Cape Town - Week 20 - 21

Before commencing on another blog detailing the adventures of my journey here in South Africa, I would first like to comment on the lack of consistent, weekly blogs. Although I would love to write a blog each and everyweek, there are many constraints on my life that prevent such an occurrence. While I could blame a hectic work schedule, irreparable computer failure, or even severe arthritis in my fingers, I will just let the true cause reveal itself: Laziness. Without an actual job or any obligations whatsoever (besides of course eating, drinking & sleeping), laziness has overtaken my body, and thus overtaken my ability to compose weekly blogs. Thus, although it distresses me greatly, blogs will now only be released every few weeks, unless momentous happenings occur in my life (or a miraculous cure for laziness reveals itself). Anyhow, onto the blog:

With my adventure in Namibia behind me, it was time to get back into the swing of things, and figure out a way of replenishing my severely dented savings account. And with no potential of making any significant amount of money, I was left to a secondary option: Spend less. As a result, the past few weeks have been an adventure in thriftiness. Eating in. Drinking cheaper beer. Poaching mussels on the beaches of Cape Town in order to provide me with a more-than-affordable meal. Accepting free tickets to cricket matches. Hiking up mountains. And of course throwing away all my efforts in one day, thanks to one of the most “posh” events in all of Cape Town: The J&B Met.

More or less the Kentucky Derby equivalent of South Africa, this annual horse race is considered the “place to be” in Cape Town, providing a three-fold experience for all Cape Tonians. Not only does it present the opportunity for countless gambling addicts to fuel their desire in throwing away thousands of dollars, it also provides the “young and restless” of Cape Town an opportunity to drink the day away while watching horses stampede around the track as small anorexic men have their way with them. And finally (and of course most importantly), the J&B Met gives Cape Town’s elite the opportunity to prove how rich they truly are, offering up the occasion to spend thousands upon thousands of dollars on dresses, costumes and other over-priced and never-to-be-worn-again outfits. Thus, for most of the day this past Saturday, I enjoyed an afternoon filled with people watching.

From Cape Town's rich and famous, strutting around in their "Sunday's Best," to Cape Town's wanna-be rich and famous, spending a year's life savings on a single day's event. From drunken students parading the grounds in search of a booze or even a plastic cup (as those eventually ran out somehow at all the bars) to drunken gamblers, desperately hoping for their 1 in a million trifecta to come in. But most entertaining of all, the models. Countless models, male and female, catwalking around the grounds with seemingly no idea that there was an actual horse race the same day as their “outdoor shoot.”

Nvertheless, aside from endless amounts of people watching, and of course a few horses here and there, I also managed to successfully pick the winner of the “main race.” And now that I am 20 rand /$3 richer, and pretty much have obtained “baller-status," please feel free to contact me if a loan is needed from my plentiful earnings.

And now, onto a more-than-delayed lesson:

“Learn me something something about South Africa.”

This Week's Topic: Load Sharing

Supporting a population of almost 50 million, South Africa has made a name for itself as being one of the most economically successful 3rd world countries on this planet. With the 18th largest GDP in the world (thank you again Wikipedia for fueling my blogs with fun-filled facts), you would think that the infrastructure of this great African nation would be quite well developed. Nope. Not here.

Despite its growing population, South Africa’s ability to provide all citizens with working electricity has seemed to hit a snag. And when efforts could’ve been made to invest in additional power plants, government officials were seemingly too busy fighting off their own personal conspiracy cases (as well as attempting to shut down the one governmentally-run organization that is solely dedicated to fighting internal conspiracy – if the irony doesn’t hit here, I don’t know what does). Thus, bring on the load sharing.

Basically, around the country everyday, electricity is denied to various “patches” of South Africa, in order to help “relieve” the load of electricity demand on the power stations. What does this mean for the everyday person? Well, don’t expect your power to make it through the day. To many, the sound of everything in their home turning off at once has become commonplace, just as any traffic light is now accepted as a 4-way stop (as these do not function consistently either). The one electrical item that does actually seem to maintain consistent power are the solar-powered speeding cameras on the highways (cause why miss out on the opportunity to catch speeding motorists!).

So why doesn’t the electricity company warn consumers of where & when they plan on “switching off power” in any given week. Well that would just make sense. Thus, each and everyday, citizens around South Africa await the inevitable. It may not be today. It may not be tomorrow. But someday soon, your power is gonna go, and the only thing you can do to prevent this is to pray a power station falls from the sky. And if this doesn’t happen, well… lets just wait and see what happens in 2010 when the World Cup comes to town. : )

Onto the pics...

	Kenilworth Race Course: Home to the J&B Met
	Holding the winning $3 ticket! What am I gonna do with all this money?!
	A running horse -- quite a common sight during the day
	Best Dressed guys at The Met -- Don't worry Mom, they're Jewish :)
	Showing off my evil/crazy side during some mussel picking / poaching
	Newlands Cricket Grounds at night
	At the top of Lions Head after a Sunday afternoon hike
	View of Table Mountain and the "table cloth" of clouds covering it
	Cape Town night shot

Namibia Roadtrip

With Tanzania and Kenya checked off the “to-travel-to-while-in-Africa” checklist, I decided it was a perfect time to find another country to help cure my travel itch: Namibia. Alongside my flatmate Kevin, we partook in an epic adventure, traveling almost 5,000 kilometers in Kevin’s trusty Toyota Tazz around Namibia – A country whose landmass is almost twice the size of California, but has a population of a little under 2 million (Wikipedia fun fact = 2.5 people per square kilometer – 2nd smallest population density in the world).

Our journey commenced with a slow trip up the Northern Cape of South Africa, camping along the way before arriving at our first destination: The Orange River (border of South Africa & Namibia). For four days, we would be rafting down the Orange River, accompanied by 11 other Cape Tonian guys (hello sausage fest) and our oh-so-lucky-yet-soon-to-hate-us two female guides. While the majority of our trip unfortunately falls into the “blog-censored” category, our days pretty much went like this:

6:00AM: Wake up along a campsite on the river, unsure of whether or not any sleep was actually accomplished the night before due to excess partying and/or the various wildlife which managed to find its way into your sleeping bag (as we slept completely out in the open)

6:30AM: Bos Kak Queue (Afrikaans Translation = Bush Shit Line) – As we were in the middle of nowhere, our two best friends were a shovel and some matches to rid the environment of any “non-natural” products (AKA toilet paper)

7:00AM – 12:00PM: After a hearty breakfast, begin paddling in our 2-man rafts down the river, drinking beer, relaxing, swimming, and of course letting the 110 degree heat take its toll on our bodies (traveling to Namibia in the middle of summer is probably one of those decisions that falls into the “what-the-F-were-you-thinking” category)

12:00PM: Find a random place along the river to eat lunch

1:00PM – 3:00PM: More paddling/drinking/swimming until reaching our final camp for the night (usually infested either with gnats, mosquitoes, or random cows wandering aimlessly around leaving cow pies every 3 feet – which by the way look like lava in a fire)

3:00PM – 6:00PM: Mini-adventure time – Either involved hiking unhikable mountains in flip flops (hello bruised/scratched body), or finding wood for our evening fires (usually involved finding an entire tree to use as our wood).

6:00PM: Dinner – the only time silence is actually found during our trip

7:00PM - ?: Inappropriate Behavior Time – Given none of us had a watch or any determination of time, and several of our “crew” did not believe in the concept of sleep, the only options were to either accept no sleep and stay up all night helping fuel the neverending fire, or try sneak away and find somewhere to sleep where the potential of being jumped upon was minimal (rafts along the river ended up being a bad option, as the temptation to push those asleep out into the river was too fun to resist)

After four days on the river, and once again finding myself without a shower in almost a weeks time, Kevin and I set off for our next destination: ?. With no true goal in mind as to where we would go, we utilized our trusty map, and of course the fact that there are really only 3-4 places to travel to in ALL of Namibia. While I will let the pictures summarize the places we visited, the remainder of our journey consisted of driving, driving, braiing, driving, camping and a little more driving just for fun. Overall however, the trip was honestly amazing, and Namibia definitely has jumped to the top of the list of my favorite places to which I’ve traveled.

Oh yes, and if are curious of how my time was spent between my last post and now, here is a quick recap (as I was a bit too lazy to post a new blog):

- Nurse my injuries from Kilimanjaro (including a partially torn achilles tendon which made walking almost as much fun as watching the Lions on an offensive drive -- That one is for your Grace)

- Unwillingly consume more Mefloquine (anti-malarial) pills, in-turn eliminating any ability to produce a coherent thought for almost 2 weeks.

- XMas: Well, since I'm Jewish, this day normally is one of the most boring of the entire year. However, myself and almost a dozen other friends & frineds of friends visited various winefarms, partaking in a day of wine tasting and all-you-can-eat buffet... well... eating (4 plates later + 1.5 plates dessert = semi-mild stomach ache)

- New Years Eve: With endless parties from which to choose (including a 4-day trance party in the mountains & many other this-is-the-only-place-to-be-on-NYE events), our decision was only made at about 7pm the night of NYE. Visiting our favorite locale (Tiger Tiger), we actually had quite an amazing time (despite New Years Eve's ability to turn any night into an overhyped/overly-expensive dissapointment).

Onto the pics (damn this blog cutting off the captions!):

	Coasting down the river in our loyal/unsinkable/unflippable crocs (aka rafts)
	Taking a break from some intense rafting action
	Hiking up a mountain along the Orange River (i really need to stop doing that rock-on symbol with my hands)
	Driving through the middle of nowhere
	One of our many campistes in Namibia
	Fish River Canyon - 2nd largest canyon in the world (Grand Canyon is 1st - USA! USA!)
	On top of one of the largest sand dunes in the world in Sossusvlei at sunrise
	Deadvlei - An old dried up river bed in the middle of the Namib desert (aka photographers wet dream) -- Pardon the crudity :)
	Practing my flying techniques on the dunes
	Man i love sand!
	Attempting to mail a package in the worlds largest postbox (not random at all, i swear)

The Tanzanian Experience: Part 2 - Kilimanjaro

With my former climbing companion out-of-commission thanks to a now spineless sea urchin, I began my solo trek towards Kilimanjaro, in hopes of summiting the 19,340ft “roof of Africa.”

After my initial tour group fell through due to overall sketchiness (i.e. being asked to pay $800 in cash to a man I had never met, who knew nothing about my hike, but had an office in an abandoned building under a DIFFERENT name than the company I had originally put my deposit down with), I was on the prowl again. Thanks to a man named Jacob who followed me for about two miles along the road, eventually persuading me back to his office, I soon had found a nice German couple with which to complete my climb. However, after a conveniently timed “African Death Cold” had its way with me, bed ridding me for almost 48 straight hours (not very fun when traveling solo, with no TV and only German books to read), I was forced to delay the start of my hike, and once again find new companions with which to climb.

Three days later, with my body in recovery mode, I commenced my hike, traveling alongside 3 fellow Americans: Two mid-20 guys from Seattle, and a 37-year old, ex-peace corp volunteer from Atlanta (a nice improvement upon playing 3rd wheel to the German couple).


The Crew:
Joining myself, and the three other Americans, were the following:

Guides – John and John – The nicknames of Rasta John and Little John were distributed quite soon after our arrival to restcamp the first night, as the wafts of “wacky tobaccy” exuding from Rasta John’s tent were more than prevalent throughout our 6 days on the mountain. Little John’s nickname was less “inspired,” although still well deserved.

Chef – Chinga – Although his name translates to sex in Spanish, this did not limit Chinga’s ability to cook up some mean meals for us each and everyday. Surprisingly enough, the food was quite amazing, as our entire group decided that we ate better while on the mountain than at any other point in our lives over the past few years (at least when the mountain wasn’t killing our appetites).

Porters – Although we never caught any of their names (as most did not speak any English), we did sympathize for the 9 porters, who worked on minimal salary to carry up our equipment (including tents, sleeping bags, dinner table & chairs, and of course the 20 pound kerosene tank). Nonetheless, they were all very friendly, and even gave us a nice farewell on our final day on the mountain:

Kili Video


The Route: Machame (aka “Whiskey Route”) – 6 Days, ~ 60 Miles

Day 1: Base Camp (4,900ft) -> Machame Camp (9,800ft) – 11mi

Day 2: Machame Camp (9,800ft) -> Shira Camp (12,600ft) – 6mi

Day 3: Shira Camp (12,600ft) -> Lava Tower (15,200ft) -> Barranco Camp (13,000ft) – 9mi

Day 4: Barranco Camp (13,000ft) -> Barafu Camp (14,900ft) – 8mi

Day 5 (Summit Night): Barafu Camp (14,900ft) -> Uhuru Peak (19,340ft) -> Mweka Camp (10,200ft) – 4mi ascent, 14mi descent

Day 6: Mweka Camp (10,200ft) -> Mweka Gate (6,500ft) – 9mi


Daily Routine:

7:00AM – Wake up

7:30AM – Eat breakfast (Toast, Eggs, Sausage, Fruit, Hot Chocolate)

8:00AM – Commence our day of about 6-7 hours of hiking. In order to “conserve energy” and acclimatize as much as possible, the majority of our hikes involve walking VERY VERY slowly (“pole pole”), to the point where a pause is taken between each step in our climb. Although the Machame Route was supposedly the most scenic, the first 3 days of our hike were spent climbing through foggy wetlands, as the rain/clouds decided not to cease whatsoever. Thus, the only view we really had of anything was of the two feet in front of us. Stunning!

12:00PM – Rest for lunch (packed bag of chicken, cheese sandwich, a biscuit, cookies and a sour green orange – and of course all-you-can-drink hot chocolate)

2:00PM – Arrive at our restcamp

2:30PM – “Snack Time” – Involves sitting in our little dining tent, drinking hot chocolate (yeah, we were slightly addicted) and talking about what ailments were taking their toll on our bodies that day

3:00PM – Nap, play cards, read, walk around restcamp chatting with other hikers (~ 20 of us total on the route), attempt to dry out clothes which are usually soaked by the end of each day, and of course attempt to convince your body that there is good reasoning for putting it through this experience

5:30PM – Dinner (Mushroom/Cucumber soup, Beef/Chicken stew, Rice & Vegetables, Pasta, Mango desert) – OR – Clif Bar (when appetite is nonexistent)

7:00PM – Sunset

7:01PM – Ummm… what now? No lights + no electricity = forced early bedtime

11:00PM – Wake up for the 1st time in the middle of night, either due to cold, an annoying need to “relieve oneself,” or more cold. Repeat this every 30-45 minutes until sunrise. Good times!


Budget Hike Highlight:
After arriving to camp the 1st night, I soon learned that the porters had completely forgot to pack me a tent OR sleeping bag, thus forcing me to share a tent with Snorey McSnorester from the peace corp, and sleep in a old sleeping bag that didn’t zip close, and smelt like it had been shared by an entire hockey team after a 5 hour practice. Hello freezing smelly nights! It was quite a relief when I did receive my new tent on the 3rd night (which of course did not zip close, and left enough room at its mouth for the freezing air to pour into my humble abode each and everynight). Thus, when I was not battling the freezing air of the mountain evenings, I was also trying to fend away little mice which kept deciding to crawl up my leg during naps… Cute little scary fellers.


Overall Highlight of the Hike:
On the 2nd night, after about 2 hours of blessed sleep, I was awoken at about 11pm by a general feeling of death. Although we were not at an altitude yet to induce severe altitude sickness, I soon learned that water poisoning was coursing through my body (thanks to some sketchy Zanzibar bottled water – aka tap water resealed in a bottle). Thus, my new best friend was soon to be the hole in the ground known as our toilet (see picture below). The next two days are more or less spent battling severe dehydration by drinking ungodly amounts of hot, boiled water (the only safe water to drink), attempting to consume “rehydration salts” (tasted like tangy ocean water), and of course forcing myself to eat whatever I can handle as my appetite had been reduced to zero. Man this is fun! Luckily this only lasts for almost the entire hike (somewhat subsided by summit night). : /


Summit Night:
Commencing our summit attempt at approximately 11:30pm (after about 3 hours of sleep), I spent the next 6 hours climbing through the airless, freezing night with my only focus on the two feet in front of me. Fighting every urge in my body to either pass out, fall over from dizziness, or throw up (as random waves of nausea came every 10 minutes), the hike was probably one of the most difficult things I have ever done in my life. It was even a struggle to try not to cough, as this act was more exhausting than the hike itself (never realized how much air you waste when you cough…). Nevertheless, at 5:20AM, we made it to the top! First group up (a new record according to our guides). From the summit, we enjoyed the early morning sunrise over the horizon, took some pictures (although the majority did not come out so well since it was still quite dark), before beginning Part Two of the “day from hell” – the hike down (basically 3 straight hours of jogging back down the mountain along loose rocks and gravel, 2 hours of light rest, and then ANOTHER 3 hours of jogging down the mountain even further). After another 3 hours of jogging down the mountain on our final day, we were at the bottom, and had successful climbed the tallest mountain in Africa! Goodbye functional legs, hello permanent limp!


Overall, despite the random setbacks here and here, the hike was still an amazing experience, and I’m thrilled I was able to do it. Although our final celebration dinner was slightly tainted after our two guides threatened the lives of one another (due to the fact that that our main guide – “Rasta John” – had been stealing tips from the rest of the group), the trip was still a success. After another funfilled day of Tanzanian travel (in which I missed my shuttle to the airport, lost my cell phone, and almost was shot at the Kenyan border for taking a picture of an ‘unwilling participant’), I arrived back in Cape Town, to bask in the joys of true African civilization.

Onto the pics:

	View of "Kili" from the foothills of Moshi
	Hiking... seemed to be quite a common trend during our 6 days on the mountain
	Enjoying some fine hot chocolate during one of our breaks
	My humble abode -- notice my tents inability to close itself properly, thus causing me to utilize MacGeyver techniques to cover up the hole as much as possible
	"The Mess Hall" -- an eating facility turned porter sleeping tent at night
	The "facilities" -- hopefully a therapist can help me forgot the horrible memories which stemmed from my time within these walls
	Our group - 2 guides, 9 porters and 1 chef
	At the top with the two guides: Rasta John and Little John
	Early sunrise over the glaciers on the mountain
	View over the clouds
	Celebration Dinner with Little John (post awkward death threat experience)