Doing the kImpossible

Well, winter break is now officially over and I’m 4 weeks deep into my final semester of undergrad! I thought it might be a good time to update my blog and recap on the past couple months. It was a very busy but fun winter break! I was lucky enough to do a bit of traveling in between work and family time.

Back in November, I went to Deep Creek Lake for the first time with some of my friends from College Park.  Brandon and I stopped on the way to do a quick hike and see the sunset, but unfortunately that was the most time we spent outdoors.  The weather was way colder than we expected, so the only other times we ventured outside the house were to drive around and look at the lake, or to get in the hot tub that was out back. However, if you head over to Deep Creek I would highly recommend the hike we did! It was only 2.2 miles long, and it was mostly uphill but definitely worth it for the view up top! It’s called High Rock in Savage River State Park.

The trip was way too short- just for the weekend- but it was a blast.  Having a bunch of my friends together all under the same roof was so much fun.  There were a couple of cool shopping centers nearby and it seems like it’d be a blast during the summer so I definitely would like to go back later this year!

Then, right after my semester ended, Brandon and I took a trip up to New York City.  I’ve only been one other time, about ten years ago, and I really wanted to see what the city looked like around Christmas time.  This also was a short trip- we took a bus up on Saturday morning and caught one back Sunday afternoon.  The bus rides weren’t too bad, each just over 3 hours, but I definitely wouldn’t recommend Greyhound to anyone.  Our “departure” times were actually the times they had everyone line up to get on the bus, and after that it took over 30 minutes to get on the bus, so we left late both times.  When we supposed to be leaving Baltimore on Saturday morning, Greyhound informed us that our bus was running two hours behind.  Seeing as we only had about 24 hours in the city to begin with, this cut into a big chunk of daylight we had on Saturday afternoon.  Luckily they had another bus available to take us- but it dropped us off about two miles north of where we needed to be (thank goodness for the subway).  We made it to our Airbnb in the afternoon, at which point someone came to check on us.  When he left, he locked the front door from the outside, but there was no knob on the inside to unlock it! It took about an hour to get in touch with our host and figure out how to unlock ourselves.  We were pretty bummed because at that point we only had about an hour of sunlight left, and there were a bunch of things we wanted to see.  Long story short, we cut out some things that weren’t high on our “to see” list and made it to see everything else we wanted.  I actually enjoyed seeing everything once it had gotten dark, because there were Christmas lights everywhere.  We went to Battery Park, where you can see the Statue of Liberty, then walked around Wall Street and up to the 9/11 Memorial, which was beautiful.  After that we went to Rockefeller Center to see the tree and go to some shops in the area.  For dinner, we had the biggest filet mignon I’ve ever seen.  We had planned to go out to a bar after dinner but we were both exhausted from all the walking (23,000+ steps!) and ended up going to sleep.  The next day we grabbed breakfast and walked around Central Park a little bit before we had to hop on our bus to come home.

Battery Park.

Battery Park.

Battery Park.

Battery Park.

Wall Street.

Wall Street.

9/11 Memorial.

Grand Central Station.

Rockefeller Center.

Rockefeller Center.

Rockefeller Center.

The biggest Filet Mignon the world has ever seen. @ West Side Steakhouse

My next travel destination was Nashville, Tennessee! This was my big trip for the break, and I’d been looking forward to it since November. The occasion was Amanda’s 21st birthday! She turned 21 at the beginning of December, but because we were in school at the time, she didn’t get a proper celebration.  The trip, and Nashville, were everything I’d hoped they’d be and more.  As soon as we got into the city, we headed for Broadway.  We wound up at what would be our favorite bar while we were there: Honky Tonk Central.  We got some good drinks- maybe a few too many- and went to the house we were staying at house.  The next day we explored the Gaylord Opryland Resort which was insanely large and so pretty.  We went to some shops after that and headed home as it was beginning to snow.  We only ended up getting about an inch but it was enough to shut the city down for the rest of the night.  We stayed in playing games and drinking wine.  It was so much fun.

Nashville bound!

Birthday girl’s first drink in Nashville! @ Honky Tonk Central

@ Gaylord Opryland Resort

@ Gaylord Opryland Resort

@ Gaylord Opryland Resort

@ Gaylord Opryland Resort

@ Gaylord Opryland Resort

@ Gaylord Opryland Resort

@ Gaylord Opryland Resort

getting married @ Gaylord Opryland Resort

@ Cooters

@ Cooters

@ Willie Nelson and Friends Museum Showcase

When we woke up the following day there was still snow on the ground but we headed out to the Country Music Hall of Fame.  We listened to a short performance by Benita Hill, the songwriter of Two Pina Coladas.  The Hall of Fame was so cool- from the old outfits, to the cars, and records hanging on the walls.  After we made our way through we started our Broadway Bar Crawl.  We hit about 5 or 6 bars with the goal to get a drink and listen to a band at each place.  We stopped at Florida Georgia Line House, Nudie’s, Tequila Cowboy, Tin Roof, Honky Tonk, Dierks Bentley’s Whiskey Row, Tootsie’s, The Stage on Broadway and a couple more.  It was awesome. So many great bands, good food and drinks! Florida Georgia Line House had a cool set up and great food, but a pretty limited drink menu.  Nudie’s was also one of my favorites.  They had one big band playing on the main level and another band playing at the opposite end upstairs.  If you stood in the right spot, you could hear both bands at the same time which got a little confusing, but they were both great bands.  You can’t really go wrong when you’re at the longest bar in Nashville! Like I said Honky Tonk was also one of our favorites.  I think we spent triple the amount of time there that we spent at any other bar.  They had great snack food, good drinks, friendly services and amazing bands. We went there on 3 separate days- so this would be my #1 suggestion for places to hit on Broadway! The others were nice but not as open and the atmosphere at Honky Tonk was great.

@ Country Music Hall of Fame

@ Country Music Hall of Fame

@ Country Music Hall of Fame

@ Country Music Hall of Fame

@ Country Music Hall of Fame

@ Country Music Hall of Fame

@ Country Music Hall of Fame

@ Country Music Hall of Fame

@ Country Music Hall of Fame

@ Nudie’s

@ Nudie’s

@ Country Music Hall of Fame

@ Country Music Hall of Fame

@ Country Music Hall of Fame

@ Country Music Hall of Fame

Broadway, Nashville, TN

@ Honky Tonk

@ Tin Roof

@ Tin Roof

The next morning we all went to breakfast at Another Broken Egg Cafe.  Their beignets, which I tried for the first time, were really tasty.  I had an omelette called the Stans Mardi Gras Omelette (crawfish, gulf shrimp, Andouille, red peppers, tomato hollandaise, tomatoes, green onions)… YUM. So much flavor but I couldn’t even finish half of it because there was so much. We also shared some Banana Foster pancakes which were soo good, but really sweet.  Overall it was a great breakfast spot in Downtown Nashville! Afterwards we went to Ryman Auditorium, former home of the Grand Ole Opry.  I really liked that because they had a cool info video and let you walk around the auditorium. They also had some old outfits and bits of history all around the building.  Amanda knew of a big mural in Nashville so we went to take pictures by that.  The day ended with more games at home and Italian food (the best way you can end a day!).

@ Another Broken Egg Cafe

@ Ryman Auditorium

@ Ryman Auditorium

@ Ryman Auditorium

@ Nashville WhatLiftsYou Mural

@ Nashville WhatLiftsYou Mural

@ Nashville WhatLiftsYou Mural

@ Nashville WhatLiftsYou Mural

On our final day in Nashville, we packed up early and headed out to explore some more parts of Nashville.  We wandered around some shops, and drove to a nearby town, Franklin, for lunch.  The restaurant we ate at was called Grays on Main, which had been a pharmacy from the late 1800s to the late 1900s.  The history was so cool and their cream of potato soup was to die for.  We still had a few hours before we needed to be at the airport so we all went to Honky Tonk (because where else would we go?).  We had a great time munching on french fries, dancing to songs, and the birthday girl even got to go up on stage with the band.  Heartbroken is the only word to describe how I felt when we had to leave and head to the airport.

@ Marathon Village, Nashville, TN

@ Marathon Village

@ Grays on Main

@ Grays on Main

@ Grays on Main

@ Tootsie’s

@ Honky Tonk

@ Honky Tonk

@ Honky Tonk

@ BNA

Nashville was an absolute blast.  I want to give a personal thanks to Amanda for inviting me to come along for the fun, to Aunt Jennie for the countless things she did for me while we were there, and to everyone else who was there that made it a blast.  If you haven’t been to Nashville, put it on your list of places to go now! All of the musicians we heard were amazing… and I now have really high expectations when I hear live music.  You won’t find a city like Nashville anywhere else.

If we’re going to be honest, there are only a few reasons why I came back to Southern Africa: the avos, chocolate and wine. Just kidding! Although they are huge benefits to being back here, that’s not why I really came. 

My school, the University of Maryland Baltimore has a global health department which organizes global health initiatives that students are able to participate in. Most of the locations for the initiatives were throughout Africa- all health related- and I chose to apply to the one in Botswana. For one, I was in Botswana exactly one year ago and loved it. Plus it’s the next door neighbor to my second home, South Africa. Additionally, the research project here is about HIV, an interest of mine. This area of the world has a heavy prevalence of HIV and throughout my years of college, I’ve gotten a pretty good foundation on the disease. Fortunately I was selected as one of the two students to receive the grant (the other student is a MPH student named Rhiya), and the trip was completely coordinated for us by the global health department. The grant used to fund the research project paid for my flight and accommodation, so the only thing left for me to pay for was food and transportation. Not bad for a broke college student. 

Like I said, the research project I’m doing is about HIV. We are examining the effects of a new medication, called dolutegravir (pronounced doll-you-teg-ruh-veer). It’s an integrase inhibitor which basically means that it stops the HIV virus from integrating it’s RNA into the DNA of CD4 cells. Otherwise the CD4 cells will die. CD4 cells are a specific type of white blood cell that helps the body fight infection. Without adequate CD4 cells, a person’s body can easy succumb to opportunistic infections, which is what makes HIV so deadly. 

The ministry of health in Botswana didn’t begin prescribing dolutegravir until June 2016, so the medication is relatively new. So far it’s been generally well tolerated, but we’re collecting evidence that’ll prove it. We are looking at a couple of different things: viral load (which shows whether or not the medication is effective and virus is being suppressed- less than 400 copies/mL here is considered undetectable and under control), CD4 count (which measures immune function- the higher the better) and any side effects patients have. The most common side effect reported and that we’ve seen is headaches. Dolutegravir is taken in combination with other ARTs, usually truvada, and is the first line regimen for newly infected patients.

Health records are kept very differently here than in the US. In the US, pretty much all practices have converted to using electronic databases to store patient health history and information. Here, everything is still on paper, which makes the process a little more lengthy. That’s not the only thing different between health care but more on that in another post. Rhiya and I have spent the past few weeks going through patient files (roughly 1200). We’ve been at a different clinic each week: the first was Gaborone West, then Broadhurst and lastly Bontleng. Now we’re putting all the data we gathered into an excel sheet.

We also got to sit in on a handful of lectures for a nurse prescriber course while we’ve been here. The class is for nurses who are getting certified to see HIV patients and prescribe them ART (antiretroviral therapy). How cool is it that nurses here can prescribe!! The lectures were given by doctors from Botswana, the US, and Kenya who’ve specialized in HIV (if you’re on snapchat then you’ve seen the mouthwatering meals that accompany the lectures). Then we went out with the nurses to observe their clinical rotations for the course. 

This experience in Africa has been completely different from my other experiences here, really from any experience ever. It’s been so educational and eye opening… I can’t wait to share more with you all! More to come soon 🙂

Xoxo

Kim

My life was changed forever, one year ago (as of Monday), when my feet touched South African soil for the first time.  Traveling to South Africa was my biggest dream, and I was fortunate enough to make that dream reality.

I knew that living in South Africa was going to be very different from living in Maryland, but I wasn’t prepared for how quickly it hit me.  It wasn’t a bad thing, it was just different.  Almost immediately after you leave the Cape Town airport and get on the highway, you can see the township Khayelitsha which runs alongside it all the way to the Stellenbosch exit, which is at least 10 km.  All the homes visible from the road are shacks, mostly made out of metal sheets or wood boards.  Seeing that is a huge reality check.  When I saw the mountains along the road, I was immediately speechless.  Never before had I seen such beautiful mountains that had vineyards carved into their slopes.  And what was the first store/restaurant I saw? KFC of course.  That was pretty funny.  As we were driving into Stellenbosch, our driver (who was also a student at SU) pointed out a popular bar called Bohemia.  As I looked out of my window I saw some girls sitting at a table outside eating.  One of them in particular looked really familiar to me, and I found out later that it was Bia, who was in my study abroad program and who I became best friends with.  That day was soo hot, close to 100 degrees, and almost miserable as we checked in and unpacked into our apartments, which had no AC.  It was windy, and one of the nearby mountains had a huge fire burning on it, so that side of the sky was all smoky.  And that was my introduction to South Africa.

It’s so hard to believe that it’s been a year since I got there. I knew going there that I was going to have an amazing time, but reality far exceeded my expectations.  People often ask me how South Africa was, but it’s hard to give an accurate answer.  How do you sum up six of the most amazing months, with the most amazing people in the most amazing place, experiencing the most amazing things together… just how do you sum all of that up into a few words? I often reply “it was the most amazing time of my life” but even that doesn’t do it justice.

I met so many different and uniquely beautiful people during the time that I lived in South Africa: people from South Africa’s largest cities, from South Africa’s townships, from the Western Cape, from the Eastern Cape, from other African countries, from countries in Europe, from Canada, from other states in the U.S. And each had their own culture that contributed to truly make South Africa the “Rainbow Nation.”

I’m not sure I will ever be able to put into words what my time in South Africa meant to me.  I learned so much while I was there- most importantly about the people of South Africa, about myself, and about life.  I learned that although people speak hundreds of languages, smiles are universal.  Trying new things and taking risks are good for your soul.  So are late nights with your friends, dancing, a little wine (or a few drinks), hiking and simply watching the sun set.  Me time is necessary and so relieving. I learned that I can go anywhere in the world, some place where I don’t know anyone, and be just fine on my own. Good people are everywhere you go.  You can make friends anywhere, and you will always find people who genuinely care about you. Avocados, feta cheese, hummus and Oreo Cadbury chocolate are some of the world’s greatest gifts.  I learned that you don’t need much in life to be happy.  Possessions mean so little when you’re in good company.  There’s no need to rush things.  I learned just how fortunate I am to live in the U.S. I ate the best food, saw the most gorgeous sunsets, climbed mountains I could only dream of, sipped wine surrounded by the most breathtaking views, taught kids (who actually taught me), watched animals in their true natural habitat, met people from all over the world-truthfully the most amazing people you could meet- and learned what it feels like to have true, pure happiness. From the bottom of my heart, I hope that everyone can have an experience in their life that makes them feel the way that I did… that I still do. If going to South Africa isn’t on your bucket list, it should be.  Like I said, I could explain these feelings to you all day but the only way to truly understand is to experience it yourself.  Africa has made me feel whole.  I’ve found where I belong… Africa is home.

To my many friends that I met during my time in Africa- thank you.  This experience would not have been what it was without you.  You are some of the the kindest, funniest, most genuine and special people I will ever meet, and I miss you all beyond belief.  You have the purest souls and I am a better person now because I know all of you.  I hope that sooner rather than later, our paths will cross again.

“Wherever we go and whatever we do, may we always be friends when we meet again.”

DCIM100GOPROG0080938.

This was just one of the many adventures I’ve gone on, and there are many more to come.

xoxo

Kim

We wanted adventure and we certainly got it.  And so began a crazy and fun couple of weeks…

Days 1 & 2: Transit to Joburg

The second part of our trip started in Johannesburg.  Markus and I took a bus back from Victoria Falls… it was two long days of driving and one more night of camping.

Day 3: Joburg

We arrived in Joburg late in the evening and had to go to the airport to get the car that would be our mobile home for the next few weeks.  Then we had to do a bit of rearranging of plans for the next day, because we realized our 2×4 car wouldn’t allow us to do what we wanted to.  So after booking a new hostel for the following night, we went to sleep.

Day 4:  Underberg- Khotso Horse Trails

It’s pretty safe to say that we woke up early (meaning before 7) every day of our trip.  So we got out on the road and headed south to the Drakensberg mountains.  Remember when I said that I would never drive on the left side of the road? Well, I lied.  Markus drove the first few hours until we found a cute little town, Harrismith, where we bought some biltong and lunch.  This was after a couple of failed attempts to find lunch in run-down, outdated towns.  Then it was my turn to take the wheel!  We drove on a big highway for most of the drive, so the only real problem I had was adjusting to being on the right side of the car… I kept drifting left.  The drive down (once we were away from Joburg) was pretty. You could clearly see that the area was suffering from a drought, but as we got closer to the mountains the scenery became greener.  Before we got to our hostel, we stopped at the Underberg Cheesery which had the best garlic and onion feta I’ve had in my entire life.  The place we were staying at for the night was called Khotso Horse Trails and as you can guess, there were tons of horses and even a handful of dogs to hang out with us.  We spent the evening playing Uno and hanging out with the owners and other guests at the hostel.

Day 5: Lesotho and the Sani Pass

Markus and I woke up and decided to go for a short hike before we headed over to the Sani Pass, one of the entrances into Lesotho (pronounced leh-soo-too).  We found a little stream and an area where Markus was able to jump off a ledge and down 6m into a natural pool.  Our challenge for the day was getting up the Sani Pass and into Lesotho, which is 21km long and at an elevation of 2900m.  Lesotho is the small country in the middle of South Africa, and it’s mostly mountainous.  We didn’t have a 4×4 car, which was required to drive up, so we had to figure something out.  We ended up leaving our car at a closed hotel that’s under construction, and then hiked through some hills and a stream just to find our way back to the road.  Our next move was to either catch a local taxi up, hitch hike or hike up.  We ended up squeezing into the most packed taxi van ever (15 people and a bunch of boxes in a 12-seater), then hopping in a hay truck after the SA border.  But we finally made it! And just hoped that our car would be untouched when we returned to it the next day.  We grabbed a great dinner and had some drinks at the Sani Mountain Lodge, which has the highest pub in Africa!  That evening was SO cold because of the high elevation and I even slept with my gloves on.

Sheep for days.

tons of baby sheep!

Views of Underberg.

The pup anxiously waiting for Markus to jump in the water.

Blue’s Pool, at Khotso Horse Trails where Markus jumped into the freezing water.

Markus and the pup playing fetch.

Baby chicks!

Behind me is the hotel under construction, where we left our car so that we could hitch hike up the Sani Pass.

Trying to find our way from the hotel to the bottom of the Sani Pass.

The stream we had to hike through to get to the Sani Pass taxis.

Vertebrae we found laying in the stream, as well as some large footprints.

Not really sure where we’re going.

The sun set before 4 in the afternoon because we were so high up in the mountains.

Markus disappearing into the clouds as we walked from the main area of the lodge to our rooms.

You can hardly see Markus anymore but he’s there!

Vegetable soup served that Sani Mountain Lodge.

We had a few drinks at the Sani Mountain Lodge– the highest pub in Africa!

Day 6: Underberg

Beside the fact that I woke up still freezing, the day started off great.  We got to sleep in a bit and then went for a two hour horse ride out to a scenic peak on the mountain.  We were so high up above all of the Drakensberg mountains- it was a breathtaking sight.  But by the time we got back to the lodge we were freezing cold!  We took some photos in front of the “Highest Pub in Africa” sign and headed out of the country.  Luckily we didn’t have to walk back down the pass… an old couple saw us walking after we crossed the border back into South Africa and offered us a ride back down in their luxurious Land Rover.  When we got back to our rental car, it was untouched!  So we hopped in and went on our way to our next hostel, the Little Wing Teepee.  It was back behind the town off a long road in the countryside.  Not only did they have 6 horses and 9 dogs for us to hang out with (yes, 9!), it was the coolest little place, themed like the Wild West- and we even got to sleep in a Teepee.

Markus was a little too big for his horse, and it didn’t help that the stirrups weren’t adjustable!

I think it’s safe to say that both Markus and the horse were uncomfortable.

The view from Saddle’s Peak on the Sani Mountain. It was so breathtaking to be so high up, looking down on all those other mountains.

A Lesotho local who led us on our ride.

Amazing view of the Drakensberg mountains.

If you look really closely you can see part of the road of the Sani Pass. We were extremely high up!

Riding down the Sani Pass with our new friends- the old couple who invited us to ride in their Range Rover.

Clouds caught in the crevice of the Sani Pass… you can see a car starting to disappear.

Where is the rest of the mountains?

Sani Pass.

Water frozen on top but running underneath the ice due to cold weather.

Cows we pass in Underberg that were walking themselves out to the pasture in a straight line alongside the road.

Doing some shopping for dinner at Spar.

Our home for the night!

1/9 pups at Little Wing Teepee.

Outdoor kitchen at Little Wing Teepee.

Outdoor facilities at Little Wing Teepee.

2/9 pups at Little Wing Teepee.

A backyard view of Underberg from the Little Wing Teepee.

A view of Little Wing Teepee.

Teepees.

3/9 pups at Little Wing Teepee. This one hung out with us all night while we cooked, wrote and even slept with us in our teepee and kept guard.

A delicious dinner that we made! (We meaning mostly Markus)

Day 7: Durban

After having a delicious breakfast and chatting with the owner of our hostel for a bit, Markus and I headed out for Oribi Gorge.  There’s a large, thin rock that hangs over the gorge which is perfect for cool pictures but unfortunately it was closed when we got there.  We even tried to find another way in but it was all fenced off.  However, the rest of the gorge was still open for us to explore so we walked around for a bit.  Afterwards we headed off towards Durban to try and meet up with some friends who had just flown into the area.  It didn’t work out like we had planned but we got a beautiful scenic drive along the way and found the nicest little beach just outside of Durban.  Dinner was at a steak restaurant in Durban (we even drove by a Hooters… who knew there would be one in South Africa!) and we arrived at our hostel on the Dolphin Coast late that night.  The day was a bit long because I came down with a pretty bad cold but I was hoping that the next day I would be feeling better.

Exiting Underberg.

A couple sitting on the ground.

A farther out view of a cloud sitting on the ground.

Approaching Izingolweni.

Coloring houses covering the hills. So cool!

Oribi Gorge. That tiny pink dot is Markus.

A waterfall all the way at the bottom of the gorge.

Oribi Gorge… and a quarry ruining the backdrop.

A suspension bridge over the gorge. Markus was a little more brave than I was.

Our sporty Fiesta.

Beautiful tropical views on our drive to Durban!

My favorite kind of tree!

Sugar cane for days.

The coolest small beach we found in Amanzimtoti!

The water was so warm… evening during winter! Water was coming in from the Indian Ocean.

Sunbathing pup.

Pups at Little Wing Teepee

The craziest deaf dalmatian, with blue eyes, who loves sparkles.

Day 8: Saint Lucia

Today consisted of lots of shopping and making our way to Saint Lucia.  The drive again was beautiful; we passed tons of tree farms and stands selling fresh fruits along the way.  Our hostel for the night was called Monzi’s Safari backpackers and the only bad part about it was the obnoxiously loud man who snored throughout the night.  It was a bunch of tents (fully equipped like a hotel room!) set up on decks surrounding gorgeous pools and dining areas.  We explored Saint Lucia and even unexpectedly bumped into a friend from our Nomad tour.

Sunset over St. Lucia.

Beach in St. Lucia.

Markus getting a little exercise.

Beautiful sunset in St. Lucia.

We ran into our friend Jo, who traveled with us during the Nomad tour! What a crazy coincidence and it was really cool to be able to catch up with her and chat about our travels since we last saw each other.

How Markus’s dinner was served…

Day 9: Swaziland Day 1

Despite not getting much sleep, we were up and ready for a full day ahead of us.  We forgot to get a tent (which we would need for the next week) so we went running around town, looking in odd shops until we found one that worked.  Then we were off to Swaziland!  It’s a small country on the northeastern border of South Africa.  We entered through an open game park, so we had to drive carefully in case and animals decided to pop out into the road!  Driving through the country was an absolute pain.  It only took us a few hours to drive to our hostel but the changing speed limit made it much longer and more annoying than it should have been.  It was extremely slow and would change every hundred meters.  To make matters worse they had camouflaged, unmarked speed bumps everywhere which would send us flying every time we hit one.  Markus wasn’t too happy with me but there wasn’t much I could do.  We ended the evening by going to see a movie (only $2 for a ticket!) and pizza.

Day 10: Swaziland Day 2

This was definitely one of the most interesting days of our trip.  Markus and I woke up early to go to a small game park that was only about 10 minutes away, which we were told we could drive through in our 2×4.  After we got there, things quickly turned interesting.  The conditions of the roads were terrible.  When we got to one back to a fork in the road, Markus wanted to explore a road we hadn’t gone down yet… but I was over the disappointment of having to turn around and just suggested we go back towards the main road.  However, we took the other road and continued on.  The drive quickly got difficult.  But by the point we wanted to turn around, the road was so narrow that we couldn’t- we just kept driving hoping that the road would put us out in a good spot.  There were divots in the road, gaps where we should have been driving, and rocks that were too big for our car to avoid when we drove over them.  We eventually hit a hill that was made of soft sand that we couldn’t make it up.  So Markus found a water runoff to back into but when we pulled out to get on the road, the mid-left side of the car got stuck on a big rock.  So there we were, stuck in the middle of a game park with animals roaming around who knows how close to us.  We had no choice but to try and get ourselves unstuck.  So we grabbed some rocks and started digging.  Markus and I took turns digging while the other one kept watch for animals.  It wasn’t working well so we dug a place to put the car jack and then jacked the car up and continued to dig.  Turns out we weren’t stuck on one big rock but a pile of very compact little rocks.  It took two hours and by the end we were covered in dirt but we finally got ourselves unstuck!  And were back in the car, untouched by any leopards, buffalo or anything else.  After navigating back out of that road (which was another challenge in itself) we left the park and went to do something more relaxing.  The worst part… it was only 11am.  So we went back to our hostel for some R&R because our day wasn’t over… we had adventure caving later that night!  In the evening we drove out to a mountain and hiked up to the caves.  By the time we went in, it was dark outside.  That cave exploring was the most intense workout I’d had in a while.  I was sweating up a storm and I was so tired by the time we were done!  We crawled through really tight spaces, had to climb up and even lower ourselves down to see an underground river.  To end the night, we went to a natural hot spring and ate pizza while we relaxed in it.  What a day!

Seeing lots of animals as we entered game park in Mlilwane.

We took turns trying to dig out the car while the other one kept watch.

Stuck 😦

Day 11: Swaziland Day 3

Well, today we were supposed to go on a tour of a local Swazi village but they messed up our booking, so we decided to just do the exploring ourselves!  We went to the Swaziland history museum where we learned so much about the culture, politics and history of the country.  Then we went to nearby shops, one of which was the coolest candle store (Swazicandles).  There’s a cool little waterfall we checked out before we saw some really cool traditional Swazi dances performed.  The evening was spent eating leftover pizza and watching movies and the first Eurocup game.

Part of the King’s Memorial in Swaziland.

Displays of traditional clothing in the Swaziland museum.

All of the different types of cows you can find in Swaziland and throughout Africa. They are extremely valuable in traditional Swazi society. They are given to a woman’s father when she gets married, by the husband. Daughters help build their father’s wealth in this way.

Swazicandles: a shop that makes tons of cool candles. Some are in the shape of animals, in many designs, as seen here (elephants, giraffes, hippos, rhinos, buffalo).

More Swazicandles. I wanted to buy them all!

The solidifying process. The wax animals are shaped by artists while it is hot and then they mold the design over it. They are dropped in cold water to harden.

Markus posing at the waterfall.

We didn’t have the best view of the waterfall because some of the trees blocked it.

Markus got called up as a volunteer to dance with the women.

Showing off his best moves.

Huts in a traditional Swazi village.

Day 12: Swaziland to Kruger National Park

Unfortunately our time in Swaziland was over but this morning we were off to somewhere even better!  The most important place in South Africa that I came here wanting to visit… Kruger National Park!!!

My month long trip through Africa started in Windhoek, Namibia.  My friend Markus and I went on an 8 day overland tour that would end in Victoria Falls, Zimbabwe.  This meant that we would be joining a group of about 20 people and traveling with them on a bus, stopping at various places along the way, and camping each night until we got to Vic Falls.

Day One: Windhoek

First we had to get to Windhoek! To catch our flight, Markus and I had to leave our flats at 3:30am.  I am definitely not a morning so I chose to just pull an all-nighter.  Luckily our friend Johannes was kind enough to wake up in the middle of the night and take us to the airport (thanks Joe, you rock!).  When we got to the airport, we saw that our flight had been delayed for three hours until 9:30am.  Not only were Markus and I upset about having to wait in the airport from 4 to 9:30, but we also felt terrible for making Johannes wake up so early.  The only good thing that came from this was that the airline gave us vouchers for free breakfast at one of the airport restaurants. We arrived in Namibia around noon and went to our hotel which we would stay at until our tour started the following morning.  The rest of our day was spent watching movies, catching up on sleep, eating some yummy food (I think the most interesting part of the day was trying one of Markus’s snails) and preparing for the next month of traveling!

Day Two: Ghanzi

Today started early at 6, and by 8 we had met our tour guides (Calisto and Manzeli) and were just about ready to hit the road.  There were 19 other people who would be traveling with us, and most of them had already been traveling together for 13 days (their tour started in Cape Town).  It was a bit overwhelming at first, meeting so many people and trying to remember all of those names, but everyone was extremely friendly.  Little did we know that over the next 8 days we would become great friends with all of these people and turn into one big Nomad family.

We drove through Namibia for about six hours before we got to the border.  The country was visibly very different from South Africa (at least the parts I’ve seen), even though they are neighboring countries.  It’s much drier, very yellow, and the mountains-if you can call them that- are small and rounded.  We then crossed into Botswana, which was a bit greener than Namibia but still dry.  The long car ride consisted of lots of chatting, sharing snacks and a bit of napping.  We had to drive 530 kilometers during the day so we didn’t get to our camp site until after dark, but we did get to see a spectacular red sunset as we drove down the road.  Markus and I had a bit of trouble setting our tent up in the dark (Thanks Ashley for helping us out!) but we were all set up in no time.  After a delicious spaghetti dinner, we all went to watch traditional dances performed by the local San people.  The San (or Bush) people live off the land and are hunter gatherers.  Each dance they performed was for a different purpose: good health, food, entertainment.  The way that they moved their feet was incredible!  So fast and with such precision to the beat.  It had been a very long day so after that, we called it a night.

Day Three: Northern Delta

We were up early again to go on a walk led by the Bushmen.  This time we followed a family into the bush and listened as a translator told us about the different plants that they use and what their medicinal purposes are.  The Bushmen had a great sense of humor and even pretended to be sick, like with an upset stomach- it was really entertaining.  Then it was back on the road!  We had another long day of driving ahead of us… 400 km this time.  But by the evening we would reach the Okavango Delta and we were so excited! Driving through Botswana was more enjoyable today than it was yesterday, because the scenery was so much greener.  So many of the trees had cool birds’ nests in them and termite mounds lined the streets.  And if there’s anything that you should know about Botswana, it’s that there are donkeys and cows everywhere.  Usually along the road but sometimes in the middle of it.  The country itself has a people population of only 2 million, which considering its size, is not very many at all.  There are more donkeys than people, as well as more cows than people inside the borders.

We arrived at our campsite before dusk this evening and got our tent set up no problem (I’m not going to lie though, Markus did the brunt of the setting up most nights).  There was even time for us to take a couple night time photos before dinner.  Sitting around the fire drinking hot chocolate was the most relaxing part of the day.  We also went to the bar area to try some of the local brew and learn some games, but it didn’t last long because we were so exhausted.

Day Four: Okavango Delta Day 1

I don’t think I’ve ever woke up before the sun rises this many times.  But on this morning it was totally worth it.  Our camp was right on the water, and since we woke up early enough we got to watch the sun come up over the Delta.  Man, was it pretty! And the icing on the cake was the hippo I heard out in the water.  It was too dark to see it but it was there.

A couple hours later we were tossed onto speedboats and sent into the winding channels of the Delta.  It was so incredibly beautiful.  We saw a handful of crocs on our trip but no hippos.  Once we arrived in Seronga, everyone hopped into cool 4×4 safari cars and drove off to camp.  Many small grass hut villages lined the road, and as we drove by children would profusely wave at us.  We experienced this several times during our trip, and each time was as heartwarming as the last.  Later that afternoon we took a ride onto the Delta in mokoros. Mokoros are like small canoes that are moved through the water by a poler, someone who stands at the back and uses a really long pole to push it through the water.  Riding in a mokoro, through channels made by hippos and elephants, is probably the most peaceful way to travel.  You get a beautiful perspective of the Delta as you ride through beds of water lilies and other grasses while listening to the calming sounds of the water and nature around you.  As we rode back to camp we witnessed the most magical sunset.  By the end of our cruise we had seen cows, hippos, elephants, a green water snake, bats, a bird egg, and some type of antelope.  The evening ended with us all sitting around the campfire, chatting and sharing stories.

A little extra info on the Okavango Delta: It’s very seasonal and you can find all different kinds of animals there throughout the year (antelope, buffalo, cheetahs, elephants, leopards, lions, hippos, zebras and giraffes).  The water levels change depending on the season, and it can cover anywhere from 9000 to 16000 square kilometers (the water was pretty high when we were there).

Day Five: Okavango Delta Day 2

As you might guess, we were up early again and out on the mokoros to go to an island for a game walk.  On the way we saw a whole pod of hippos- including a baby!- that weren’t but 30 meters away from us.  It was the first time I’ve been able to see them so close and in the wild.  The way that they would dive up and down in the water, making noises, was so cool.  You have to be careful not to get too close to hippos though because they are the deadliest animal you can encounter in the wild, at least when it comes to human deaths.  Once on the island we didn’t see too many animals but we were able to follow the tracks of a hyena family.  I was so impressed with the knowledge of our guide.  He was able to tell us so much from simple tracks on the ground: the type of animal, the direction it was headed, if it was alone or with others.  Manzeli prepared a gourmet breakfast for us while we were gone and it was waiting for us when we got back to camp.  It was so nice to have something other than toast and porridge for breakfast.  After a relaxing afternoon, we headed back out into the mokoros for one last sunset cruise.  We were able to bring cold drinks with us and found an island to hang out on for a bit.  As we all sat around drinking, the guides shared things with us about their culture and we exchanged jokes, just grateful that we could all be in such a beautiful place together with new friends.

Interesting things to know about the tribes that lives around the Delta:

• Polygamy is still prevalent, as it is a sign of masculinity, but is decreasing
• There are three ethnic groups that live in the area, and about eight languages that are spoken by those people
• Soccer is huge
• Local alcohol is made from fruits (a lot of times from the marula tree) which are fermented
• Tourism has become a huge industry and many young kids are encouraged to get into it once they complete school

Day Six: Back to Namibia

Unfortunately we couldn’t stay at the Delta forever, although I would have loved to!  We took the speedboat back to the outskirts of the Delta and loaded up Sonny (our truck) to get ready for the big day of driving ahead.  We crossed back into Namibia and drove allll day before setting up our tent and crashing for the night.  Not a very exciting day but the rest was nice after the busy past couple days we’d had the busy few ahead of us.

Day Seven: Chobe National Park

Two things went wrong this morning.  One, Markus told me to set my alarm clock one hour back when I should have set it one hour ahead.  The time changed when we went back into Namibia so we thought we were adjusting the alarm clocks correctly but instead of waking up on time, I was up two hours before everyone else.  I sat in the tent getting my things together, wondering why no one else was moving and then it finally clicked.  Two, Markus and I sent up the tent under a tree.  While I was brushing my teeth in the morning, he came out and found that the tent was absolutely covered in spiders.  I’m so glad I wasn’t there to see that!  We left directly for camp the following night, which wasn’t too far away, but we had to cross back into Botswana before we got there.  I was so excited for the day ahead of us because we would be spending it in Chobe National Park!!  Chobe National Park has got animals galore and I still needed to see lions, giraffes, and rhinos in the wild.  I excitedly hopped onto our safari truck that afternoon and we headed in!  It didn’t seem like we went very far into the park, which is over 11000 square kilometers, but we saw so many animals!  We chased a female lion down onto the beach (check off lion!) but didn’t see a male.  Elephants were everywhere and we got so close that I probably could have reached out of the car and touched one if I wanted to.  Then we went out on a cruise in the middle of the park and got to see one of the coolest things ever.  The boat pulled up next to a ton of hippos eating, and then we pulled up to a bunch of elephants that were grazing in the water!  The islands in the water flooded this year so the elephants were able to walk out and stand in the meter-high water, pulling grasses from on top and eating them.  We had a great time on the boat with our family, having a few drinks, watching the animals, and talking about life.  I wish we could have spent a few more days in Chobe but I know that one day I’ll be back… it’s just so beautiful.  To top the day off, Manzeli made the most delicious dinner which consisted of braaied snoek, potato bake and salad.  The end of our trip is nearing and I’m nowhere near ready for that!

Day Eight: Victoria Falls Day 1

Today we got up early to cross into Zimbabwe, the last border crossing of our tour.  It didn’t take long to get there and by 11 o’clock we were in Victoria Falls!  I was excited to see the monstrosity of them but I think Markus was the most excited out of the two of us.  Unfortunately we couldn’t go to Devil’s pool because of the time of year, but we could still see the falls.  Devil’s pool is an area on top of the falls, right at the edge, that you can sit in safely.  The falls are absolutely amazing.  They’re huge and rainbows created by the mist and sunshine can be found everywhere.  The view at some spots along the falls was crappy just because of all the mist.  The water levels are really high at this time of year so there was even one look out that we went to where we got completely drenched.  It was so worth it though.  For the first time in a week we weren’t camping!  For the next two nights, until our camping trip back to Joburg, we were staying in a hotel room.  Dinner was at Mama Africa, a local restaurant and our whole family had a great time chatting and eating yummy food (although Markus tricked me into trying chicken liver-gross).  Everyone called it a night pretty early since most people were doing activities on the falls the following morning.

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Day Nine: Victoria Falls Day 2

This morning we had to say goodbye to some of our friends, the four girls from Salt Lake City.  It was a tough realization knowing that we would soon be saying goodbye to many other people as well.  Our friend Carol (from Australia) later joined us at breakfast- her and I were going to have a girls day.  Her husband was going white water rafting, and Markus was going on a helicopter tour of the falls with a lot of our other friends so the two of us were going into town to do some shopping.  We ended up meeting up with everyone a few hours later and we went to the markets.  The markets have tons of cool trinkets and gifts but let me just tell you, they can be extremely overwhelming.  Especially when you walk into a warehouse of about 50 women, each trying to sell you essentially the same things.  They are all kind, and just trying to make a living, but they can be a bit forceful and in your face.  Zimbabwe’s currency is now the USD due to the awful state their economy fell into some years back, so things were a bit more expensive than we were used to.  Afterwards we went out for lunch, where I tried some of Markus’s crocodile meat… and it was pretty tasty.  We had another group dinner with those that were left from our group and called it a night, knowing that we would all have to say goodbye to each other in the morning.

Day Ten: Back to South Africa

Today was spent doing a lot of driving… we were headed back to Johannesburg.  But the most substantial part of our day was saying goodbye to all of the friends we had made over the past eight days.  Markus and I were hoping that we’d be traveling with cool people but we never thought that we would become such good friends with them in such a short amount of time.  We got so lucky with our Nomad group… there were never any problems or disagreements.  Although saying goodbye was sad, it’s awesome that we now have friends who live all over the world.  Hopefully one day we’ll cross paths with them again.

I’m officially done with school at Stellenbosch University, forever.  I can’t believe that a whole semester and four months flew by so quickly.  These next few days are going to be really hectic as I get ready for a month of traveling (how awesome is that?!), then a few days back in Stellenbosch before I head home.  I have to pack really light for my trip so unfortunately I won’t be able to bring my laptop.  This means I’m going to have to blog from my phone- something I’ve never tried before.  I’ll do my best to post as I go along, but I don’t know when or if I’ll have wifi.  Regardless, I’ll put up one or two big posts about my trip after I get back to Stellies.

May has been another fun-filled month…

Wine and olive oil tasting.

Hiking at Jonkershoek Nature Reserve with the boys.

Trying to drive a little rental car up a mountain to take some cool pictures.

Our exhibition for our photography class.  Some of the pictures my classmates took were so amazing! It was awesome to see the best of what everyone had been taking during the whole semester.

Drinks with beautiful people at one of our favorite bars.

Exploring cool new markets.

Finally wandering around the university’s botanical garden.

More wine tasting… this time at a place that has hundreds of ducks!  The ducks parade out to the vineyards in the morning and eat snails and bugs, then they parade back in the afternoon.  So people come watch them every day as they waddle in one big heard across the estate.  They’re so cute!

And my 21^st birthday celebration!  During the day, some of my girlfriends and I went on a little hike up the nearby mountain and found a really cool spot to eat lunch.  We had a beautiful view of all of Stellenbosch, the surrounding mountains and Jonkershoek.  Then in the evening, a bunch of people came over to my flat and we all had pizza and drank wine before going out to one of our favorite bars.  It was such a good feeling to be surrounded by such amazing people… people who I had met not even four months earlier.  They made it one of the best birthdays I’ve ever have and I will never forget how I got to spend my 21^st birthday in South Africa surrounded by the most beautiful souls.

I just got back from Cape Town with a few friends.  We spent a day in Cape Town and went out on Long Street, then went to Cape Point and Cape of Good Hope before traveling to Hout Bay for the evening, and then we climbed Table Mountain today before doing a little shopping and coming back to Stellenbosch.  The weather was perfect for both days of our hikes and I couldn’t have had a better time.

Now I’m scrambling to get everything ready before I leave at the crack of dawn Monday morning.  I’ll be flying to Namibia and from there, to Botswana, Zimbabwe, back into South Africa, through Lesotho and then around exploring more of South Africa.  Keep me and my friends in your thoughts as we travel all over Africa!  We’re so excited for our adventures to begin!

Xo

Kim

p.s. congrats to all of my friends who just finished up finals back home, and to everyone who just graduated!!

p.p.s. Now that I’m done with classes here, I guess it might be an appropriate time to let you all know that I got accepted into the University of Maryland School of Nursing, so I’ll be going to school there in Baltimore this coming fall!  Very exciting things coming in the near future and I can’t wait to follow in my mom’s footsteps!

It’s starting to hit me hard that my time here in South Africa is coming to an end.  Finals are quickly approaching, as is our end of the semester photography exhibition and our international student closing event.  Traveling plans, mine and friends’, for the end of the semester are being booked and solidified.  This means potentially saying goodbye to some people in just over a week.  Where the heck has the time gone?!  It seems like just yesterday that I was writing my “one month check in.”

Last Tuesday was my final day working with the kids at the nearby school, and saying goodbye to them was heartbreaking.  Amanda and I watched these kids really change over the course of three months.  When we first started, the class was crazy and the kids had hardly any discipline.  It was madness trying to handle forty kids with so much energy and so little focus.  But each week, we could see that they were getting better and better at listening and following directions.  It’s a second grade class and for many of the kids it’s their first year in school.  They learned appropriate classroom behavior, and things became less hectic (at least most of the time!).  I wish I was able to share pictures that I took, but I’m not allowed to put them on the internet.  So if you ever want to see those cuties, let me know and I’ll show you in person.  When we were pulling away in our bus, the kids ran after it waving and yelling.  It felt like a scene from a movie and I got all the feels.

Lately I’ve found myself reflecting on all the things I’ve done during my trip here and I can’t believe that this is really my life.  This country has filled my heart in so many ways and I absolutely cannot imagine parting ways with it.

April was another busy month filled with: more trips up Lions Head, watching over Cape Town at night, exploring markets, celebrating birthdays, taking lots of photos during photography practicals, eating food from all over the world during our international food evening, spending late nights stargazing in Kogelbaai, braaing (a lot-what else is new?), taking the ferry to Robben Island, tasting lots of different kinds of wine and trying lots of cheese, and visiting a nearby township.  We did a lot of things so I’ll just highlight on some of my favorites.

On the 3^rd, I went to the local weekend market, called the Root 44 market, with a bunch of friends.  There was a certain point when we were all sitting out on the lawn, chatting and listening to live music, while eating and basking in the beauty of the day, that the moment just seemed too perfect to be real.  It was such a simple moment in life but it filled me with the absolute best feeling, and I really can’t describe it in any way other than that.

For two consecutive Mondays, we went to rugby playoff games at our school stadium.  Our school team was really good this year and made it all the way to the final, but unfortunately lost… after time had already expired!  It doesn’t make sense to me why rugby can work this way but it does.  That was a bummer but the games were lots of fun as usual.  They even had a “chug cam” that showed people on the screen during the game, to challenge them to chug their beers as fast as they could.  Yet another thing I couldn’t imagine happening in the U.S.- and it was awesome!

International food evening: where all of the international students cooked food from their home countries and came together to share it with each other.  I was in absolute heaven.  I had food from over nine different countries, including Pakistan (my favorite!), China, Kenya, Belgium, Jamaica, Lesotho, Ethiopia, Finland, Thailand, and a couple others that I can’t remember!  I had thought about making food to represent America (I talked with some friends to try and brainstorm what we might make- it was a little hard), but it’s a good thing I didn’t because there were two American tables.  If anything I would have made cookies (the ones here in ZA are so dry!!), but I forgot… haha oops!

I got to do some nighttime photography with Cooper and Markus at my favorite beach: Kogelbaai.  It was dark and in the middle of nowhere, so we had to stay by our cars above the beach, but it was absolutely worth it.  I think you’ll see why this is one of my favorite places in the whole world. (Click on these pictures so you see them as big as possible!)

On the 16^th, we went to Robben Island and had an official tour of the island (it’s right off the coast of Cape Town).  On the island is the prison where Nelson Mandela spent 18 of his 27 years of imprisonment.  It was used for over three hundred years as a place to isolate the mentally ill, lepers, paupers, and criminal.  Many black people were kept in the prison during the Apartheid, many of which were political activists.  The coolest part of the tour was definitely visiting the cells of old inmates.  There were quotes or stories from many of the prisoner hung on the walls of their cell.  Seeing and touching Nelson Mandela’s cell was riveting.  At a glance it just looks like any other cell, but when you think of the significance of the person who was once where you stand, touching the things that you’re touching, you feel such an awesome connection to it.

Nelson Mandela’s cell.

Amanda, Johannes, and I hiked Lion’s Head the day after the full moon, because it had rained the night before- but the view was still awesome.  We stayed on the mountain peak until the sun had completely set, and then we started to climb back down.  The moon was still not visible when we started descending, but all of a sudden we looked up and there it was- this huge, yellow circle rising over the mountain tops.  I probably sound so repetitive but it was once of the most breathtaking sights.  So we sat in a little cave and watched it completely rise, and we just looked out at Table Mountain and the rest of Cape Town.

We had Wednesday the 27^th off because it was Freedom Day, a national holiday.  It is celebrated on the same day every year and commemorates the day that the first democratic election was held in South Africa, after the end of apartheid.  People party like crazy for this holiday- as they do for most of them! This year there were a lot of protests against the current president, Jacob Zuma, pressuring him to step down.  The slogan was “Zuma Must Fall” (the common slogan for protests here are _____ Must Fall).  President Zuma is an extremely selfish and corrupt man who, in my opinion, does nothing good for the people of his country.  He is motivated by his own desires and has no concern for South African citizens, especially the poor.  He has caused a terrible economic and unstable situation for the country, yet continues to spend government money.  Just to give you an idea of what a filthy guy he is, Zuma has 738 charges of corruption against him.  But he’s the president and everyone who works for him is his friend, so he has not had to face the consequences for any of them.

Last Saturday I went to the Stellenbosch Cheese and Wine Festival with a bunch of friends and other people from the International Student Organization.  I’ve never been a huge fan of cheese but I decided that if there was any time to try some, it was now.  And guess what? It was so good! Throughout the course of my trip, I’ve realized that my tastebuds have really changed.  When I was really little, I was a picky eater and my mom used to always tell me that one day my tastebuds would change and I’d start liking things.  I never believed her up until now (sorry Mom!).  There was also tons of different olive oils and spreads to sample, and tons of different kinds of food to buy as well.  My belly was definitely happy after that day.

On Sunday night (technically now we’re into May) I went into Khayelitsha with Amanda, Johannes (who worked there a few years ago), and two of his other friends, Anton and Thandeka.  Khayelitsha is a township near Cape Town- in fact, it’s the one that I saw just after I arrived, on my way to Stellenbosch from the airport.  Khayelitsha was established during the Apartheid, and is the second largest black township in all of South Africa (the population is over 90% black, and most of the remaining 10% are coloured).  It houses nearly 400,000 people within a 26,000 sq mi zone.  We went to two different clubs/lounges within the township that evening.  My experience in Khayelitsha was not what I expected, and in the best way possible.  It was obvious that we were in the wealthier part of the township, but we were still in the township nonetheless.  Besides Johannes, Amanda, Anton and I, there were only about four other white people that we saw the entire night.  Despite being the minority, I never felt uncomfortable or out of place.  Everyone we met was so friendly and warm.  We made a lot of new friends and we plan on going back there soon- it’s a real party.

A lot happened in April, a lot is going to happen in May, and in June.  Time is going to seriously start flying by so I’m going to take advantage of it as best as I can.  I fall more and more in love with this country every day.

How we braai in the rain.

An amazing Ethiopian restaurant in Cape Town, recommended to us by friends.

Food from Addis in Cape, Cape Town.

Seen at the V&A Waterfront, Cape Town.

Bo-Kaap, Cape Town.

Bo-Kaap, Cape Town.

Wine tasting at Asara, before we went to get pizza and wine at Brenaissance.

Joey trying chicken’s feet in Gugulethu.

Lots of love from South Africa!

xo

Kim

So after our exciting road trip up, the guys and I woke up on Monday to head up the west coast to Paternoster, where we were going to meet some of our other friends for a couple days at the beach. Markus stayed in Paternoster a few years ago and was able to find a really sick house on the beach for us to all stay at.  We stopped at the store on our way up to get groceries for the following two days and the car ended up being so packed that we could hardly move.  We were prepared to eat like royalty.

Even though the scenery wasn’t as green as it had been on the drive to Addo, it was still beautiful.

We got to the house first and five more of our friends joined us shortly afterwards.  We were extremely lucky and had great weather during out whole trip.  We spent the first afternoon and evening just hanging outside, playing soccer and braaing.  The next day we woke up early and played a lot of Jenga and Scrabble (neither of which I was very good at), while we took in the beautiful view we had from our upstairs balcony.  We made an awesome breakfast and headed out to the beach for a few hours.  We spent the rest of the day chilling outside, playing soccer and of course… braaing some more.  We went for a night walk on the beach and just spent a bunch of time hanging out with each other.  It was so much fun, and I wish we could have stayed longer.  The beach was gorgeous, the weather was great, and so was the company.

The following morning, some of our friends left for their own road trip to Addo, while others headed back to Stellenbosch.  Joey, Markus, Coop and I decided to go into Cape Town for the afternoon and stopped by West Coast National Park on our way.  The water was so crystal blue, I couldn’t believe what I was seeing.  Afterwards we headed back to Stellenbosch for the night to rest up.

The following day, we went back into Cape Town.  Joey is a coffee fanatic, so our first stop was Truth Coffee, a quirky, internationally-known coffee shop.  I don’t drink coffee but I figured I might as well try something while I was there.  Surprisingly, I really liked the mocha that I got… but it had me shaking for the next two hours.  I guess my body isn’t use to caffeine, haha!  Afterwards we headed to the abandoned zoo which is just behind the University of Cape Town.  You can going inside the old lion’s den and enclosure which is super cool.  There’s tons of amazing graffiti all over the walls.  From there we were able to walk up towards the mountain and go to the Rhodes memorial.  The Rhodes Memorial gets a lot of hatred these days- and for good reasons.  The man it celebrates, Cecil John Rhodes, was a British man who came to South Africa during his late teens.  He became prime minister of the Cape Colony for six years and was a strong believer in British imperialism.  He created laws that discriminated against black Africans, causing them to lose their land and making it extremely difficult for them to vote.  Today, he is regarded by many as a white supremacist and there have been many calls to remove the Rhodes memorial (#RhodesMustFall). Despite all of this, the monument has a great view which looks out onto the whole city.

To conclude our day in Cape Town, we drove over to Lions Head to hike up and watch the sunset, and then catch the (nearly) full moon on our way back down.  Lions Head is one of three mountains that surround Cape Town.  The sunset was beyond amazing and when we got back down to the bottom of the mountain, we were welcomed with a breath-taking view of Cape Town, all lit up with the city lights.  It is one of the most unreal views I have ever seen- I could sit there for hours just looking at it.  It almost seems like you’re looking at a picture and it’s not real-that’s how perfect the view is.  It really made me sit back and realize how extremely fortunate I am to be in South Africa, what a beautiful place I’m living in and just how much I love this country.  I truly wish that I could bring each and every one of you to South Africa to experience it with me.

The next day the boys went surfing in Muizenberg, and I stayed home to recover from the busy week of traveling we’d had.  I got some work done and rested up a bit.  I think it would be really cool to try and surf at least once while I’m here, but I respect the power of the ocean way too much to get out there.

Saturday and Sunday weren’t much different. Saturday we had another relaxing day filled with hanging out, grocery shopping and going to see Batman vs. Superman at the movies (which I liked despite its bad reviews).  Nothing too exciting but I was perfectly fine with chilling once again. The same for Sunday, which just happened to be easter Sunday.  We went out to dinner but that was about it.

To finish up our fall break, we hiked the Platteklip Gorge trail on Table Mountain.  This trail is really steep and one of the hardest, but also the fastest and most direct way to the top.  We were able to hike it in 1 hr and 35 mins, which is pretty good considering it usually takes 2.5 hrs.  The view from the top was really awesome, especially since you’re so high up (elevation 1085m/3560ft).  We walked around for a little bit taking pictures at the top, and then took the Cable Car back down.  The cable car ride is only a few minute but the inside of it spins, so you get a 360 view of Cape Town as you’re descending the mountain.  We got lunch in Cape Town and headed back to Stellies to prepare for classes the next day.

All and all, my fall break was amazing.  I never would’ve thought that I’d get the chance to do and see the things that I’ve been able to.  I can’t wait to explore all of the other parts of South Africa and everything this country has to offer- although this country is so filled with beautiful sites, people and wildlife that there’s no way I’ll ever be able to see it all. This is only the beginning!

xo

Kim

It’s about time! I’ve finally finished getting all of my pictures and videos together and I’m ready to share my fall break with you guys.  Sorry it took me so long!  I can’t wait to hear what you all think of my latest South African adventures.  This is going to be a rather lengthy post (as will the next one) but I promise that it’s worth it so don’t stop reading! 🙂

My official fall break started on March 19th but I since I don’t have class on Friday, mine started a day early! The first part of my break was a road trip to the Eastern Cape with my friends Joey, Markus and Cooper.  We left midday Thursday after we were all done with classes and set off to our first destination: Cape Agulhas.  There’s a common misconception that the Cape of Good Hope in Cape Town is the southern-most tip of Africa, but it’s not! Cape Agulhas is.  It’s also the point where the Indian Ocean and the Atlantic Ocean meet, which makes for some rough waves.  The drive was only about two and a half hours away so it didn’t take long for us to get there.  As we were driving along the coast in Cape Agulhas, I couldn’t help but notice how unbelievably green the hills beside the water were.  Standing before the ocean felt like I was staring at any other body of water but when I thought about it, I couldn’t believe what I was looking at.  The only thing beyond that point was miles and miles of frigid water and then- Antarctica.  I officially stood at the bottom of Africa!

We spent about half an hour there and there headed out so that we could make it to Mosselbaai (Mossel Bay) before it got too late.  That was another couple hours of driving and we got there around 9:30.  We grabbed dinner at the hostel’s restaurant and turned in for the night- we had to wake up at 6 the next morning.  Want to know the coolest part about that night? We slept in the sleeping compartments of a decommissioned train, with our beds facing the bay.  It was awesome!

So we woke up early, grabbed breakfast and got on the road by 8, so that we could make it to our reservations at… the Bloukran’s Bungee jump!  It’s the tallest bungee jump off of a bridge in the entire world!  You get all strapped up in your gear and then your guide walks you and the rest of your group out to the middle of the bridge, on a wire walkway attached to the side of the bridge.  The Bloukran Bridge is still in use- so as you stand on the platform there are cars driving overhead.  It sounds scary in concept but once you make it out to the platform you feel pretty secure (that is, until you have to jump off!).  The people working at the platform were super friendly and so much fun, they made it feel like we were all at a huge party.  They played music to help lighten the mood and get us pumped.  Then when it’s your turn, they put the big foam pieces around your ankles, secure your bungee cord to them and send you on your way… plummeting 688 feet down into the canyon and towards the little river below you.  I knew I would feel either of two ways jumping off the bridge.  I was really excited because I saw bungee jumping as an opportunity to experience what it would be like to fly.  But I was also nervous that I would be completely wrong about that.  You know when you are falling asleep at night, but you aren’t quite fully asleep and you’re suddenly jerked awake by the sensation that you’re free falling?  That was my fear.  Joey was also excited to bungee jump but Markus and Cooper weren’t quite as thrilled about it.  I was the first out of the four of us to jump off the bridge, and let me just tell you, I experienced a huge range of emotions in such a short period of time.  I was really excited until my toes were hanging off the edge of the bridge, when it hit me that jumping off a bridge is totally not normal!  I looked down and knew that I had no choice but to make myself jump straight out into thin air and hope that my bungee held up and kept me from falling down into the river.  When I close my eyes, I can still relive that moment perfectly.  But sometimes you just have to take a leap of faith- quite literally!  I quickly realized that the sensation of free falling is terrifying and I hated knowing that I would experience it a couple times, because your bungee springs back and forth.  But when I was being sprung back up, it was a lot of fun! And as I hung by my ankles, waiting for my knight in shining armour to come flip me right side up and take me back to the bridge, I got to admire the beautiful ocean and mountains around me, basking in the glory that I had actually done it- I had actually jumped off the bridge.  And I survived to tell the tale.  I had the biggest adrenaline rush for the next couple hours and it was so. awesome.  Check that off the bucket list!

Bloukran’s Bridge. We jumped off of the top of the arch.

We survived! (left to right) Me, Markus, Coop and Joey.

Coop, Markus and Joey all survived the bungee jump but only a couple of us agreed that we might ever do it again.  We grabbed lunch after we returned to land and got back on the road- there was still more driving to do and places to see!

The plan was to drive to Jeffrey’s Bay, one of the best places in the world to go surfing, and surf for a bit but we arrived too late.  Most of the stores were about to shut down by the time we got there so we did a little bit of shopping and got back on the road to go to Port Elizabeth (PE).  We made it to PE around 6 and decided to check out the boardwalk before checking in to our hostel.  There was a mini golf course there so we decided to play a game, and to my surprise I came in second place! Woohoo.  There was also a casino so we decided to check that out for a little bit.  Then it was time to grab dinner.  We wanted to try a local restaurant and Joey found a place called the Thirsty Turtle that sounded like it might be good.  So we hopped in our car and follow the GPS’s directions.  That’s the last time we follow Joey’s phone to a food joint.  It took us to a house in the middle of a neighborhood and there was no sign of this so called “Thirsty Turtle.”  So what did we do? We turned around and blew 350 rand at McDonalds for dinner.  Afterwards we headed back to the hostel we would be staying at for the next two nights, which was this very eco-friendly house on the river.  It had a beautiful view, was very chill and two friendly little dogs.  There was one downside though, it had a huge mosquito problem.  We all had to sleep with full on mosquito nets over our heads and tucked into our beds.  That was the first time I’ve ever had to do that but I’m sure it won’t be the last.

We woke up again the next morning at 6am and headed to our next destination: Addo Elephant Park!  One of the biggest reasons I came to South Africa was to experience the wildlife firsthand and in its natural habitat, so of course I couldn’t wait!  Our original plan was to drive ourselves through the park early in the morning, then go back to Jeffrey’s Bay for the afternoon, and come back for an evening drive.  Once we got there however, and heard that a lion and leopard had already been spotted, we decided to just drive around the park the whole day trying to find as many animals as we could.  The park was big and it took us the whole day to drive from the southern entrance to the northern entrance, through all of the loops and back down to the southern entrance.  We saw so many different types of animals: buffalo, red hartebeest, tons of warthogs, bushbuck, eland, Burchells zebra, kudu, yellow mongoose, black-backed jackals, cape grysbok, ostriches, a leopard turtle, and flightless dung beetles.  We also saw many types of birds including bokmakierie, secretary birds, blue cranes, black-headed herons, and Egyptian goose.  But the coolest of them all were the two huge elephant herds that we saw.  The first one we came upon as we were leaving one of the loops and we saw a bunch of cars in the distance (usually this means animals!).  So we drove over and what do you know, there were about 10 elephants standing right off the road, eating and walking around.  We even got to see two of them play with each other.  Then later in the afternoon we happened to be driving and saw 15-20 elephants marching off towards a waterhole, so we followed them.  It was absolutely incredible to sit in our car and watch them drink and interact with each other.  And the icing on the cake was the little baby elephant who couldn’t have been more than a few months old!

Black-headed heron.

Flightless Dung beetle.

Male Kudu.

Male Kudu.

Elephant besos.

Mama and baby.

Mama and baby elephant.

Calling out to friends.

Mama and baby buffalo.

The last animal we wanted to track down before leaving the park was a lion.  Luckily we ran into a park ranger as we were driving and he told us where the lion den was.  We quickly took off in that direction and as soon as we got close, we could see a bunch of cars parked in front of a field.  We inched our way up and parked as a couple of people told us that there were two lions lying far out in the field.  We staked out the area for about half an hour before we finally got a decent view of the two females, but they didn’t stay visible for long.  When we were satisfied with what we had seen, we headed out of the park and back to PE for some dinner.  We went to a restaurant called the Beer Shack which had a cool view of the water, then headed back to our hostel, played some games for a while and called it a night.  You would be surprised how exhausting it can be to look for animals all day!

Here are some videos that I took with my camera while we were at Addo. (Make sure to watch in 1080p!)

The next morning we woke up early and headed back to Jeffrey’s Bay.  The boys had hoped to do some surfing but it was too windy, so we did some more shopping at the surf shops before grabbing lunch.  We had to eat quickly because we were trying to make it to the Cango Caves for an adventure tour later that afternoon, but unfortunately we didn’t get there in time.  Instead of doing the adventure tour (which would have required us to crawl through small tunnels and openings in the cave), we did a regular tour of the Cango Caves, which I thought was still pretty cool.  That was the final stop of our road trip and we took off for Stellenbosch at about 5 o’clock.  The drive that day was especially beautiful- we drove on a road cut through the mountains for hours on end, with nothing but beautiful scenery all around us.  We managed to make it home around ten so that we could get a good night of sleep before we took off in the morning for Paternoster.

And with that, part one of my fall break was over!  Even though it was a relatively short road trip, it was probably the best one I have ever been on.  There was always something beautiful or cool to look at outside of my window.  The company was awesome and we jammed to good music (most of the time).  The fun never seemed to end and I had some of the most amazing experiences of my entire life.  I really can’t say enough good things about it.  A huge thank you to the guys for making this a trip that I will never forget.

xo

Kim

Hey everybody!  I know it’s been a while since I last checked in and I just want to say that I’m sorry! Things have been a bit busy but I’m still alive in South Africa and soaking up every second of it.

Unfortunately the weather is starting to get a bit cooler down here- which sucks because I keep hearing all about how the weather is starting to warm up for you guys back home (even though Kelly was telling me there was a chance of snow this weekend-crazy Maryland weather)! Luckily we had warmer weather this past week (consistent mid 70s) but the week before that was pretty chilly and those temperatures are likely to return soon.  I’m starting to wish that I had packed more than three long sleeve shirts.

My fall break was from April 18 to the 28th and I can’t wait to share everything that I did.  I went on some of the best trips, experienced some of the coolest things and made memories that I will never, ever forget.  I don’t want to post anything before I have all of my pictures and videos together, which is why I haven’t put anything up (there are a lot of them!).  Hopefully within the next week I’ll get it all together, and I’ll do a separate blog post for just that (or maybe even two).  It was a little bit hard to adjust back to classes after the holiday, especially since I had a big presentation and essay due a couple of days later.  But on the bright side, I only have five weeks of classes left! Isn’t that crazy?  I’m more than halfway through my trip and it’s freaking me out. Stellenbosch feels more and more like home every day.  Not only that, but my friends are becoming bigger and bigger pieces of my heart and I don’t know how I’m ever going to say goodbye to these beautiful people that live literally all over the world.

In the meantime, we’ve been doing more wine tasting, more restaurant exploring, and more exercising.  Our traveling has slowed a bit after fall break but we are still going on plenty of adventures around the Stellenbosch area.

Tomorrow is the final (or championship) rugby game for the college division and our school is in it! Rugby games have quickly become one of my favorite activities as a Stellenbosch student.  I have high hopes for the Stellenbosch Maties tomorrow that we’ll win!

It’s getting a bit late over here so I’m going to head off to sleep, but I wanted to write a brief post to let you all know I hadn’t forgotten about my blog! 🙂 I hope you’re all doing well and please, don’t hesitate to message me on Facebook or shoot me an email.  I miss you all!

xo

Kim

also shout out to my friend Joey who completed his first race today- an Ironman! He’s been training like crazy ever since we got to South Africa, which is way more than I could ever commit to. You go dude!

Just a few pictures from our post-fall break adventures