Blogs from Western Cape, South Africa, Africa - page 263

Civilisation to Nothing “You’ll be riding up front for most of the trip, won’t cha?” the lovable Canadian asked me as I dumped my bag into the truck. “What makes you say that?” “Do you speak Norwegian?” I pointed to the American couple and the Australian girl “They speak English.” He looked at me with raised eyebrows. Having only met me for a couple of days he had me nailed. “Sure you don’t want to come with?” Crestfallen, he shook his head. It was not a matter of wanting but a matter of time, money and all those things we try not to think about every day. Capetown has a population of 3.5 million and is roughly the size of England. So it was not long before we entered nothing. I would like to say we ... read more

Spier What is more amusing, Derick in his Drifter’s Official Guide Uniform or Derick having to give a briefing with a hang over on top of a hang over? Noon on the dot, Derick and I were the only ones present for the briefing. Ten minutes later and we were still the only ones in the dining room. ‘The boys are in their rooms, I’ll go get them. They do know the briefing is at noon, Nicole would have told them,’ he explained as he bounded up the stairs. I didn’t have the heart to tell him that no one had told me about the briefing time which is why I had to ask him the previous night. Three long blonde haired and exceptionally tanned Norwegian boys followed him down. Is this the group? ‘Guys, this ... read more

Shark Diving Robert clearly does not work on African Time as he was outside at 7am on the dot. Sixteen to be picked up in total and I was number 5. A large American clambered onboard with two of his companions. Imagine a white, bearded Nutty Professor and you could be forgiven for thinking there is no method possible of pouring him into a standard wetsuit. Buoyancy would not be a problem. It is just unfortunate for our large gentleman that Great White Sharks are surface feeders. Rethinking the issues, how would he get into the cage? I couldn’t read Robert’s mind, but as I caught his eyes he suppressed laughter as he probably could read my mine. Such an open book am I. Waiting at the waterfront for a Brazilian honeymoon couple, Robert had locked ... read more

Excited about our imminent roadtrip, we headed for the Sunflower Stop Backpackers to collect our newest recruit Barnaby before embarking on our journey down the Garden Route. Barns is a good old bean who we met at the Boss party the week before and who is travelling north through Africa - he convinced us of his Duke of Edinburgh triumphs, so we figured he could be a useful guy to have around. As well as picking up a severely hungover Barns we had another couple of guys tag on who were heading up to Durban, and so it began. First and foremost ... tunes. We had trekked around Long Street the previous day to find a cassette converter for the I-pod and had each compiled a play list (as mental notes) to play - how gutted ... 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