South-Africa Exchange 2013: Week #6

Last week Saturday, the 16^th of February, started off with visiting the Biscuit Mill market. Even though it is located in a less wealthy suburb of Cape Town, the products were highly priced. You could buy the most beautiful clothes, bags, jewellery, decorations for your home and so on. The only thing I bought here was…food. Yes, on exchange you have to try every single piece of foreign food that you’ve never tasted before. So, on the food section of the market, which I actually enjoyed more than the non-food section, I tried tuna biltong, chilli pesto, a special type of honey, rooibos ice tea and much, much more. On this market, in the back, was a small stand called the Frying Dutchmen where they sold… poffertjes, bitterballen and kroketten! Yay! I didn’t buy anything though, these products didn’t look as good as the ones you get in Holland.

On our way back from the market, we stopped at a huge shop completely filled with things to dress up with; ranging from Mexican sombrero’s to pink fairy costumes. Guess what I bought here… a pirate outfit! Please do not think I like to walk around as a pirate, it was for a birthday party with as theme ‘Crazy Hats’. Again, I had loads of fun here with all my new friends.

The next day, Sunday the 17^th of February, I could sleep in for a bit and wake myself up with a morning swim. After breakfast, we headed off on a car tour around the Cape Peninsula. We did the Chapman’s peak tour, which is a long road carved into the rock along the steep cliffs, with the sea beneath us. The weather was beautiful again, and I really enjoyed it. For lunch, we went to a nice restaurant called the Black Marlin where I ordered the daily catch with vegetables and berry ice cream as dessert. When we got back home, Di and I took Nero (the male Rottweiler) for a walk along the vineyards of Constantia, and I had to pack the rest of the afternoon for the coming Cederberg trip.

On an early Monday morning, a group of around 15 post-matric students and 10 exchange students assembled in front of the Bishops Main Chapel, ready for a four-hour-drive to the mountain range called the Cederberg. We stopped along the way at a little gas station where we bought some cool drinks and snacks. As soon as we entered the area, the van stopped, and we were dropped in the middle of nowhere. After everyone received his or her mountain bike, we cycled all the way to the camp, through the barren landscape in the scorching sun. A couple of kilometres later, we finally passed a river where we could fill up our water bottles again. The ride continued for another 20 kilometres before we finally arrived in a sudden green and fresh area, which was our campsite. After we had set up our tents, we put on our hiking shoes and hiked to a place called the Maalgat. Basically, this is a place at the river that flowed next to our campsite, but then a little more downstream. There were huge cliffs that you could jump off again, just like we did at the Elandspad River. Feeling refreshed, we hiked back to the camp where we prepared a so-called Dutch oven dinner. It took a while before it was ready, so together with a few friends, we went to a little beach at the river around 5 minutes walking from our campsite. Here, we had a few cool drinks and snacks and chatted until dinner was ready. When we got back, the whole group was split in two since the activities for the next two days were not practicable with such a large group. Unfortunately, the dinner (chicken and potatoes made in pots on the fire) wasn’t enough at all so we had to survive the night on an almost empty stomach...

I woke up early the next day because of an aching back, the sound of birds and because I was freezing cold. Tuesday had begun. After breakfast in the early morning sun, we got our bikes again and cycled to a farm nearby. Here, we got a wine tour around the vineyards and the tour guide explained the entire process of wine making. At around 11 o’clock, the wine tasting started. Since I didn’t really feel like carousing eight glasses of wine just after breakfast, I didn’t join and talked and laughed with the other non-alcoholics. We cycled back to the camp, had lunch, packed our stuff and hiked to a place called Sanddrif Crag. Here, we climbed all the way up the cliffs and I had to wait for around three and a half hours in the heat before I could abseil down again. The abseiling was fun, but it wasn’t worth the wait. See the pictures below (: .Next, when we got back to the camp again, we had to pack for our solo night. Sleeping bag, mat, hoodie, socks, pocketknife, pot, food, camping gas, matches, water, CHECK! Together with my group, we were placed with all our stuff in the back of a dirty old van that drove around in the wilderness to drop off one person at each time. I was one of the last to be dropped, but my spot was beautiful. In the middle of a river, safe and sheltered from the wind between the rocks, I spread out my bed and started to cook my meal. I must say that I felt really lonely, in the middle of the emptiness. Nevertheless, the food was tasty and that night I could spot about 14 shooting stars.

The next morning I hiked back to the camp where I met all the others, excited to tell our experiences from our solo. After a quick shower, we went to the farm again. This farm also has a little school for all the kids of the workers. We spent three hours here, meeting the kids, doing exercises in their workbooks, draw, play games and had an amazing time. The children loved it, and so did I! In the afternoon, we visited caveman paintings and a leopard trust where we did voluntary work again with helping to set up a motion camera (nope, we didn’t see any leopard, unfortunately).

Thursday was an exhausting day; we hiked for about 10 hours. The day started off with climbing up a mountain, only to find us stranded because we were suddenly facing the Wolfberg cracks just before the top, and I couldn't see any possibility to climb over the steep cliffs. Perhaps you already guessed it; we had to go through the small cracks in the rock to get to the other side. Some cracks even had names; ‘The Birth Canal’ and ‘The Coffin’ for example. Some little detail I would like to add: I am claustrophobic. Luckily everyone managed to get through, and we rested safely on the other side.

We continued our hike after drinking lots of water (aqua, aqua! #learning Spanish from the South-American exchange students), and we hiked all the way to a gigantic, naturally made, rock arch. We climbed through some more cracks all the way to the top, took loads of pictures and had lunch. Then, on the way back, we climbed up another mountain with an altitude meter at the top. A little jar was hidden in between the rocks next to it, and it contained papers full of names of the people that had been here. We even found the names of the last year’s Dutch exchange students! After writing down our own names, we climbed down again, through the cracks and back to the camp where Tessa and I quickly changed into our costumes and jumped into the refreshing river water. That last night, we stayed up until late and talked with the post-matrics and exchange students, and finally learned the lyrics of the Macarena!
The next morning was filled with packing and organising, before we drove off back to Cape Town again, talking, laughing and memorising about the fantastic week we just had.