When I looked out my window on the morning of March 31st I saw beautiful flat topped Table Mountain rising up from behind the city of Cape Town, South Africa. It was sunny, no clouds in the sky, and a perfect 70 degrees. I went upstairs and had breakfast on the back deck, overlooking the city. After a quick breakfast and taking pictures of the town and mountain, I went down and packed my bag for the day before heading up to our diplomatic briefing. This diplomatic briefing was a special one because we had Amy Biehl’s mother, Linda Biehl, come aboard and tell us about her life. Amy Biehl was an American college student who came to South Africa to be part of the Anti-Apartheid movement. It was her goal to help the black people, but one night, the night before she left to go back home to the US, she was murdered by a group of four African males. Her parents were notified, and instead of getting angry they set up a foundation to help the African people because they realized that these four killed Amy, not because they specifically wanted Amy dead, but because they were trying to make a statement. They even testified to get the killers amnesty because their action was motivated by political means. She came on and talked about her foundation and what her experiences have been like working with the African people. She gave a great speech and afterward I went back to my room and got my bag. I got off the ship around 0900 and walked around the waterfront taking pictures of the ship and port. At 1015 I went back to the area where we got off the ship where I met with a group of my friends to go Great White Shark cage diving! There was a total of about 30 of us who split up into two vans and headed toward Gansbaai where we were going diving. It was about a two and a half hour drive to Gansbaai. South Africa is absolutely beautiful. It reminds me a lot of California. Even Cape Town made me reminisce of San Francisco. We drove through wide valleys and over small mountains until we got to our destination. There were lots of vineyards that looked like Napa; South Africa is famous for its wines. We also passed through a few shantytowns with houses that were thrown together with scrap metal and plywood. There were young children playing on the side of the freeway, not noticing the heavy traffic whizzing by. We arrived at the building of Shark Diving Unlimited, which is the shark diving company owned by Michael Rutzen. You might know the name Michael Rutzen if you watch Shark Week religiously. You might know him as “Sharkman,” the man who goes free diving with Great Whites and tries to slowly roll them over to put them in a state of tonic immobility. You can put some sharks in a state of tonic immobility by rolling them upside down or covering their eyes. They become paralyzed and very relaxed, and cannot move for about fifteen minutes. Their brain is flooded with serotonin, butting them in a pleasurable comatose state. When the sharks are in this state, it gives scientists amazing opportunities to study them and plant tracking chips in them. We walked in the building where they had lots of Great White photos and a video playing talking about the sharks. We had a quick breakfast of scones and pastries before splitting up into groups. I was very lucky; we were split into two groups, one had 11 people and the other group had 21. I was in the group with 11. Sharkman was out on a different tour, but the leader of my boat was his brother. We signed our lives away and then headed down to the boat loading area. All the boats are kept on land on trailers, and we got on the boat while it was still out of the water. Our boat was called The White Shark, and it was a sleek 25ft catamaran with a top observation deck. We got on the boat, and a tractor came and pushed us into the water. He made our way out of the bay into open water. We headed out toward the horizon for about 20 minutes, bouncing over huge swells. The boat had two 200hp engines, and went very fast. We were flying over the swells and I swear the boat even jumped out of the water once or twice. It was really hard to stand and even sit. We also got our wetsuits on on the way out which made things that much more difficult. We got out to the cage, which was attached to a buoy left out in the ocean from the morning tour. We pulled up and hooked the boat onto the cage. Once we were safely attached, the boat operators started chumming the water and they threw out a line with tuna heads on the end. They are an eco-friendly tour group, so they don’t use mammal meat, they only use yellow fin tuna, a fish that is on the Great White’s natural diet. We had barely even gotten attached before the guides started yelling and told five of us to jump in the cage. Apparently there was already a shark going for the bait and we had to get in quickly. I slid down into the cage and into the freezing cold water. I got in so fast, I didn’t even have time to put on a hoodie to keep my head warm. It took a minute for the water to seep into my wetsuit and get warmed up by my body, but I was not thinking about the cold. We didn’t have scuba gear, just a mask, and the top of the cage was out of the water, but you could push yourself down under the water to get good views of the shark. When I first got in the cage, I was pretty nervous. First off, the bars of the cage were a lot further apart than I had expected. With the current and the swells, it was very difficult to keep my arms and legs from drifting out of the holes of the cage into the open water. I was looking straight down below me, to the left and to the right, expecting to see a big shadow lurking out in the green murk. I saw nothing, which made me more nervous, I was expecting it to shoot out of the emptiness and bit the cage in half. All of a sudden, I heard our boat captain yell, “Divers! Down!” which meant that a shark was coming. I went below the water and kept my eyes on the floating tuna heads. All of a sudden, a huge Great White came up from the depths, circled the bait, and went for a bite. The grace of the animal was amazing, very smooth movements, but it could turn on a dime. Its huge jaws opened up, showing its rows of teeth, and it tried to chomp down on the tuna, but our captain pulled it away at the last second. The shark passed right by the cage, then disappeared into the ocean again. The system they had was they threw the tuna head bait right in front of the cage, and as the shark came up to bite the fish, the captain would pull it toward the cage, trying to get the shark closer. They also didn’t want to feed the shark, and keep it on a regular eating schedule. The shark made a few more passes, until the captain told us to get out of the cage so that the other six could get in. we climbed out, which was surprisingly difficult in a wetsuit and with a lack of hand/footholds. I grabbed my camera and went right back to the edge of the boat. You could see the big black shadows of the Great White right under the surface of the water. We took turns spending time in the cage, the two groups cycling in and out. The first turn we got was the shortest, probably about ten minutes each. After that, we the turns got longer and were probably about twenty minutes. The first time was so short because the guides wanted to make sure that we all saw at least one shark, so they made sure everyone got in the water right away. Throughout the day, we saw five different Great Whites; four females and one male. The largest shark we saw, which was one of the females, was 3.2 meters, which is about ten and a half feet. A few times, the shark would hit the cage, bite it, and even roll on top of it. The shark would sometimes grab the bait, and thrash around, smacking the cage with its fins and body. My friend Dan got hit in the face with one of the shark’s fins, and me made the joke that he got slapped in the face by a Great White. The coolest thing is that sometimes the shark would roll over, trying to get the bait off the hook. We spent a couple hours out on the water. We all got four different turns in the cage, my last two being in a row, spending about 40 minutes in the water. Even though I had already been watching the sharks for a long time, I still wasn’t even paying attention to the cold. The shark activity finally decreased which is when we decided to head back in. We all got back in the boat and they pulled the cage up onto the back deck, and made our way back to the harbor. It was another fifteen minute boat ride back, and when we got back into the harbor, the tractor and boat trailer was waiting for us on the ramp. The boat slid right in, and the tractor pulled us out all in one fluid motion. We hopped off the boat and made our way back to the building we signed forms so we could grab a bite to eat and watch the video of our trip. They made us grilled cheese sandwiches (which are really popular in South Africa) and we had the choice between hot chocolate and coffee. We sat down in front of a TV where they popped in the DVD of the day and played it for us. After the movie, we went back to the main building of the company and where we waited for the other group to come back. They got back and we also watched their movie. Judging from what we saw and heard from the other group, our experience was much better. Our group was half as big and we saw more sharks and had a lot more active sharks. Our sharks grabbed the bait and thrashed around, while theirs just bit small bites off. Once everyone was fed and warmed back up, we hopped in the vans for the long car ride back. We got dropped off at the ship around 2000, and my friends Shannon, Stephanie, Scott, Tyler, and I decided to go out for dinner. Shannon had asked our local van driver what the good restaurants were, and he had given us a few recommendations. We put our stuff in our rooms and met up at 2030 to go eat. We hopped in a cab and told our driver to take us to a restaurant called Mama Africa, where they had traditional African food and music. The cab pulled up and our driver warned us that this is a very popular restaurant and he didn’t know if we could get a table. We sent Shannon in to see how long the wait would be, and she came back out in a few minutes and said it would be an hour and a half. Our taxi driver said he knew a different African restaurant close by, and that he would take us there. He drove us down a couple blocks and off the main street and pulled up in front of Marco Place, another African restaurant. Shannon ran inside this one, and came back out and said they had a table. I was slightly nervous after India, going to a restaurant that was recommended by a taxi driver while asking for no extra money. But I got inside and I was immediately impressed. It was a very nice two story restaurant with tables on balconies above the main room. There were African animals hanging on the walls and a live African band playing traditional music. We got a table on the second floor almost directly over the band. It was very nice. I ordered a plate of springbok, which is an African deer like a gazelle. It was delicious, and tasted a lot like steak. I also tried Kudu (another African deer) and ostrich. The springbok was my favorite, but it all tasted good. I also tried pap, which is an African side dish that is made from maize, looks like hard mashed potatoes, and tastes like mashed up rice. It tasted delicious. We paid our bill and went outside where our taxi driver was waiting for us. We had told him to come back and pick us up at 2230 because there are few taxi cabs in Cape Town and they are hard to come by, so you need to arrange pick up times if you want to make sure you get back. He took us back to the ship and we greatly thanked him for the great restaurant recommendation and for being so nice to us. I went back on the ship and went to bed, because I had to wake up early for my safari in the morning.
I woke up the next morning and 0600 and packed my backpack for the next three days. I went up to the union where our trip was meeting and waited for everyone to arrive. Once everyone was there, we all headed out onto a bus that took us to the airport. From Cape Town, we flew to a city called Durban, which is still on the southern coast of South Africa. The flight was about two hours long, and when we arrived we met two of our safari guides in the airport. Our two guides were Kurt and Phil. We hopped in two separate vans (there were 21 of us total) and made our way to the reserve. The reserve we went to was called Hluhluwe-Umfolozi (pronounced Shloo Shlooie Umfilozee) and it was a three hour drive from the airport. An hour into the drive we stopped at a gas station and got snacks and went to the bathroom. When we got back in the van, we headed back on to the freeway. About five minutes out of the gas station, I saw something moving out of the corner of my eye. I look onto the window about a foot in front of me, and there was a big, about an inch and a half long, brown, hairy spider, and I could see its fangs. I wanted to ask the driver if it could kill me, but I didn’t want to draw attention to it, because there were a few people in the van who would have really freaked out if they had seen it. I slowly picked up my plastic soda bottle, and tried to give it a whack. It moved and I only partially hit it, not even hurting the big spider. I tried again and missed, and it darted into a crack on the other side of the window. Some people looked at me funny, wondering what I was doing, but I didn’t want to tell them about the spider because I had failed to kill it and now it was hiding somewhere still alive in the van. I kept my eye on that crack for the rest of the van ride, but it never came out. We drove through many fields and small towns, and it was much greener than I had expected. We finally turned off the road and onto a dirt road where we drove for about another ten minutes down a very bumpy overgrown path. We arrived at a gate, where our driver punched in a number, and the gate opened and we went inside. We pulled into a circular gravel driveway of the Umkhumbi Lodge. We got out and met the owner of the lodge, a man named Antone, and he told us we should have a quick lunch so we could go for a walk before the park closed at 1800. We walked along on a narrow dirt path through a low tree tunnel to get to the eating area of the lodge. We passed by a couple small cabins where we would be spending the night. Each cabin was about 30 meters apart, and about 15 meters away from the main path. They were very private. The two story, open air eating area was about 150 meters away from the vans. It was pretty much two porches on top of each other, wide open sides and wood floors. The top floor had a bar area and one long table and the bottom story had three big tables and the kitchen in the back.  We ate a quick lunch of bagels with different toppings such as tuna, cheese, and tomatoes. When we finished, we hopped back in the van and drove about fifteen minutes to iSimangaliso Wetland Park where we walked along a path that borders Lake St. Lucia. We walked right on the lake shore, which was very wide because they are having a seven year drought, so there was a very wide ring around the lake. On the beach, it was mostly dry silt with rocks scattered about. This is an excellent place to find fossils. Our guides found a fossil of a baby alligator in this one small rock. We had just started heading back to the vans when we saw the first flash of lightning. It was way out on the horizon but we decided to get back to the vans quickly. As we were walking back, the lightning got closer and closer, until it was pretty much right above our heads and that’s when it started pouring. So much for the seven year drought. A lot of the kids started sprinting for the vans, but everyone was thoroughly soaked within two minutes. It was some of the hardest rain I have ever seen. My friends Michelle, Anne, Becca (the trip leader), and I took our time getting back to the vans. There was no way we were going to get any more wet so we thought we might as well enjoy our time there. The lightning was really intense and happened about every five seconds, if that long. We got back to the vans and headed back to the lodge. The uphill road from the lake to the main road was pretty much a shallow river. Once we turned back onto the dirt road leading to the lodge, I felt like I was in Jurassic Park. We were in two vans, it was pouring, lightning was flashing, and we were bumping down a dirt road through an African forest. When we got back to the circular driveway, we were told to stay in the vans for a bit because we hadn’t checked into our rooms yet and they wanted to do it in small groups so we would stay out of the rain. Antone came running up to our van and told us that the storm had knocked out all the power and running water. Just like Jurassic Park. We waited in the vans for them to sort out the rooming situation, and when they got it all figured out, they split us up into small groups and a guide took us to our room. It was my turn to go and I stepped out of the van into the torrential downpour. I followed my guide on the path through the trees, and the once dirt path was now a cascade of water seemingly ankle high. There was also no light. No light at all, we could only navigate during lightning flashes. The lightning would flash and we would get a brief glimpse of the path in front of us. We then had to walk in complete blackness trying to remember where the trees were. Of course, my cabin was the very last cabin on the path and as far away from the vans as you could go. It was even past the eating place. I didn’t mind this. I thought it was really fun trying to run through an African storm. I got to my room and my roommate Scott was already there. The room was very nice. It had two beds, two wicker chairs, a nice stone tile bathroom, a patio, and a small refrigerator. He had a headlamp and they provided us with one small light sitting on the table. We put our stuff down and hung out in the darkness for a bit. We decided to play a game of cards to pass the time. Once we were almost done, we heard the refrigerator start whirring and some cheers from outside. We went over and tested the lights and the power was back on. We finished our game of cards and went to the dining area. About half the group was there sitting around the second story bar area. We got a few drinks and then it was time for dinner. We had a delicious dinner of beef stew with rice and pap. It was way better than I expected. We also got a dessert of chocolate mousse which was amazing. I ate on the second floor with about eleven other people. When we finished eating, we all returned to our rooms for an early night. We were all tired and we had to get up early the next morning.
We woke up the next morning at 0430, showered, and got a quick breakfast of tea and biscuits before hopping in the vans and heading to the Hluhluwe-Umfolozi game reserve. Hluhluwe-Umfolozi was once two parks, Hluhluwe Game Reserve and Umfolozi Game Reserve, but the elephants needed more room to roam so they opened the parks up and combined them. We got to the park entrance at 0600, right when it opened and we hopped into three open-air safari vehicles. We entered the park which was a lot different from what I expected. I imagined wide open flat yellow savannah, with in intermittent tree here and there. Instead, it was a mountainous green forested area. It was slightly drizzling when we first arrived but it stopped as soon as we entered the park. It was still overcast for the whole day though. When we entered the park, the three vehicles split up; this made the experience that much better because we were alone. The vehicles were all equipped with radios, so if anyone saw something, they would report it to the other vehicles so we wouldn’t miss anything. The first animal we saw was a giraffe. It was way up on the hillside and we were all ecstatic to see one. The vehicle stopped and we all took pictures. Once we were all satisfied, we go around a bend in the road and there were two giraffe’s right on the side of the road. These pictures turned out a lot better. After watching them for a bit, we drove over a small hill where we could see into a huge valley. We pulled off onto a roundabout overlook, and our driver (none of us could pronounce his real name because it had a click in it, and since the first animal we saw was a Giraffe we called him Geoffrey) looked out over the valley. He didn’t see any animals so he decided to go a different direction. We backtracked a little bit and pulled off onto a smaller road. We were driving along and right as we pass by a small bush, someone shouted “Hyena!” A hyena was standing about eight feet away from the vehicle walking parallel to the road. Geoffrey slammed on the brakes and stopped so we could all take pictures. The hyena looked at us, and picked up its pace, but didn’t go farther into the brush. Instead, it decided to use the road we were on. We followed the hyena for about 50 meters until it turned off the road and headed into the brush. It is really rare to see hyenas in the daytime, because they are generally nocturnal animals. They go off at night alone, and sleep in the daytime with the rest of the pack. This one was probably finishing its savaging and heading back to the pack now to sleep. We continued on down the road and a little while later, some shouted that they saw something on the hill to our right. The driver stopped and looked over and we all saw the big white rhino slowly meandering down the hill toward us. The brush was tall near us and the rhino got low enough to where we couldn’t see it, but we knew it was heading in this direction, so we waited to see if it was going to come close to the road. We waited a long time to see if it was coming but nothing happened. Our driver quickly drove to the top of a nearby hill to see if we could spot it. We couldn’t see anything and we were all confused on how a huge rhino could just disappear. All of a sudden, the mud puddle at the bottom of the hill started moving and the huge rhino rose out of it. The rhino had been taking a mud bath, so we couldn’t see it because it blended in. The rhino continued its march toward the road, so the driver raced back down again to get close. He stopped where he thought it was and we waited. We heard the bushes move and the huge rhino emerged from the brush and stepped onto the road about fifteen feet in front of our vehicle. He slowly crossed, not even caring that we were there, and headed out into the brush on the other side of the road. We had seen a white rhino and there were two types of rhinos in the park; white and black. White rhinos are far more common. They are much larger than the black rhino and far less aggressive. White rhinos are distinct because their head always looks down and almost grazes the ground. It is designed for eating plants and grass. The black rhino is about half the size and looks straight ahead, it is built for eating berries and fruits on bushes. The black rhino is also very territorial so many drivers don’t like to get close because it may charge the vehicle. Although, black rhinos are very rare in the park. Once the rhino had disappeared, we continued along the road driving to the spot where we were going to have breakfast. We went over a hill and down to the other side where there was a small pond by the side of the road. We saw a big herd of about 40 water buffalo grazing at the top of the hill. We stopped so we could take pictures and while we were stopped, one buffalo separated from the rest of the heard and headed down the hill towards us. He came right up to the water hole and started drinking right in front of us, about ten feet away. We thought he was going to get in and take a bath, but he just walked around it and headed off on his own. Once we lost sight of the buffalo, we continued down the road. About a mile or two down we saw a group of zebras eating the grass by the side of the road. There were about five of them standing very close. We pulled right up, and I was surprised to see how calmly they reacted to our approaching vehicle. Our driver always turned off the engine before we got close to an animal and coasted until we were close enough. Normally I imagined zebras as skittish, but when we got close, they only stepped a few feet away and kept eating. Since they took a few steps away, they weren’t facing us, resulting in a lot of great butt pictures. We made our way to the breakfast picnic area, stopping once or twice to see a few birds. We got to the picnic area and hopped out and there were three zebras right in the middle of the picnic grounds. One of them was a little baby zebra, so we all got our pictures taken in front of them and we could get really close. We also saw a nyala in the bushes, which is a gazelle type animal. We ate our breakfast of yogurt, granola, and an apple, and used the bathroom before hopping back on the safari vehicle. We wound up into the hills where we saw another rhino grazing by the side of the road. He just walked right by us eating from the grass. We kept on going and our driver spotted an elephant way up on the hill behind us. We all got small glimpses of it, and our driver turned around and went in the direction that it was heading. He pulled off on a small side road that went closer to the elephant. We were driving along it and we saw a small, younger elephant off the side of the road to the left. He was alone and our driver told us that the others had to be close because he was so young. We went about 50 meters down the road and we saw four elephants off the road to the right through the trees. They were really hard to see so we went down the hill farther to see if we could get a better view. We stopped and waited. As we waited, the other two vehicles met up with us because we had radioed it in. After about ten minutes, the elephants made their way out of the trees into the clearing that we were next to. The power of the elephants was amazing, they could bend and snap trees with no problem. There were also a lot more elephants than we thought. There was a whole huge herd. There were probably a total of 20-25 elephants, all of them different ages. There were babies, males, and females. The males surrounded the babies when they came close and protected them. The babies were not afraid at all; they were just playing underneath their parents and trotting around. The elephants started to get a little nervous with us around and they started displaying aggressive signs such as shaking their heads and dragging their feet on the ground like a bull does. The elephants decided to leave and they all trailed off into the jungle after crossing the road right in front of us. They pushed their way through the trees bending and snapping them along their way. Once the elephants were gone, we headed back out to the main road. We rounded a corner and there was a giraffe just standing in the middle of the road. It was just standing there, chewing. I guess that’s kind of all giraffes do, they eat, walk around, and then chew. We watched him for a bit, but we couldn’t get around him because he was right in the middle of the road. Our driver revved the engine and pulled up closer, this made the giraffe slowly walk off the road and stand off to the side. We drove by him and continued on our way. We drove to the top of one of the biggest mountains in the park where there was what’s called Hilltop Camp. Up there, there was a small store and a lookout point. We stopped, used the bathroom again, and bought snacks at the small store. The lookout was beautiful. We could see miles across the park. I was hoping to see elephants or something on distant hilltops but I didn’t see anything. We were driving down from the Hilltop Camp when our driver suddenly stopped and pulled out a pair of binoculars. He stared silently way down into the valley we were on top of until he put the binoculars down and shook his head. He said, “I thought I saw two lions down there, but they were only zebras.” We asked him where we was looking, and way down on the road in the valley, at least five miles away, there were two small white specks along the side of the road. I have no idea how he could have spotted them, I had a lot of trouble finding them when we weren’t moving. This guy must have had like 20:10 vision or something. We continued down the mountain until we were in the valley we were previously above. The road went through a river that we drove through in our vehicle. I thought it was really cool. We drove around a little bit looking for animals but had no luck. After a little while we went to a different picnic are for lunch. This spot was right next to a river valley, on the other side of the valley there was a large stone cliff that looked very African, like something you would see in the Lion King. We had a lunch of chicken stir fry and rice, which was delicious. After we ate, we hopped back in our vehicles and continued on our search for wild animals. We crossed over another river where we saw a small alligator resting on a rock. We kept driving around for a while, not having much luck finding animals. Most animals don’t come out in the middle of the day, so it was very rare to see them. We saw a few herds of zebras and a few more giraffes along the way, but no more elephants or rhinos. We were also on the lookout for lions and leopards, but those aren’t very common in this park. Also, we were on the north side, and those animals generally hang out on the south side. The reason we didn’t go to the south side was because you have a higher chance of seeing other lions and other big cats, but there aren’t nearly as many of the other animals, such as zebras, elephants, or giraffes. We were driving along ridges of mountains where we saw a family of warthogs, another rhino hidden in the bushes, and a family of baboons sitting by the side of the road. We also saw a few more nyalas running around at intermittent points. The day was almost over so we started making our way toward the park entrance. We went back along a road that followed the ridge of the mountains. We had beautiful vistas and scenery the whole way back. We finally descended into the valley where the park entrance was. We were driving along and as we come uo a small hill and around a corner, there was a rouge male elephant in the middle of the road. Our driver slammed on the brakes and stopped. The elephant turned around and started heading the other way. We started following it, but then the elephant turned around and started shaking his head. He then started running toward our safari vehicle and our driver threw it into reverse and backed up really fast. The elephant kept charging the vehicle until we dipped down back the small hill we came up. The elephant then stopped charging and turned back around. It started walking away so our driver cautiously followed, ready to back up if the elephant charged again. The elephant stepped off the road toward a small puddle in a dirt area. It started spraying itself with mud, and we took this opportunity to sneak by it while it was distracted. We continued our way to the park exit when someone spotted a rhino in the brush to the right of the vehicle. We stopped and watched it. It then crossed the road right in front of our vehicle and went onto a dirt roundabout. We followed him onto it where we stopped and watched him for a while. He proceeded into a mud puddle where he started rolling around and splashing himself with mud. He was taking a mud bath right in front of us and it was awesome. Once he was finished he got out and meandered back into the brush way out of sight. We continued toward the exit and right before we got there we saw a family of giraffes by the side of the road. We took pictures and finally made our way out of the park. We pulled into the parking lot and waited for the other vehicles. It took about another ten minutes for them to come out and when they did we hopped back into our vans and headed toward the lodge. We got back, dropped off our stuff at our rooms and met up at the dining area. We had a few beers, and the bartender was Antone himself. We started talking and I asked him about a “Danger – Landmines” sign hanging above the bar. He said that story as too long and he seemed to really not want to talk about it. I asked him what he did for a living before he opened this lodge. He said that he was a part of the South African Military during apartheid and that now he tracks down poachers in the park. He didn’t really want to talk about his time in the military, which was understandable, but he was more than happy to talk about his time tracking poachers. He told us that he would camp out in the park and wait for people to sneak in. He would then ambush them and try to take them alive and get information out of them. He said if the people wouldn’t talk, he would put them in the river with the alligators until they talked. He would try and find out where they were dropping off the horn or tusk, and set up sting operations to nail the next person up on the ladder. The people actually killing the animals in the park were paid next to nothing, and were just doing what they could to feed their families, but anybody above that was in it for the real money. After we talked about that for a while, he showed us some things he had kept from his time in the military. He had kept three bullets. One from an AK-47, one from a big rifle, and then one bullet that was easily longer than my hand. He said it was from a mounted gun that could tear down buildings. He also had a claymore (a motion sensor mine you plant in the ground) with the explosives taken out. The funny thing about claymores is that on the front in big letters it says “Front Toward Enemy.” He also had two exploded mortar shells and a steelhead grenade. Dinner was called, but my friend Nick and I decided to skip the appetizers and keep talking to Antone because we got in a deep discussion about President Mugabe in Zimbabwe. We headed down once the main course was served and ate a delicious dinner of impala with rice, pap, and a salad. After dinner, they started a fire in the fire pit right outside the eating area. We sat around for a while until they asked us if we wanted to go on a scorpion hunt. Scorpions have a special chemical in them that makes them glow bright green if you shine a UV light on them. We all said yes, and started heading toward the vans on the path that went by all of our cabins. I thought we were going to hop in a van, drive out to a far away field and look for scorpions there, but once we got away from the light of the fire, our guide turned on the UV light, and the whole forest lit up with little green dots. I was surprised how many scorpions there were, and they were everywhere. He found one that was near the path and we all got a close look at it. Most of the scorpions weren’t that big, but they were all poisonous. We learned that if the scorpion has big claws and a thin tail, then it isn’t very poisonous, but if the scorpion has little claws and a thick tail, you better watch out. We saw all different kinds, the biggest scorpion was saw was a black one about three inches long. Once we made our way back to the campfire, they showed us what was around us. There were scorpions all under the patio we were sitting on and in the supporting logs holding up the campfire area. Scorpions aren’t really vicious; they will only attack in self defense. Antone said he normally just gets stung when reaching into the firewood pile without a flashlight. He has been stung a couple times. We sat around the fire for a little bit and then Nick and I went upstairs to talk to our two guides, Phil and Kurt. We asked them if Antone was telling the truth about all of his war stories and whatnot, and they said it was all true. Apparently, the Discovery Channel was coming in a few weeks to make a documentary about him. He was also breeding venomous snakes in his garage, which was going to be the main focus of the documentary. After we talked a little more about growing up in South Africa and football (soccer), we went back down to the campfire area. We asked if we could do something the next morning because the current plan was just wake up and go to the airport. Antone said if we got up earlier we could go see the snakes in his garage and maybe go on a short walk. We agreed to that and headed off to bed.
We awoke the next morning early and I grabbed a cup of tea and a biscuit. When I finished that I went down to the garage where a group of people was gathering for the snake tour. We waited for the rest of the group and Antone opened the door of the garage. It was filled with big plywood boxes and glass cases. In the plywood boxes, Antone had the snakes that he was trying to breed, and in the other glass cases he had individual snakes. There were cobras, black mambas, and a whole bunch of other snakes. He even had a few frogs that secreted poisonous mucus. We got to walk around and check out all the snakes. There was a cobra that made a few snaps at us but the glass case safely contained it. Antone then took out a snake called the Brown House Snake and he let us hold it. This snake was not poisonous and it was pretty small, about two feet long. Once we passed around that snake, he took us to his wall of scorpions. He had scorpions in boxes from all around Africa. He took out one box and told us that it was the most poisonous scorpion in Africa. He opened the top of the box and there was a fake half-log in there that the scorpion was under. He lifted up the log, and while both his hand were full, the scorpion climbed up the side of the box and jumped out. It hit the floor right at my feet, almost between them, so I backed up quickly as far as I could and watched as it started running around. It started coming towards me, but I couldn’t go anywhere because I was at the end of a row of snake boxes and in a dead end. I started getting pretty nervous as the scorpion got closer and was desperately searching for escape routes. The scorpion got within a foot or two of me before it turned away and headed somewhere else. By this time, Antone had grabbed a pair of oversized tweezers and came up behind the scorpion and grabbed it by the tail. He picked it up, put it back in its box and closed the lid. After that near death experience, we headed outside and gathered for our nature walk. It was just a short jaunt through the forest around the lodge. We saw some poisonous plants, an abandoned termite mound that a snake was using as it’s house, and some small wild mammals. The walk took about a half an hour and was a big loop. Once we got back we had a delicious sit-down breakfast of eggs, hash browns, bacon, and cereal. Once we finished that we packed our bags and headed to the vans. We hopped in (I made sure not to get in the one with the spider) and made our three hour trek back to the airport. Once we got there we checked in, went through security, waited for boarding, and got on. The flight back was another two hours, and I slept for most of it. When we arrived back in Cape Town it was around 1430. We got off the plane, made our way through the airport, and boarded a bus back to the port. I got back onto the ship and unloaded my things and took a shower. Once I was all clean, I disembarked the ship again and headed toward the mall that was nearby. I walked through the mall to a Pick n’ Pay store, which was the first real grocery store I had seen pretty much since Hawaii. I stocked up on some snacks and tried to leave the mall. An amazing thing about this is that I had been to numerous cities in different countries around the world not once was I really lost or got disoriented. But, I could not figure out this mall. I wandered through it trying to find my way back to the ship, but I wound up outside on the opposite side of the mall. I decided just to walk around and head to the waterfront. I got there just as it became sunset, and the sun was setting right over the top of the soccer stadium in Cape Town, which will be the site of the 2010 World Cup. I watched the sunset until it started to get dark, then I walked along the water back to the ship. I had a quiet night planning my last day in Cape Town and downloading pictures and I went to bed early so I could get up early the next day.
I woke up at 0445 and went upstairs to try and sneak my way into a special early breakfast for some students on an FDP. Unfortunately, there were only eleven kids on the FDP and they were checking off the names of the people on the trip so I wasn’t able to get in. I then met up with my friends Scott and Simone and we packed our bags and got ready to hike Table Mountain. We left the ship around 0530 and walked down to the street to try and find a taxi. There were two taxis in the taxi pullout, one with no driver, and the other one had a driver taking a nap. The sleeping driver heard us coming, woke up, and called us over. We hopped in his cab and told us we were heading to the trail that went up Table Mountain. He was very excited; he was about a 70 year old white man named Arrol and he told us how he loves to hike that mountain. He was very happy to be driving us around so early in the morning and told us all about his life. He had lived in Cape Town his whole life and he now has five children. He also wrote a book that he was trying to publish on the racial differences in South Africa. He was a kooky old man that got us up to the start of the trail. He pointed us in the right direction and we headed off on our way. When we hit the trail, it was still dark. Our eyes had adjusted to the darkness, so we didn’t need the flashlights we had brought. The hike up the mountain was amazing. The hike itself was a lot like the Half Dome hike, though not nearly as long. The mountain is 1,086 meters (3,563 feet) tall. The trail started three hundred meters up the mountain so the hike itself was only about 786 meters. The path was made of big, irregular, stone steps that zigzagged up the mountain. The view was beautiful; we saw the gleaming lights of Cape Town under a navy blue sky with an orange glow slowly getting stronger in the east. We were about 80% of the way up the mountain when the sun actually caught our eyes. The sun rose in the small gap between Devil’s Peak on the east side and Table Mountain itself. Once the sun had risen, we continued up the last stretch known as Platteklip Gorge, which is a small crack on the west side of the mountain which is one of the only ways to get up. As we got closer to the top, the wind picked up and the infamous Table Cloth was rolling in. The Table Cloth is a cloud layer that forms on the top of the mountain and spills over the side that looks like a white table cloth. We decided to hurry up, which was very difficult because the wind was ripping down the gorge at around 20-25 mph. It got a little scary at points because the trail was very narrow and sometimes when an extra strong wind gust blew, it would actually knock you off balance and almost off the path. Simone decided to stay at this point because it was getting too difficult fighting the wind and the clouds were starting to get heavier. She took cover behind some boulders and Scott and I hurried up the last stretch of the mountain. We thought the wind would become a lot less forceful when we got to the top, but I was wrong. It was really ripping up there. I am not an expert of judging wind speeds, but I would say it was somewhere between 30-40mph. It was at the point where we were unable to walk in a straight line at the top. The wind was a crosswind to the direction we were walking at the top, and it came in a lot of gusts, and it was pushing us over, and we would fight it, then the gust would die, so we fell into the wind, then we would compensate for the new wind speed and a new gust would come up and push us back over. The top looked nothing like I thought it would. Table Mountain almost looks like a desert butte, made of red-brown, dry rock with very few shrubs on the side. I thought the top would be an open, arid, flat plateau with dry rocks everywhere, but that was not the case. It was more like a marsh. I guess the condensation from the clouds was enough to dampen the earth and allow a lot of grass and reeds to grow everywhere. It got so wet at points that the trail became a small boardwalk thing that was elevated above the mud. The top of Table Mountain is two miles long, and about a mile wide. The west end has the cable car station, which normally opens at 0700, but did not open at all that day due to the high winds. Scott and I walked along the Cape Town side across the plateau to try and find the “peak” of the flat topped mountain. We walked right along the cliff, getting partial views on the city through breaks in the clouds. We walked for about fifteen minutes until we got to the other side, then turned around and headed back. On the way back, we climbed up a small rock wall, and at the top there was a pile of stones that had a metal stake at the top. It was obviously a man made peak, and the highest point of the mountain. We both climbed up to the stake and took photos of us at the top. We headed back across the plateau to Platteklip Gorge so we could start our journey down. We zigzagged down a little ways and met up with Simone, who joined us on our journey down. The way down went a lot faster than they way up and you pretty much had to jump from step to step. It was really hard on the knees. We made it down by about 1030 and walked down the road from the trailhead to the cable car area. As we were walking down we ran into this man who was also walking down the road. He told us he used to be a guide around the mountain. He also used to operate the port radio tower as well as work on a lot of ships crossing the Atlantic. We walked with us back to the cable car and asked if we wanted to share a cab. We agreed and finally found one. It took a while because most people who rode in a cab up saw that the cable car was closed and just went back down in the same cab. We got one and told the driver to take us down to the waterfront. On our way down our new friend told us about all the times he had crossed the Atlantic on small sailboats, it sounded pretty intense. We got down to the waterfront and our friend wandered off. Simone, Scott, and I went into the mall to get us a big lunch. We hadn’t eaten yet that day due to our inability to sneak into breakfast. We found an American diner and I got an Avocado burger with an Oreo milkshake. It was just what we all needed. Once we finished lunch, Simone got back on the ship while Scott and I decided to walk around town. We walked along the waterfront all the way to the soccer stadium. It kind of looks like the Olympic Bird’s Nest stadium in Beijing, but it wasn’t quite as fancy. We walked around that area for a bit before heading back towards the ship. We stopped off at a restaurant to get something to drink before getting back on board.
We were scheduled to leave at 2000 that night, but it was so windy in Cape Town that day that the port closed. The ship couldn’t leave so it stayed the night in the slip and all of the next day until 1700, when the winds died down enough for us to leave. It was painful sitting in class and looking out the window and still seeing beautiful Cape Town with Table Mountain rising up behind it. But we finally left and headed north, up to Ghana. I will write again soon!