Posted by: Jonathan
Once I crossed the border into South Africa things began to change rapidly; roads became well paved and even had painted lines, buildings were made of materials other than mud and thatch, and I caught glimpses of organized neighborhoods instead of clusters of shanties.
I camped one night between the rows of grapevines at a winery.
Once I crossed the border into South Africa things began to change rapidly; roads became well paved and even had painted lines, buildings were made of materials other than mud and thatch, and I caught glimpses of organized neighborhoods instead of clusters of shanties.
I camped one night between the rows of grapevines at a winery.
The whole time I have been in Africa I have only purchased one bottle of water (my first day in Kenya). From then on I have only refilled the same bottle with unfiltered and untreated tap water straight from the sink, well, or canal just like the locals. I can safely say that I never got sick once from drinking the tap water (one advantage of what an RTW trip will do to your stomach). However, we will see if I end up contracting some rare disease down the road. Most of the time the water was colorless and odorless, unfortunately this wasn't always the case.
From the campsite at the vineyard I rose early and headed for Cape Town. My first view of the city was from across the bay with Table Mountain as the back drop.
Being in Cape Town was a bit of a shock after traveling through East Africa. You don't even feel like you are in Africa, more of a cross between San Diego, Sydney, and Miami rolled into one.
The hostel that I stayed in while in Cape Town had a toilet with a world class view equipped with binoculars to help pass the time while sitting on the throne.
Our second day in Cape Town five of us from the truck went great white cage shark diving. We set out first thing in the morning and drove two hours away to shark alley. From there we loaded into a boat and headed out into the shark infested waters.
The crew unloaded the cage into the ocean and left several large chopped up tunas in the cage to attract the sharks. Then we drove circles around the cage while dragging another bag with more sweet succulent dead tuna parts.
We left the cage for about 45 minutes while we visited a nearby island with one of the largest and smelliest seal colonies I have ever seen or smelled.
Once we returned to the cage we geared up and jumped into it. To increase the chances of successful shark viewing, the crew constantly chummed the water, used a baby seal decoy, and tossed a large tuna filet into the water with a rope attached that they dangled right in front of the cage and would pull it away just before the shark bit down on it.
We saw five different sharks over the course of the day. Each shark stayed for a different amount of time, some for minutes and others for hours. Some of the sharks were shy and would just slowly swim past the cage, while others would swim right up to it and bury their teeth into the metal, shaking the cage violently - those were my favorite. Their jaws could come about a third of the way into the cage, pinning you in fear to the back wall. One girl I was in the cage with had a underwater camera, but was so overtaken with excitement/fear when a shark came she never snapped a photo. I noticed this and borrowed her camera to take a few photos while underwater, although her camera had nothing on the late Bianca 2.0.
Unfortunately, as it sometimes happens, one of the sharks got a bite in, the baby seal decoy just couldn't swim fast enough.
During lulls between sharks, we would sit on the edge of the cage out of the water to warm up. It was weird sitting so exposed at water level while blood and chum encircled you, attracting the ocean's greatest predator.
On the drive back to Cape Town from diving with the sharks, we stopped to explore anything that caught our eye.
That afternoon I randomly ran into an old friend of mine that I lived with in Texas when I worked for Dow Chemical. Now this was no ordinary friend, this was the guy, nay the legend, who originally introduced me to the babystall - which if you haven't learned by now, is the funny looking half handstand I do when posing for pictures in precarious places around the world. After a few minutes of "whoa what are you doing here" conversation, we broke into a tandem babystall on the nearest elevated surface.
The next day Alejandro and I hiked up Table Mountain, which gave fantastic panaramic views of Capetown and the surrounding beaches. The hike is supposed to take 2.5 hours up, but we made it in one hour flat (my legs were sore for five days afterwards).
Once we hiked back down the mountain, we hitch hiked to a nearby beach for a refreshing dip. The water was cold, and since it had been less than 24 hours since I swam with great whites, the "dip" was shorter than average for me in the ocean.
The following day (my last full day of the RTW trip), Alejandro picked his brother up from the airport, and the three of us took a train to Muizenberg to catch some waves. Unfortunately, the surf was small and choppy, so we just enjoyed a day of relaxing at the beautiful beach. This was probably for the better, since the great white shark spotters on the cliffs had set the shark alarm off most every day of the past week. Yes, they have full time shark spotters who watch for the dark shadows of great whites coming into the bays and will radio down to the life guards to signal the swimmers in to shore.
The next morning I packed my backpack for the last time, had an emotional goodbye with Alejandro, and made my way to the airport to start my long journey home to the good ol' US of A.
Africa was an amazing continent, one that I look forward to visiting again (and again) one day. Sitting in 11k on Qatar's 16 hour flight from Doha to Houston, I am flooded with mixed emotions. The epic journey has come to an end, but I now get to spend quality time with family and friends. I get to sleep in a comfortable bed, take hot showers, feel A.C., and enjoy a cube of ice in my drink, but I will have to give up my nomadic ways and have an alarm clock buzz me into consciousness daily to join the rat race of America.
Although this is the last travel post, stay tuned for the final update on what has gone down since we have returned, as well as an outlook on what is in store for Jon and Jenn in the near future.
Africa was an amazing continent, one that I look forward to visiting again (and again) one day. Sitting in 11k on Qatar's 16 hour flight from Doha to Houston, I am flooded with mixed emotions. The epic journey has come to an end, but I now get to spend quality time with family and friends. I get to sleep in a comfortable bed, take hot showers, feel A.C., and enjoy a cube of ice in my drink, but I will have to give up my nomadic ways and have an alarm clock buzz me into consciousness daily to join the rat race of America.
Although this is the last travel post, stay tuned for the final update on what has gone down since we have returned, as well as an outlook on what is in store for Jon and Jenn in the near future.