Beach House

The weekend after the Garden Route, we spent at the beach house of Elise's exchange partner, Lauren. Along with two Chilean girls, Pipa and Sofia, my exchange partner, and Lauren's mom, we drove to Hermanus, where the house was located. On our way, we stopped for brunch at 'Wimpy', a typical South-African fast food restaurant. We had delicious wraps, club sandwiches and burgers. The drive took us about two hours. As soon as we arrived, we put on some sunscreen and left for the beach. At the beach, we sand boarded in the dunes, which was really nice. It was a very windy day, which caused the sand to blow in my eyes all the time. This was annoying, and most of all, painfull. The beach was on walking distance of the house, so we could go back whenever we wanted. We went back to the house after about an hour. At the house, we had a drink, watched a movie and played some card games. We had lovely chicken for dinner and watched another movie afterwards. Then, we went outside to the balcony, where we watched the most beautiful starts I've ever seen. There were no streetlight in the area of the beach house, which made the stars so bright! We chatted, laughed and stared, lying in our sleeping bags. It was very cozy.

The next morning, we went to the beach again, just for tanning. Afterwards, we went into town where we did some shopping and had drinks at a nice cafe, where we had a beautiful sea view. We had lunch at home, Boerewors, and left the beach house around 13:30.

Garden Route

The Garden Route is the trip that I’ve been looking forward to since the beginning of this exchange. On Monday, February 13^th, it finally started. We left from Bishops with the whole exchange group, except the Colombian girls. With the ‘Bokbus’ we were going to travel through the Western and Eastern Cape for the rest of the week. Our first stop was at a penguin beach. Before I came to South-Africa, I didn’t even know that the penguins lived here, but at this beach there were many. We drove to the southernmost part of Africa, Cape Aghulas. We spent about 15 minutes here before moving on to our final destination, the game lodge. We arrived at the game lodge around 5 o’clock and immediately, we went on our first game drive. We were divided among five vehicles that took us around the whole game farm, showing us many animals, including the Big Five. I think I took about 100 pictures on this drive only. The game lodge was beautiful, and it had a nice swimming pool.  After the game drive, we had supper at the restaurant. It was delicious. After supper, we swam and chilled in the swimming pool of the lodge. We were paired up in our own little houses for the night. Elise and I shared a room. The view from the room was beautiful, we could see the whole game farm and beyond.

The next morning, we had another game drive in the morning. We saw elephants, lions and all the animals we had seen the day before. The ranger we had on this drive was less interesting, for he didn’t say much about what we saw and the other ranger stopped at every animal to tell us about it. After the game drive we had breakfast at the restaurant, which was delicious. Then we packed our stuff and went on to our next activity, visiting an ostrich farm. On our way to the farm, we stopped at the reptile reserve, where we could hold snakes and see crocodiles. Our visit to the ostrich farm existed of a short introduction about ostriches, seeing small ostriches and ostrich eggs, and in the end we could ride the ostriches. Our tour guide said that only five out of our group of twelve people could ride the ostriches, which meant that we had to do a lucky draw. I didn’t win. I was so disappointed, because I really wanted to ride the ostrich. Then the tour guide said he could have two more people to ride the ostriches. Again, I lost this draw. Luckily, in the end everyone got the opportunity to ride on the ostrich. It was so much fun. We also got an ostrich ‘hug’ and the boys got an ostrich ‘kiss’. After the ostrich farm, we moved on to visit the Cango Caves. We went on the adventure tour, which took us through the whole cave. We had to climb through small opening in the caves and climb stairs through very narrow spaces. It was a very interesting tour. We learned how the first man who discovered the cave went in with only one candle to light his way. It was very impressing. We spent the night at a backpackers, where we had a typical South-African ‘braai’. We sat at the fire for a while and then played some pool in the bar.

The next day was a very important and exciting day for most of us, because we were going to bungy jump from the world’s highest bungy jump bridge! Before the bungy jump, we went to the coast, where we paddled on the Wilderness lagoon. The view was nice, but the canoeing wasn’t that special, seeing as the water was very quiet and it was only a ten minute tour. We were all very nervous about the bungy jumping, and when we got to the bungy bridge, everyone got even more scared. We looked down into a depth of 216 metres, and realized we had to jump off. After registration and paying, we walked through a corridor under the bridge to the middle. There was loud music on the bridge, which really helped us relax before the jump. I was not that scared anymore when I jumped, and it was AMAZING. The best experience in my life. The bungy jump was definitely the highlight of my exchange so far! After bungy jumping, we went to Storms River Mouth, where we walked through ancient trees to a hanging bridge over the river. It was very windy, and the waves were very high, it was a beautiful view. We spent the night at a nice backpackers in Storms River Village, where we played cards and chatted for the rest of the night, after enjoying a nice braai.

On Thursday morning we went to a nearby forest for a Canopy Gliding Tour. We had a funny tour guide, and the gliding was not very special, after having jumped the world’s highest bungy jump, but the view was lovely. We had lunch at the restaurant and afterwards we drove to a private guest farm to spend our last night there. When we arrived, the sun was shining on the lake, colouring it pink. The cows and horses were out on the fields and the grass was beautifully green. We had a braai at the dining house, which consisted of two tables, each with a candle, and a bar. It was quite a romantic sight. After dinner, we hang out with the whole group at the girls’ house, where we had the fright of our lives later that night when a HUGE spider was found on the ceiling of one of the girls’ rooms. Loud screams and shouts followed, and eventually one of the girls managed to get it out of the house. We slept quite early.

The next morning, we went for a run with a few people and had breakfast afterwards. We packed our stuff and took the bus to Hermanus, a harbour town which is the best place for whale watching. In winter. So we didn’t see any whales. We did see many souvenir shops and markets, and I bought my friends and family some presents. Around 3 o’clock we left Hermanus and went back to Bishops, where we arrived around 5. It was a lovely week, with many new experiences and loads of fun!

Table Mountain

Looking up at the mountain, we would never have predicted that we would hike all the way up. Friday morning was the start of our trip up Table Mountain. Walking shoes, hats, sunscreen and sunglasses were compulsory and our hike could begin. The view from the mountain was beautiful, also during our way up. The first half was very tiring, it wasn’t a difficult part to hike, but it was so hot and my legs were so sore. On the second half we had to do more rock climbing, which was fun. I climbed through a cliff with a width of less than a meter. Some parts of the hike were quite scary, especially after the teacher told us that six people die each year in a specific part of the hike. When we arrived on top of the mountain the view was just amazing. It was a good feeling to have climbed all the way up. We got a nice view of the entire city and all the bays and beaches. We could even point out some of our houses. Luckily, we took the cable car back down. On Friday night, Elise and I went to a valentine’s concert/picnic at Bishops, the boys’ school. After the concert, Elise slept over at my house. It was a nice night. 

Robben Island

Robben Island. The island where the great Nelson Mandela spent fourteen years of his life, along with many other political prisoners. On Thursday the exchange group took the ferry from the Waterfront to Robben Island to take a look at the conditions in which all these prisoners lived. We took a bus through the whole of the island, with a tour guide telling us about the island. He asked people on the bus, including me, where they were from and then talked about the influence of their country on the freedom, or the opposite, of South-Africa. Holland was presented as both a good influence and a bad influence on South-Africa. I notice that a lot of people blame the Dutch for some bad things that happened in the past, and when I tell people I’m from Holland, this subject is brought up very often. When the bus arrived at the prison precinct, the bus stopped and we went into the prison area. A fellow ex-prisoner of Nelson Mandela told us his shocking stories about his time at Robben Island. Ten years to be precise… His stories were very impressing. In a bad way. He told us that the security guards had broken his ribs, beat him up too often and used his private parts as an ash tray. He told us more about the way things worked in the prison. The prisoners weren’t allowed to write anything about the conditions in the prison, so they used their lawyers to get letters with this information through to their families and friends. Also, the black people didn’t get prison uniforms or warm jerseys for in winter. These clothes were given to the colored and Indian prisoners. Many more interesting stories were told. From the island, we got a lovely view of Table Mountain. On the ferry back I got very sea sick, because there was a lot of wind, which caused the ferry to shake very badly. As soon as we arrived at the Waterfront, I was fine. We had lunch at the Waterfront and looked around for a bit. We went back to school with the Herschel bus, which we always use for trips. After school Elise, Pipa (Chilean exchange girl) and I went to Cavendish. Cavendish is the mall where we usually go after school when we have to wait for our host parents to pick us up. Cavendish is on walking distance from school. At Cavendish, Elise and I had a second earring pierced, which was very exciting… Tomorrow we are going to hike up Table Mountain.

House Braai and Interhouse Swimming Gala

This week was the week that the houses of Herschel became active. Herschel is divided into three houses: Jagger, Merriman and Rolt. Jagger's colour is green, Merriman's colour is red and Rolt's colour is yellow. Loren is in Merriman, which means I was in Merriman as well. On Monday there were house braais where the grade eights were intitiated and the cheers for the upcoming interhouse swimming gala were practised. On Tuesday this swimming gala would take place. The members of all houses wore their colour shirt and face paint and there was some loud cheering and dancing. Rolt came first in the swimming competition, Merriman came second and Jagger came third. We won the 'Spirit Cup', which is the price for the best house spirit. Also, there was an intergrade swimming competition, and my grade, grade 11, won this competition. It was a very nice experience.

Weekend 3

The third weekend has already arrived and I realize I'm almost halfway. Time flies! This weekend was very busy and very nice. On Friday night, my host family and I visited Loren's godfather and his wife. They had four adorable children. We swam in the pool and had a nice dinner. I talked and played with the children, which was very nice. On Saturday we spent the day at Loren's grandfather's house. For lunch we had something typical South-African called a "pot". It was a pot that had been in a fire for a while, containing meat and vegetables. It was very nice. We had a 'braai' for dinner. It was very nice. After dinner, we went to the beach at Hout Bay and went for a drink and nacho's at a Mexican restaurant at the beach. While we were drinking our drinks and eating our nacho's, we could see the sunset. It was beautiful! On Sunday, Loren's mom took all the Dutch exchange students and all the South-African exchange students, exept Lauren, to Cape Point. We hiked up the mountain and we could see the two different oceans. It was a beautiful view. In the area of Cape Point, there were a lot of baboons. At first, I thought that they were cute monkeys, but after seeing a baboon attack someone to steal her food, I didn't find them that cute after all. We had a picnik at a beach nearby and went home around 5. It was a nice weekend, once again.

Hop On-Hop Off Bus Through Cape Town

On Wednesday, our second exchange trip took place. It was a hop-on hop-off bus through Cape Town. Our sightseeing tour started at the Waterfront. Our first stop was near the St. George's Cathedral, and before going into the cathedral, we walked through a typical South-African market where we could buy some souvenirs. The cathedral was beautiful, and me and a friend lit a candle. We went back on the bus to visit the District Six Museum. District Six was the area of Cape Town where the colored people were removed from when the Apartheid took place. The museum was very impressive, showing the map of the area with the colored houses and notes from these people. We moved on to the Castle of Good Hope. In this castle we found many pieces of 'Delfs Blauw' which reminded me of Holland. In South-Africa, there are many things that are from Dutch origin. During this trip, we saw streets named 'Heerengracht' and 'Buitenkant' and many Dutch words are found. After the Castle, we went to Camps Bay, which is a beach in Cape Town. We had lunch there and from there took the bus back to the Waterfront. With the Herschel bus, we were taken back to school. At school I found out that I had to play a hockey match within 30 minutes so I quickly borrowed clothes from people and played my match. We won by 3-2 and I scored two goals. It was a nice but busy day and when I got home I immediately fell asleep.