Travel has become the great love affair of my life. These days nothing makes me happier than day dreaming about, planning for, but especially embarking on my next trip. I do not play favorites with my trips, but sometimes I go on a trip where everything is just right. This is what happened during my first visit to the US in 2003, it is what happened during my first camping trip with Jochem in Italy in 2007 and it is what happened during my trip to South Africa in December and January.
I have great friends and two of them have relatives in Cape Town. They had been to South Africa a couple of times already. The rest of us had never set foot on the continent. We had been talking about taking a trip to South Africa together for years, but it had never happened. I do not remember exactly how it happened this time, but joking led to talking, which led to the six of us having purchased six tickets from Amsterdam to Cape Town and back. We were finally going to South Africa! Roland and Margaretha would stay with their relatives for four weeks, while Anhtoan, Mariëlle, Jochem and I would stay for two weeks during the Christmas holiday.
Winter in The Netherlands means summer in South Africa. We could not wait! Three of us work in education and it is common knowledge among teachers that the two months between the fall break and the christmas break are the hardest weeks of the school year. The days get cold and dark and there are no holidays to grant the much-needed day off every once in a while (as opposed to the spring semester, where a holiday pops up every week, or so it seems, completely disrupting your teaching flow). It is also the busiest time of the year - I myself was teaching six groups at the time, which meant that I was responsible for approximately 180 students. Difficult students, at that. I was beyond ready to leave work for South Africa. I was absolutely elated. Jochem likes to call me 'Nur 2.0' when I am this happy.
On Saturday, the 21st of December Anhtoan, Mariëlle, Jochem and I met up at the airport for the first part of our trip.
Schiphol Amsterdam Airport
We had booked our tickets with Turkish Airlines and, since the flight from Istanbul to Cape Town did not leave until after midnight, we had arranged for a stopover just long enough to have dinner at a vegetarian restaurant and a glass of salep (a typically Turkish winter beverage, which is a hot, milky drink made from the flour of the dried tubers of orchids) on Taksim Square.
Parsifal Restaurant
After flying all night and a short stop in Johannesburg, we finally arrived in Cape Town. From the plane it was already clear to see just how beautifully situated the city is.
Cape Town
We spent most of our time with Roland and Margaretha's family, who made us feel more than welcome. They supplied us with comfortable safari tents in their warehouse, fresh linnen and towels, use of their kitchen and bathroom, advice on the best sights in town, fine company and one extroardinary Christmas dinner where they did an impressive job catering to the three vegetarians in the group (as a side note: South Africans eat a LOT of meat. This must not have been easy for them!). They offered us a home away from home during these weeks and I cannot thank them enough.
From their house we took off every day with our two rental cars to see as much of the city as possible. There is so much to see that the options can be overwhelming, but luckily we had Roland and Margaretha to guide us. Before we left we had also organized a post-it day at home to make a sort of sightseeing schedule. This probably does not sound very romantic, but I thought it came in very handy. Of course I am the obsessive compulsive control freak in our circle of friends, but by determining the schedule beforehand everybody was able to get the most out of their short time in South Africa. This also meant that while we were there, we did not have to fine-tune our plans with six people - we could simply enjoy.
I really enjoyed our pace of travel during this time - every day we had a new adventure, but there was also lots of time to sleep in, make food together and hang out in our very own jacuzzi. At the start of our trip we took a few days to see the major sights in and around Cape Town. I especially enjoyed spotting wild penguins in Simon's Town.
Victoria and Alfred Waterfront
V&A Market on the Wharf
Two Oceans Aquarium
Nelson Mandela Gateway
Robben Island
Nelson Mandela's prison cell
Cape of Good Hope
Cape Point
Simon's Town
Kirstenbosch National Botanical Garden
After Christmas we drove our rental cars east through wine country to the Garden Route Game Lodge.
It was established early on that we could not possibly go to South Africa without going on safari. We eventually settled on a small game park where we stayed for one night. I would have loved to stay longer, but it is very expensive to go on safari, so we tried to make the best of our limited time. During our short stay we went on one evening and one morning game drive and enjoyed the splendor of this luxurious resort.
Garden Route Game Lodge
Before we drove back to Cape Town, we stopped at Mossel Bay to play in its tidal pools.
Mossel Bay
We took a detour on the way back to Cape Town to drive through the desert landscape of the Little Karoo.
Little Karoo
We did not have much time in Cape Town before we took off on another mini trip to Cederberg. Jochem and I really wanted to go here after we had read in a travel magazine about the otherworldly hiking opportunities in the area.
Cederberg
We stayed in Cederberg for two nights in a couple of cottages in the middle of nowhere. It was a beautiful spot and we had our own swimming pool and braai (a South African barbecue). There were, however, a lot of big, hairy spiders in our cottages. They were a little bit creepy, although harmless, so every evening we went on a little spider hunt to catch the spiders from our ceilings and beds and put them outside. We must have missed one, though, because when I went to the bathroom in the middle of the night the biggest, reddest spider that I have ever seen came out from behind the toilet bowl. I did not enjoy showers in that bathroom very much after that. When we left the place, the proprietress told us not to worry about anything besides the black widows. I think that we were all very glad that we had not known until that very moment that there were black widows in the first place.
During our stay in Cederberg Jochem and I were the only ones crazy enough to go on the Wolfberg Cracks and Wolfberg Arch hike. The others went on a shorter hike to a waterfall, while the two of us struggled in the 40-degree heat and brutal sun (I have never experienced such extreme sunlight as in South Africa). In hindsight, the hike was quite dangerous and probably required a guide of some sort, since most of the time there was no one around, we did not know where we were going and it seemed easy to get lost in those cracks. I am definitely glad that I had not seen the movie 127 Hours at that point. Luckily we ran into a South African couple on the way who led us through the cracks and who, at one point, pulled me over a huge boulder. They were very relaxed (South Africans in general seem very relaxed) and said that it was fun to get lost in the cracks and nothing to worry about. At the end of the day I was utterly exhausted (the Inca Trail seemed like a walk in the park in retrospect!), but it had all been worth it because the scenery was breathtaking.
Wolfberg Cracks
Wolfberg Arch
After all that dust in the desert we made our way to Langebaan for some beach time before we returned to Cape Town.
Langebaan
Back in Cape Town we still had some plans in store.
We celebrated New Year's Eve on the beach overlooking Table Mountain and watching the fireworks being lit from the V&A Waterfront.
Bloubergstrand
On New Year's Day we woke up really early to go swimming with wild seals in Hout Bay. I have never been so cold yet so ecstatic at the same time.
Hout Bay
We took the cable car up to Table Mountain.
Table Mountain
We combined a guided horse ride with wine tasting in Paarl.
Paarl
And on our last day Anhtoan, Mariëlle, Jochem and I went shark cage diving in Gans Bay where we saw five great white sharks in the wild.
Gans Bay
And then it was time to go already.
Cape Town International Airport
I believe that the many pictures do this trip more justice than anything I can say about it six months later. Surely you can see how amazing it was!
I remember feeling very positive about the future after our trip to South Africa. 'If I can have such a good time in just two weeks,' I thought, 'then perhaps I no longer need to yearn for another 9-month trip.' Perhaps it would be enough to make do with shorter trips throughout the year.
I wish that I could say that I have been able to hold on to this feeling, but as time has passed and I have gotten back into the swing of things at home, this feeling has started to disappear and I am once more dreaming of longer trip to ever more remote places.
But I will always look back on this trip to South Africa with fondness and joy.
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