Back where it all started.

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Well everyone I have made it back safely to the land of sheep and eternal rain; that's right I'm back in dear old Cymru (Wales).

I arrived home at 7:20 yesterday morning...which is pretty much the time I began pining to go back to South Africa and I am already couting the days til I'm next there.

Now where did I leave you? I believe that I was about to go to Cape Town? I know that was a while ago. It seems my vows to get better at writing more regularly never came to fruition but believe me, the intention was certainly there at least?

Anyway, Cape Town was all it was cracked up to be and then some. I think the thing that struck me the most was that I was in the middle of this bustling city but serving as its stunning background was the world heritage site of Table Mountain, which has more species of flora and fauna than the entire UK! It really can't be put in to words how awe inspiring it is.

The first night that I was there, Jean, the UCT student that I was staying with, took me up to see the main UCT campus to watch Ian, her brother, play rugby. I know I'm always going to think that St. Andrews is the best uni in the world but even I have to admit that UCT is an amazing place to study. The main campus and rubgy grouunds have Table Mountain right behind them (and as a result sometimes have zebra right by the campus!) and look out over the whole of Cape Town - I don't think many universities could claim to have a setting to rival it.

It was also quite surreal to be back in a uni environment; the numerous rugby teams playing that night were mainly for fun adn had names like The Turtles, and my personal favourite, The Shebeen Boys! (A shebeen is like an informal tavern that a many black people in South Africa run out of their homes and are reknown for their home made beer and similar). I guess wherever you go in the world, some things just don't change.

I spent a day exploring Cape Town's waterfront including a yacht ride around the bay, a visit to the Robben Island museum and to the craft market. I relaly wanted to go up Table Mountain but unfortunately by the afternoon, Table Mountain's reknown table cloth came over and the cable car closed. I also visited the Observatory area which had a really laid back vibe. It had been one of the first areas to allow mixed race coupled to live during the Apartheid era. Cape Town really does have so much history at every turn that I would say it is worth visiting this amazing city for that alone.

My night out in Cape Town brought another new experience for me. Jean and her house mate Donna took me to a Cuban bar where I tried my first hubbly. A hubbly works on the basis of a fruit or similar tobacco oo liquid placed in to thew bottom of a columnar device to which a smoking pipe runs. It is smoked in many Middle Eastern countries to improve digestion and for relaxation. I have never smoked anything in my life so had real visions of choking and making a fool of myself but I have to admit, it was quite a nice experience....even if it was odd to be inhaling banana smoke!

The last leg of my tour took me to Bloemfontein in the Free State. If I told you that my Cape Town friends joked that if your dog ran off in Bloemfontein it wouldn't matter as you could see it for 5 miles; and the fact that it's know as Big Sky Country, you can begin to get an idea of what it's like. You can literally see a pretty much continuous horizon and they only have about 6 days of rain a year if that; and so it's rare to see a cloud. It is also very arid and so there is a lot of dust in the atmosphere.

As a result I saw some of the most beautiful sunsets in my life. A lot of images of Africa portray blood red, hugs, glowing suns setting almost like balls on the horizopn. I always thought that they must be doctored or something but having seen the real thing, I'd have to say that even these images don't do it justice. Every minute the scene can change especially if you were fortunate, as I was, to be there one of the few evenings it rained and the clouds rolled in.

I also got to see a lot of game in Bloemfontein. There is a mount called Naval Hill which sits within the boundaries of the city and has a lot of telegraph polls etc. on it but even in the shrub land here, we came across giraffe, wilderbeasts, buck and more just driving on the road up there. It was so surreal to suddenly hacve a giraffe stairing through your windscreen and even weirder that the locals are used to that!

I was also fortunate to do a game hike in one of the local estates where my highlight was being allowed to go in with tame cheetahs. It was very odd to be able to stroke these truly majestic creatures and weirder still to hear them purr like domestic cats! I have to say that I don't support having wild animals in capture but these cats were part of a breeding programme where with each successive bread generation, they make the animals a bit less human dependent with the eventual goal of releasing them to the wild after the numbers have been increased.

I was also fortunate to make a trip through to Golden Gate National Park and Clarens. If anyone jokes, as my Cape Town friends did, that the Free State is flat, they clearly haven't been to Golden Gate is all I can say. The rock formations there are an archological hot spot as many dinosaur remains have been found in the strate there. When the sun shines on the mountains and rock formations, they really do seem to glow in shade of pink right the way through to gold. There'a also a lot of history in the area. I drove along Surrender Hill which was one of the surrender points of the Boeres in the Boere War. I have to admit that I was very ignorant to the history of the area before I went out there. I'd heard of the Boere War but couldn't have told you much beyond that. Hearning some of the stories on both the British and Dutch side however, you can begin to understand why, even in some areas now, the way the groups of people view eachother espeiclaly when you consider the imprisonment of many Dutch women and children in concentration camps where so many lost their live due to such poor conditions.

I realise this entry has jumped about quite a bit but it has been a very difficult one to write as my memory keeps shooting off in so many directions when I even begin to think of my trip and the amzing summer I've had. On that note, I hoep I've managed to get across my true love for the place I've visited and how I'd jump back on a plane in a heart beat if I could and would recommend anyone to do the same (my Dad is actually now going to Cape Town for his honey moon in December if that's anything to go by!)

So I will sign off for now chickens. Thanks for sticking with me on this trip and for all your messages along the way.

Who knows where next year will take me but I will be sure to keep you updated (whether you like it or not! hehe) along the way.

Lu.
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