It's been a while...

Since my last blog lots has happened: my birthday, more soccer with the kids, hearing from Mel for the first time since we’ve been here, surfing, skateboarding with the kids, climbing table mountain, losing my coat and getting it back, a night in Cape Town, diving with sharks, walking through the township, and more surfing.

My birthday was just as I wanted it to be: relaxing, and eating pizza with new friends.  I think I surfed that morning (likely).

 I wished they had warned me about this photo.

Soccer has been fun; however, I have pulled something in my neck and was out of commission for a couple of days.  This, in fact happened on two occasions.  The first time it lasted a couple of days and felt much better, and then it happened again a few days after it was getting better.  Nonetheless, my neck feels good now, and hope that it stays that way for the rest of the trip.  I think it started from my stellar headers in soccer.

Mel and I spoke last week.  Last I heard from her Mel was heading to Kruger National Park, and had already seen the “Big 5”.  Kind of jealous, but she didn’t see 3-4metre Great Whites.  More on this in a bit.

Surfing has been on and off due to my neck injury, and the variable weather here on the cape.  Today was fun with two sessions: morning and afternoon with soccer in between.  I’ll be sleeping well tonight after our veggie pie dinner.

On the way to visit a friend’s family for a braii (a SA bbq) I came across a makeshift skatepark in the back of a taxi parking lot.  There was space to ride, and “obstacles” scattered around.  Upon finding this gem I decided to take the kids from my programme there to skateboard.  It ended up being me and 16 kids, plus all of the volunteers from the surf programme.  The surf was blown out due to heavy onshore winds, so we packed up, jumped on the train and headed south to the skatepark.  The kids absolutely enjoyed themselves, and were so well behaved.  I’m glad I got to experience this.  It’s gratifying to see the kids have so much fun with a wooden toy with wheels.  I was amazed at the ability of some of them seeing as they don’t have much chance to practice.

trash slash

group shot

apres meal of peanut butter sandwiches and organges

Shark diving, now that’s an experience.  We travelled 2 hours east by van along the coast to come to our shark diving destination.  Along the way we stopped to see southern right whales calving in Hermanus.  The pix don’t do these whales much justice as they grow up to 18m.  Apparently, the calves will drink up to 600L of milk a day, and grow at an enormous rate doubling its size in the first year.  They are born at 4-6m in length!

When we got out onto the water in the boat half of the group quickly discovered what it feels like to be in 2m swells on a 35ft boat.  Unfortunate for them many missed out on the experience of being in the water with the great whites.  I got to go into the cage twice and got some fabulous pictures.  I realized how excited I was about being in the water with the sharks when I looked at the pictures back home.  You’ll notice that in some of the head shots there is no cage in front of them meaning I must have had my arm outside of the cage.  Didn’t think that one through at the time.  The guide told us that we saw 4 sharks ranging from 3-4m in length.  Truly, this was a worth while experience.

Brave souls

Here fishy fishy!

Yup!

Can't get enough of this rough stuff.

I don't know what to say, but this is a terrifying picture.  Notice you can see the cage in this photo.

A group of us climbed Table Mountain last Saturday.  The climb was 2 hours to the top, or a 1000m vertical climb.  The view up there is a spectacular 360 degrees of the surrounding area including Cape Town city bowl, Lion’s Head (the adjacent mountain), Camp’s Bay and what we think was the Cape of Good Hope.  It was a goreous day, which made the first half of the climb difficult because we were in the sun.  It didn’t help that we started at noon.  Fortunately, the top half of the climb was in the shade.  The hike down, although difficult, took us half the time.

View east towards City Bowl, CT

Money shot

Looking towards the Cape of Good Hope.  FYI jeans were a bad idea..."Bad Idea Jeans"

Dung beetle doing his thing

After the hike up Table Mountain my group left for the last train back to Muizenberg, and left me in Cape Town.  I opted to stay in Cape Town to reclaim my jacket that I left at a coat check in one of the nightclubs last Wednesday.  I enjoyed my stay in CT at a hostel on Long Street, one of the lively strips in town, and I met a few travelers at the hostel with their own interesting stories (not that leaving a jacket in town is an interesting story).

Bubbles, a CT local

Because I didn’t get to my project until later on in the first day I arrived I missed out on the orientation.  In missing orientation I missed the visit to the township from where the kids I play soccer, skateboard and surf with come.  Kindly, a couple of the volunteers who volunteer in the schools in the township took me on a tour and took me to the schools.  The schools were quite nice mainly because they were built recently with grant money.  The kids who are in these schools have worked their way up a waiting list, and their parents are able to pay the R25 (CAN3) a week fee to send them there.  All other students are educated in shacks set up by residents wanting to help their community.  I have no pictures of the township because it is advised that you don’t bring any valuables in with you.  In fact, I noticed those who passed me by looked to see if I had something in my pockets worth taking (i.e. a wallet shaped object).  The township is an interesting place, and I wish I could spend more time there, although it is advised not to so.

That’s it for now.  I’ve been looking at the surf today, and want to try out a new board: a biscuit.