it's just a rock...

farewell cape town...

this will be my last post for a while...leave bright and early in less than 7 hours to make my way to kili where thursday i start my climb...4 days up 2 days down with my summit attempt on the 4th of july...my final day in cape town was a wine tour of the stellenbosch region north of cape town...a pair of isrealis, floridians, and one canadian made up our crew and it was a blast...with a crash course on "wine etiquite and snobbery" i tried a lot of different wines that i didn't know existed and learned a lot...4 vineyards 6 glasses at each over the course of the day...let's just say me and the tour guide's son here dean had a blast...hes only 7 but according to him he only drinks tequilla so i knew we'd be buds...even though i saw him sneak about 4 glasses throughout the day...classic dean

scuba steve...

ventured out to sea to see some great whites...our first setup we saw a little guy about 3m long...but as soon as people hopped into the cage he disappeared...waiting for about 45 min we did a "tactical move" according to steve here and ended up swimming with 4 different whites...the biggest was around 5m long...took a short video of the first solid sighting but had to post this pic because the reasurring skipper made it clear that there were only enough life jackets for the crew...that really settled all of our doubts about the trip...

long st...'nuff said'

king of the mountain mountain mountain...

table mountain resting at a gentle 1020 m is a main tourist trap for anyone wanting to dominate a natural stairmaster...hiking up were lunges that even coach sullivan couldn't handle all the way up under 2 hours (average time) me and some guys from the hostel went, unprepared, with jeans and jackets...sweating bullets in the heat of the day...still great views and photo ops from the top and then just for us they built a cable car for the return trip down...bring on kili

cape town...a gem...

posting from cape town has been a struggle so for my avid readers (joan and dan) my sincere apologies...this place is definitely not africa...they say there are cape townians and then there's south africans which is great for my last week or so but definitely not at all like the rest of the towns i've been too...think of san francisco and you have this place...checked out the waterfront and hopped on a big red bus for a tour on my first day...

grahmstown...

final day of "class" was a field trip to nearby grahmstown for a music/dance festival...in reality it was a larger and cheaper market than what we have in p.e...after testing out dozens of the exact same bongos to buy and pulling the classic tijuana walk-away it was time to leave after a few hours but still a fun final day...tate - hope you like your gift...the lady was a tough one to crack

addo elephant park...

took a mini safari for one day...got to see colonel hati's march (top) and then mufasa and sarabi (bottom)...met plenty of americans on this excursion which was great with the u.s. winning the group...idk why we had to stay in the truck...the lions just wanted to play...

africa must wake up...

just to piggy-back off my earlier post...the more time i spend here the more i realize the needs and troubles this place has...nas and damian marley's 'africa must wake up' off distant relatives describes the current struggle pretty accurately...for a nutshell...the album isn't too bad either...
africa must wake up

see the champtions take the field now...

chile vs switzerland turned out to be a pretty good game for last minute tickets...after moving from an entirely swiss section in the top third behind the net to a predominantly chile section near midfield...i started having some fun...chile may have just won the group with a 1-0 win...chi-le...chi chi chi le le le viva chile!

abakwetha...

we went back into the townships today to see a ceremony for a small group of ema xhosa men called 'abakwetha'...a traditional right of passage where they spend three to four weeks alone in a self-built tent and then return to their families as men (google it for more details, children read this blog)...sorta like a bar mitzvah only without the $10k in gifts, hebrew, or a trip to israel...

a little academia...a little more compassion...

since the cup has started a lot of our time is scheduled around the games and venturing around p.e. to the stadium and a bunch of different bars or the fan park to watch...after seeing a larger portion of the city it amazes me the poverty that still exists in this 'first world' city directly across the highway from this beautiful multi-hundred million dollar facility...south africa is in a virtual tie for highest income inequality with india and brazil...with professors lecturing us about south africa's economic policy modeled after india/china...can't help but wonder if that style will really make a difference...

fifa inspiration...

if you haven't gotten into the cup yet watch this and see if it gets you as psyched as this song does for everyone else in south africa...

here it is...

give me freedom...give me fire...

for the opening games we went to the fan-park in p.e... an open cricket stadium where about 10,000 people showed up to watch mexico vs south africa...me and my roommate from meixco were two out of five total that we met sporting mexican jerseys in the entire stadium...after a few si se puede chants and plenty of threats we made it out still kickin'...just in time to knock a ball around with some locals barefoot...not a bad opening day...

ema xhosa township and cuisine...

went out into the townships today and got to see the isi xhosa speaking ema xhosa people in their neighborhoods...completely different than downtown p.e. where people are content with their small gov't homes and some shacks...we stopped by this place to try some homemade food...the menu for the day was cow...literally a whole cow cut up and cooked together...no separation necessary...another common food (below) we had at an actual restaurant later...may sound a little different but it was still better than joan's lasagna...that's no way to become the 'head' of a major flock...

fire klub...

the live music scene in p.e. seems pretty limited...a couple bars have local cover bands not much different than durty nellies...blues and jazz are the most popular around here and we decided to check out 'fire klub' for a five band lineup the other night...jack rabbit slims were the final performance from jo-burg and were pretty solid...mostly originals but played a couple john lee hooker and hendrix songs...the venue was literally a house..with a bar and an extension to the porch with a bunch of picnic tables and a bonfire for the local hippie population...we saw one of our professors there and apparently the 'k' in klub is for communist? made clear from the repeat announcement...greg - you woulda loved it

facing tsitsikamma...

second leg of the trip was tsitsikamma national park...right after breakfast we got to hike the gorgeous area and check out a cool suspension bridge and take in the ocean, beaches, and scenery...we definitely started the day slow because by lunchtime we got to check out storms river and then to the bloukrans bridge where the highest commercialized bungee jump is resting at just over 216 meters...with a crazy techno-rap mix blasting there's no time to ask questions and before i knew it my legs were strapped together and they guys did my countdown to jump...'game-over'

'the island vibe'...

dudes...left p.e. early friday morning to hit up two stops on the 'garden route' along south africa's southern coastline...loaded up a van and all six of us went to jeffrey's bay first...a town basically built by billabong and full of bros not much different than the likes of brad jackson...stayed at a popular hostel called 'the island vibe' that was basically a backpackers dream spot...might be my second favorite place in the world at this point...later bra

isi xhosa...

first day of school and no homework...already better than both semester starts at iowa...we have our political science based class that covers the apartheid and current political struggles (same problems as us teddy) and then we started to learn one of the more popular of the 11 official languages...isi xhosa...thats isi 'click'hosa ya man...the accents down here are the best...some say 'the very best'...for most everyone is a cross between the 'cool runnings' bobsled team/austin powers or jamaican and british...whichever is easier...

field trip...

for those of you familiar with your cedar rapids history...beaver park zoo was a great past-time for anyone in the city of five seasons...complete with a petting zoo full of miniature ponies and monkeys that were willing to throw anything at you...a similar comparison to beaver park is kragga kamma reserve park that we saw today...definitely more of a playground but still kinda cool to see this...and rhinos and a cheetah with 3 cubs...tried to take one but they didn't like me as much as i liked them

real world sa...

after a day and a half of airports, my first 747 (thought of greg), the helpful dutch, a very policed jo-burg, and renting a cell phone 20 min before my final flight...i made it to port elizabeth, sa...CEA was clearly wrong about my housing...instead of a small complex we have our own house with a pool and shady but wireless internet...so it's great for 3 guys and 3 girls representing texas, virginia, ohio, kentucky, me, and mexico...for my roomates we have one zach galifianakis and one tomika from 'school of rock'...the other 3 are pending final comparisons...

'the very best' inspiration...