn't because i thought it was a waste of money. All they do is put you in a cage and dunk it halfway in the shallow water next to a hot, bored and sleeping crocodile. i was content to watch from 10 ft away. The best part about the wildlife place was actually the gift shop. They had these hilarious t-shirts that showed crocodiles in various sexual positions and it said "doing it for conservation." I thought this was highly inappropriate for a family attraction. After this we went to the cango caves and had a tour. The caves are amazing and some of the formations inside are up to 1.5 million years old. In each open room there was some cheesy story about the formations and their shapes so tha they could keep the tours interesting. Then we drove back to wilderness and camped in the wilderness national park. It was a beautiful clear night and we could see so many stars. We had to dig our own fire pit, which was probably illegal, and then we still froze all night. It was worth it though to wake up to crazy birds chirping literally right next to us.

Sunday morning we went to a place called eden adventures in the national park and went on a canoe and hike up to a waterfall. We got there nice and early and it was great. It was great to be active and then once we got to the waterfall it was incredible. We jumped in the water, which was strangely colored because of all the tannins so it looked like we were swimming in iodine, plus it was freezing! but we persevered and swam underneath the waterfall. Some girls decided to skinny dip, even though we weren't the only people at the waterfall. i didn't join them, mostly because they all weigh about 100 lbs. While they were in the water the boys decided to put their suits on top of a rock where the girls couldn't reach them. Then for about 20 minutes the girls tried to strategize about how to get the suits. One girl actually started climbing the rock, but it hurt too much and she was completely exposed. finally the boys retrieved the suits. Once we got back we went out to lunch in town and then moved on down the highway. our next stop was plettenberg bay. we stayed at a great hostel called albergo backpackers. We all rested for the afternoon then made eggs and bacon for dinner and went out to the local bar, flashbacks. We didn't stay long since we were exhausted.

Monday we woke up at 5 am to go on a private sunrise elephant walk at knysa elephant park. They have 6 elephants there that they use for study and mostly for public education. We met all the elephants and then walked with them around the park. The sunrise was unbelievable. The colors of red and purple were so vivid, my pictures do not do them justice. also the elephants were so cute and friendly. We learned a lot about them from our guides who were all from zimbabwe. We got to pet the elephants, take pictures with them, feed them. I actually put my hand in an elephant's mouth, on its tongue. Then we got to sit a thatched roof hut and eat a delicious breakfast. It was an amazing morning. After that we had to drop two people off back at our hostel because they had to leave early to do school work. We had time to kill though so we stood around our cars in the middle of town blasting country music. It turned out that basically all 9 of us loved country music so it became the theme genre of the weekend. After we dropped them off we headed to tsitsikamma national park for bungee jumping. We were headed to Bloukrans bridge, the longest bridge in Africa and the Guinness book of World Records certified highest commercial bungee jump in the world. It was 216 meters above a dramatic river gorge. We got all suited up in our harnesses and then they wrote our weights on our hands (this was terrible and i never want to have my weight displayed that nonchalantly again). They walked us out to the bungee site and i was forced to go first. They put all this crap around my ankles and forced me to the edge. Standing at the edge knowing i had to jump off of it was easily the scariest moment. Well i didn't really understand the directions properly and i wound up jumping wrong. They said to put your arms out to the side and look up, then jump. Well i did that, but somehow i didn't go head first and went feet first. So i was falling feet first for part of it until gravity snapped me down real fast. Instead of having a graceful dive i was bouncing around and getting whiplash. I was TERRIFIED. I got really sick to my stomach and dizzy from all the bouncing that wasn't supposed to be happening. and i was freaking out, you can see in the video my hands fanning my face, and i think i was crying. anyways, once they finally pulled me back up i could hardly move, breathe or talk. Everyone was so graceful and came back up smiling and excited. So moral of the story is, i don't plan on doing that ever again.

After the jump we all grabbed a pint of beer and watched the videos of our falls. Everyone was laughing so hard during mine that one girl actually spit her drink out - all over me. not cool. We decided to just buy the pictures of our jumps and not the videos. After that we had lunch in a roadside restaurant and it was on to our next destination. We went to jeffrey's bay, the surf capital of the garden route. The bay was beautiful and since it was in the eastern cape and on the indian ocean the water was a little warmer. Our hostel, the island vibe, was really fun and had a very happening bar. We went to hang out on the sand dunes for a little while and then me and two other girls came back from the beach and hung out in the hostel bar all night. We made friends with the bartenders and with a bunch of the other travellers. I was in charge of picking all the music and they had a bunch of fun hats for all the cool people to wear.

In the morning we woke up, swam, made pancakes and headed out for the long trip home. Today we drove from 10:30 until almost 9. some of the most fun parts of the trip were just when we were hanging out and driving. We played silly car games, sang garth brooks at the tops of our lungs, tried to figure out our busted mercedes. Which we discovered had an oil leak so we kept having to refill the oil. also, the speakers vibrated and squeeked whenever we played rap because they couldn't handle the base. The main highway along the coast is called the N2 and it's 2 lanes for most of the way. The slow cars drive in the shoulder so that people can pass them. We drove by countless numbers of cattle, some sheep and had to quickly break numerous times for families of baboons to cross the road. all in all, it was amazing. now i have prepare for my fall break trip to botswana on saturday!!