I'm alive

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Well it seems Emily has thorougly bested me in the whole keeping up with the blog thing. And heck, I haven't seen 25 dead people sitting in a van, so my adventures may pale in comparison. I think I'll claim temporary blindness and loss of my fingers. Its tough. I'm having to learn to type with my toes.

I'm back from the nether regions of South Africa, where I disappeared for a few weeks in search of wild adventure and unexpectedly wierd people. Seriously, this place has some characters. But before I indulge all of you in such stories, I have to say, My mailbox is sad. She has received no wonderful letters from around the world, besides Whitney's beautiful postcards, so right now only whitney is getting sweet south african gifts. ( yes that might have been a threat) So perhaps in light of the upcoming national holiday, ahem, my birthday, you would like to send me something? Just a thought. My mailbox would be quite happy and I'd feel pretty darn cool.

Having finished my 50+ pages of research papers for my program two thursdays ago, and practically built a home for myself in the computer lab, I was about as stir-crazy as possible and itching for an adventure. In true Lauren fashion, itching for an adventure in no way translated to planning for the adventure, and instead we just hopped in our trusty little car, christened Lola, (which according to our psychotic mechanic was not in fact trusty at all, but really who dwells on such details) and headed for the hills. At the base of the Drakensberg was a music festival we decided to hit up for the weekend, and then down to the wild coast. Splashy Fen, the music festival, was a true test of Lola's secret powers as an off-roading vehicle. Think Toyota Camry meets the Yukon Territory. Well, not really, but close. We bottomed out about 35 million times, yes I counted, and its somewhat amazing we arrived without losing any parts, but at least we know we can take her anywhere. In what would prove to be par for the courese we hit our first odd-South African roadblock, where we were asked not if we were carrying any illegal drugs or AK-47's but whether we could say something in Afrikaans. Clearly this was an effective method for warding off dangerous criminals. Mission accomplished, we arrived at Splashy Fen, set up our tent, and checked out the scene. Think Bonaroo for those who know, a massive amount of people who were camping around outdoor music venues. The music was pretty rockin, the falafel wraps were awesome, and our neighbors should have won lifetime acheivement awards for hardest partiers ever. During the course of the weekend they took turns jumping off the top of their VW van, shaved half their heads, lost all their clothes, broke their car, and generally provided us with great amusement. Props to them. There was a great Celtic band there, called, would you believe, Celtic, which I totally recommend on the 1 in a million chance you can ever find their stuff.
When the music wasn't playing we headed out into the Drakensberg for some beautiful hikes and generally caused as much harm as possible to poor Lola. (Dad, I can see you grimacing) No, actually, we worked hard to avoid the potholes and mayhem of roads that saw more cows than cars. On monday we left our rowdy neighbors still passed out on the lawn, and headed down the coast to Port St. Johns, on what can only be described as the road of no return. Clearly, I made Brad drive. The road was super narrow, with absurdly large busses passing us at high speeds, while cows wandered across the road, as it rained, in a cloud. And I did not make an ounce of that up. It was a bit stressful, but oh well. We made it safe after 4 or 5 hours, and the scenery was gorgeous. Port St. John's was stunningly beautiful. BUt this is ridiculously long and most of you have long since stopped reading, so I'll stop, post some pics and finish up in a second blog.
Okay, just kidding my camera wasn't working for splashy fen, so i have to get the pics from Brad, but I'll post lots with the next blog

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Photos

Camping at splashy fen
Not our neighbors, clearly too civilized