Happy Birthday Nelson Mandela

Today the first democratically elected president of South Africa, Nelson Mandela, turns 90. Happy birthday!

Tsotsi: Movie Review

When I asked South Africans for a movie recommendation from their country, almost unanimously they mention Tsotsi, which is a story about a boy from the Soweto township (near Johannesburg) that commits violence and crime to get through life. However, an event while he is committing a crime turns him towards a path of redemption. The movie won an Oscar in 2005 for best foreign film and I would recommend it to anyone looking to get a glimpse of South African life in a township.

Driving Down to Cape Point

Every tourist that visits South Africa should make plans to drive down to Cape Point. It is one of the most beautiful drives I’ve ever been on, rivaling the Pacific Coast Highway in California for scenery. However, the drive is much shorter than driving the California Coast. You will need at least 3-4 hours if you make quick stops along the way. Leave a day for a more leisurely approach. I went with a group of travelers I met while in Cape Town but you could easily join a tour guide/bus.

Driving from Cape Town south along the east coast of the Cape Peninsula, you’ll want to make stops along the sleepy but scenic towns such as Kalk Bay/Muizenburg and enjoy some local cuisine with ocean views. We stopped by Olympia Café in Kalk Bay, which has a really nice breakfast/brunch menu and is a great way to start off the day. In Muizenberg, you can take surf lessons, but the breaks are a bit too easy for non-beginners. Then we drove down to Boulder Beach, where you can see African penguins. Funny creatures. Then there are a lot of other small towns, including Simonstown, and a naval port (I forgot what it was called).

Finally, at the tip of the Cape Peninsula, you’ll reach a park where you have to pay an entrance fee in order to get to Cape Point. The park is vast and you’ll see baboons along the way. Stay away from them, they can be a bit aggressive. There is a parking lot where all the tourists congregate to make up the trail to Cape Point, where you get views of where the Indian and Atlantic oceans meet. There are steep drops to the beach floor so be careful. There are many side trails and one could spend several hours exploring the area.

On the way back up, we took the western route up the Cape Peninsula. By this time the sun was setting, because we spent more time at Cape Point then originally planned. Having seafood at a restaurant at Hout Bay was the plan, but then we got lost so we had pizza at a local joint. The drive up to Cape Town on the western coast included some windy and steep roads, with really nice views. However, it was dark when we were driving so couldn’t enjoy much of it.

Bungee Jumping World's Highest

This past weekend, I drove with 3 others to Jefferies Bay to go bungee jumping for my first time at Bloukrans Bridge. Apparently it is the highest bungee jump in the world at 216m or 708ft. There have been higher jumps, but none commercially available. To get to Bloukrans, we drove on the so called Garden Route, which is a stretch of highway along the coast in South Africa with a lot of sights and nice towns to visit along the way. I traveled with Chyrstal, Martin and Linan. Chrystal is from Holland and is doing some volunteer work at a children’s home in Durbanville, the same town I am working in. Martin is from Norway and came to Mozambique to do some volunteer work and is now traveling in Africa. Linan is from the U.S. and is doing an internship for a refugee organization in South Africa. We all met in Cape Town a few weekends ago and kept in touch since we are planning to stay in South Africa for a while.

The drive took about 7 hours to Jefferies Bay. It would have been a nice drive, except it was raining most of the day. The night we got to Jefferies Bay, we were all tired so we had some dinner and called it an early night. The next morning we left for Bloukrans Bridge, about an hour drive from Jefferies Bay. It only takes about 6 hours from Cape Town but we wanted to stay at Jefferies Bay for the weekend. We slammed some Red Bulls as we anxiously arrived at Bloukrans. Martin was the only one that had bungee jumped before. Linan was still deciding whether to do it. She finally decided to jump once we got there. I never had jumped, but I figured, how bad could it be?

Walking on the catwalk right below the bridge was the first time my heart really started racing. The catwalk comprised of a flimsy thin wire mesh keeping me from falling to the gorge floor. I kept telling myself to look forward, but kept looking down as I walked to the jumping stage. Once at the jumping stage, everyone was excited, music was pumping and the employees were prepping us with instructions on how to jump and so on. We all were called up to the platform in no particular order. I was last of the four of us. When I was getting suited up, my heart started racing again. The guy who was helping me kept saying random stuff I couldn’t understand with a heavy Afrikaans accent. I just wanted him to shut up so I could concentrate on jumping. Once I got to the edge, I had to place my toes over the edge. I got real freaked out when I looked down, so I immediately looked forward. Then the countdown began, 5, 4, 3, 2, 1 and I took a leap of faith.

The jump was a serious trip. A rush of adrenalin, feelings of disbelief/surrealism, happiness that I was still alive and worry since I still had to be pulled up to safety. It happened real fast but I remember seeing the ground getting closer and closer, and then farther and farther as I bounced back and forth. Blood rushing to my head and pressure on my eyes as I was hanging upside down. Finally, I was pulled up by the guy hanging from a rope for a job. What a job. Then I was pulled back to the jumping platform and I was happy to be alive. We went back to Jefferies Bay and got trashed
.