Cape Town - Miami - Cape Town

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As soon as Christmas here was over, I began my journey towards Cape Town. I spent a couple days surfing, body surfing and boogie boarding in Jeffrey's Bay which had some awesome 8 foot waves. I quickly realized that surfing is extremely hard but I was pretty pumped to be able to catch a couple nice waves and ride them into the shore on my second day.

After J-Bay, I headed straight into Cape Town. The total time I spent on a bus to get from Komga to Cape Town ended up taking me over 24 hours since the bus service stopped at every single little town along the Garden Coast. I spent most of the time reading The Covenant by James Michner (Thanks to Uncle Dudley for giving me that book - probably the best book I've ever read) or sleeping listening to music. Needless to say I had a lot of time to lounge about.

Upon arriving at my hostel at about 10 pm at night, I had finally met my first Americans since I had begun my journey. Honestly, with all of my travels I had begun to think that the Germans were taking over South Africa since the majority of people I had met so far were Germans, then came in the Dutch and South Africans after that. I really enjoyed hanging out with German people but few shockingly knew who my ancestor Erwin Rommel "The Desert Fox" was but maybe that's a good thing.

I spent my first day in Cape Town learning my coordinates, wandering around the city center, touring the Castle of Good Hope, and then climbing Table Mountain. For those that are not familiar with Table Mountain, it is a mountain that overlooks Cape Town and appears as if the the peak was chopped off to create an eerily flat top which you can wander all around and see the different views of Cape Town and Camps Bay.

In the same fashion as my brothers Daniel and Patrick (who did a 15 hour hike of the grand canyon in 7.5 hours) I quickly rose up to the top of Table Mountain in 45 mintues from the beginning of the trail (a 2 hour trail). I left pretty late in the afternoon so while I was at the top the "Table Cloth" began to roll. The Table Cloth is when dense clouds float over the top of the mountain making it pretty much impossible to see anything. If you watch the clouds cover Table Mountain from the ground, it really appears as if a white table cloth is covering a table. I did not want to get stuck in the middle of a dense cloud so after I wandered around for a bit and grabbed a bottle of water, I began my descent back to the city.

The next day was New Year's Eve and I spent the afternoon meeting up with a friend named Paul who was letting me crash in his apartment for free which was huge for someone with no income (aka me). Later that afternoon, I walked over to the Victoria and Alfred Waterfront which is a newer attraction for Cape Town being built in the last 10 years. Moreover, it is the most visited attraction in all of South Africa. The boardwalk was brimming with tourists like myself who either watched the traditional dance performers or sat down for dinner to watch the ships come and go out of the harbour. Soon After I cabbed back to the famous "Long Street" where I sat down for dinner with a few Guinness and listened to live music in an Irish Pub aptly named "The Dubliner."

The next day which was January 1st, Paul drove me to the airport where I was off for a 24 hour journey from Cape Town - Joburg - Atlanta - Miami. I landed on Jan 2nd at 9 am only to wait until 1 pm for my family to land. Thankfully my brother Daniel landed at 11 so he took me out to lunch while we waited for the rest of the family to land from Chicago. Finally, we all met up. I was esctatic to see my family for the first time since I left for Africa in August. Colin is about 6 foot 3 inches and is almost the same height as Patrick. My older brother Daniel, a solid 6 foot 2 himself, is now the shortest of the boys. Even so, none of my brothers are still within 2 inches of me. All six of us packed into our rental car and we began the 2 hour journey from Miami to Cheecha Lodge in the Florida Keys.

I quickly slept off my jet-lag. Returning from Africa was a much easier transition than the trip to Africa. The next day my family hopped onto a charter fishing boat aptly named “Gone Fishin’” and headed out in to the Open Sea. As in typical fashion, Colin quickly caught the big fish, a Yellowjack and the rest of us caught some decent yellowtail, grouper, among other fish. Halfway through our fishing trip, my father suddenly turned from his usual rosy cheeks to a sudden green and spent the rest of the trip either sitting curled up or teetering off the side of the boat. Soon, Patrick and Colin joined in the sea sickness fun and were both hurting pretty bad. Even so, we survived the trip and had plenty of fish to eat for dinner that night.

While all of the “scurvy” was going on amongst my family, I was talking with my former ND roommates organizing a fishing trip for the next morning. What I did not anticipate was that they would arrive in the Florida Keys at 1:30 in the morning when we were booked to go fishing at 8 am the next day. Despite the lack of sleep we all got up that morning and headed out to meet up with the Capt’ on his little boat to head out. As all true fisherman should be, our Capt’ was quite crazy telling us of his wildest escapades which included having one of the most notorious DUI charges in Florida state history. But at least he taught us a lesson from his experience which was “always take a cab.” The first fish caught that day was Brian Maloy who as you can see in the attached picture was quite a doozy. Soon after, we all caught some little guys and then began to catch some medium sized fish. About halfway into our trip, deja-vu from the day began to occur again as BJ began hanging half of his body over the side of the little vessel in seasickness. Brian, Jon and I all teased him but soon after Brian and Jon began to turn green themselves. By the end of the trip I stood alone in the back of the boat reeling in fish after fish while my compatriots tried to keep their stomachs down.

As the time wound down, we began our return to shore as our little vessel bounced against the waves thoroughly soaking everyone on board except the captain. After a nice lunch with the family, the four of us roommates packed into Brian’s rental car and we headed down to Miami to experience the many festivities. As I had done basically no planning on where I was going to stay the next few nights in Miami, I was very lucky to learn through Jon that our friend Mitchell’s brother had a nice apartment in Miami that we could crash at for free. The place was incredible with a huge balcony to view the city and the ocean. Our days leading up to the National Championship were basically go to the beach during the day then to Miami Beach at night. The day before the game was especially awesome as we met up with our other really good friend and fellow swimmer Marshall and we all went to a free Flo Rida concert on the beach where I also randomly ran into the Notre Dame women’s swim team who was in Miami for a winter break training trip.

On game day, we headed to the stadium for tailgating at around 1 pm. The atmosphere was absolutely amazing. The parking lots were filled with Notre Dame fans and I ran into so many people I knew from college that I did not expect. Pretty much everyone I ran into made the same comments which were, “Why are you so tan and why is your hair so long?” The main tailgating area was unreal with a live DJ blasting out outrageously loud music and unlimited quantities of drinks. I had never been so sure that Notre Dame was going to win a game as I was before the start of the National Championship…Therefore we don’t have to talk about the game much haha.

After the game I said goodbye to my family as I would not see them again until potentially August. I spent the next day chilling at a friend’s pool in Jupiter then began my journey back to South Africa. After my 3 flights and total of 26 hours, I was back in Cape Town. The next day, Margaret, Anne and I drove down to the Cape of Good Hope, the most Southern Point of all of Africa. There we felt the chill of the arctic wind that furiously blew right into our faces. Moreover, we got to see penguins! They were tiny little guys and I was extremely tempted into grabbing one and bringing him to Open Arms to be our little mascot. But alas it was not meant to be.

After quite an epic journey, I happily made it back to the kids to be received with open arms. After being gone for quite a while it is so comforting to return home to the kids. Since I have returned, I have been teaching freshman year of high school which has been quite challenging as there are a total of 12 subjects that I teach in the curriculum including: Hospitality, Economic Management Sciences, Maths, Natural Sciences, Geography, Accounting (hopefully I can teach this one), English, History, Afrikaans, Technology, Arts & Culture, and lastly Life Orientation. Thankfully, we are using an extremely useful home schooling program called Brainline that has been invaluable in our preparation of lesson planning. The days are quite full now that Anne and I are teaching. We start our days at 6:30 am which is not too bad as we prepare the kids for school. At 7, I drive our kids to school and then begin teaching at 8:30 am. School usually lasts until about 2:30 pm for my class but some of the younger kids are done by lunch. In the afternoons, we all work with the kids on homework or I do some work in the garden or yard to make sure that all of our vegetables continue to prosper.

One of my favorite things that I have been doing lately is coaching swimming at the local school Komga Junior. On Tuesday afternoons from 2:30 – 5 pm I coach 5 different groups for a total of about 160 kids all learning how to swim. It can be quite stressful at times dealing with such large groups of kids all under the age of 12 but the kids are incredibly grateful and I am now known by every single kid at Komga Junior as “Uncle Kevin.” The pool is quite small and shallow but next swim lesson I promised the kids I would bring my “costume” or swim suit and hop in the water with them to do a little demonstration. As I have not practiced swimming in over a year, I just hope I don’t sink when I get in.

Lastly, I have been keeping a pretty regular running schedule as I train for my 15k which occurs in early March. I wish I kept up with my running while I was travelling but I did not so I had to start my running over in the middle of January so I hope I end up doing okay when the race comes about. I have been doing a ton a stretching to overcome some pretty bad shin splints that were quite painful a few months ago and have had few problems since. Training in the hills here is incredibly beautiful but also really difficult as it is very different from the flat Midwest I am use to. One positive now is that I am a pro at getting herds of cattle and goats to get out of my way while I am running without slowing down too much as well as dodging massive piles of cow pies that litter the dirt roads.

I hope everyone is doing well and I am glad I got to see so many of you while I was home for such a short time. Please don’t be a stranger and feel free to write me or drop me an email. I love hearing how everyone is doing!!

PO Box 165
Komga, Eastern Cape 4950
Republic of South Africa




P.S. What is this Gangnam Style and this Harlem Shake Business? We don't get those things in South Africa...

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Photos

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At the top of Table Mountain

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View of Lion's Head Peak from Table Mountain

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The flat top of Table Mountain - When you are at the top, you would never guess it is a mountain since it is such a large expanse of plateau

Comments

[Chris Burke]

LOVE your blog!
Kevin, Thanks for the update! I love hearing about your adventures. And I also love the way you tactfully omitted any commentary on the BCS game. Who needs more of that. Three of those Alabama players are in jail as of this morning's paper (I know, big surprise...) I guess they got into some mischief...something about knocking some students unconscious and stealing thier wallets. Nick Saban kicked them off the team -- but not soon enough. Anyway, what is that one photo you posted that looks like cave paintings?? That is cool! So, my Godson - be careful, watch what you eat and drink and stay healthy. Don't worry, I will not be venturing over there to visit you any time soon! UNless it's to see some cave paintings. xo Twisty