South Africa: Week 2

Week 2 was more relaxed because Ian had a busy week of school. I continued work in the local township of Kayamandi while he was in class. We still found time to hike Lion's Head Mountain in Cape Town which had amazing views and was far more intense than I would have expected. Some of the climbing part were legitimately scary...

Here are some pics of one of the school areas in Kayamandi, including a garden area where adult gardening classes are taught. Also below are some photos of my favorite BBQ spot (so far) in Kayamandi. The meal in the photo costs about $6.50, including bread and two beers.

Finally, we spent another afternoon checking out vineyards in Stellenbosch and visited The Big Easy, Ernie Els' restaurant in town, which is complete with a wine cellar and cigar collection. According to the locals, Ernie, though sometimes criticized for his drinking habits, is a complete rock-star. It was pretty hilarious to hear some rumors about him.

 That's all for this post. As I have mentioned, the internet situation makes these blog posts incredibly time-consuming so I can only post small bits at a time without spending an entire day online. I have photos from our week-long road trip across the Garden Route coming up as soon as possible. Stay tuned!

South Africa: Week 1

I'm already way behind on this blogging so I am going to try to summarize everything we have done as best as I can. Please feel free to ask questions..

The first few days started off a bit slow, but following some rest to get over jetlag we decided to go for a hike on a local mountain in Stellenbosch. The views were pretty sick, and the hike was way harder than it looks, seriously:

 

 

A day or two later we managed to get a little wine tasting in at a few of the amazing vineyards nearby. Again, the views were unbelievable:

 

 



The following week (I landed on a Friday) I started volunteer work at a school in one of the townships just outside Stellenbosch. I'll be volunteering every week from Monday through Thursday while Ian is in class:

 

On Thursday, we took a short road trip to Kalk Bay and then through Chapman's Peak Drive. This excursion solidified the Cape Town area as one of the most beautiful places in the world I've seen to date. Kalk Bay had these legendary old-school fishing boats and fresh fish were being sold straight from the dock. We also stopped at a beach where African Penguins swim freely. And as for the drive, Dad, if you could have opened up the porsche on these roads, you would have easily gotten yourself killed, but would have loved every second of it:

 

 

 



These dudes let us film them longboard the road too. The video doesn't do justice to how fast we were going (or how awesome the road is, because were at the very end) but its still pretty cool:

Unfortunately, the internet is too slow to upload the video now but hopefully I can later. That's about all I have for this post anyway, but expect more soon. Much love to everyone!