I am in love with Lesotho!!

I just got back to cape town after a week long trip to lesotho and I am so completely overwhelmed. This was probably the best week of my life. It was the most amazing trip I could have imagined and I can't even begin to articulate how I am feeling right now. When I wanted to come to Africa, this is why I wanted to come. I will try my best to summarize everything...and apologies for spelling errors because I am on my german roommates computer with no enligh spell check :)

We flew from Cape Town to Bloemfontein, which probably has the smallest airport in the world. Just one building, no gates, one security line and that's it. We had quite an adventure getting to the lodge because we took public transportation the whole way, which, in southern africa, consists of a 20 year old run down bus that is supposed to hold 15 people max but actually generally carries about 22 people plus all their stuff, and potentially their farm animals as well. It took us about 6 hours to do what should have probably been a 3 hour drive because the mini buses stop constantly to let people off and on and rearrange to pack more people in. But when we arrived at the lodge, it was dark so we didn't get to see the scenery until morning. We stayed in very basic huts with no electricity except between 5 and 10 pm, and no heat...and it was freezing! But we bundled up.

In the morning we headed out on an overnight pony trek. I can't even begin to do the scenery justice. Endless vallys, gorges, and snow-capped mountains with villages dotted in between. Completely untouched and gorgeous. We spent six hours on the horses and neither Emily nor I had ridden before, so our guide was extremely patient with us. The horses went down and up some really steep parts and over rocks and mud, so it was actually pretty scary at some points. When we reached the village that we stayed at, we hiked to a nearby waterfall which was amazing. The village was on a hill in the middle of the mountains, absolutely no electrcity, but plenty of cows, sheep, dogs, and cute kids! And since there is no light pollution whatsoever, the stars are like nothing you could imagine. We stayed in the chief's hut for the night and headed back in the morning to the lodge. I know I am leaving so many details out, but I don't even know where to begin...can't wait til I can put pictures up.

The night we got back, we saw the children's choir from the village and a local band that plays with all homemade insturments. The next morning we went on a tour of the village, went to the school and talked with the teachers, went to a museum in the village and had one of the local women tell us all about the culture. We also tried wine that they make right in one of the houses and bought some of the crafts that they were selling in the houses as well. There was also a group of Irish guys on a trip with their high school doing projects in the village and they had organized a soccer match against the local village team and we joined in! It was so fun to run around with the kids from the village and to play in the game with the back drop of the mountains. I don't know why, but it was one of the best parts of the trip. Although after the game, one of the Irish guys tried to sell me into marriage for 20 cows...seriously. Needless to say, I turned down the offer.

That night over 40 Afrikaans bikers came into the lodge with their obnoxious loud bikes after traveling off-road from bloemfontein to stay the night. Thankfully they were only staying for the night, but they took over the bar (which was the only place in the lodge with space heaters). And I just can't imagaine what a horrible invasion those bikes are to the peacefully countryside. Ugh.

The next day we went on a really long hike to another waterfall and to see some bushman paintings in the caves. They were interesting, and our guide told us a crazy story about how they used to smoke marajuana when painting them, which is why some of the pictures are half-man and half-animal. Not sure if I entirely believe him, but it made for a good story. When we got back we visisted the village sangoma, which is a traditional healer. We through bones on the ground and he told us our fortune and all about us. He said that my health is excellent, that I am a strong women, that I will travel a lot and have many important works to do in the future. He also took one look at me and told me I was still single, which I thought was pretty funny. He predicted that I would be a teacher some day and have 4 kids...not likely!

It was soo hard to leave in the morning, but we had to catch the mini bus for a six hour excursion back to bloemfontien, where we spent the night in a backpacker place before our flight this morning. Emily and I were just so overwhelmed and couldn't stop thinking about our trip and how surreal it felt. After I have some time to reflect back, I think I will hopefully be able to articulate everything better, but I honestly could not have asked for a better experience. It was really unbelievable.

One more final to take (yeah...kinda forgot about those) and then I leave Cape Town on the 17th for a huge trip of a lifetime. I'm not sure if/when I will have internet access, but I'll try to put up an update at some point. Otherwise, back in Chicago on July 26th!!

I just took my first final and I think it went pretty well...it has been absolutely beautiful weather for the last week and I just counted and I only have nine days left in Cape Town if you take out the Lesotho trip, so the first priority has definitely been doing lots of things around the city. One day we drove around the peninsula, which I hadn't done since our first week here. We saw the nicest little quiet beach with a couple houses and it looked like you had to take a zip line down to the houses. We also climbed table mountain one last time (sniffle), and went cage diving with great white sharks! Well, at least I did in theory. We had to drive two hours to get to the place where the boat left at 5:30 in the morning. Then we made the huge mistake of eating the giant buffet breakfast before getting on the boat...which was the roughest boat ride of my life. We ended up anchored down in huge waves for four hours and I'm pretty sure that every non-crew member of the boat got sick except Zoe. We saw a lot of sharks very VERY close up (think Jaws "we're gonna need a bigger boat") but when it come time to get in the cage, I could not even think about moving I felt so awful. The crew kept saying that you feel sicker in the water than on the water and I didn't know if that was possible but that idea was not appealing. I know it sounds like a bad excuse for being scared, but I honestly didn't think it was that scary to get in the cage and I don't think anyone else really did either. It was more just amazing to see them up close and you could tell that they really weren't interested in the cage. So I'm disappointed looking back on it that I didn't get to dive, but that's easier to think now that my stomach has recovered. I think it was worth it to be so sick to get to see the sharks so close, but that's also easier to think with two feet on immobile dry land.

Anyways, in between the two more finals I'm going to cram lots more in and spend a lot of time with the roommates. It's going to be very strange not to see them everyday, cause this has really become a second home and family...even though I miss home. We've been trying not to talk about leaving, but I think it's starting to become unavoidable. Since I'm leaving on the 6th for Lesotho and Liv and Jan will be gone before I get back, we only have a couple more days to all braai and be together. It's going to be very hard to say goodbye!

I am done with classes!! done! I can't even believe it. To celebrate we went to our favorite restuarant last night and then saw the new pirates movie (which was entertaining but really all over the place). Em, you will be happy to know that people here dressed up like jack sparrow too, but none were as good as you. With three huge papers due in the last week, I actually have been doing work for the last couple weeks. I know it's hard to believe since I'm in such a beautiful place, but it's been pretty much life as usual, just like crunch time in Champaign. It was hard to try to juggle paper writing around everyone else's schedule since we all had papers due this week and only three computers to go around, two of which have German keyboard, which isn't that different but the z and y are switched and I couldn't use spell check...a dire necessity for me. So needless to say, there was a fair amount of late nights and coffee consumption, but I am happy that nothing but three finals stand in the way of a lot of traveling. Finals start June 1st and all three that I have to take are two hour essay exams and all the professors gave pretty big hints about the content, so I'm gonna keep the studying to a minimum and cram in lots of last minute cape town activities. Only three weeks left here and most of one of them will be spent in Lesotho! I think we're all trying to block out the fact that we'll have to be leaving soon. Even with no more class, I've still got some planning to do and things to figure out before the trips, so I know it's going to go by quickly. I'll write soon about the weeks adventures...we're doing something crazy tomorrow :)

Originally we were supposed to go to Robben Island when we first got here with all the study abroad students, but they didn't get it organized until just now...meaning last saturday. The Island is actually a lot bigger than I was expecting and the view looking back on the city and the mountians is amazing. The prison itself isn't exactly what I was expecting. I guess I was picturing more of a museum with pictures and stuff to walk around and read at your leisure, but really it was more of a fast-paced guided tour. They drive you around the island, and then we went into the prison for a little while and saw some of the cells, which were tinier than you could possibly imagine...probably something like 6 feet by 10 feet, if that. It's unbelievable to think that people spent the better part of their lives there for no crime at all.

Sunday I spent a very lazy day lying in the grass at the Kirstenbosch gardens and half-heartedly doing some school reading but mostly just looking for cloud shapes. Yesterday I went to Khayelitsha with my Sociology class, which is one of the townships. I am so conflicted and confused by the townships. I still have a lot of think about to sort everything out in my head. They look so horrific from the outside and I'm sure people there are bitter, but it's a community just like any other with stores and restaurants and little kids running all over the place. Not that I'm going to go wandering around there, but I really didn't feel particularly unsafe. We talked to one women who has started a soup kitchen there out of her own pocket. Since she can afford to fund it, she is probably one of the few people there who could actually save up and leave if she wanted to, but instead she chooses to give away her extra savings. It was amazingly inspiring and makes me feel incredibly selfish. She truly must be one in a million people who would choose that path. I would really like to spend more time there. It was a nice reminder of why I wanted to come here in the first place...to experience something completely different that I have no previous understanding of.

As for this weekend, I've got to start cranking out some papers because I'm planning to travel for most of finals week...and one of my roommates birthday's is Friday and the other is Saturday, so it should be fun.

I can't believe it is May already!! Time here is going entirely too fast! I finished classes on May 25th and then have a final on June 1, 5, and 14 before I leave for my trip on the 17th. I'm trying to plan another smaller trip between the 5th and 14th too, possibly to Lesotho! I'm anxious to get out and do something because I spent a lot of the long weekend at home watching movies, playing cards, and baking banana bread with my roommates. The weather was cold and rainy, which really took away a lot of our motivation for doing anything, plus a lot of things were closed because of the public holidays. But even though I don't think the temperature got below 50, it feels a lot colder here because the houses are not built for cold weather and it's the same temperature inside as outside! It's not too bad, but it was very appealing to stay home with blankets and hot chocolate this weekend. I did do some shopping in the city though, and we made it to a rugby game, which was really fun and our team won! The stadium is literally right down the road from us, so it's always really noisy and crazy when there is a game. In other news, our internet has been out for the last week and, according to telekom, the super inefficient phone company that has a monopoly in the country, they have no record of us ever having an internet line and think they can't fix it for at least two more weeks. It's not that big of a deal, but it would be nice for school because we all have research papers to write as the semester winds down, but oh well. I am learning to live without internet :) But I apologize if I'm slower with answering emails, but they school internet is usually fine, although painfully slow. Enough complaining! Despite the bad weather (it got back up into the 70s yesterday though! woo!) and lack of internet, everything else is great! It's going to be very hard to leave, but I'll be happy to see everyone!

I finally bought a camera so I had to go somewhere scenic last weekend! I took the train into Simonstown, which is a town on the peninsula with beautiful views. We had lunch right on the ocean. There are a lot of little book stores and art galleries that we browsed around and we tried to go down to the penguin beach, but didn't realize how far of a walk it was from the train station. We never quite made it, but the long hot walk made us desperate for ice cream (actually, we probably would have been craving it regardless). We could not find an ice cream place anywhere though, and eventually we got desperate and found some at a gas station in one of those cooler things. I still think Kalk Bay is the best cute oceanside town with lots of little stores, but Simonstown was still worth exploring.

I also had to take the camera up Table Mountain! You can take a cable car up to the top, which I've heard is really nice, but it only takes about 4 minutes for the cable car to get to the top, so we decided it would be more enjoyable to take the long way and climb. We started from the base of the cable car and pretty much followed the trail that goes right underneath the cable car pathway, which turns out to be incredibly steep. It took us 4 and a half hours to get to the top and a lot of it involved rock climbing much more than hiking, but there were a lot of great views. At the top, you can see all the way down the peninsula to Cape Point on one side and the city on the other. It was actually very helpful for orienting myself to be able to see all sides of the mountain because you always have to go around it and sometimes you forget what side you are on. Because of the cable car, though, there are a ton of tourists at the top and even a restaurant, souvenir shop, and bathrooms, so the final destination kind of clashes with the rough route we took up, and we didn't quite fit in because we were so sweaty and dirty, but oh well. Needless to say, we took a different much faster path back down.

We have a long weekend coming up with this Friday and the following Tuesday off, but I think most people (or at least the study abroad students) are taking Monday off as well. I don't have any definite plans yet, but we're thinking of going back to Stellenbosch for a few days.

heyyy everyone! i know it's been a while, but believe it or not, i haven't had a very eventful week. i finished out the last weekend of break at the beach and just relaxing and enjoying being surprisingly not too sore after the race. it's actually getting closer to the end of the semester which i cannot even believe, but i've got quite a few papers and readings to do, so i've actually been doing quite a bit of school work in the last week or so. although zoe and i found some time to wander around a huge market downtown for a few hours over the weekend. their really is an overwhelming amount of stalls that people set up and sell anything and everything, from fruit to jewelry to every kind of souvenir you could imagine. you are supposed to haggle, which i am really terrible at, but it's definitely an experience to have. sorry nothing too exciting to report at the moment, but just know that all is well and i'm thinking of everyone back home.