http://www.travelblog.org/Africa/South-Africa/Eastern-Cape/Grahamstown/ Travel adventures in journals and photos from Africa , South Africa , Eastern Cape , Grahamstown en-us Fri, 05 Dec 2008 00:09:18 UTC Fri, 05 Dec 2008 00:09:18 UTC The Eastern Cape is renowned for weird weather and this week we got it all a tropical start to the week followed by 4 days of hard rain and cold conditions more like being back in the UK. It was miserable all the animals were hunkered down out of the rain and the problem here is that the set up is not geared for rain. The tent leaks the sides of our lodge leaked and letrsquos face it driving a http://www.travelblog.org//Africa/South-Africa/Eastern-Cape/Grahamstown/blog-345978.html No we havenrsquot been gored eaten or otherwise destroyed although Alex and Chris tried the best last Friday night but more of that later. Itrsquos just been sunny busy and generally hectic. We had a great week with the breeding herd of elephants who charged us twice once on Monday when we returned from canoeing to find them coming down to drink. Chris bumbled into the matriarch while he http://www.travelblog.org//Africa/South-Africa/Eastern-Cape/Grahamstown/blog-344119.html Friday was possibly the best day yet we were asked to assist with the darting and capture of Damara and her two cubs. The objective of the exercise was to dart damara and move her into the boma for surgery to replace the transmitter which stopped working a couple of weeks ago and is essential for the monitoring programme undertaken by the conservation centre. The aim was also to take the cubs as http://www.travelblog.org//Africa/South-Africa/Eastern-Cape/Grahamstown/blog-336646.html Last week I faced down a charging lion I shouldered my rifle shouted clear instructions to my guests to stand still dropped to one knee and fired a brain shot quickly followed by an insurance shot. Gladly the lion was just a picture on a sled pulled rapidly towards me from 30m away. Itrsquos all part of our assessment for Trails Guide rifle handling which is a requirement for being able to http://www.travelblog.org//Africa/South-Africa/Eastern-Cape/Grahamstown/blog-334617.html Two weeks of waking at 5.30 and Irsquom still not used to it at least the daily commute only involves walking to the shower mind out for snakes and scorpions and then down to the main lodge. The resident bushbuck and its baby like to wait in ambush on the path which can be a bit disconcerting if you brave the walk to the toilet in the middle of the night. Rio swears she has a zebra stalking h http://www.travelblog.org//Africa/South-Africa/Eastern-Cape/Grahamstown/blog-332351.html After rain rain more rain broken fuel pipes and water in the diesel it felt good to finally leaving Cape Town not to mention the rain. Our last week in Cape Town was fairly unmentionable we did get to use all the public transport from trains to buses to minibuses while the Land Rover was in getting fixed. The whales turned out to say good bye and last week on Saturday we left Cape Town next s http://www.travelblog.org//Africa/South-Africa/Eastern-Cape/Grahamstown/blog-329469.html what a spectacular weekend out. the grahamstown national arts festival think south africa does the edinburgh fringe. that fititallinandchaseitdownswiftly type of vibe. brilliant. and if you have no idea what the edinburg fringe not to mention the gtown fringe fest is all about let me sum it up arts on a grand scale. you name it it's on and practically 247. plays stand up co http://www.travelblog.org//Africa/South-Africa/Eastern-Cape/Grahamstown/blog-298087.html Everyonersquos looks for a magic bullet at one time or another. In my case I wasnrsquot sure what it was except that a road trip seemed important. Not so surprising when Irsquod just spent a large chunk of time cooped up in the studio. So when I got invited to show Cognition Factor at the 2008 Grahamstown Film Festival I made plans to ensure that a road trip was also what I got. Irsquo http://www.travelblog.org//Africa/South-Africa/Eastern-Cape/Grahamstown/blog-296590.html Finished my exams. Finished my thesis. I'm done with college and it's an awesome feeling. But I'm leaving Rhodes today which is not so awesome. I can't believe how fast this semester went by and I'm going to miss everyone here so much. Thank god for Facebook.I've got two weeks of solo traveling ahead of me Kruger Park for game drives hoping to see the Big 5 hopefully a day in Swaziland http://www.travelblog.org//Africa/South-Africa/Eastern-Cape/Grahamstown/blog-284683.html Since I was missing graduation I decided that I needed to do something awesome. And that something awesome ended up being skydiving. Jess joined me and we did it in Grahamstown so it was cool to fly over the city wersquove been living in for the past four months. Everyonersquos been asking me if I jumped by myself hell no. I was attached to someone that knew what they were doing haha.T http://www.travelblog.org//Africa/South-Africa/Eastern-Cape/Grahamstown/blog-278009.html Most of what Irsquove written about so far as focused on the fun touristy things that Irsquove been doing. But therersquos a whole other side to life in South Africa thatrsquos hard to ignore. There is a sharp divide between rich and poor. In Grahamstown the Rhodes campus and immediately surrounding areas are all really nice and seem like they could be in any city back in the states. http://www.travelblog.org//Africa/South-Africa/Eastern-Cape/Grahamstown/blog-255544.html Irsquove been having a blast with all the new words and phrases Irsquom learning here. Like in many other Englishspeaking countries South Africans eat biscuits instead of cookies stand in a queue rather than a line and say ldquocheersrdquo when departing. But there are quite a few things that I think are uniquely South African.Robot traffic light just imagine being given direction http://www.travelblog.org//Africa/South-Africa/Eastern-Cape/Grahamstown/blog-252050.html I knew going into my trip that South Africa had eleven official languages but I figured that since my school was an English school everyone around me would be speaking English. In America essentially everyone is monolingual. We get some schooling in a foreign language but most of us only use it in those few years in junior high and high school and are no where near fluent. Here itrsquos http://www.travelblog.org//Africa/South-Africa/Eastern-Cape/Grahamstown/blog-252047.html There are a ton of different organizations on campus and Irsquom going to have a hard time deciding which to join There are something like 30 clubs sports and 60 societies everything else. You have to pay to join each of the groups unlike at home where everything is free. But itrsquos really not too bad usually somewhere in the 2030 range. This past week was sports awareness week http://www.travelblog.org//Africa/South-Africa/Eastern-Cape/Grahamstown/blog-247339.html Classes started Monday and it's pretty different from what Irsquom used to at Geneseo. I donrsquot know if Irsquoll be able to explain it that well and I donrsquot know that anyone besides my parents will be interested haha but Irsquom going to give it a shot.Everyone finishes their degree here in three years with the option of staying on a fourth year if they get into honors. Firs http://www.travelblog.org//Africa/South-Africa/Eastern-Cape/Grahamstown/blog-246022.html The weather the past few days hasn't been as great as the first couple. It was sunny and warm at first but now its gray and rainy. It doesn't get too cold though so I'm not complaining. And the rain has been more like a mist kind of like standing near a big waterfall.I've been doing a lot of running around to different academic departments the past few days for registration. It takes a lot l http://www.travelblog.org//Africa/South-Africa/Eastern-Cape/Grahamstown/blog-244486.html Food here hasnrsquot been too bad so far. A lot of vegetables and there's been eggs everyday so far for breakfast. One day we had eggs with fish sticks. I didn't particularly enjoy that combination. For dinner one night we had a braai or barbeque which is really popular in South Africa. They had regular barbecue type food potato salad rolls salad and some meat whose name I can't spel http://www.travelblog.org//Africa/South-Africa/Eastern-Cape/Grahamstown/blog-243022.html Alright so I left Rochester on the 31st flew to Washington where I met Jess another girl from Geneseo who is also going to Rhodes. From there we flew to London. We had a 15 hour layover there so we checked our baggage into a storage center and were able to get around London for several hours. We hit up all of the basics like Big Ben Westminster Tower of London London Eye. And we also http://www.travelblog.org//Africa/South-Africa/Eastern-Cape/Grahamstown/blog-242619.html I don't have much time to write an entry but I just wanted to test this out and let everyone know I made it here safely Everything is beautiful here and I'm loving it. I don't have internet in my room yet but once I do I'll upload some pictures. I'll still be using my Geneseo email and Facebook so keep in touch http://www.travelblog.org//Africa/South-Africa/Eastern-Cape/Grahamstown/blog-242352.html Choughi and Amal have spent their lives as pioneers throughout Africa and he is the descendant of one of the first Babis to leave Iran and begin teaching the Faith in Egypt. Choughi is a retired physician and has on occasion received requests from the Universal House of Justice to take up residence in countries where he and his wife were needed. They are now retired in Grahamstown where they ha http://www.travelblog.org//Africa/South-Africa/Eastern-Cape/Grahamstown/blog-100072.html Today we started off driving north along the coast to Port Alfred where we had arranged to meet a local artist named Edmund. Eddy as he is called is the only Bahrsquo in Port Alfred and he took off work to give us a wonderful tour of the town and to have lunch with us. Eddy is a painter who incorporates human figures and architectonic forms in his work. We had lunch at a small restaurant n http://www.travelblog.org//Africa/South-Africa/Eastern-Cape/Grahamstown/blog-100071.html