Blogs from Cape Town, Western Cape, South Africa, Africa - page 138

Got back to Cape Town on Wednesday night a little after 8pm. Had a tearful good bye with Susie and Louis, got on the Baz bus at noon (overpriced backpacker bus between towns), and ate the sweet and sour chicken pie Susie got me for the road. Spent the next eight hours reading, journal writing (yes, i keep a written journal too), and window gazing. The baz bus stops in every town along the way as a hop-on, hop-off service. So we stopped a lot with frequent changes to the backpackers on board. We even stopped at McDonalds in George - the same one we stopped at on the way to the festival! And no, surprisingly enough I did not eat there. Didn't talk to anyone on the bus until about 5 minutes before I got ... read more

Okay, okay we know it has been a while since we wrote the last entry, but we have a good reason this time. We were out in the bush in the nature reserve (Groot Winterhoek) surrounding the Educo base camp for 7 days. We have been lucky enough to have an amazing experience volunteering on an Educo course. In one of our recent blogs we explained, as best we could, what type of courses and philosophy make up Educo and now we have experienced the magic for ourselves. We headed off last Thursday (March 31) to pick up the students we would be working with. All of the participants are from a university program called Tsiba. It is a new university focusing on training young people who otherwise wouldn’t be able to afford to attend post ... read more

5am on the Big Brother truck and the girls had to be up and ready for a long journey on the road. This was easier for some than others as Whits had been 'kidnapped' by the barman and spent most of the night getting wasted with him and then trying to figure out where her tent was! She finally got Irish back for the first night in Tanzania by wandering aimlessly in and out of the tent, asking ridiculous questions, attempting to charge her phone without a charger and worrying that her Ipod was gonna get nicked when there were no humans other than us within an 1000 km radius! Quite amusing the next morning when Whitaker emerged with a headtorch on, crazy bouffant hair, one eye looking at you, one eye looking for you, generally ... read more

What a week! Cape Town and its dynamic surroundings continue to surprise us each day we remain here. The longer we stay the more we seem to be able to explore the cultural nooks and crannies in the socially complex South Africa - this of course is mainly due to the fact that we're being introduced to more of Allison's world here. The week started off with the two of us accompanying Allison and many of the Educo Africa staff to their "Base Camp" near Porterville (approximately 3 hours north of Cape Town). We keep mentioning Educo but haven't yet explained what it actually is. Here goes: Educo is an outdoor education organization - to quote their newsletter, "Educo provides leadership development through outdoor-based experiential learning". Through the use of the wilderness, challenge activities and group ... read more

Hi there still in Cape Town! but hey I think I have managed to add a whole lot more of you onto my blogg. So if you dont want to read the ramblings of an older backpacker please let me know and I will delete you from my list. Otherwise I will try and keep this updated with my travels. Next hurdle is to add the pics! SO if this is your firstime, welcome. ... read more